Slayin’ With a Strap

Riveria suddenly sprinted across the room, throwing herself into him as she embraced him. Sobbing into his chest as her arms gripped around him.

Dale's sensitive hearing picked up Hestia asking Loki. ''Who is that?''

Loki seemed to get hit by a truck as she suddenly jerked. ''Wait... You can see him too?''

''Well, yeah, he's sort of just standing there... almost nude.''

Loki suddenly scrambled kicking off the table as she sailed through the air towards him, shouting.

''DALE IF YOU'RE REAL YOU BETTER FUCKING CATCH ME!"

Dale raised a bro as he plucked the goddess out of the air, suddenly pulling her into his arms with Riveria.

''What's going on, everyone's acting like I've been gone for years?''

Finn stepped up, a lot of emotions storming his face as he stared at Dale.

''Dale... How long do you think it's been?''

''Well, I had to shoot the ice wall down, so it couldn't have been longer than.... a few weeks at most? Those bullets weren't meant to last longer than that.''

Riveria suddenly pushed him away, screaming at him.

''IT'S BEEN YEARS DALE! YOU'VE BEEN MISSING FOR YEARS!''

Hestia's eyes widened at Riveria's outburst, have never once seen her of all people lose her cool, actually now that she thought about it... Loki's never cried this hard before?

Dale was like a fish out of water, brows up and eyes wide as he tried to wrap his mind around what that meant, before he reached out and grabbed Riveria again, despite her trying to punch him as he pulled her closer he just pulled her head back into his chest, his eyes focusing on his system.

His bullet time had reached max, something he had noticed while he was fighting, it was useful as well, as for every single second that passed, ten would pass for Dale.

But even when going through the entirety of his system, the only thing that was out of place was his systems clock, that kept track of the time, and date of the world he was in, and sure enough it had been at least six or more years.

He wasn't sure why that was the case, but he simply held the two crying women into his arms a bit tighter.

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It had been a few hours, the top brass of the family was gathered together all staring at Dale who had seemingly come back from the dead.

Loki sat in his lap, refusing to leave him alone for the entirety of the time since he's returned, afraid that it was just another dream too good to be true, having had too many hallucinations of Dale returning, her arcanum trying its best to keep her going by tricking herself with her own illusions.

''Alright... So let's start this from the top, after the ice wall was put up, what happened?''

It was Gareth who responded first, being the only person gathered who could get out the words.

''After the wall was put up, we retreated. We spent a day in the first rest city, giving those who needed it emergency treatment. Eventually, after some close calls, we made it back to the city... It took us a week to get recovered enough to head down again, this time it was a small group focused on scouting. When they said the ice wall was still holding strong, we had hope.''

Gareth took a deep breath, then a long swig.

''Then, it became two weeks... A month, then halfway through the second month, the wall was found shattered, massive pieces of ice still melting slowly. We searched for any sign of you, but we found nothing. No monster drops, no body, no equipment.''

Riviera sniffled slightly, her arm tightly around Dale's left arm as she put the full weight of her body into him.

''We... We built another expedition a month later, to try and see if you had gone further, in hopes of trying to find a place you could gain an advantage, but we never found anything... We kept trying, trying and trying... We stopped focusing on getting requests for materials, spending everything we had on searching for you... But it got to a point we didn't have the funds for basic things, so we had to stop...''

''It got... pretty bad without you, everyone blaming themselves for allowing you to do what you did, everything thinking 'Of course, he was going to die when left alone with a horde, he was outstanding, but he was still just a normal person, a normal level six.' But, after a few years, people started to slowly heal, and now here you are... Not aged a bit, showing up as if it was just yesterday you left.''

Gareth's eyes held... and anger in them, it wasn't a lot it was just anger, and even a small amount of guilt, angry that after everything they went through, Dale was fine... But at the same time, what if he hadn't been, what if this entire time he had been fighting? What if they just never found him because they didn't search hard enough?

Dale released a sigh as he rubbed his face. ''I can't explain it, I can't say it didn't feel like I was fighting for years, because it did. At points it felt like I was just moving, fighting and fighting, running on autopilot. But, when I got back, I had to shoot down the ice wall, the entire time I was fighting, it never fell. There was nothing different about it either, everything was the same, the only difference was that it felt like my entire body was burning.''

Loki lifted her head a bit, her brows raising slowly. ''...Burning? What do you mean?''

''Like... Like I had just bathed in lava, my skin was steaming. I thought it might be due to the massive amount of Excelia I can feel in me ready to level up.''

Loki bit her nail, a hard look of contemplation as her brows knitted tightly.

''I think.... I think Dale experienced a Hero Event...''