Book 1. Shifting Winds. Chapter 1. It all began that day. (Part VI)

The eight youths spent their time on resting and eating their very late lunch. Only Rune and Talian were chatting so everyone else, not having anything better to do, listened to them with one ear as they munched their sandwiches.

“So you will be staying over for a year? It sucks that your dad needs to be stationed on the borders,” Rune said, trying to console his cousin in a way.

Talian only nodded and didn’t respond to Rune’s words. Others might have felt ignored and would have stopped talking, but Rune knew that it was just how Talian was. He never liked talking too much, even more so when he was in a bad mood.

“Want me to help you get your clothes? We could all help carrying your things over to my house on our way back,” Rune looked around and seeing that nobody had anything against the idea, smiled happily, then shifted his gaze back at Talian.

“Don’t worry, it’s going to be all right. Nothing will happen to your dad. It’s not like we are at war with anyone, he will stay in the garrison for a year and then he will come back.” Despite saying so, Rune was worried about Talian’s father, too. He remembered that Talian’s mother had been a martial practitioner, just like his father. However, she had lost her life in an unlucky encounter with a group of bandits during a regular patrol three years ago.

“I hope so,” Talian said quietly and sighed a little. He wasn’t one to easily take other’s words for granted, but knowing that Rune had lost his father in a similar manner to him losing his mother, in a skirmish with bandits from the Anarchic Lands to the north, he could believe in Rune’s honest intentions. As a result, he ended up feeling a bit better and cheered up a little.

Some time later, the eight youths returned to the mansion of the Valius family, entering by the small back gate. The two guards stationed there greeted Laien with a smile. “Don’t be coming back so late, boy, it’s dangerous to wander around at this hour,” one of them warned lightheartedly, to which Laien responded with a simple nod. Since he wasn’t truly a noble of the Valius family, he ended up having a good relationship with the majority of the guards in the mansion. However, them calling him ‘boy’ was only something that would be done when no unfamiliar people were around.

As the group of friends was walking through the open grounds, Laien suddenly frowned, spotting the three faces he would have rather not seen ever again. “What do you want?” he asked sourly, stopping with everyone as the three older boys blocked their way.

“Hmph, what could we want from a trash like you? If not for young master Jasi’s orders, we wouldn’t bother looking at you, not to mention speaking with you,” one of the three teenagers said with a snort, totally looking down at Laien.

“If that’s all, then we will be going…” Laien shook his head, trying his best not to show how angry he was. He wanted to walk past the three older boys but to no avail. Seeing their vicious smiles, Laien cursed inwardly. “They are enjoying it, being all happy that they can bully me again… Only at the early stages of the third mortal rank, they are asking for it!” Laien thought silently, holding himself back from rebuking the three.

“If only I was as strong as him…” he groaned in his thoughts, thinking back to the person he often saw in his dreams. “Were it to be so powerful, I wouldn’t need to be so worried about something as stupid as being bullied by some pampered young master…” he mused bitterly, wishing that he could already be strong enough to at least be capable of protecting himself and those dear to him.

“When young master heard that you went playing with your friends as if nothing happened, he got angry at us, you know? It seems that we went too easy on you in the morning. Don’t worry, though. Next time we will make sure to do our job properly,” the teenage youth said with an evil chuckle, then left with his two companions.

“At least they have enough common sense not to attack me in a place like this, with guards peeking from afar…” Laien thought with a sigh. He had been hoping that Jasi would be satisfied after having him beaten up, but apparently, the young master wanted him to suffer more. “I need to do something about it before it gets too dangerous,” Laien shook his head, wondering if there really was something he could do to fix this situation.

“This can’t go on like this. Laien, don’t worry, I will do something about it, maybe I will persuade Grandfather to lend you a hand,” Genzie said with a determined look in his eyes. If that person was to really put Laien behind his back, then forget about Jasi, even Garon, the current clan leader, wouldn’t dare to touch a hair on Laien’s head!

“Don’t bother him, you already did enough to help me. I will try resolving this myself. Although, if there will be nothing I can do, I will come to ask you for help. I promise, okay?” Laien refused tacitly, not wanting to create any trouble for Genzie’s family. As he saw it, although they had a fairly high position in Neil City, they couldn’t compare to the Valius Family. They would suffer too much of a loss if they were to give him their backing; he didn’t want to be an unnecessary weight for them.

Faced with such words from Laien, Genzie reluctantly agreed. He knew full well how unlikely it was for his Grandfather to act for Laien’s sake, thus since Laien promised to ask for help if when he truly needs it, he could only leave the matter at that.

Noticing how worried everyone looked, Laien scratched his head and attempted to reassure awkwardly. “Don’t worry about it. I know that if you could, you would have helped somehow. I will manage,” he said with a light smile but managed to get the opposite effect than the one intended.

“Eh, what do I do? Even the atmosphere between us got soiled,” Laien groaned in his heart. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about what to do if Jasi continues bullying him, but he couldn’t come up with any idea to solve the situation. He didn’t know anyone influential enough who could possibly help him suppress Jasi, he couldn’t fight back… was to bear with anything they were doing to him really the only option he had?

“I might as well surrender then,” Laien thought ironically and unexpectedly, arrived at a solution. “Right, I could just go to him and try apologizing for whatever he dislikes me for! There was this option!” he realized, the idea hitting him like a ton of bricks. Even though he would need to push his pride aside and lower his head, it would still be better than bringing danger not only upon himself but also his little sister and his friends. If a little humiliation could solve everything, then he would tough through it and wait for the time when he can get back at Jasi at the time when he would get stronger.

“Everyone, I’m going to try talking it out with Jasi. I will tell you how it went tomorrow, okay? Siana, go back to our room by yourself. I will come back later, so go to sleep before me,” Laien declared with a confident, but not too happy smile.

Hearing him say so, everybody was started at first, but then quickly realized what he intended to do. Some of them, like Genzie, would have liked to accompany him… but, they knew it wasn’t a place for them to get involved. Thus, reluctantly, they all consented with Laien’s decision and after exchanging a few more sentences, they headed back to their homes.

On a side note, due to what happened, helping Talian move his belongings had been completely forgotten, even by Talian himself.

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Moments later, Laien arrived at the eastern wing of the Valius mansion, at the place where Jasi lived. Guessing which room belonged to the young master was simplicity in itself as it was guarded by two high ranked martial practitioners. “Core members of the family sure receive good treatment, huh. I wonder how much pocket money he gets,” Laien smirked, somewhat jealous of Jasi’s lot in life. Jasi was ten just like him, but he had his family and needed not to worry about anything. His possibilities were truly limitless!

The two guards exchanged a curious glance, seeing an unknown child approach them. They didn’t recognize Laien as they had always been Jasi’s private bodyguards and as a result, they didn’t involve themselves with the regular guards of the mansion too much. However, they were intelligent enough to realize that Laien must be a part of the Valius family, as no one else would have been allowed to enter so far into the main mansion.

“Does the young master expect you, young one?” one of the two guards asked amiably, not considering Laien to be of any threat whatsoever. He didn’t even mind the short sword at Laien’s waist, as these times many young nobles liked to stroll around with their weapons in the open.

“Yes,” Laien lied with a straight face and nodded with a smile. He didn’t want to bother with explaining why he came. If he were to be let in without problems, these two men would probably forget about him in a day or two. On the other hand, if he argued his way through, they would remember that incident and gossip about it later. Laien simply preferred to keep the whole thing as small and unknown as possible, partially because of his pride and partially to make it easier for Jasi to let him be. The fewer people knew, the less ‘responsibility’ Jasi would have to punish him for whatever he had offended him with.

The two guards, not finding anything suspicious in Laien’s behavior, decided to let him through without any further questions. It wasn’t up to them to discern whether the youth in front of them was lying or not. In the worst case scenario, he would get thrown out by Jasi and that would be it. They hadn’t received any orders to not let anyone in, after all, and to be completely honest… they didn’t like dealing with Jasi that much anyway, so they cared little about a slight neglect of their duties.

“So big, he even seems to have his own bathroom here. Must feel good to live in such a nice place,” Laien sighed bitterly, forcing himself not to look at the beautiful ornaments, valuable oriental furs and many, many other very expensive goods. He took a deep breath, then walked into the room from which the sounds of a casual talk of a few youths were coming.

The five youths looked at Laien, surprised by his sudden appearance. Apart from Jasi, Laien recognized one of the four older teenagers. The well-built, brown-haired fifteen-year-old was called Cran and was the only son of a powerful martial master. As for the other three, Laien didn’t know them. They all seemed to be around fourteen to sixteen years old, though.

“Are you going to just stare like that, after coming uninvited? Did you forget tongue in your mouth?” Jasi asked with a clear frown on his face, however, he didn’t tell Laien to leave. He could throw him out at any time he wanted, but Laien obviously wanted something of him. Since Laien was presenting himself on a silver plate, how could he not use this opportunity to its fullest?

“Is it fine if we talk with them here?” Laien asked, not knowing whether these four were in the inner circle of Jasi’s friends or if they just happened to be here today.

“Hmph, a lowlife like you wants to tell us to leave? Think again!” before Jasi said anything, one of the short-tempered youths barked angrily.

Laien glanced at Jasi but saw that he seemed to have no intention of interfering. His look was saying something along the lines of ‘take care of it yourself if you want to talk with me’.

Suppressing a sigh, Laien swallowed his pride and forced out an apology. “I apologize, It was my mistake. Please forget about that,” he said and lowered his head, doing his best not to leak any anger or frustration into his voice. However, when he looked up at the five, it could be seen that his face was slightly flushed from anger and shame.

“Haha, just that? You don’t really believe it will be enough for us to forgive you? You’d better fall on your knees and start begging, brat,” the youth declared with contempt, knowing that the more miserable he makes Laien, the more favor of Jasi he will gain.

Laien just looked at brown-haired young man spewing gibberish, trying to not explode.

As Laien was giving his best to not explode with anger, Cran leaned back on his chair and clenched his fist, suppressing the trembling of his body. “As scary as always. What a powerful killing intent,” Cran murmured to himself, holding back a smile. Thanks to this very killing intent he had awakened a battle sense while sparring with Laien, so of course, he was quite grateful to the youth, although the person in question wasn’t quite aware of this gratitude of his.

Generally speaking, only practitioners who approached the Realm of Heroes or those who had faced many life-or-death struggled were capable of awakening a battle sense and thus, sensing a killing intent and much more. For Cran, who was widely considered a young prodigy of the Red Dragon School, awakening his battle sense early was a point of honor. However, even after being taken by his father to participate in the real battles on the borders, he failed to make his breakthrough.

Only one year ago did his battle sense awaken, making him the number one, undisputed genius of his generation within the Red Dragon School. Yet, the circumstances surrounding that event were quite peculiar. Last year, he had caught a few younger disciples of his school on fighting with a kid in one of the alleys in the city. His first thought had been to stop them immediately, but as he approached, a frighteningly strong killing intent swept over him, putting all his sense into the state of a great alarm. Back then, he, the fearless prodigy of the Red Dragon School, had trembled in fear before a mere nine-year-old, before a random martial practitioner of the second rank.

After he had watched Laien just barely win against five youths his age, on the spur of the moment, he had decided to help him and at the same time, benefit of off him. He had used his influence to cover the whole fight up, then he had gotten Laien to spar with him on a regular basis. Although Laien’s killing intent wouldn’t appear unless he was pushed into a corner, those sessions allowed him to very quickly awaken his battle sense; at the age of fourteen, no less.

During this dozen or so seconds when Cran reminisced the past, Laien has finally made his choice. He breathed out and relaxed his body. Feeling something break deep inside him, he fell to his knees and bowed. “I beg you to forgive me for my rudeness, young masters,” he said in a neutral voice, giving up on any dignity he might have still had.

Seeing Laien prostrate himself, hearing his words… It shocked the five youths who never thought he would actually do as he was told. After all, in their eyes Laien was a noble. One that didn’t matter in the slightest and had no influence, but nevertheless, a noble. They couldn’t comprehend how one of their class could lower himself to this extent! Had it been one of them, they would rather die than submit!

Especially Cran’s face was ugly to behold. Seeing someone with as much martial talent as Laien kneel before a trash like Hanzen, or however this friend of Jasi’s was called, was akin to a humiliation to himself. “What a bunch of retards. Does even one of you realize that if I weren’t here, he could kill all of you by himself before those two guards could intervene?” he thought angrily, maybe exaggerating Laien’s ability by a bit.

“Sometimes I wish I could kill all of them… but, I can’t. I won’t be able to help you, so you’d better not do anything reckless,” Cran pleaded silently, not willing to waste all the effort he had put into becoming Jasi’s ‘friend’. There was a lot he could gain from a relationship with the youth who was most likely to become a future leader of the Valius family and because of that fact, he was set on not getting involved in this matter between Laien and Jasi. He really was, but when he heard Hanzen speaking again…

“Hahahaha! Good! Now you really behave like you should! Now, how about admitting that you should have never wronged the people who are heaven and earth above you and th-…”

*Thud!* All of a sudden, a loud crashing sound echoed throughout the room as the table the five youths were sitting at crumbled into pieces, shattered by the open palm of Cran’s hand.