~Swish~

Josh plunged through the woods alongside 2 others while carrying a child in his arms.

They panted steadily and peered through the shadowy forest from time to time.

Even with the clouds covering the moon and the Fall rain falling hard, the place wasn't entirely dark.

And as they ran, they could hear several loud so splattering footsteps behind, stumping on the muddy terrain while chasing them vigorously.

"They're over there! Don't let them escape!"

Dammit!

Josh turned around and caught a glimpse of a reddish shirt, making his face grim.

These people had been chasing them for a while now.

There were about 800 enemies and just 3 of them.

To be honest, if the enemies were around 100~150, Josh felt like he and his men would be able to take them on.

But they were a thousand. And that alone was something they couldn't handle.

So their best bet was to run as far as they could.

Looking at the 5-year-old boy in his hands, Josh couldn't help remembering the scenes that led to this chase.

.

Earlier on, they had been spying on one of the Council members, only to hear some shocking news.

This Council member was one of the people in charge of kidnapping and shipping slaves to the Pirates.

That's right.

The people chasing him were pirates.

But why exactly were they here?

Shipping slaves wouldn't bring them here, as the council member typically shipped them to a close-by pirate island, where the Pirates would then pick the package up.

So what made them come all the way here?

Surprisingly, the reason had to do with this little kid.

Her identity is a shocking one.

The boy is the only Son of the imprisoned Countess Yanya Shumo within the empire of Abian, in Morgany.

Why was this Miss Yanya imprisoned?

Apparently, her father was a famous person who created some ancient fighting techniques, which defeated countless others and brought fear to the Monarch of Abian.

What caused even more chaos was that it was rumoured that her father also wrote out a design plan of something unknown weapon that could bring destruction.

Though no one was even sure if it would work or not, greed still filled the Monarch and countless others.

And so, as typical fashion, the Monarch, some nobles, alongside the pirates, designed the poor guy's downfall after refused to give in.

They looked at cruelly and wasted no time in scheming against him, hoping to raid his home and find these secret techniques.

But unfortunately, they couldn't find a single thing!

And so, they turned their attention to Yanya.

They felt that Yanya, who was the only child and daughter of their foe, should know where her father hid these things.

Josh had a hunch that she denied knowing where they were, which got her imprisoned.

Well, they probably imprisoned her differently from what many would expect.

Maybe she could be Rapunzel in a tower?

Josh didn't know.

But sure enough, he was right.

They forced her to marry a noble, who in turn tried to woo her and pry her mouth open to find where these secrets were.

And when things didn't go as planned, the man should rape, torture, and beat her up, forcing her to speak.

It was a miracle that she could give birth to such a child under the dastardly hands of the Count.

To make matters worse, the count had 3 other wives.

So one can imagine her life there.

Josh didn't know how she did it.

But just when the child was born, he was shipped here by her faithful guard.

.

From what they found, the guard was meant to bring the child to Terique.

But somehow, the duo ended up in Deiferus.

Just like that, the boy grew up not even knowing his own identity growing up and thought he was a Deifer.

However, his uncle(hidden guard) had always told him not to get too noticed and live a simple life of a farmer.

The boy wasn't stupid. He could sense that something was wrong and decided to follow in the footsteps of the guard. Always laying low, never getting noticed for anything.

Now, the boy is 5 and has been living as a farmer ever since.

Of course, it wasn't time for him to join the Deifer camp for training yet.

So he just stayed with the guard, who he thought was his uncle all this time.

The duo took on the role of poor farmers.

Yanya lied, telling everyone that her child was dead.

She even had her people look for a dead newborn baby to replace her son.

And so, seeing the hard stone evidence, everyone believed in the lie.

Everything should've been okay.

That is... Until 4 years ago, the secret went out.

Someone betrayed her and even told her enemies where her child was headed to... Terique.

She chose the Pyno contingent because the morgs were disgusted by the place.

And coupled with The continent's sheer size, finding her son should be challenging.

Too bad that she was unaware of many secret societies and how much people wanted to get into Morgany.

The Morgs promised the Pyno members that if they reported the child, they would get upgraded from rookie members to Lackeys.

And if one was also a Lackey, they could make them Bronze members instead.

Hey. That was better than nothing.

So when many were given portraits of Yanya and her trusted guard, they quickly started looking for a child similar to Yanya.

They also looked for any man who remotely resembled the guard in the portrait.

The Morgs didn't believe that after threatening to take the boy's life, Yanya would still refuse to talk.

The pirates and many others were on the lookout for these people.

And thus, the hunt for the duo began.

.

That said, it was a council member who was less than a lackey in the organization who reported the matter, inviting these pirates here.

The council member had already killed the poor guard, cut off his head, to show as proof, while imprisoning the boy.

It just so happened that today, the pirates had come for the boy.

But how could Josh see these things and allow them to take the child?

Looking at the boy whose face was burning up, Josh couldn't help smiling wryly.

He just had to be nosy.

"Quickly! Chase after them!

We have to get the boy!!"