Read Novel Full Chapter 2167: Little Flamie
Chapter 2167: Little Flamie
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Dad looked at the sealed gate again and made a deeply pained expression that showed he truly meant every word. He was genuinely in pain right now. Something so deeply ingrained in his heart was clearly tearing at him. What could be bothering him so much that it brought out such a rare and vulnerable look on his face?
"It’s the tale of the dragon we buried here," he said at last, his voice low and heavy. "My little friend, and my strongest familiar back then... someone I received as an egg, a gift that the church of the gods gave to me as the Hero of Flames—a perfect familiar. Little Flamie."
"Little... Little Flamie?" I repeated, the name feeling strange and familiar all at once.
Father sighed and scratched the back of his head, as if the simple action could ease some of the weight pressing on him. "I used to have an adorable little pet named Flamie, yes... No, he wasn’t a pet. He was my best friend. He was a Fire Dragon, just like Ignatius."
"?!" Ignatius’s eyes widened sharply as he looked at him. "You raised him from an egg?! That is odd. The eggs are usually laid deep in the Dark Continent, unless...!"
"Yeah. It was a stolen egg from a campaign," my father admitted with a bitter smile. "It was a campaign into dragon territory. Ninety percent of the soldiers died, but the survivors returned with one single little red egg—the most prized treasure of the Human Alliance at the time—and they gifted it to me. I believe they thought they could mold us both into the perfect hero and dragon duo. And for a while it seemed to be going that way... until it didn’t."
"Why?" I asked softly, almost afraid of the answer.
"It’s a long story, but I’ll cut it short," he sighed, staring at the ground for a moment. "He was someone I loved. He was my partner... We grew strong together. We... had so many adventures. But I... I failed him."
A heavy silence fell over the group. Even the wind seemed to quiet around us.
"It wasn’t your fault, Allan," Arafunn said quietly, his usual calm voice carrying a rare note of regret. "It was an accident... We faced a monster we shouldn’t have fought at the time. We weren’t strong enough... If anything, it was my fault. I was the oldest. I was in charge of your lives... I should have done something, but I panicked... I... I never thought that at my age I would be given the role of hero out of nowhere. It was all so strange for me. I dissociated for a while and never truly committed until that moment..."
"Arafunn..." my father shook his head firmly. "No. It’s not your fault. You did what you had to do..."
"What happened then?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "What are you talking about? What happened to Flamie?"
The air around us felt heavier with every word. I could see the memories clearly hurting both men. My father clenched his fists at his sides, and Arafunn’s eyes held a distant sadness that spoke of years of quiet guilt. Even Ignatius had gone completely still, his usual sharp comments absent as he listened with growing seriousness.
Whatever story they were about to share, it was clearly one that had shaped them both for a very long time.
My mother answered in his place, her voice steady yet carrying the weight of old memories. "Back then, when we first came to this very town, we were assigned a grand and nearly impossible task. We had to become strong enough to face the Demon King, whose army of Demons was relentlessly advancing toward the Human and Elven Continents. The threat was growing larger every single day. We had no choice but to grow strong as quickly as possible. Thus came this plan... this wicked and horrible decision that still haunts us. We needed to conquer the Underground Tower Labyrinth. It was a massive, horrible dungeon with one hundred floors in total. Each floor was its own pocket world, a complete mini-world of sorts. Some of those floors even contained entire towns inside them, along with countless dangerous monsters. Every single floor had a giant, powerful roaming boss that we were forced to defeat in order to advance to the next level."
"T-That dungeon where the strong monsters came from?" Zack asked, his eyes widening in disbelief. "Holy shit... and you had to clear it when you weren’t even that strong yet?!"
"That was exactly the point," Nepheline said with a heavy sigh. "We had to complete the entire dungeon within the given time of... three years. No more, and no less. It was the true beginning of our biggest journey, honestly. Looking back on it now, it felt... far harder to go through that endless hell than even the Demon Continent itself, aside from... our final battle against Him."
"Him?" Aquarina asked quietly, sensing the shift in the air.
"The Demon King, huh?" Grandpa muttered under his breath, his expression darkening. "Damn it... I knew I should have accompanied you back then. If I could have been there when you fought him... maybe we could have all walked away alive. Even after all your harsh training, that man was a true monster. He was still several ranks above every one of you. It was a suicidal mission that had been approved by the church without any real regard for your lives. Back then I had yet to rebel against them, but when you all finally returned with several of your most precious friends missing forever, I snapped completely. I decided to cut all relations with them on the spot. That decision was considered a major taboo, since it destroyed thousands of years of alliances that had been carefully forged by the ancient elven kings... but I simply could not contain my anger any longer. Those bastards were pushing you around and using all of you as disposable weapons of war... the exact same way they once did with me when I was younger."
A heavy silence settled over us once more.
I remained quiet, listening attentively to every word and letting out a soft, thoughtful sigh. The weight of their past experiences pressed down on the entire group.
It seemed this would be a long and painful story, and my father had only just begun telling it.
But Little Flamie... I could not help wondering what he had looked like in those days. Was he cute? Was he small and bright like a living flame? I wished there were pictures or portraits of him that we could look at now, but the technology to take proper images did not exist back then, I think. All we had were fading memories and the stories that still survived.
"You shouldn’t blame yourself about this, father-in-law," said my father as he turned his gaze toward the massive gates leading into the dungeon. His voice was calm, yet filled with quiet regret. "And this dungeon’s existence is also partly my fault. It should never have been allowed to exist in the first place."
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