For the longest time, I was nothing. I had been born a commoner, given a commoner’s job, and told that I couldn’t amount to anything. Despite my hardships, I fought to the damn end. When I was about ten, I had been running a small street stand near Great Ebony Lake selling grilled fish that I would catch in the morning. It wasn’t anything fancy, and I didn’t have much to make the fish taste better. I figured out how to reduce the distinct fishy flavor through some mostly ignored weeds however, and eventually my break came. I had managed to get lucky, somehow netting a huge school of fish in my net. I tried to take advantage of that fact by selling two for the price of one, which caught the eye of a duo that I had never seen in the market before, who were at first glance a father and daughter.
The father was huge, the largest man I had ever seen, decked out in a set of heavily battle scarred scarlet armor that screamed he was not to be messed with. His dirty blonde hair was tied into a small ponytail, and his golden snake-like eyes seemed to peer right through me. He was scary on our first meeting, I have to admit. Yet, his demeanor contradicted his appearance, obviously doting on his daughter at every chance he got, and a smile on his face the entire way. You could simply tell that his daughter was his entire world.
His daughter was much like a much smaller version of him, yet strikingly pretty all the same. The armor she wore, an obvious attempt at a matching set with her father’s, was either much newer or far better maintained then his. Her hair was longer and lighter in color, a platinum blonde that seemed to shine in combination with her cerulean eyes. She was intimidating in a different way for the me that had been on the verge of puberty, and she seemed to know it too.
Anyways, the duo bought a pair of skewers, were amazed at the taste, and then essentially kidnapped me without seemingly a care in the world of my opinion. I was brought to their camp, and was finally introduced to them. They were the “Ganeddar Flame”, a mercenary-adventurer unit that was led by and named after the man I had been dragged there by, Weston Ganeddar. It wasn’t anything special or big, around seven or eight members at a time, but they had made a bit of a name for themselves to the point that even I had heard of them. I was shocked when they offered me an apprentice position under their unit’s chef, a man I would come to know as my mentor, Trist.
Trist was at first not too impressed with me, but when he tasted my fish his eyes lit up with curiosity and delight. I was hounded for my secret, which I, who was still kind of shaken from being essentially kidnapped by a mercenary unit, gave without argument. Trist immediately understood why and how I had figured the weed out as a flavor neutralizer, and immediately offered to accept me as his pupil. It took a bit of convincing, including the promise that I would be trained as a mercenary as well as a cook to make me accept.
The next few years were filled with learning, an exhausting mix of cooking, martial arts, how to read and write, and for some reason noble etiquette. I questioned the etiquette lessons at first, but it kind of saved me a lot of trouble in the long run. Along the way, I spent an increasingly large amount of time with the captain’s daughter, Kelia, who shared all but my cooking lessons with me. We grew pretty close, but she always had a sort of wall up that I couldn’t cross. I never figured out why she put that wall up, but it wouldn’t come down until much later.
Finally, I turned eighteen, and to everyone’s (and my) surprise, my blessing was rather powerful, to the point it was almost suspicious. I had a small bonus to my mana circle growth, which along with the ability to communicate with certain types of spirit beasts left me in a heavily advantageous position among the young adults around me. That kind of blessing was basically unheard of among the commoners, and there was some suspicion of where my heritage lied, but thanks to my memories being hazy there weren’t really any leads for us to follow.
I spent the next year and a half away from the unit on a mission from my mentor, spending time alone in the Great Ebony Thicket, developing myself. I managed to reach the second mana circle in that time, along the way making friends with two different spirit beasts that entered a soul bond with me. Opha, a Minor Forest Phantom, was my first, and still remains closest to me to this day. A year after Opha joined me, I met and convinced a small fire bat to join as well. I named him Ophet, and together we returned to the unit with pride.
Upon my return, I learned that Kelia had also found her blessing to be rather fortuitous, an aura of vitality that mentally and physically recovered those nearby that she considered allies. She was only at her first circle, though she had been gifted a soul beast by her father. The emerald fledgling was named Jai, and soon became her trusted companion and a real pain in my ass. The bird had a habit of stealing my food, having small territorial fights with Ophet, and even dropped my sword into a river once. Jai was very annoying.
Ugh, putting my hatred of that bird aside, as I turned twenty, a lot of things changed, and not in a good way. I had a huge falling out with Kelia over Jai, who was becoming an active danger to some of my missions, and in anger I left the unit in anger. I fled to the Thicket once more, and after getting my third circle, I trained and formed a unit of my own with several of my childhood friends. We became the Ebony Band, and went on to defend the Thicket and the surrounding areas from bandits for a few months, before all hell broke loose.
When the Mosse Kingdom declared war on the Illuminance empire, I didn’t know why and didn’t really care. What I didn’t realize was that they wanted the Thicket, the place I considered my home. When I received a messenger from the imperial family asking for my assistance with defending the thicket, I agreed immediately. We took up a set of previously planned guerilla positions, and waited for them to come. Unfortunately, they did, and the sight of the carnage that occurred still sits in my heart to this day.
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The Mosse forces that had entered the forest were systematically wiped out, the ground fertilized with who knows how many bodies. It was actually a huge hassle, because the worst kinds of spirit beasts tended to gather around two things- death and blood. After the battle, the band was basically forced to clean up the entire Thicket, the act of which took months.
After we finally left to rejoin the main force, we found the war had ended in a spectacular way. The Gannedar Flame, led by Kelia and her father, raided the main headquarters of the Mosse army and took the heads of their general and king. It was apparently a sight to behold, and I truly wish I could have seen it personally.
Me and Kelia actually managed to reconnect at the victory party, where we drank the night away while talking. She convinced me while I was drunk to sign a contract, and when I woke up I found that I had apparently made the Ebony Band a direct partner of the Gannedar Flame. I was honestly too embarrassed at the fact that I had been tricked while drunk to fight it, and we began to work together on a few different missions.
The most relevant one ended up being a major hunt that our group was hired to take care of, specifically a leviathan snake in the Thicket’s depths. I ended up getting heavily injured while protecting a friend, and was saved by Kelia’s aura. We succeeded in the mission, but I now owed a huge debt to Kelia. I wasn’t too worried, but when Kelia, her father, and I were invited to a party at the imperial palace to celebrate, the worst possible thing happened. The second prince ambushed Captain Weston, stabbing him in the heart, and declared that he was to become the next emperor by raiding the party. In her fury, Kelia declared direct loyalty to the Third Prince, who was the primary opponent for the throne.
As the succession war began, Kelia fell into a pit of depression at the loss of her father, and threw herself into battle as much as she could. I tried to stop her to no avail, and eventually the toll on her body was just too much for her aura to fix. During a small skirmish, an arrow struck into her left shoulder and it simply didn’t heal no matter what we did. Not wanting my friend to get hurt anymore, I accepted a suicide mission and successfully assassinated the second prince with Opha’s Null Stride. On the way out, I was almost caught by his vengeful forces but was saved in the nick of time by Kelia, who had somehow figured out where I was.
I now owed her for my life twice, and it was sort of weighing on me. I went into a month of self isolation in the Thicket after the war, mainly to center myself and grow my mana circles. I reached the fifth circle at the end of the month, and immediately upon leaving I received an urgent message that Kelia had been kidnapped by the Mosse Royals. I rushed there with Null Stride and barely saved her from the mess she had gotten herself into.
After we escaped, we swore to each other that we would be true brother and sister from that day on. I watched over Kelia as she achieved fourth circle, and accompanied her to a party that was being held in her honor. She received an honorary nobility title, and caught the eye of a particularly frustrating man. Grant Reinhart. In all his emotionless ways, he did his best to court Kelia, which somehow succeeded. According to her, she fell in love with his kindness and caring nature, which still confuses me to this day.
I escorted Kelia as her guardian at the wedding, then made half the food for the reception myself. I continued to cook for her and her husband while doing missions on the side, and one day after I had finished the mission I returned to find my newborn niece. Kelia absolutely adored her, and I adored the small girl as well. When you were found to be unable to walk, I did my best to comfort Kelia with my food, doing less missions and making more complicated dishes.
Eventually, the time came and I was forced to go onto a long mission. I left for five months, in the process achieving my sixth ring, and was quite excited to share the achievement with my sister.
She was dead when I returned, and I drank myself to hell for two days afterwards. Grant somehow found me and forced me to make his reception food, calling in a favor I owed. He had saved me from some sticky legal trouble a while back, and it simply wasn’t in my cards to deny him that small request.
I made the food, gagged at his new wife, and left the reception to go check out the garden, and watched from afar as you ruined the Reinhart heir’s reputation. I will admit, it was probably not the greatest idea on your part, but he had it coming. I stayed around a few days afterwards to watch and make sure that you didn’t get into any trouble, but when I saw you collapse in the garden from exhaustion I made my mind up. I convinced Grant that I would stay as a cook at the manor to keep watch on you until you were eighteen, stating that I still owed Kelia a favor.
The academy business started about two years ago, when I finally reached the rare seventh ring. My time with you was running out, and I needed a way to stay as your guardian after you became an adult. The seventh ring was perfect, since I was now one of two in the empire, and I entered negotiations with the imperial family over the matter. I managed to get permission to adopt you, gain the entire Ebony duchy as my land, and open the academy. I also called in the favor that the emperor owed me for completing the suicide mission and winning the war for him, which allowed for the academy to gain a spot on the imperial council. Using that power and a variety of other favors I had accrued from my mercenary work, I managed to get a huge alliance created to back the academy and therefore the Ebony duchy.
It was a lot of work, a lot of favors down the drain, but I had succeeded.
All to keep you safe.