Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 94. Change of Plans.
“Eeeeh?!” Lea barely stopped the embarrassing cry from escaping her mouth when Yin looked at her with that challenging look on his face, but she still cried out within her heart. “Wait a second, so he wasn’t a boy? Was I trying to steal someone else’s boyfriend? No, but I’m still pretty sure he’s a boy…” Overwhelmed by those random thoughts, she could only stare at Laien and Yin in a flabbergasted manner.
Usually, she would have probably been able to collect herself much quicker, but now? Her mental state had already suffered a blow when Laien rejected her straightforward invitation to become a couple; he hadn’t even given thought to the possibility of giving it a try! Then, she had been emotionally assaulted by this green-haired youth; how could she possibly keep her calm in such a situation?
Coincidentally, it wasn’t only Lea who was rather shocked at the moment. Luca and Daniel were both equally speechless and in their case, they were also really confused and embarrassed by what they had seen. The two of them had spent all of their lives training and studying, and to make the matters worse, they both spent their early adolescent years in the military, in the Fortress-City of Lugna. They had pretty much no experience in dating and moreover, they hadn’t even given it much thought. Thus, seeing two boys…? Seeing those two kiss out of nowhere inevitably caused them to feel greatly embarrassed.
“He is a boy, isn’t he?” Luca asked quietly. He had his own doubts in the beginning, but from the way everyone spoke and behaved around Yin, he finally assumed that Yin was a boy. Yet, now he began doubting this assessment of his. Was he wrong and Yin was just a boyish, beautiful girl? “It’s either that or…” he thought, then immediately began blushing wildly. He had stumbled upon his seniors doing things like kissing a few times before but despite that, he couldn’t help feeling embarrassed.
“I think so,” Daniel murmured in response. “So boys can do that too, huh,” he added a bit more loudly than he intended to and immediately felt his face grow bright red. Almost everyone in this carriage was a strong practitioner with excellent hearing, so even those softly spoken words of his were probably heard by them. Feeling really hot and bothered, he glanced at Luca and luck just so it had that their gazes met. “Wow, he’s all red too…” he thought and laughed weakly, then partially hid his face behind his legs which he pulled up to his chest.
“That’s quite a reaction,” Laien mused with a laugh and with an amused smile on his face. He had been taken by surprise when Yin kissed him, but he didn’t mind playing around a little in front of others to begin with, so his focus quickly shifted to other things than feeling all shy. “I wonder what’s up with those two? I can understand Lea since Yin is pecking at her, but they are overacting so much,” he thought while glancing at the two beet-red thirteen-year-olds.
It wasn’t all that surprising for Luca and Daniel to be reacting in this way though. Unlike the carefree attitude of the southerners and the simplistic attitude of Ikarians, the customs related to relations between men and women were more stringent in the Ruishi Federation. Although it wasn’t anything strange for one to date and kiss at the age Luca and Daniel were, the customs tended to be more strict in the military. When one added the rigorous training that left one with no strength at the end of every day to this whole balance, it was only natural that there were hardly any youths who still had the energy to pursue the slowly growing needs of their maturing bodies.
Thus, in the Ruishi Federation, most of the youths remained fairly innocent, if not sometimes outright oblivious, until their late teenage years. In most of the big cities it generally was frowned upon for any serious relationships to be developed before the age of fifteen, while in the army it was practically forbidden with the exception for the situations that involved some special circumstances; for example, when the pair had been promised to each other by the heads of their respective noble families, where the future marriage was pretty much a certainty, or when those involved held a high enough social status for their superiors to turn a blind eye to their frivolousness.
However, those exceptions were fairly rare, so in comparison to those who were brought up in the south or in the west, the youths of the Ruishi Federation were usually introduced to the intimate matters a fair few years later. What in other parts of the world was considered normal, like boys and girls joining into couples as early as at the age of eleven or twelve, would be considered a huge scandal in the Ruishi Federation… so Luca and Daniel really couldn’t be blamed for reacting as they did to the unexpected scene that played out before their eyes.
“Um, just to be sure,” Lea finally calmed herself down after a moment and spoke up with a careful, apologetic smile. “You are a boy, right?” she asked with an embarrassed laugh.
Arslan, Albert and Johan could resist no more and chuckled at this question of Lea’s, whereas Reian and Kasha, who had been listening in with their eyes closed, revealed slight smiles. Being thrown into a situation like this one was unavoidable if one wanted to hang around Laien and Yin; one way or another, something silly or something adventure-like would always pop up.
“Well, what do you think?” Yin asked playfully. However, despite his casual attitude, his face was still flushed and he was yet to cool down… mainly because he could tell what Laien was thinking.
“I think you are a boy,” Lea answered, her voice containing a trace of hopefulness. As long as Yin was a boy, she could at least save a bit of her dignity… but if he turned out to be a girl, then she would have lost completely and absolutely on all fronts. It was one thing to be ousted by a younger boy and a whole other thing to be defeated by a younger, incredibly beautiful girl.
“Who knows?” Yin replied with a somewhat wry smile and shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t dislike Lea even after she tried to hit on Laien since he could recognize that she had no ill intentions, but he needed to get back at her a little for trying to take away Laien for herself.
“Oi.” Laien chuckled and placed his hand on Yin’s shoulders, then pulled him closer asked with a smirk. “Since when do you tease people like that, huh?”
Yin chuckled too and responded lightheartedly. “I told you already, no? Your behavior is rubbing off on me.”
“So it’s my fault now, huh?” Laien asked with a laugh and tugged Yin, quickly pulling him down onto the numerous pillows that were lying around everywhere. The two of them proceeded to laugh and wrestle while trying to tickle each other, pretty much following their usual routine while forgetting they were in the center of everyone’s attention.
While those present who were familiar with Laien and Yin weren’t surprised, Lea, Luca and Daniel couldn’t help but feel rather helpless. They weren’t used to having the mood switch so suddenly and in the middle of a conversation. They all felt it was rather improper to act like Laien and Yin were, to ignore everything and everyone around them without a care in the world, but they couldn’t bring themselves to complain to them.
“If you are still wondering, he is a boy,” Reian opened his eyes and said with a smile, taking pity on Lea and those two boys. “We’ve had a chance to confirm when they were bathing-… whoa!” he began saying with a wry smile, but then he was forced to quickly raise his hand and defend from a small ball of ice and water that was flung straight toward his face. Having blocked the attack, he laughed helplessly and circulated his Qi to remove the layer of ice from his hand and forearm. He was only mentioning that accident offhandedly, there was no need for Laien to stare at him so angrily!
*Gulp* The three youths from Lugna swallowed at the same time. Scary… this exchange seemed casual, but that ball of ice and water would have been enough to heavily injure either of them. It was only because the one on the receiving end was an elite martial master of the third rank like Reian that it looked like a harmless play from the bystander’s perspective. Quietly, they promised themselves to not ever try peeking at those two while they were bathing, no matter how curious about Yin’s gender they were.
“Um,” Daniel spoke up hesitatingly, looking like he was fighting himself about whether he should ask the question he wanted to or not. “So, are you two seriously… you know, going out, or are you just playing around?” he asked, his face for some reason reddening all the way up to his ears.
Still lying down next to each other, Laien and Yin glanced at Daniel with curiosity and quite some amusement. Was Daniel embarrassed by the question itself, or was there something more to it that caused him to be so fidgety? They chuckled as they thought about it, then exchanged a glance. How were they supposed to answer this question, exactly? They had pretty much admitted to being lovers when Arslan asked them during that bathing incident, but just thinking of it in those terms was causing both of them to feel quite embarrassed. It wasn’t like either of them asked the other out or anything at any point… everything simply had gone along its natural course.
“Why are you asking though?” Laien asked in the end, maneuvering out of answering Daniel’s question. No matter how easygoing he and Yin were, they still found some things to be too troubling to answer half-heartedly.
The distraction seemed to have worked well enough as Daniel no longer was able to look them in the eye; judging by his agitated reaction, he really had been thinking about something else when asking that question of his… and although Luca didn’t notice anything particularly weird about his best friend’s reaction, Lea certainly did given how used she was to observing people and making character judgments backed on their small perks and habits or the way they talked.
“I was just curious…” Daniel said in a low voice, still refusing to look in anyone’s direction as he focused his gaze on one of the nearby pillows.
“Curious, huh?” Laien asked wryly. “Don’t you mean interested?~” he inquired teasingly and laughed when Daniel began fidgeting as if he wanted to find a place to hide.
“I told you I got that from you,” Yin pointed out with a laugh and grinned at Laien. For a second, the two of them felt like starting to fool around again… but they had been about to train when this situation emerged a few minutes ago, so they wordlessly agreed to leave playing for tomorrow.
“Interested?” Luca asked himself silently and glanced at Daniel. “But interested in wha-… no, no. It can’t be.” He shook his head strongly and denied the possibility, just the thought of it causing him to feel very, very awkward. “Uuh, this is worse than when big sister teases me... much worse,” he complained in his heart. This kind of nervousness, although it was very different, was nearly as bad as when he was making the apology to everyone in the morning.
In contrast to Luca and Daniel, who wished they could just disappear, Lea regained her liveliness as she was met with an incredibly entertaining possibility which she hadn’t ever considered before. She revealed a devilish smile, already looking forward to all the fun she could have when teasing Luca and Daniel about it, but she decided not to start immediately. The emotions of those two were already too heated up at the moment; it was better to let them calm down before teasing them again.
With Luca and Daniel falling into a few-minute-long silence, the atmosphere within the carriage quickly cooled down. However, just as everyone was either about to engross themselves in training, daydreaming or sleeping, a loud shout was carried over by the wind and echoed quite a few times in the valley-like area they were travelling through.
“Stop!... Stop…! Stop… Stop… stop… sto… p…”
“What’s up with that?” Laien complained unhappily. He just began concentrating and falling into the meditative state, but yet another disruption appeared. He couldn’t believe it was something like mountain bandits unless those people were the stupidest and unluckiest bastards in the world. So, the only option left was… a patrol of some kind? The fact that this shout sounded quite overbearing worked against this theory though. After all, who in the Ruishi Federation would dare to order one of the country’s generals around in such a tone?
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Stop the horses!”
Julien’s shout came rolling through the road a few seconds later, causing the whole caravan to come to a quick halt.
“You might want to come out and see…” Sirius spoke with the aid of spiritual energy from the coachman’s spot, sending his voice into the carriage. “If I remember correctly, those are the banners of one of those two Great Generals of the Ruishi Federation,” he added calmly. He saw no reason to be nervous even if one of the Great Generals appeared, so the tone of his voice reflected his state of mind.
“Tch,” Laien clicked his tongue and stood up. “it’s not like I will be able to focus on training soon anyway,” he complained and headed outside. With him leading the way, Yin and the rest of the youths and adults from the carriage tagged along and went to the forefront where Julien, Jasmine and the rest of the horsemen were.
“Which Great General is that?” Laien asked casually after stopping in front of Julien and Jasmine. He looked at the oncoming group of… thirty-six riders, if he counted correctly? It seemed that moving with exactly thirty-six men in an elite unit was pretty common in the Ruishi Federation. They were still around two kilometers away, but he could vaguely make out the figure of a woman who was heading this unit. If he was guessing correctly, she should be that Great General Sirius mentioned.
“It’s Victoria,” Julien answered sourly. “What is this lapdog doing here? She rarely ever leaves the capital,” he added with a slight frown on his face. From his limited experience, he could tell that a random appearance of a Magistrate or a Great General more often than not wouldn’t bode well. It would be the more so true when someone uptight like Victoria was the one making the appearance.
“It there something wrong with her?” Laien inquired. He definitely preferred to keep up this chit-chat for a bit than to stand in silence for a minute or two until Victoria and her thirty-five riders closed the distance and arrived before them. “Did they really need to tell us to stop so soon? What a waste of time,” he grumbled quietly. He really enjoyed training and meditating on his insights, so he couldn’t help but be frustrated. Being interrupted once for the sake of something amusing wasn’t that bad, but by the looks of it, this time the event would be more annoying rather than amusing.
“Let’s just say that we don’t get along well,” Julien replied with a helpless laugh. “She’s the type that always follows the rules to the letter and obeys all orders of the Grand Elders. You won’t be able to get through to her no matter what, so don’t bother trying… it’s a waste of time,” he advised, having learned a thing or two about the character of Laien and his friends. If possible, he would rather avoid the unnecessary trouble.
“Sure,” Laien shrugged his shoulders. “As long as she isn’t unreasonable, there will be no need to argue,” he added, thus causing Julien to shake his head. Didn’t he just finish telling Laien that Victoria wasn’t a reasonable person? Well, maybe he should have pointed out that the Council was usually the unreasonable one and it was them who made the laws and rules.
“What do you think they came here for?” Arslan inquired, feeling a bit worried about their own well-being. What if they were told to leave the country immediately? What would they do then? Of course, given what Jasmine and Julien had told him, a possibility of that happening was extremely low if not non-existent, but he couldn’t help but worry a little regardless.
“I could speculate,” Julien began saying. “But there’s no time. They are already fairly close. We should wait and see what this woman wants from us,” he finished saying and sighed ever so slightly. Out of all the Generals and Great Generals, he disliked Victoria the most. Why did it need to be her who came blocking their way and not someone else? Eh.
“General Julien,” the black-haired, black-eyed, dignified-looking woman greeted Julien formally and briefly. “You should have welcomed the Grand Yimar Mustafa’s son, Arslan, and received five thousand refugees from the Faren Yimarate. From what I’m seeing, the news ought to be true. You will now follow us. We will take you to the Council of Grand Elders,” she informed, toward the latter half speaking as if she was stating an unarguable fact.
“Do we need your escort?” Julien asked resignedly. “We were going to the capital anyway,” he added and suppressed a sigh. What were those Grand Elders thinking? Did they not want to thank him for bringing Arslan over so bad that they would go out of their way to send Victoria over to receive the boy before he arrived? He never could understand what those old freaks were thinking.
“We won’t be going to the capital,” Victoria said unconcernedly, though with a hint of displeasure present in her voice. “We are going to the Grand Camp, one hundred kilometers north from here. All thirteen Grand Elders are there and they very much want to see Mustafa’s son,” she explained without bothering to go into the details of the situation.
“Wait a second, Grand Camp? What is that and why is the whole council there?” Julien asked immediately. He had a really bad feeling about this course of events, but he wished he was wrong about it.
Victoria snorted in response, the way she looked at Julien resembling how one would look at something incredibly repugnant. “All the unneeded refugees had been gathered into the Grand Camp to prevent an increase in the social unrest. The Council is debating what should be done with them. That’s all we need to know,” she explained, undoubtedly repeating the words she had heard when she had received the orders some weeks or months ago.
“WHAT was done?” Julien asked, his previously placid tone turning into an extremely angry one. “Don’t tell me they are planning to expel all of them from the country? That’s crazy! Do you know what Ikarians are going to do to them the moment they set foot on their lands? Did those old gooses forget the Bloody Dusk?” he kept asking, getting more riled up with each question. He couldn’t forgive those Ikarians who slaughtered millions upon millions of innocent civilians, but if those crazy Grand Elders did something like that…! He would no longer be able to bring himself to obey them!
“None of that matters,” Victoria said calmly and rather disdainfully. “That attitude of yours is the reason why the gag order had been issued,” she added angrily, but soon came to regret that she allowed her tongue to slip. It was unlike her to care about whatever people who weren’t her subordinates did, but Julien had always been one of the few who could get on her nerves badly enough for her to start acting strangely. Though, considering that she couldn’t stand everything about his attitude and actions, it wasn’t all that surprising to her that she was getting angry with him on each step and on each possible occasion.
“Gag order, those bastards!” Julien cursed through his teeth, some killing intent beginning to seep out of his body. His Cherubim weren’t all that much calmer either; they looked like they would pounce upon the first person who challenged them, akin to wild beasts who thirsted for blood. The men and women of Julien’s unit all shared one common trait; passionate hatred of Ikarians! Most of them were experts who were forced to flee the other three Euleanian countries too. Just learning about the plans of the Council and that whole gag order was making them mad and furious.
“Just to remind you, General Julien,” Victoria spoke up again, this time without allowing as much of her emotions to show. “If you disobey the Council, you will be punished. If you attempt to avoid the punishment, you will be captured and possibly put to death,” she stated coldly, with a clear hint of threat present deep within her eyes.
Julien might be the rising star of the Federation in terms of strength and his results in defending the border were undeniable, but he was still far from being her match. She wasn’t all that much older than him either… and she was already half a step into the seventh Realm of Heroes in martial cultivation. If they were to fight, she was confident in crushing Julien in ten exchanges. Her subordinates might be inferior to Julien’s people overall… but it wouldn’t matter as long as she defeated him swiftly and joined the battle afterward. She and her elites alone were enough to subdue Julien and his Cherubim if needed; she was fully confident of that.
“… I do realize that, thank you,” Julien said grudgingly but didn’t argue with Victoria, knowing fully well how pointless it would be.
“There should be a way for those five thousand to stay, no?” Laien brought up in the moment of silence. “The refugees in Lugna weren’t called to that Grand Camp too, so there should be room for negotiations?” he inquired, but to his shock, what he was faced with wasn’t a reply but the hooves of a horse of one of Victoria’s men. However, he was thankfully strong enough to effortlessly take two quick steps back and avoid being trampled upon by the steed. No matter how excellent of a horse that man was riding, it was exceedingly rare for any magical beasts to reach the Realm of Heroes, so horses on their own were unlikely to ever pose any threat to someone as strong as him.
“Are you crazy?” Laien asked angrily, very well aware that the atmosphere had turned very thick due to that man’s actions. Yin was angry, Arslan was angry… so was Julien and the rest of those present. “A martial master of the fourth rank… I would have killed this horse of his, but I don’t want to fight with that woman. She should be more or less on Julien’s level,” he thought discontentedly.
“What do you think you are doing?” Jasmine stepped forward, allowing her powerful aura to leak in abundance, causing even the military-trained horses of Victoria’s unit to start neighing and backing off in fright. Despite her poor performance in the last battle, Jasmine was one of the ten lieutenants of the White Guard! If she was allowed to fight freely, she alone would be able to put an end to Victoria and all of those experts who were accompanying her. It would take some effort on her part, but even if she was met with another fire-element marital master with strong defense, she would be able to avoid him and kill everyone else first, then tire him out and finish him off.
“Martin, explain yourself,” Victoria said composedly, appearing not to be taking either side as of yet, what came as surprising to Jasmine and Laien, and the others who were on their side.
“This kid disrespected you, my Lord,” the middle-aged man, Martin, answered honestly. “He didn’t ask for a permission to speak and he addressed you casually, my Lord. I thought he deserved to be taught a lesson for his impudent behavior.”
“Taught a lesson by being trampled over?” Jasmine asked, her hands truly itching to strangle that poor caricature of a man. A martial master of the fourth rank… if she attacked swiftly, she could kill him before he understood what in the world was going on.
“A few broken bones at most,” Martin replied dismissingly. The kid would suffer some, but he would probably be healed by a water-element spiritual master either now or in a few days. He just couldn’t see what he had attempted to do as all that bad; he didn’t try to kill him, after all.
When Laien heard the man’s response, he laughed inwardly. However, he also needed to quickly reach out with his hand and block Yin’s way as he noticed that Yin was about to butcher the horse Martin was riding on. “Let it be, he’s not worth it,” he said quietly, but still loudly enough for those near him to hear.
Yet, before Martin could do or say anything else, Victoria asked without beating around the bush while looking at Laien. “And you, boy, who are you?”
Laien glanced at the cold beauty, then considered his answer for a brief moment. Should he tell her who exactly he was? “I’m no one important enough for you to care, Great General,” he said in the end but was unable to prevent the slight smirk from appearing on his face. Still, Victoria either didn’t notice it or didn’t care as she simply nodded contentedly.
“Since nothing big happened, this matter will be left at that,” Victoria stated emotionlessly. “Next time, be sure to ask before you speak and remember to use my official title when you refer to me, boy,” she reminded offhandedly but all in all, she didn’t pay Laien much attention. As far as she was concerned, the behavior of a random kid at a random place wasn’t worth getting angry over.
“You want to leave it like that?” Jasmine exclaimed, having quite some trouble with keeping her temper at bay. “You think that trying to heavily injure anyone who speaks impolitely to you is fine? Without asking about the person’s background prior to that too?” she questioned stubbornly, refusing to sweep the matter under the rug. If Victoria knew who Laien was, then she wouldn’t be speaking in this way! This boy was still young, but in terms of social status alone, he wasn’t one whit inferior to Victoria herself! And even if he wasn’t, then what that man did was wrong!
“Didn’t we already settle that?” Victoria asked with a sigh, once again feeling baffled at another person’s reaction. How come people were always unreasonable around her? It was no longer happening so often ever since she became a General and then a Great General, but it still did occur from time to time. “I’ve taken a step back and not insisted on punishing that boy since he appears to belong to your group and not to be just some run-of-the-mill refugee. Where do you see the problem?” she asked despite knowing that she wouldn’t understand the reasoning behind the answer she was about to receive.
“You…” Jasmine clenched her firsts. She was beginning to think that no matter what she said, she wouldn’t get through to this woman. The easiest way to get some satisfaction out of it would be to reveal some information about Laien, but Laien himself opted not to do so. As a result, she could only grit her teeth and resist the urge to punch that wench square into the face.
“I do see a problem,” Arslan joined in. The tone of his voice was stern as he looked up, directly at Victoria’s face. “Laien is my dear friend and a person who saved my life. I don’t want to see your subordinates trying to harm him,” he said angrily. He wanted to say so from the very beginning, but he had trouble collecting his thoughts and creating a coherent sentence that wouldn’t sound stupid. Now that he made use of the opportunity and said what he wanted, he felt much better than a moment ago.
Hearing Arslan say so, Victoria raised her eyebrows. She gave Laien a look and for a second, wondered what could have happened for Mustafa’s son to have been saved by him… but she quickly stopped thinking about it. How it happened mattered not; it wasn’t relevant to her duties. “That changes things. Martin, you will be punished with twenty lashes for what you did,” she said without much emotion and nodded apologetically toward Arslan and Laien.
After Victoria’s words fell, everyone became silent for a little bit. As for Martin, his face drained of blood and he shivered despite himself. Twenty military lashes… he was about to lose some flesh from his back, wasn’t he? And he wouldn’t even be able to request healing. He wanted to argue and plead, but he knew that the moment he uttered a word of complaint, his punishment would be doubled. There was no way he could change Victoria’s decision by arguing with her. Thus, he did the only thing he could and kept his mouth shut.
“I swear if I find out that those brats are lying about this, I will make that Laien kid pay!” he promised himself, not planning to let this humiliation go.