“He is awake!” A familiar sound rand in Zakai’s ears as he slowly opened his eyes. He could not open them. He heard a door open and a voice called out.

“Boy, don’t try to open your eyes yet. That slash hit your face pretty bad… Somehow, we managed to fix your eyes but it seems like the lingering magic left on the blade was still strong… well, at least you didn’t go blind, hoho. We are back at your home, so don’t worry.” The doctor let out a small chuckle.

“Zak, you will be fine… HIC!” Bahadur told the boy while trying to keep calm himself.

“D-dad, what happened to mom? Is she okay?” Zakai asked as he remembered what had happened back at the ruins. He started sobbing, and the tears kept falling.

“She… didn’t make it, Zak.” Bahadur just stated coldly. Zakai knew how much they loved each other. His father being cold all of a sudden? It was just that bad, apparently.

Bahadur continued after a small pause: “But don’t you worry, boy. The son of a bitch who did this to my Elya will die. If he manages to escape from the Grasp, I promise you, boy. I will PERSONALLY hunt down that bastard.”

Zakai started to smile a bit at the remark at the end of his father’s sentence, and then he fell back to sleep, still hoping this whole ordeal was nothing but a bad nightmare, but he knew… the truth.

The Grasp was something similar to a punitive force in this world. Usually they acted as the jury, the judge and the executioner. Although, this just meant that they would hunt down criminals and of the sort. They would not protect villages from beasts or other kinds of monsters. They were an individual group of people that had impressive abilities, some even dreamed to become one of them, to uphold some sort of justice.

Three days later, Zakai woke up again. The doctor came to check him again to see if he was alright, and told the boy that he could remove the bandage so they could check his sight.

Zakai took the bandages off from his eyes, he noticed that the whole world looked completely different. It was as if there had literally been something covering his eyes, and he did not mean the bandages.

He could see mana. He could see the mana of the doctor, and then he looked back to himself, but the mana seemed to avoid him. The man in front of him looked like as if he was a glowing torch made of mana. Zakai woke up from the trance and the colors of mana he saw disappeared when the doctor poked at him: “You there, boy? I’ve asked few times but you still seem to be sleeping.”

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“What… What is going on? I though… I… nevermind.” Zakai bit lost in his thoughts mumbled.

“Uh, yeah. Let’s start by checking how your sight is… Do you know if that glow in your eyes has always been there?” The doctor wondered.

“Glow? Mom told me, my eyes glowed when I was born, but I don’t think they’ve ever done so after…”

“Alright, I’ll just ask your father, but otherwise it seems like your fine… well, as fine as you can be. Take it easy, boy.” The doctor started packing up his stuff, and after he was done. He showed Zakai thumbs up and left the room to speak with the boy’s father.

Zakai started crying again. Only now did he finally realize how painful it was. He would have no mother anymore. As they say, you only understand the value of something when you lose it. It is exactly what had happened to Zakai. He did not care about the children or the other teacher who had died at the ruins. Death was almost as common as flu in this world. No matter how hard he tried to suppress his current feelings, he just could not.

After a moment of crying as hard as he could, he vowed to himself to never lose another important person if he could help it. He had curled up, and he was holding his knees on his chest. He would train harder. He would never give up. He would never stop.

Bahadur walked into the room: “Just you and me… But don’t worry, life will go on.” Bahadur tried his hardest to comfort the boy, but he himself had clearly been crying as well. His eyes were bloodshot, it was clear he had barely slept these few days. It was hard on him as well.

Bahadur sat down on Zakai’s bed and hugged the boy and whispered: “Don’t worry… we will be fine… Your mother would be so proud of you, and thank the gods… that you came back to me at least. I don’t know what I would have done had you died as well.”

Zakai had just stopped crying but after what his father had told him… He could not help himself. He hugged his father even harder and cried, and cried.

It was a tragedy. Out of 14 people, 7 had died. It had been almost ten years since the last death in Balra, and now they had seven all of a sudden. The biggest problem was that now their capable teacher of magic had also passed away. Elya did a wonderful job and she was liked by everyone.

The group of girls that had followed Zakai back to the gate had survived. Nothing had happened to them, and they knew what happened back there. They saw how Zakai had charged at the murderous dark elf. Somehow, Zakai’s kick had broken the dark elf’s leg and he had run away. They had no idea how it happened, all they knew was that somehow Zakai had driven that monster of a dark elf away. It was most likely the only reason any of them survived that day.

Most of the children that had been there changed the way they saw Zakai. He was no longer complete garbage and manaless freak in their eyes. Some even started to greet him when they saw him.