3. THE LEGEND OF A HERO_LYCAN's Short Story Collection

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THE LEGEND OF A HERO

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I myself was the son of a corrupt noble. To quench his greed, my father took from the people whose he was supposed to represent and protect. After his wrongdoings were found, he was judged guilty and imprisoned. That, was long before I had been born. The father I met had no strength left. Though he had already served his sentence and was free, he was shackled to a seat in his poor-cared house, like a king waiting for his inevitable defeat. He consistently preached to me about the importance of taking the reins of life to become independent of the world, even when moments after he went on muttering about how unluckily his life decayed beyond his control.

What I did learn from him is that there are no easy comings, all in life must be fought to be conquered. Consequences come from how you go about it.

That’s why I strived to study more about the world I was living in. I often spent my time reading through history books of important people from the past. For me, it was like a puzzle game. Connecting and understanding how well the events played out was, and still is, what keeps me in awe. That’s why, the soonest I got the chance, I traveled abroad to further my studies. Thanks to my great performance and good relations with my masters, I could participate in one of my academy’s field researches.

It was a place midst of a great desert of yellow sand where they were excavating new relics. But our mission was to gather information about our past, not to seek great magical powers like we have now. The latter, however, was what we encountered. During an observation round on the insides of a pyramid, one of my party members accidentally discovered a mechanism made of stone that broke apart and rumbled the whole place. The next thing we knew, we woke up on an unknown surface. One that was very similar to where we came from but the sand was red like rusted metal. We quickly understood that it wasn’t the same place, but actually… ANOTHER WORLD!>

The tip of a short stick drags at the side of the dirt path, and following in wobbling steps, the pouting young girl is still unsure of believing any of that crap.

The grey-bearded man giggles in shame.

We were ten people. Seven of us students. And no matter how much we theorized or wandered in that red desert, none of us knew what to do. Our only guidance was a toy compass and the direction of Northeast. For hours below the strong rays of the sun, we found nothing. It wasn’t long before the first of us collapsed from heatstroke. Having to drag an unconscious body only made the travel slower and, consequently, more fell.

About half of us had died by the third day. Without any food or resources in general, all our hopes were thinned out. Even when something cut the sky above, we were immediately indecisive if it was either help or a mere delusion. You see, there was a ship that could fly in the sky from our previous world that was very similar to what we saw, but the way it moved in the air was different, much more like a creature of some kind. And a big one at that. We didn’t know the name of it then, but it was a black dwarf wyvern.

I didn’t care about the intentions of that flying silhouette, all I wished was for it to come down. As weird as it may sound, the fate of dying or being rescued was equally desirable when compared to spending one more day in that endless desert. When it came down, my body was so glad that I fell to the sand. I wasn’t even awake to see that the creature was in fact mounted by one Neiranian hunter. One who would wrap us to his wyvern and fly to his village, saving our lives for at least another day>

The little girl bravely swung the short stick, her target being a made-up memory of a humanoid cat seated on her open window and licking its claws.

The old man stares at her artistic display in curiosity.

The girl freezes immediately.

The old man keeps staring at her for a moment but he turns forward and resumes walking.

Well, they first threw us into a dark jail, one with no peek of the sun, and fed us food and water. Since they were taking care of us, we tried to dialogue and be as little of a problem for them. Since we didn’t speak the same language, it was quite a hardship to have our reasonings pass through. One stupid colleague of mine, in fact, thought that a cat-lady who often fed us was falling in love with him. In the end… well, she was the one tying our hands with rope and was the most eager to push us towards a giant boiling pot. Her salivating face made it clear that her attentiveness was never upon my friend’s charms, but instead on his “being a meal” potential.

I didn’t even care that we were about to die, I had to punch him in the face and yell how stupid he was.

Luckily, the village folk started an argument on how to prepare their food moments before the jump to our deaths. After some yells and snarls, they drew their weapons against each other and blood spilled. The cat-lady holding our ropes was met with a stray spear piercing her forehead and we found ourselves free.

But without organization, we could do just as much. We laid down to protect ourselves and argued about what to do in the middle of the chaos. But each one of us came up with a different idea. The stupid friend I talked about decided to not move and pretend to be dead, two others sprinted out to the desert before we could reach a conclusion, and me and a girl ran towards the insides of their village. It was the first time I felt like a hero. The cat-folk were so occupied killing each other that they didn’t even realize one of their mounts went missing. It was a little hard to control it at first, but after a wyvern takes flight it simply travels by itself>

The old man straightens his back and tightens his grip on the imaginary reins in front of him.

Her eyes shine as much as her bright smile.

He nervously looks at the little girl’s deflating spirit. He extended his hand to her.

The girl’s smile warms up again and they shake little fingers.

All I can remember was the red desert from above, then we found a green forest and lived there for about a week or two. And I must say, that girl accompanying me was a real pain in my spine. I mean, literally. She had an excuse to kick my back every single time. Can you believe that once, she went missing for a long time and I ventured out in the forest worried sick to search for her, only to find her bathing with our wyvern? Even before I could turn to leave or apologize, she flew to sidekick my back and sent me to bite the grass. Later she explained something about the creature being too dirty and not wanting to ruin her clothes, but what a disrespect nonetheless. The least she could’ve done was warn me she was going to do it, right? Am I crazy to think that was common sense??

Uh-hum. Anyways. We both knew that jungle life wasn’t for us so we moved little by little farther away from it. One day, we found a city named… Joit… Jonh… Joarn?… something like that. I don’t remember the name. And I don’t know it exactly by the fact that they… well, weren’t too receptive to having a wyvern cross over their walls. When we came flying over it, a bunch of balistas shot us and we were forced to retreat.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I remember that we had to ambush a lone traveling merchant for information. After trading our wyvern security services for food and travel expenses with the guy, we went towards a bigger city, one in which such creatures were a more frequent property. It was the capital city named… Tar…? Toar…? Thor…?>

What a place it was! I still remember our first quests in the city to earn money. There we stopped a major criminal faction that controlled the capital’s pubs, hunted strong hordes of monsters down with our newfound powers, and gained a reputation with the royals by helping others in need… Ahhh~, we lived there for about six months. Before it was only two of us, but my party had risen to six by then.

Such a shame… that one day it went all to flames.

After clearing a monster-spawning dungeon that had appeared in the vicinities, we went back only to find the city blown to pieces and engulfed in fire. We rushed to the front gates and tried to pass through the many desperate escaping from the invasion. The invasion of a single man. One who was flying around the city and setting it ablaze to quench his anger with the death of others. The stench, the heavy rubble falling, and the deformations in flesh… How terrible it was, those scenes still scar me to this day—

Oh!—Look at that! We are almost there. Just a bit more walking downhill and we’ll reach our mission>

The old man gazes at the scenery with serenity, taking a deep breath in. From the dirt path they were taking until now, the bushes from the side give way to a distant flat field with small white flowers, the sunrays warm the place and a calm breeze rustles the tall grass.

The little girl on the side slaps his arm.

He taps his chin to remember where he had stopped.

The old man frowns and scratches his grey beard.

The old man resumed walking downhill on the dirt path.

The little girl’s energy leaves her body and she drops to the ground. She glares daggers at the lost old man.

She gets up with the support of her short stick.

The old man looks up to think about it for a couple of seconds.

The girl looks blankly at him.

The young girl doesn’t even bother to show her frustration with the rain of spoilers.

The Thorlanotche was, and still is, the most important country of Solenia. When the idea that such a god existed scattered, everyone feared that he would either destroy or control the world. However, it was all baseless rumors at that time, we knew a threat existed but not that the culprit was this god, nor if the intentions of this god were evil at all, so external countries had many excuses to not involve themselves in it.

But as the desert geography’s decay got more apparent, monsters became stronger and more frequent, and cults all around the world became more active, it became obvious that many gifted had already infiltrated high positions of power in most countries. And by using Thorlanotche as a major example, others were influenced to go against the elimination of that god. So, we had to force them out. That was the revolution.

The idea was to overthrow the power from them as quickly as we possibly could, remove all gifted nobles from the board, and secure an alliance with the other countries against such threat. It was indeed a hard thing to pull off, they hid themselves quite too well and their powers allowed them to know almost everything that happened in the world. So first, we had to get them into a corner before catching them. With coordination, we stroke all of them down at the same time. My target was a sneaky and powerful one, one which I investigated thoroughly before revealing his hidden mad personality. As he tried to escape we fought in the air with our wyverns. It was quite a showdown. I almost died but triumphed nonetheless. I was left unconscious and my wyvern was able to fly by itself to land me in a safe spot to be later rescued. Poor thing didn’t make it, unfortunately. Thinking about it now… I never owned another wyvern since then>