Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 64. Disagreement.

“So unrefined,” Shamar commented rather leisurely at first, but wiped the slight smirk off his face the instant he sensed the air about his conversation partners turn cold. He turned his gaze away from the kid and the six emerging figures, then just barely stopped surprise from emerging on his face. He could have guessed that one or two of the adults would be angered to see this old game being put to practice, especially if they were from Makarash, but apart from the golden-haired man it was actually the two older of the boys who appeared to be growing angrier by the second.

The brief moment of stillness amongst their group was broken when the kid noticed his pursuers and did something that filled Reian’s, Laien’s and Yin’s hearts with all the more fury. The boy started running almost instantly, moving his legs as fast as his exhaustion allowed him to, but instead of trying to run around the bonfires he ran straight in their direction. With how strong the flames were burning, he would suffer very painful wounds even if he sprinted in-between two of the piles of wood and yet, he was so desperate that he appeared to be ready to throw himself into the fire if that meant there was a chance for him to be saved.

Seeing one of the figured in the back raise a bow and unhurriedly nock an arrow, Laien threw away whatever little hesitation he had about killing those people and leaped forward. The wall of fire broke open before him, appearing as if the flames themselves were too scared to approach his body and thus shrunk down in respect. In reality, however, Laien simply used his insights into the Principle of Energy to directly cool the flames down; nevertheless, it did look quite spectacular.

Before the fire rose up again, Yin also jumped through the gap and joined Laien. Out of the three of them who had gotten angered the most, only Reian hesitated for too long as he thought about the possible repercussions of killing random people. He wouldn’t have thought about helping twice had Shamar and his family not been here, but as they were he couldn’t help but try to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of taking action. Before he could make a rational decision, however, the time had run out and the choice had been made for him.

The boy, who looked to be around eight years old, sped up further when he saw two boys somewhat older than him come forward to meet him. He couldn’t know for sure if they intended to help him and he couldn’t see their faces clearly due to the fire, but he very much hoped it was the case. He wanted to get away from those men already, so he used up what little strength he had left to run as fast as he could. However, perhaps as expected, he was already so fatigued that he tripped over his own legs and fell to the ground, scratching his hands and knees, which already were bloody from falling down repeatedly throughout the night.

Still, he was about to muster the effort to stand up and continue running, but ended up involuntarily stopping when the two youths leaped to his side and stood between him and his pursuers. The momentary sense of relief caused him to nearly lose his consciousness, but he clenched his fists and used the pain to keep himself awake. He couldn’t afford to faint now that he found a ray of hope! If he did, then there would be no one to rescue his sister and everyone else…!

The bowman gnashed his teeth when the two unknown kids barred his way. He lowered his weapon and asked loudly. “What, do you want to squabble over who he belongs to? Do you need slaves that badly, or is there some other reason?”

If the voice of the bowman’s was any indication, he wasn’t nervous or scared at all. He and his companions naturally saw a large number of people behind the bonfires and they had all noticed the group emerging from the tents along with the line of guards protecting the carriages on the road. Nonetheless, they didn’t consider them to be a threat. They were in their own land, after all. Here the law of the land was the Sarkar Law; what they were doing was perfectly within the accepted boundaries and it wasn’t all that unusual or strange.

“Just to be sure…” Laien began saying as he ignored the man’s question. He and Yin had already swept the group of six with their auras and they discovered that none of those men were masters; all of them were martial practitioners with the bowman being the strongest one, at the late stage of the ninth mortal realm. Six men of that strength… they couldn’t even be considered to be a warm-up.

“Why are you chasing this boy?” Laien asked simply, intending to at the very least confirm his suspicions before killing those guys.

The bowman didn’t seem too happy to have been ignored by a child, but he swallowed his pride as he guessed that the youth had a much higher social standing than him. “The kid escaped our village because he refuses to participate in the Khatan. We were having some fun chasing him down and ended up letting him disturb you. For that, we apologize,” he explained politely, all the while wondering where was this sense of danger coming from. It couldn’t be that he felt threatened by those two kids who were as young as some of his siblings, could it?

“Khatan? What’s Khatan?” Laien asked, clearly annoyed by the man’s words and attitude which clearly indicated that he thought he had done nothing wrong.

“Trust me, you don’t wish to know,” Reian said coldly, approaching Laien and Yin with quick steps. He sent a disdainful glare towards the six men without bothering to restrain his aura or his killing intent.

The reaction was instantaneous; the six men all took a few steps back, terrified by the murderous intent directed towards them by Reian. They could have still written off the sense of danger coming from the two boys as some strange delusion of theirs, but they could tell that this golden-haired man was a genuine expert who could kill them as easily as strangling a chicken. What made matters worse, someone as strong as that man would face no repercussions no matter what he did to them. For those boys to have a guard on this level… or was this their older brother? Regardless, they quickly came to a conclusion that it was better not to provoke this group in any way.

“Since you are interested in that kid, please go ahead and keep him. He doesn’t matter to us,” the bowman offered hurriedly and began turning again, intent on disappearing in the forest as soon as possible. Alas…

“Stay here,” Laien ordered angrily. In turn, the bowman and his six companions halted reluctantly and waited for what he had to say. “What is Khatan?” Laien glanced at Reian and repeated the question. He had a feeling Reian was right and he would have rather not heard about it, but right now he needed an answer.

“…” Reian shook his head and sighed a little. “It’s a tradition to cut off parts of boys’ and girls’ genitalia to make them ‘adults’. If you ask me though, it’s nothing but senseless mutilation,” he explained without providing the gruesome details he considered to be irrelevant at this point. If Laien and Yin wanted, he could provide them a full explanation later… or he could ask Jasmine to do it instead. Having gone through the Khatan at the age of four after being captured and sold as a slave, he found it hard to speak about. His body had been healed when he had been bought by Mustafa, but the suffering he had gone through on that day would forever be engraved in his memory.

“They are better off dead…” Laien murmured. As a result, Reian nodded and was about to move forward to dispose of those six men, but before he could do that he saw a white spear with a few azure patterns appear in Laien’s hands and a set of twin swords appear in Yin’s hands. The thought of ‘right, it makes sense for them to be stronger than random practitioners from the countryside’ had barely appeared in his mind, when the speed at which the two youths charged stunned him completely. He had seen many talented youngsters in Makarash, but the speed of those two had undoubtedly gone beyond what practitioners in the mortal realm should be able to achieve! In regard to speed along, they were both comparable to strong martial masters of the first rank!

Unaware of Reian’s assessment of their ability, Laien and Yin moved shoulder-in-shoulder. There had been merely two hundred meters between them and the six men, so they crossed this distance very quickly.

Out of the six, only the man with the bow managed to take an action despite the surprise he was feeling. His bow bent strongly as he applied force to the string, then an arrow that could pierce a large boar through was shot at Yin’s chest from about twenty meters away. The man began reaching for another arrow and began jumping backward, planning to sacrifice his companions to buy time to kill the second of the boys, but his hand trembled and stopped at the quiver when he saw the ridiculous scene of the green-haired youth twisting his body without breaking his speed and dodging the arrow he had shot in an effortless manner.

“Devils…!” the bowman cried out in his heart. He no longer thought about fighting and instead turned around, wanting to speed away into the forest that very instant. Instead of that, however, he had a spear skewered into him through his back. Some incomprehensible syllables escaped his throat as a frightening cold spread through his chest; the spear was then yanked out, the middle of his frozen chest shattering into pieces. He died that very instant.

Two thrusts of the spear and three slashes of the twin swords later, the six men all turned into corpses without being able to resist in any way. Laien and Yin didn’t bother to even collect the items or interspatial rings of the six and after shaking off the blood off their weapons with unnatural ease, they began walking back to Reian and the boy they had helped.

“With this much, there’s no need to doubt it…” Reian mused silently. “They were the ones who killed Tashakir’s older brother, no questions asked. Taking him by surprise was all they needed; to him, what was actually the most impressive was the degree of mental fortitude kids their age would require to pull through with such a plan and not give anything away before an opportunity came. At the very least, he doubted that he himself would have been able to pull off something similar when he had been twelve years old.

“Very impressive,” Shamar commented with a smile of a merchant from behind the bonfires. “As expected of the House of Sword, even the youngsters possess such ability,” he praised, thinking that it was very impressive for children so young to be so fast and to be able to so easily kill a few adults. Of course, he was unaware that those six were all in the upper levels of the mortal realm; he had taken them all to be at the sixth mortal realm at best. Had he known that the bowman whose arrow Yin dodged and who then died to one blow from Laien was at the middle ninth mortal realm, the look on his face would have been very different.

As for what Shamar and the rest of his family through about the act itself? It needed not to be said; those six had been at the lowest level of their societal hierarchy. For this elite group from Makarash to have killed them was of no consequence at all; it wasn’t anything to fret about.

With the matter having been settled so quickly, Arslan couldn’t help but be a little speechless. He was thinking that those weeks would be for him to do everything, but before he could even begin to comprehend what was going on Laien, Yin and Reian had made all the choices and brought the matter to an end. A little unwilling to be left on the sidelines, he stood up and hurried around the bonfires to join the three and have them tell him what exactly was going on so he could also take a part in it.

Jasmine nodded at Shamar and his family, stood up and followed after Arslan. Kasha did the same thing, but ended up frowning along the way. She wanted to do her job and heal that kid, but she saw Laien already doing so in her place. Honestly, did this kid want to use up all his spiritual energy or something? He was much too wasteful with it in her opinion; he should have let her, a spiritual master, heal the boy.

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Shamar laughed a bit awkwardly when Ruan and Liza stood up and left, leaving their side alone on the carpet. All the guards who had emerged from the tents headed to the place where that rescued kid was too, so they were practically relegated to the sidelines; it left a sour aftertaste in Shamar’s mouth.

“There’s nothing for it, let us wait for them to finish,” Mashir said calmly, keeping his cool better than his father. He might not be as good of a merchant as his father yet, but he knew how to cope with unexpected situations better than his father who simply detested allowing the flow to sweep him.

Shamar raised an eyebrow, finding it to be a new and strange feeling to be advised by his own child and to consider the advice as one making sense. He smiled and made a choice; if nothing unexpected happened, he would name Mashir a competitor to the position of his successor. With Mashir added, there would soon be five of his children who competed to accumulate achievements and take over the company in a few decades.

“Here, eat this,” Reian pulled out half a bar of chocolate and handed it to the kid who looked like he was giving his utmost not to fall asleep. The boy must have already been exhausted both mentally and physically, so the added fatigue healing placed on one’s body should have been enough to make him lose consciousness instantly. It appeared that the kid had something else he wanted to tell them though, so he kept holding on with a great amount of effort.

The boy accepted the chocolate and began biting off big pieces of it of the bar and swallowing them one after another. He had only eaten something so sweet and delicious once or twice in his life, but at the moment he wasn’t paying attention to the chocolate’s taste in the slightest. He was only concerned with regaining enough clarity of mind to speak to those people. They had killed those strong pursuers and saved him, so even though he thought it was unlikely, he wanted to at least try asking them to save everyone else… and if not, then at least his big sister…!

“So,” Jasmine tilted her head a little and smiled ever so slightly. “What do you boys intend to do now?” she asked, curious if Arslan would attempt to join the conversation or if he would get pulled along by those two strong personalities.

Laien glanced at Jasmine, but didn’t try to respond to her question since as far as he was concerned it didn’t need to be answered either way. Instead of wasting his breath he waited for the boy to finish the chocolate and regain enough energy to hold a conversation.

About a minute later, the boy regained enough strength to collect his thoughts, but he only raised his head and looked pleadingly at everyone. He appeared to have trouble finding the right words; he didn’t know what to say in a situation like this one. Should he blurt out something like ‘Please, save everyone! They are doing terrible things to us all in our village, please!’? But would those people really help him just because of that? He really didn’t know what to do or what to say and moreover, the sense of the time running out served to dismay him even further.

“First, how about you tell us your name?” Laien suggested gently, knowing first-hand that during hard times it was easier to answer questions than to tell your own story.

“Johan,” the eight-year-old replied without thinking, perhaps relieved to be able to focus on something simple.

“Is there someone you are worried about?” Laien asked, having pretty much guessed what Johan’s situation was.

“Nn…” Johan nodded strongly. “My sister and my friends back in the village,” he added, regaining some of his calm as he left the unnecessary thoughts behind.

“Is it about the whole Khatan that man was talking about?” Laien asked again, to what he received a nod and a few additional words of explanation.

“It’s about it, but not just about it. It’s been terrible there for so long… my sister says it used not be like that, but it was only before I was born. We wanted to flee to the Ruishi Federation or to the countries in the north, but…”

“I get the gist of it,” Laien said the moment Johan’s voice began cracking. “What do you want from us then?” he asked, seeking a confirmation from the boy before he would decide to take any actions.

“I want you to help everyone!” Johan blurted out the answer without a second thought, only after a few heartbeats realizing that he might have been too blunt about it. “I mean, if you could help us… just help us safely get out of there, then we can manage the rest on our own! Please!” he begged desperately, aware that his sister had failed to find any help despite looking for it for years and the help which their mother had found four years ago… their mother…

“Yeah,” Laien nodded lightly and smiled at Johan. “We will help you guys. Where is your village? Do you know the way there if we go on horseback from here?” he assured and asked, his words briefly stunning not only Johan but also some of his own companions. The original guards of his and Yin’s weren’t surprised, nor was Reian about to object to Laien’s decision as he wholeheartedly agreed with it. However, Jasmine and Sirius had something to say and each of them had their own reasons for being displeased.

“What recklessness,” Sirius commented disdainfully while shaking his head. “Have you thought it through before acting? You can get them out of their village easily enough, but what next? Do you plan to take responsibility for some group of people you don’t even know? Will you protect them all the way until they reach safety who-knows-where? Or will you leave them be after getting them out like that kid said? What do you think will happen to them after that? After you’ve killed the party that was chasing the kid, huh? You didn’t think it through at all,” he pointed out scornfully, honestly feeling disappointed in Laien and in consequence, in Yin. He had given those two the credit of being mature for their age, but in the end they proved to be merely reckless brats

“And to being with,” Jasmine added from herself. “It’s not up to you to make the decisions so arbitrarily. It was still fine if you only killed those nobodies and took some kid under your care, but you are planning to have a village relinquish a portion of its people by force or threats. Don’t you think you should consult it with the little master before making such a choice?” she reprimanded, refusing to allow those two boys do as they pleased on this journey. Those months were for the sake of Arslan’s growth, not for them to do whatever they wanted whenever they felt like it!

Needless to be said, the relief Johan was feeling when Laien agreed to help him had all but turned into fear and worry after those two spoke. Would they not help him in the end? He could kind of understand that it was unreasonable to expect someone you didn’t know to put himself into a hard spot just to help you. Yet, he silently prayed that they would help them anyway… else he truly wouldn’t know what he was supposed to do next.

As for Laien and Yin, while Yin kept his cool throughout both lectures, Laien didn’t bother to hide what his thoughts were. He openly smirked at Sirius’s words, finding it vaguely amusing and a little annoying that this old man was underestimating the two of them so badly. The him from the past might have acted solely on emotions, but the current him always thought his actions through. Still, what he ended up doing could often seem like stupidity or recklessness to other people as the weight he applied to acting according to his heart in relation to the potential danger and trouble was very different than that of most people.

On the other hand, he couldn’t help but agree that Jasmine had a point. He knew what Yin was thinking, so he didn’t need to ask him for permission, but this time around they would be involving not only themselves, but also Arslan and his party. Thus, when the brunette stopped reprimanding him he turned his eyes to Arslan and said. “She’s right about that. I want to help and I plan to deal with the consequences one way or another. What do you want to do?”

Facing this kind of a development, Arslan was a bit disoriented. Things were happening too fast for him to calmly think everything through, and the environment wasn’t the same calm and collected one he had gotten used to around his father and Reian back in the City of Makarash. He sympathized with that boy, Johan, and wanted to help his sister and his friends too if something bad was happening to them… but he had trouble imagining the consequences. He had thought he knew a lot because he had always studied hard, but now that it came to making a decision in real life he was completely lost.

While Arslan pondered on the answer, the two elders who voiced their complaints to Laien were displaying two exactly opposite reactions. Sirius looked as if someone had just pushed a whole lemon into his mouth and had him bite down hard, whereas Jasmine revealed a content smile, very pleasantly surprised with Laien’s recovery. Still, neither of them said anything else as they both agreed on one thing; it would be Arslan who had the last word in this matter and whatever his choice would be, they would follow. After all, they didn’t think this matter was dangerous enough for them to be unable to handle the following repercussions.

“I’m not sure what to do,” Arslan admitted honestly. “I would like to help, but I don’t want to get into something we can’t deal with. I don’t know if we can manage… can we do what is needed?” he asked, unintentionally causing all of his guards with the exception of Kasha to either frown or feel helpless. The reason for that was pretty simple; Arslan directed this question first to Laien and only then glanced at them. Honestly, how did he become so attached to and reliant on Laien so quickly was a mystery they couldn’t hope to comprehend.

“We can,” Laien replied confidently. With Arslan’s position and Reian’s and the others’ strength, they needed not to fear anyone but the strongest experts. How could a powerful expert be so bored as to get involved in the matters of some rural village? The possibility of that happening was extremely unlikely and even if it did happen, that expert would need to think twice before doing anything against the party which included a Grand Yimar’s son.

Arslan was about to agree the instant he received a positive answer from Laien, but he noticed the slightly discontent looks on his guards’ faces and caught on quickly enough. “You think so too?” he asked the four, not wanting to make them feel bad by not listening to their opinion.

“I trust we indeed can,” Jasmine said straightforwardly, seeing it unnecessary to provide a long explanation.

“Even if we destroy the whole village, nothing too serious should follow,” Reian replied somewhat dangerously, nearly as if he was already considering this option.

“I don’t believe I have the experience necessary to speak here…” Kasha dodged the question, not feeling confident in being able to provide a reliable answer.

Finally, Sirius growled quietly, but after sending Laien a cold stare he sighed resignedly and nodded his head. “Despite the recklessness of the choice your friend made, little master, I trust we are capable of helping out if that’s what you want to do,” he admitted unhappily, holding it against Laien for reconsidering his actions after Jasmine’s words but ignoring what he told him.

“Great!” Arslan smiled happily. He wouldn’t have known what to do if everyone’s opinion differed, but since they were all in agreement he could simply act as his heart was telling him to. “Then we’re going to help. Could you quickly get everything ready for us to leave?” he requested of everyone, wasting no more time for chatting or hesitating.

The four White Guards obeyed without asking further questions, while the guards of Laien and Yin’s gave the two boys a look and only moved after the two of them nodded. Truth to be told all eleven of them weren’t needed to dismantle the camp and get the horses to come, but they opted to all move to save a few seconds. After all, despite some of them having more calculative or pragmatic characters, none of them was devoid of empathy; since they were already helping someone, they wouldn’t tarry or do a half-assed job.

“So, do you know the way or not?” Laien repeated the question, startling Johan awake. The eight-year-old seemed to have momentarily forgotten how to think when it was agreed upon that a hand would be lent to him. He was so incredibly glad, but at the same time he was pretty exhausted and thus no words which could express how thankful he was to all those people were coming to his mind.

“I know where to go,” Johan replied, promising himself to thank everyone properly after everything would be over. “My sister made me study maps just in case. If we go by the roads, it should be around forty kilometers from here,” he said while recalling the map in his mind. He knew the area near his village really well so despite being so tired, he knew where he was. He had previously chosen to flee by the river to lose the pursuit, but as it proved he managed to mislead only half of the party that chased after him. He had been thinking about attempting to get to the City of Palee and finding safety and help there… alas, it was too far with those men pursuing him. Luckily, he stumbled upon this area and saw the light of the bonfires and was saved by those people. Had it not been for them, he would already be getting beaten up and dragged back to the village.

“That makes things simpler,” Laien said with a smile. “You will ride with me and tell us the way. Come,” he encouraged and grabbed Johan under his shoulder, then lifted him up to his feet. The horses were already being brought their way and given that it was only forty kilometers separating them from the village, they could get there in just ten minutes, maybe faster depending on the condition of the roads. All Johan needed to do was to guide them and avoid making any mistakes.

It took almost no time to get all the horses ready and thus, just a minute later all fourteen, or rather fifteen of them rode past Shamar and his family, who were now standing on the grass, and headed back onto the road. Apart from a brief farewell, no words worth mentioning were exchanged between their two groups as they went their own ways.

“Hrm.” Shamar shook his head as he watched the riders leave the place with the boy they had rescued. “Those martial families from the House of Sword, they always need to get in some trouble,” he murmured, then laughed and began walking back towards his carriage. “We’re also leaving,” he declared, surely enough not planning to get involved in anything that wasn’t his business.