Chapter 21: Contract.

"Well…" Kalon said while trying to tell his father what they were talking about before they were interrupted. Still, it seemed like Dorian had already decided to move on with the conversation as he had pulled out a sheet of paper with more writing on than Kalon could read.

Although he had a tutor to teach him how to read when he was younger, it had still been years since Kalon had read anything significant and barely had the reading ability of a six-year-old. He looked at the words on the paper and tried to figure out what they meant, but he came up blank. He didn't have even the slightest clue what it meant.

"Ah, here it is," Dorian said and then pointed to an empty box on the paper with his finger. He then looked over at Kalon to make sure that he was following. But the look on Kalon's face told him otherwise.

"What is it?" Dorian asked as he saw Kalon shaking his head with confusion as he looked at the paper.

"I don't know what it says." Kalon looked up with a sad expression on his face. He was twelve years old and didn't know how to read. He felt a little embarrassed by it, but he got by alright when he bought medicine for his mother.

He copied the letters down perfectly on paper to create shopping lists when he wanted to buy things and then would hand them to the storekeepers to read. That way, he was sure he was getting the right thing. But now that he was standing in front of an actual piece of text, he felt overwhelmed.

"Hey, that's okay. It's not a big deal. I didn't know how to read until I was sixteen. I'm sure you will be able to do it in the future," Dorian said and then put his hand on Kalon's shoulder, drawing him for a closer look.

"You see here? This is the word for strategy, and this one here is for sunset." Dorian gave Kalon a few pointers as he read through it for him before getting to the bottom where the empty box was.

From what Kalon understood, the text was a binding contract of some kind, and as Dorian read it out to him, he began to understand more and more. The court had written it up to make sure that Kalon doesn't cheat them in any way and to make sure that he tells them everything he knows.

It explained more about what he was supposed to be doing in the Ysaven kingdom and the things he was supposed to do. But he felt like it was a little too much for him to do alone.

He was supposed to head to the mountain passage that the humans were currently blocking. Although monsters inhabited the Sylton empire, there were still many humans who were still living in the villages closer to the border since the monsters had taken over the land around them, and they had nowhere else to go.

The humans in the surrounding towns became livestock for the monster races that needed human sustenance to survive, such as the vampires or beast-men. There was nothing they could do about it since the human armies had to retreat to the mountain pass to stop the monsters from advancing any more. They were left alone in the monster empire and became forced into a life of suffering.

Since the human army knew of that fact, they were less likely to suspect what he told them was a lie. The last thing that the Sylton empire needed was to have their secrets exposed, so they planned the lines Kalon would say beforehand.

"Do you understand what you need to do?" Dorian asked as he looked down at Kalon with a frown on his face. He wasn't sure if Kalon had understood what they were asking of him, and the whole plan would depend on his cooperation with what Penrith had planned.

Kalon looked up with a grin on his face. He was worried by the text that it would be too hard for him, and he wouldn't know what to do. But Dorian reading it to him made it so much easier to follow.

"Yes, I think I got It all. You want me to go to the border and give the soldiers the story that I escaped from one of the villages nearby in hopes that they bring me into the border and allow me to seek refuge, right?" Kalon asked to make sure that he had understood.

Dorian couldn't help but smile. Kalon sure did catch on to things pretty quickly for someone who didn't know how to read. He figured that since he was still a child, he would need to make it easier for Kalon to understand, but that didn't seem to be the case. Kalon already had a good understanding of what they were asking him to do.

"Yeah, that's exactly right. All you need to do is tell them that you are from the local village and they should allow you into their camp.

Then from there, I want you to make your way towards the capital. If anyone asks you any questions about your reason for heading there, tell them that you have some relatives living there and you're looking for work. Everything else should work out in your favour.

You are to report back everything you think might be of interest to us once a month using a messenger pigeon. We've stolen a few registered pigeons, so they shouldn't raise suspicion when they enter the Ysaven kingdom, so your job is to make sure that you destroy anything that we send you and then make sure that nobody knows what you are sending us.

So brush up on your writing skills, okay?" Dorian asked and then petted Kalons head once again.

"It sounds so easy. Okay, I've got it!" Kalon thought to himself while looking at the paper and deciphering what it said but then replied as Dorian's hand rubbed against his head.

"Good, I'm glad. Then all you have to do is write your name in this empty box. It will mean that you have accepted the job, and you're ready to start right away." Dorian said and then handed a pot of ink with a quill to Kalon, then stood back to watch as he picked up the Quill and dunked it in ink.

Kalon leaned over the paper and began to scratch his name onto the paper.

'K. A. L. O. N.' He spelt out his name slowly in his head and tried to remember how the letters looked. His name wasn't something that he was used to writing, but he remembered how it looked from the register for his military classes.

"T. A. V. O. S.," He thought for a moment, but he wrote down his surname a lot quicker; he was used to seeing the word Tavos since the emperor's name was written on the entrance to the barracks since he had a military unit named after him. When he finished, Kalon took a step back and put down the Quill.

"What now?" Kalon asked before turning around to see his father standing back with a smile on his face as he had finished writing down his name.