Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 62. Unresolved Trauma?
The midnight passed an hour or two ago and by this point most of the group of fourteen had gone to sleep. The three youths didn’t yet emerge from their tent and judging by the lack of noise or movement, they were still napping peacefully. As for the remaining few awake adults, they were the more outgoing types - well, apart from one of them who decided to hang out for another reason - and instead of sleeping they had opted to prepare a large bonfire and were now drinking, eating and getting to know each other.
Their group consisted of five members; of Reian and Jasmine, of Ruan and Liza and also of Kasha who had joined them midway due to being unable to sleep. As the five chatted, the subjects continued to go around randomly; sometimes they would be discussing everyone’s past, then arguing about the rights and wrongs of politics, discussing the wars ongoing around the continent and also making fun of each other; the last of which was mainly the job of Jasmine who kept teasing Reian all the time.
After a few cups of wine and some stronger alcohols, the five relaxed enough to stop being cautious with each other. Thus, the subject inevitably shifted to the one of the three ‘young masters’ that were under their protection. At the moment, Ruan had just finished telling the story of how Laien and Yin roamed around the Anarchic Lands and as expected, the three White Guards were filled with disbelief. Ruan had left the part about the hidden village left out since he wasn’t clear about the details, but the casual slaughter of bandits those two had engaged in was enough to make his story sound ridiculous enough.
“Are you serious?” Reian asked, completely wide-eyed. It wasn’t the strength displayed by the boys that amazed him; it wouldn’t be hard for them to kill common thugs with their level of cultivation and he was sure that Ruan had certainly exaggerated some point of this story. However, children... youths of that age weren’t usually stable enough mentally to kill dozens of people without batting an eye. If even half of what Ruan said was true, then those two had each killed a few hundred men in the Anarchic Lands; no normal twelve-year-olds would be able to function as usual after doing something so crazy.
“You don’t seem to be lying,” Jasmine said in a tone that was unnaturally serious in comparison to the playful attitude she had been displaying for the whole day. For boys who weren’t children nor adults to have casually done something so outrageous, it could only mean they had experienced something that scarred them deeply when they had been even younger. Moreover, she knew it from experience; going through something extreme while very young could either serve to temper the child’s future character and enhance his future achievements, or if not dealt with by the child it could turn into a trauma that would reveal itself sooner or later and cause the youth’s personality to change drastically.
“Do you know about those boys’ past?” Jasmine asked worriedly. If those two hadn’t overcome their trauma, then all that was needed was one trigger to cause them to act in a seemingly crazy manner. She had seen young boys and girls trained to be soldiers go mad due to something as insignificant as seeing a cat pass by the street near their legs or due to being randomly chatted up by a street whore. The reactions varied, but it most usually resulted in the child having a mental breakdown and attacking everyone who happened to be nearby. There were also cases of the child trying to kill himself or becoming dull to all external stimulus. Very rarely would those children be able to return to their normal selves after an incident like that; at most, they would be able to lead vaguely normal lives, but they would be only a shadow of their past selves.
Of course, Jasmine also knew it was nearly impossible for someone who wasn’t close to the child to help resolve this issue and because of that, she didn’t share her thoughts with the other four. If she could learn more about those two then she would be able to make a more accurate judgment, alas.
“I can tell you what is known about Laien’s past, but pretty much nothing is known about Yin’s.”
Alas, Ruan didn’t have a full answer to give her. “If you don’t mind, tell us all you know about both of them,” she requested with a serious look on her face.
“I don’t mind,” Ruan replied with a little sigh. “Could you tell me why you want to know first? It doesn’t seem like a simple curiosity,” he pointed out. If Jasmine wanted to simply learn about Laien and Yin, then they were already on the topic of those two. However, she specifically requested him to tell her about the boys’ past and it was right after she and Reian began acting weird. She must have had another purpose in mind and if so, he wanted to first learn what it was.
“It’s just…” Jasmine held back a groan. She didn’t want to worry everyone if it wasn’t needed and if there was no easy solution to the problem, but she resigned herself to honesty and explained everything as well as she could.
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Laien and Yin were lying quietly in the tent, but neither of them was sleeping. For the past three hours or so the two of them were training within their Combined Soul Realm, focusing on improving their insights into the Profound Mystery of Inferno. They were once again meditating on the same, minuscule part of the Soul Imprint that was smaller than one ten-thousandth of its whole size.
Just like the last time, the two of them cooperated in their training and shared new insights and ideas, enhancing the speed at which they were improving dozens of times over. Having an identical Soul Imprint on both of their souls truly became a blessing for them, one which even the crimson-haired woman couldn’t have possibly predicted. As a result, their spiritual avatars were being constantly surrounded by the Phantasmal Essence of the Profound Mystery of Inferno which manifested in a sun-like mass of chaotic, crimson-red infernal flames.
Unlike previously though, the two of them didn’t fall into an enlightenment-like state. They were aware that their minds were getting more fatigued by the moment so before the backlash became too big, they would leave their Soul Realms and stop training. Their souls might have gotten stronger recently, but keeping the Combined Soul Realm active for around five hours was the extent of their ability. Of course, they could potentially keep it up much longer if they weren’t using it to train, but they saw no reason to waste their time like that.
“I think I got it,” Laien loosened his concentration and said at one moment. The energy of the Profound Mystery of Inferno was wild and hard to control, but he not only was very good at controlling his energy but also had access to the Aspect of Tranquility, with which he could first lower the difficulty and then raise it step by step by adding the Aspect of Wrath to the mix. Using an analogy, it was like learning how to sprint after learning how to walk and run. It was much easier in this way than to try sprinting when all you could do was just barely stand on your feet.
“You got the technique?” Yin also went out of the meditative trance and asked jealously. His lightning was wild and uncontrollable to begin with, much unlike Laien’s water. Additionally, he didn’t have an Aspect which enhanced his control like Laien did. With those things taken into consideration, it was hard for him to imbue his normal attacks with the Profound Mystery of Inferno, not to mention actually creating a technique that would make a full use of the properties of those powerful insights.
“Nah,” Laien said, or maybe thought with a laugh. “I wish I got an idea about a technique. All I figured out is how to merge the Profound Mystery of Inferno with my Qi and spiritual energy… but it will probably take me a few months before I’m able to use it as freely as my other insights… or even longer considering that we are going to keep gaining new insights meanwhile,” he explained in what on one hand was a few sentences and on the other hand was just a thought he shared with Yin.
“You’re still better off than me,” Yin said playfully. “Do you want to continue? We should be able to handle one more hour,” he inquired, quickly judging how much mental strength the two of them had left.
“No.” Laien shook his head. “I don’t want the same headache we had yesterday before going to the Grand Palace to appear. Let’s stop here, we can do it again tomorrow,” he suggested, but if Yin really wanted to continue he wouldn’t refuse either.
“I’m fine.” Yin laughed as he read Laien’s thoughts. The two of them smiled at each other in their spiritual forms, then split their Soul Realms and after a few seconds slowly opened their eyes.
They felt that their heads were a bit heavy, but it wasn’t anything that wouldn’t disappear after ten or so minutes. Since they weren’t sleepy anymore, they silently agreed to leave the tent and look for something interesting to do.
“You are getting up?” Arslan sat down, quickly removing the light white sheets he was covered in. “I’m going too, I slept enough,” he said eagerly and stood up.
“Mm,” Laien nodded slightly, a smile present on his face. “Let’s see what those guys by the bonfire are doing,” he said while glancing out of the tent. The three of them had gone to sleep very early, so even though Arslan was very young it wouldn’t be a problem if they began the day a bit early. Arslan was also a martial practitioner of the second rank despite his age, so he probably wouldn’t start feeling drowsy and sleepy before the day was over.
The three of them thus got out of the tent and headed towards the bonfire. They expected to hear the sounds of chatter as they got closer, but the adults had apparently noticed them and for some reason, they all quieted down. What was up with that strange atmosphere, the three couldn’t help but wonder. Did they come at a wrong time and those guys didn’t want them to hear what they were talking about? Or was some other issue they didn’t know about?
“I see you are up already,” Jasmine was the first to break the silence as the three youths were approaching. “Or rather finally, should I say?” he asked with a little smirk, but her playfulness ended up appearing forced and unnatural, what the three boys quickly noticed.
“What’s going on?” Laien asked, raising an eyebrow. Jasmine’s weird behavior might not have been enough to convince him that something was wrong, but he knew that look on Ruan’s face well enough by now. Something was definitely up.
The five adults exchanged a few worried looks, not knowing whether they should share their worries with those kids or if they should keep everything to themselves. In a unanimous wordless agreement, four of them chose not to say anything as they sent glances towards Jasmine. She was the one who brought the issue up and provoked a discussion about it, so the decision should be hers to make; she was more familiar with the subject than any of them either way.
“To be honest, there’s something we are concerned about,” Jasmine said without beating around the bush. “Is there nothing that bothers you two? Do you sleep well, don’t you have nightmares?” she asked while sifting her gaze between Laien and Yin, but opted not to reveal the essence of the matter at hand. It was better to be vague, even if those two got confused about the purpose of her questioning and possibly then came to be annoyed or angry with her.
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“Nightmares?” Laien raised his eyebrows, then laughed quietly and exchanged a look with Yin. Did his Vision from about two weeks ago count as a nightmare? Possibly, but he wasn’t about to mention it to this woman, or to anyone else from this group of people at the matter. “Not really, I think we’ve been sleeping pretty well those days,” he replied with a laugh. In fact, Yin had told him he had been having nightmares prior to meeting him, but they were apparently all gone now that Yin got rid of the darkness lingering in his heart. Such was the case, but he didn’t feel like sharing something so personal with those guys; and he knew Yin was of the same mind as him.
“Is that so,” Jasmine nodded, at the same time wondering how far should she allow her interpretations to go. Were the words spoken by Laien with a meaning in mind, as to say that they hadn’t been sleeping well let’s say a few months ago but were doing okay now, or were those words spoken carefreely as an answer to an out of the blue question? She could deduce many things from Laien’s response and the mannerism of his and Yin’s, but that was the problem. She could guess too many possible answers and without knowing those two well enough, she couldn’t tell which one was true and which one was false or unlikely.
“So, there is nothing you are worried about?” she inquired, trying to push the boys to give her at least a clear hint. She didn’t learn too much about Yin, only the things that happened from the Grand Tournament in the Sarkcente Kingdom onwards, but she now knew quite a bit about Laien. That being said, she was more worried about Yin than Laien for that exact reason. Laien seemed to have overcome his past, but she couldn’t be sure the same was true for Yin.
“There are a few things,” Laien replied and shrugged his shoulders. Wasn’t it like that for everybody? It was pretty normal to have a worry or two.
“It’s hard not to have anything to worry about,” Yin agreed. Just like Laien, he was thinking about the future and the challenges the two of them had ahead of themselves.
Jasmine smiled somewhat helplessly. It was her fault for being so vague with her question, so what kind of answer did she expect? She laughed at herself in her heart; those who expected the child to start crying and express all his worries the moment he is asked about them could only be called naïve. “Yes, it’s normal to have worries,” she said with a little sigh. She had learned the hard way that pushing too hard for an answer if the child’s mind really was scarred would result only in the child distancing himself from her. She wanted to ask more questions, but she reasoned herself out of doing so.
“…. What is this whole thing about?” Laien asked suspiciously. Why were those guys so concerned with their worries? Did this woman, Jasmine, bring up something they all now concerned so important as to not speak up at all while for some reason refusing to meet their gaze?
“It’s nothing.” Jasmine shook her head, acting dismissively. She would rather not tell the boys the truth if possible.
Laien smirked at Jasmine’s denial, while Yin smiled calmly. Who would believe in those words of hers? But well, if she didn’t want to tell them then whatever. They didn’t care or know her well enough to insist that she told them everything.
“Is it about trauma?” Arslan asked straightforwardly, making Jasmine jump up slightly on her seat. “Ah, it is. I thought so,” Arslan said with a chuckle. He turned to Laien and explained. “I heard from father that Jasmine often takes care of problematic new recruits. I was curious about how she was helping them, so I asked father to tell me more. He said she was dealing with those who had troublesome personalities and were being disobedient all the time or with those who had some trauma they couldn’t deal with.”
As Arslan explained the point of her questions, Jasmine felt like asking him to stop… but she had a feeling Arslan would tell those two anyway. From what she saw yesterday during their few hours of the ride, Arslan was just as attached to that boy, Laien, as to Reian. It was another surprising thing, but she failed to figure out why it was so no matter how she thought about it, so she had simply given up on wondering.
“Huuuh,” Laien revealed an amused smile. “So she was worried if we didn’t have a trauma we couldn’t overcome and wanted to probe us? Why? I find it hard to believe it was out of the goddess of her heart; the other four wouldn’t have been so stiff if it was just about that,” he inquired, giving Jasmine an inquiring look. He wasn’t angry with her; rather, he was curious.
Jasmine seemed to be hesitating to open her mouth, but as the atmosphere around the bonfire became more relaxed Ruan laughed out loud.
“You can tell them. I got worried due to how scary you made it out to be, but those two are strong. We don’t need to worry about them going crazy.”
“Going crazy?” Laien and Yin repeated silently and exchanged a look of disbelief. What in the world were those guys talking about?
“It’s not…” Jasmine wanted to say that Ruan was wrong, but she swallowed her words as she realized that he was technically right. “Ugh, I prefer to call it mental breakdown due to excessive trauma, but I guess you can also call it going crazy,” she admitted before the boys. “I heard you had no problems with killing hundreds of bandits when you traveled the Anarchic Lands, so I got worried. The job habits of an old lady,” she apologized, or maybe just made a clumsy excuse only to ask right afterward.
“So, could you tell me honestly? Is there nothing in your past that weighs down on you? Nothing that you don’t want to think about, or are scared to think about?”
Laien smiled weakly in response to Jasmine’s questioning, while Yin kept a neutral, maybe a bit saddened expression on his face.
“That’s not something I’m going to talk about with you,” Yin stated outright, in a very much cold tone. He had told Laien about his past only because he considered Laien as his true friend; there was no way he would pursue this subject with some random woman. He appreciated that she worried for his sake, but it was far from being enough to cause him to have a change of heart.
With the unchanged weak smile on his face, Laien gave Jasmine a meaningful look. “You probably know quite a lot about my past, but I’m not going to tell you the rest either,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. He didn’t care about talking about his past as much as Yin, but he wasn’t someone who would become talkative about himself with people he didn’t consider close friends for no reason.
“If you are worried about us though,” Laien added with a laugh after a brief moment. “Then I assure you we’re all right. We aren’t about to go crazy or anything,” he said and chuckled a little. He knew that Yin wasn’t too disturbed by Jasmine’s question despite being cold to her, so he didn’t see a reason to keep acting so serious; the only thing that would achieve would be to make the atmosphere sour. He would be the first to notice if there was something wrong with Yin and vice versa, so there really was nothing to be so concerned about… although Jasmine would need to take his word for that as he wasn’t about to reveal one of their secrets to her.
The previously stiff expression on Jasmine’s face lightened up somewhat thanks to Laien’s assurance. Indeed, if she didn’t hear about what those two had done in the Anarchic Lands she would have taken them for normal carefree and happy children. That being said, Reian secretly mentioned to her that it was those two who had killed Tashakir’s older brother, a martial master of the third rank… so they couldn’t really be accurately described as ‘normal children’.
“I guess I have no other choice but to believe you, eh?” Jasmine said with a heavy sigh and smiled at Laien. “I apologize for asking you those questions, it must have been uncomfortable,” she said and lowered her head slightly, this time taking the apology a lot more seriously than a minute before.
“Don’t mind it.”
“It’s okay.”
Laien and Yin responded one after another. They would have been a bit angry with Jasmine if either of them ended up feeling bad or frustrated due to her inquiries, but since neither of them minded all that much they let the bygones be bygones.
“It will be okay,” Arslan reassured too, maybe because he could see the worry lingering in Jasmine’s and Reian’s eyes. “Laien doesn’t have that painful look some kids in the barracks had in his eyes. His eyes are the same as father’s,” he said confidently and looked Laien in the eye, his smile growing wider as he confirmed it again; they didn’t change from yesterday, Laien’s eyes were just like his father’s.
“Yin’s eyes are calm too,” he added, shifting his gaze to Yin and his emerald-green eyes. “They are a bit like Captain Commander’s eyes now that I take a better look,” he mused aloud, growing increasingly intrigued with Yin. He hadn’t noticed before because he was so focused on Laien, but Yin’s eyes were similar to old Kundar’s. He didn’t know the old Kundar too well and in fact had only seen him a few times as far as he could remember, but since Kundar was the Captain Commander of his father’s White Guard then he needed to be a good and trustworthy person.
Laien and Yin laughed a little, finding it pretty intriguing how Arslan was comparing them to other people in his life. Was he really able to tell something from people’s eyes, or were they that similar to Mustafa and that Captain Commander that it easy to make such an assumption?
On the other hand, Reian and Jasmine were very surprised by this revelation. Kasha was another matter as she wasn’t closely acquainted with neither Mustafa or Arslan, but Reian and Jasmine knew it wasn’t like Arslan to make random comparisons between people. That boy would always talk and interact with you first and only then make up his mind about you, but in those two’s case he was acting in a truly unusual way. Mustafa too; how come he was so trusting of those boys? They couldn’t understand it. Yes, Laien and Yin seemed to be good kids, but the way Mustafa and Arslan treated them was too much.
“Are you worried about something again?” Laien asked teasingly and smirked at Jasmine. This time, however, Reian finally joined the conversation.
“I already wanted to say it before, but you should show more respect when talking to my teacher,” he reprimanded, feeling offended on Jasmine’s behalf.
Laien felt like rolling his eyes at Reian’s words. Why were so many adults so uptight about the way one spoke to them? Would they only be pleased if he was being formal and overly polite the whole time? Well, even that was the case, he wasn’t planning to do such a bothersome thing anyway.
Jasmine smiled playfully and looked at Reian out of the corner of her eye. “Didn’t I tell you to speak casually with me when we first met too? How old were you back then, five years old?” she asked teasingly and added with a quiet laugh. “You were so scared and cute back then. Where has that timid boy gone to? He turned into such a scary man that bullies children for no reason,” she said wryly, enjoying herself very much as she looked at Reian’s reddening cheeks.
Seeing Reian being handled so effortlessly, Laien chortled while Yin and Arslan smiled in amusement. Women could sometimes be really scary to deal with, especially if they knew all your embarrassing secrets and even more so if you were in love with them. In Reian’s case, it was easily noticeable that he fulfilled both of those criteria so he had little to no chance of winning against Jasmine in a verbal confrontation.
“Hrm? Someone is coming,” Yin said and looked away from the bonfire and beyond the trees hiding the faraway portion of the road. “Sounds like a caravan, there are many horses and carriages,” he added, failing to see much due how thick the forest was in this area.
For a second Reian wanted to argue with Yin and tell him to stop making things up, but after closing his eyes and focusing on the sounds he started making out the vague tumbling of many carriages. He opened his eyes a bit wider than usual and gave Yin a surprised look; how did this boy hear the caravan before anyone else did? Senses of a martial master were incomparably sharper, so how did a martial practitioner outdo him and Jasmine? Was his hearing really so abnormally good?
A few moments later, the caravan arrived at the part of the road from where they could spot the bonfire and the camp that was set up at the fairly large clear area. As Laien, Yin and everyone looked at the caravan, the dozens of imposing guards escorting the carriages looked back at them. It was hard to say from so far away, but most of those guards were likely in the Realm of Heroes. Whoever was traveling in those carriages needed to be a fairly influential person.
“Stop, stop. Halt!” a man’s voice came from the foremost carriage, first fairly quiet and finally rather loud. The shout finally brought the coachman back to reality and the carriage stopped, and with him the dozens of riders and the following carriages stopped too.
The man stepped out of the carriage with a smile on his face. He was about two hundred meters away, but thanks to the moonlight and good eyesight of those present everyone saw him clearly. He was undoubtedly an Ikarian judging by his facial features, but what was most noticeable about him was that unlike most of the Ikarian men Laien and Yin had seen in the City of Palee he had a neatly trimmed beard. Mustafa and Reian, or Sirius or any other man in the White Guard they had seen had their beards shaved, so the appearance of this man here looked rather unique to them.
“Rala Salar, my brothers. Are you stopping here for the night? Mind if we join you? I’ve had enough of sleeping in the carriage and I could use some refreshing conversations,” the man asked in a loud voice all the way from the roadside. Unexpectedly, he was even mindful enough to use his Qi to control the area his voice would spread out to in order to avoid waking up those who could potentially be sleeping in the tents.