Eric, however, was running out of stamina. He couldn’t really run away anymore.

“What’s taking them so long?”, he thought to himself. He was near the main stairs and didn’t have enough energy to jump down. He had to jump, he tried but before he could the knight closed the distance, grabbed Eric, and said, “I finally got you!”. Then he threw Eric to the ground floor.

Eric fell right in front of the principal and other orphanage staff. The knight followed Eric and jumped down.

“Stop playing with them and kill them already!”, shouted the principal.

The knight made a somber look at the principal and walked toward Eric.

Eric tried his best to get up, but he couldn’t. He was exhausted and couldn’t even think straight properly. The knight unsheathed his sword and pointed it toward Eric.

As soon as he plunged his sword toward Eric he stopped before the sword hit.

The knight felt intense fear. Fear that he hadn’t felt in a long time.

He looked around, only to find a girl pointing her hands towards him and in pain.

He started walking toward Emma, and the closer he got to her. The more fear he felt.

“Amusing...”, thought the knight to himself.

But before he could do anything about it, he was interrupted by Orph getting kicked in through the training doors. The other knight soon followed.

The two knights looked at each other, and spoke, “Looks like we’re all back from where we started.”

“You are all useless!”, shouted the principal.

“Two knights of the duke, two students of this prestigious orphanage and neither of you can kill two knight cadets?”

The knights stopped what they were doing, and looked over towards the principal.

“I knew we shouldn’t have been lenient as passed two brothers at the same time, but the duke needed more knights and you got really...”, the principal went on shouting.

Orph blanked out again, another memory popped into his mind.

It was the final day of their training, all the orphans in that batch were supposed to fight it out among themselves and see who was really fit to be a knight cadet.

They all knew this early on; they had trained their stay for this. All those years of strict education and not having a childhood. They’re finally so close to gaining freedom. At least the winners are.

They all fought the best they could. In the end, it was three of them left. Orph, Anage, and John. It was like this, they never really got to interact much due to the orphanage being strict on wastage of time. But they were always last to survive the various training, this helped them form some sort of weird companionship among themselves.

“...maybe one of you two should’ve been sent to the labor camp.”, screamed the principal at the top of his lungs.

This made Orph pay attention. He put his arms over his eyes and started to smile.

The knights looked toward the principal.

One of them spoke and said, “I do not like you. I... we will never forget your treatment of us. Please do remember that you’re only alive because the duke doesn’t want you dead.”

“The moment the duke finds you useless is the moment you’d find your many orphans coming for you.”, added the other.

The principal knew that he no longer had any power over the two knights. He clenched his teeth and looked away.

“Now where were we”, exclaimed the knights together.

“I will not let you guys have it your way!”, exclaimed Orph, trying to get up.

“You guys know about all of this and yet... and yet you guys didn’t do anything to stop this...”, he continued.

“We don’t really care to be honest”, said one of the knights.

“As long as we survive.”, said the other knight.

“As long as we thrive.”

“It doesn’t matter who we have to kill, who we have to suppress.”

“The Duke and we have a mutually beneficial relationship.”

“I’m sure the other knights from this orphanage feel that same way.”

“After all, only the strong can rule.”

Eric who was listening in took all his strength and threw his sword at Orph.

“You’re the only one who can give us a chance to win this...”, said Eric.

Orph took the sword and took his stance.

“So, you still choose to challenge us?”, said the knights.

As soon as they did, the main gate got kicked open.

Knight Shine came inside and spoke, “It’s time for me to shine.”