Chapter 17

While the five brothers started the second half of their training, in another part of this world, not that far away, a man was running through the streets of a city.

The city was built out of white stones and the buildings had countless demonic faces and creatures carved in the walls. Even the street was built in the large white stone plates, every plate was carved with various battle scenes, monsters and demons.

All in all one would say that this city was rich.

Surprisingly no other human could be seen on the streets in the night, as if the city was dead, no beggars, no thieves, nothing which one would meet in any other city.

The sounds of the steps of the man running through the streets were echoing back from the walls of the houses and mansions along the way.

The man was clad in black clothes, with a metal chest-plate and a long blue coat was fluttering behind him. He had long black hair, together with a short black beard and blue eyes. His facial expression was terrible, his eyes were big in shock and he was frowning sharply. The man did not seem to be armed.

(WN: Which is important…^^)

The man was running through the streets without stopping or looking back, until he reached a crossing. The road to his right was leading up a hill and deeper in the city, the street to his left was leading towards a stable. Both of these ways were not important for the man, as he stopped before a tall, white iron gate, directly in front of him.

With a deep breath, he somewhat tried to straighten his face and calm down, before he opened the gate and stepped onto the plot of land behind it. Behind the white iron gate was a big garden, filled with all kinds of beautiful flowers and trees. A small stream of water was flowing through the middle of the garden, with a white wooden bridge leading across.

The man didn’t seem to care about the beautiful sight and rushed directly through the garden, over the bridge and along the small way, until he stopped in front of a big, expensive looking mansion.

The man breathed in deeply, stepped in front of the white wooden door and knocked loudly.

Nothing happened, except the sound of the knocking echoing in the room behind the door.

The man started knocking again, this time with more strength and longer.

Still nothing.

The man lifted both of his hands to punch the door with all of his strength, when suddenly the door was abruptly opened up. In the door now stood a young man with long blond hair, intelligent grey eyes and a somewhat lacking build. He was not really handsome, but he definitely had something, which made him look not that bad, even though he didn’t have any muscles or a beautiful face.

“Mr. Hakin, do you know the time?!” the blond young man said and looked, half angry, half asleep at the face of the black haired man.

“I have bad news, Alec!” Hakin said and looked sternly into the eyes of the blond man.

Alec’s face abruptly turned serious and the sleepy expression vanished completely. He nodded, stepped to the side, let Hakin enter the mansion and they started walking towards the back of the building..

Behind such a mansions door, one would normally think that the interior would be equally luxurious and considering the obviously rich city, it was even more likely. That wasn’t the case for this mansion. Instead of luxurious furniture, the hall behind the door was completely empty, which was also the reason for the constant echo of all sounds that were made in it. Along the way to the study room, it became obvious that every single room was furnished in the most simple way, nothing was luxurious at all.

Alec stopped in front of another white door, pushed it open and stepped into the room behind, which was the study room of the house. Normally his father would be here in this room until late night, working on various contracts and lists.

Alec’s father, Lucian Van Don, was an up-and-coming merchant, who started a few years ago. Even though he didn’t earn enough money, he bought this mansion, with the big garden, all for “appearances sake”, as his father always said. Alec was seventeen years old now and over the years, his father was never a particularly good or bad man. He was just there and, at some times he cared about his son, for example as he sent him to a noble school, to learn about the art of articulation and other cultural important things. At least these things were important for a noble, but Alec didn’t really mind as he loved his father. His mother had died early and it was always only his father that was there for him.

Of course, Lucian Van Don was always travelling and selling his wares, but Alec didn’t mind that. Even more so, he was proud to have an ambitious father like Lucian.

Alec motioned Hakin to sit down on one of the simple chairs in the room, before he did the same. Then he looked into the eyes of the black haired man.

“Tell me, what happened?” Alec asked.

“Alec…you…so you know that your father was travelling with his trade convoy towards the southern parts of this land, the Ermil Kingdom, right?” Hakin started to talk and avoided the eyes of the blond man.

“Yes, of course I know. Father always wanted me to take over his business someday, so I had to learn a lot about trading from him. Why do you ask?” Alec said with a confused voice.

“Its…okay…its like this: Your father…your father was attacked…by bandits…” Hakin said and his voice became quieter with every word, until he was almost whispering.