The Fate of Adipura Kingdom

13. Shaded

In the rush of rain Aryo stopped his horse's steps and turned towards the village where he was. He intended to go home to check on his wife's condition but the intention was immediately blocked by the old man who was with him.

“Although young master, I understand the young master's concern. But there is something that really needs the presence of the young master, we leave it to the gods and hope the young master's wife does not experience anything over this incident”, old man trying to remind Aryo.

“Good uncle, may the gods listen to our request. Let's connect our delayed journey”, Aryo back to spur his horse quickly sebisq that his horse is capable of. The heavy rain caused their visibility to be limited.

The sky is still lowering the water and has not shown any signs of stopping. It didn't feel right now at midnight and they should have arrived at the rebel base.

Due to the very high rainfall makes the horse ridden by old men slip and fall into the hillside. The old man managed to survive but his horse continued to fall down the hill and was washed away by the swift flood.

Aryo who saw the incident hurriedly approached where the old man fell and helped him. Because it is certain that his travel companion did not suffer any injuries Aryo intended to invite him to find shelter.

“Uncle should we continue on foot. We also can not continue the journey in the rain as great as this, I am sure not far from here there must be a place for us to shelter”, Aryo invited to the old man.

“Sorry young master, our journey stalled due to the mistake of hambur”, reply old man.

“This is not the fault of uncle, circumstances that make us this way. Let's continue our journey”, bring Aryo back.

Both are now traveling on foot, slowly but surely they are sure to arrive even if a little late. Right now their hope was to find shelter from this extremely heavy rain.

As they descended the hill from afar there appeared to be a small hut with torch lighting. Both of them accelerated the steps to get there to ride the shelter. Slowly the cottage they could see clearly but after getting close enough they saw there was an awkwardness that occurred in the small cottage.

“Uncle have you ever seen anything like this?”, Aryo asked with bulging eyes as if he could not believe what his own eyes saw.

“Hamba just this time saw him young master, this really does not make sense”, replied the old man as he rubbed his eyes hoping that all he saw was a dream.

The two pegged in the rain not far from the cottage. The phenomenon he saw was so foreign and so unnatural, their whole life only this time they discovered something like this.

The cause of the reaction of the two is because the hut was not exposed to the slightest rain and above the hut like there is a translucent wall that holds the raindrops that lead to the hut.

Being too surprised to make them daydream, but their daydream finally broke when they saw a figure coming out from behind the cabin door. The figure was wearing a yellow robe with a staff only as tall as his thighs.

Aryo scrunched his eyes to pay more attention to the figure in front of him, and it turns out that the figure is a grandfather with a white beard and body position has been bent, maybe the age factor according to him.

***

Ki Ratno was sitting in his cottage, the heavy rain did not make his concentration scatter in the slightest. But not long from the direction of the hill he faintly sensed that there were two people approaching his cottage. As the two men got closer, he opened his eyes and grabbed his staff as a help to stand up.

He smiled warmly as he waved his hands for the two to get closer to his cottage, “Did I dream or indeed the old man waved to us young master?”, he said, the man spontaneously asked after seeing a wave of hands from the figure they saw.

“Not an uncle's dream but it's true, the old man wants us there to meet him” Aryo replied.

The two looked at each other and soon they decided to approach the person. When it was near the person smiled kindly and immediately let the two enter the cottage.

"Please enter", the old man invited his pre-guest. Aryo and the old man received the invitation and the three are now in the cottage.

The atmosphere inside the cottage was very simple and arguably a little uncomfortable to live in for some people. They wondered inwardly how there were people inhabiting this cottage that was far from the crowd. The two were still looking at the state of the cottage until a foreign voice distracted them.

“Large rains like this finally brought me a guest. Sorry if my cottage is uncomfortable for you guys, honestly I did not expect the arrival of two people with drenched like this”, that person began to talk to his guests.

“It is precisely we who apologize uncle, we here want to ride a ride in the shade for a moment until the rain stops and continues our journey” Aryo replied politely to the person in front of him.

“In a trip? May I ask where you guys are going”, the old man asked again.

Now the old man and Aryo look at each other, actually they think their purpose should not be anyone knows because it is a very secret place. Seeing his guests like that the old man laughed and tried to melt the atmosphere.

“Hahaha.... It's okay this old man understands, it looks like you guys are going to do an important task. Before that let's dry your body first”, continued the old man earlier.

"Sorry uncle, may we know the name of the uncle?", Aryo tried to find an atmosphere due to their attitude that had previously been silent type asked.

The old man smiled at Aryo, "Nobody asked me my name for a long time, so this old man's name is Bayuratno. An easy kid like you would rather call me ki Ratno" the old man explained with a laugh ending his talk.

"Thank you for helping us when the rain seems to be running out today"

"No need to say I'm happy to help"

"Did ki Ratno live alone here?", Aryo asked curiously.

"Oohhooooo's... This old man is always alone young man, because it is destiny from the sky", replied ki Ratno.

Aryo fell silent after hearing the explanation from Ki Ratno just now, living alone without a friend, not even having a good house and his condition was quite apprehensive.

"I know your mind is young, but you must know that the body was once the dream of every woman who saw it", Ki Ratno laughed loudly until his tears came out.