The Barista Manor’s domain is located in the southeastern corner of the Altaira Kingdom, close to the border between the Kingdom and the Theocracy. The place was a remote open plain located in the Barista Manor’s domain, several kilometers away from the manor.
There in the middle of nowhere, under a moonless and starless night, far away from eyes to witness, a white portal violently tore itself out of thin air.
Instants later, several dozen men, each wearing gray heavy-battle armor and armed with full-heavy weaponry, walked out of the portal.
It was as the last men walked out the portal that Slain, Austen, Shania, and Aryan came out, closing the portal behind them.
"This is here, the Barista Manor domain," Aryan announced.
Shlain, despite his usual mean and unwavering expression, smiled contentedly as he watched the portal vanish and the location they had arrived at.
He looked at his men, then at the two youngsters that had followed them, before reaching out for Aryan's shoulder, who was clearly not expecting that act, and saying, "On behalf of everyone, thank you for having taken us here."
"It was nothing, Sir," the boy answered.
The height difference between the two made Aryan, in comparison to Shlain, look like a little child, which he still was in Shawn’s mind, for a few years ago, the boy was merely a little child when they first queried his teleportation magic.
Shlain could also say the same for the girl next to him.
"Now, you two can stay here. We’ll take care of everything." Shlain was not even finished when he was interrupted.
"I’ll go with you." The girl, Shania, interrupted, resolutely.
"I, too, will go," followed the boy to the girl’s words.
Seeing the resolute expression on their faces, Shlain gave in, "Fine then," before turning toward his men, announcing loud and clear, "Brothers, tonight, in their lands we march." Tonight, in ashes and blood, we avenge two of our fallen beloved brothers. Let’s make this place their burial ground!"
In response to these words, the brothers of the Erstwin brotherhood let out a mighty roar before marching toward the Barista Manor.
That night, the barista witnessed true carnage.
***
Blood pooling on the ground, screams spreading across the domain, Shlain walked in the middle of the entrance room when, from a higher floor, a corpse grotesquely fell flat next to him.
Followed closely behind by Shania and Aryan, Shlain made his way to the upper room, to soon enough reach what seemed to be a door leading to a desk room.
Several men of the brotherhood were already gathered at the entrance, waiting only for Shlain’s words to enter. With a mighty kick, Shlain blew the door wide open, revealing within, sitting behind his desk, an old man.
Shlain's face lit up the moment he set eyes on the person.
"I did not expect to see you personally here," the man behind the desk said.
"I did not expect your Barrista Corporation to be stupid enough to betray us." Schlain vented out.
As he spoke, looking at the people behind Shlain, a revelation came to the old man, before he remarked, "You... you didn’t come here under her orders."
"Indeed," Shlain said, approaching the man, "Did you really think that these men lent to you by the Church would be enough to allow you to escape the flame of our Brotherhood’s retribution?"
"Seemingly realizing the truth, the man spoke, "I see, you really." You really didn’t come here on her orders, but for revenge. What will the one you call "the mother" think of this? Is she even aware of this expedition? " The old man shouted at the others behind Shlain as if to make them understand their mistake, but none of them showed a glimpse of reaction to his words.
The man was right. Indeed, this expedition was made behind The Mother’s back, to avenge one of their fallen comrades.
"What she thinks of this doesn’t matter here." Reaching the desk, Shlain flipped the table over across the room. "We are here for your traitorous ass."
"You can’t kill me, she stil-"
The man, still speaking, was one-handedly grabbed by the neck by Shlain. "If you think I can’t kill you because of the deal you've made with the kingdom and the Douglas, you’re wrong." By the neck, Shlain lifted the man off his chair.
The man, realizing from Schlain’s face, the veracity of his claims, his completion went grim.
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"The man who died because of your fault, the one who died because of your goddamn betrayal, do you remember him?" Shlain asked, as he tightened his grasp around the man’s neck.
"I do…"
"Fine, because you see, that man was one of my closest comrades. We shed blood and broke bones together."
"I still have..." the man, suffocating, spoke. His eyes were devoid of any trace of confidence; instead, they were now filled with genuine fear, fear of death.
Yet, Shlain, deaf to his words, lifted the man even higher above the ground.
"His name was Vans, and you took him away from us, which is why you will pay for it."
A gruesome snapping sound reverberated across the room before being followed by the noise of a lifeless body falling on the ground, but in between the two sounds there was a third one that took away everyone in the room’s attention.
The sound came from a large closet in the corner of the room.
Austen volunteered to see where the noise came from but, motioned by Shlain, remained on standby while Shlain went to the closet.
He was at a close distance of two meters away from the closet when its doors blasted open, revealing a small figure coming charging at him with a scream.
Though it came unannounced, Shlain, instinctively and swiftly, sent a kick onto the little silhouette before reaching onto his shirt’s collar in the middair and lifting him like he earlier did with the old man.
"A child?" Shlain muttered, surprised, just like the other people in the room.
Indeed, what was earlier hidden inside the closet was a young boy.
For this expedition, they were expecting to meet resistance, even one of the Fourteen, but not the presence of a child.
Tears, spit flooding his face, "Don't touch me!" the boy screamed, struggling to free himself from Shlain's grasp, "You killed Father! You killed him!" he yelled, clawing and biting at Shlain's arm.
"Father?"
Shlain did not know who that child was, but from what he said, it seems that the child was the man’s son. He ignored how old the child was, but from the way he attacked him, Shlain could tell that he hadn't yet undergone coronation, meaning that he was no younger than ten years old.
Shlain stared at the child's eyes, and saw a very familiar sight within them. Something that left him nothing but speechless.
"I will kill you! I will kill you!" Barring his murderous eyes on the others behind Shlain, he raged,"I will kill you all!"
"Shlain..." Austen started.
Only his brother’s words brought Shlain back to reality.
He, for a moment, looked at his brother, then at the young people next to him, whose expressions were ghastly pale, before ordering, "Austen…"
"Yes?"
"Take the Little Missie and Aryan out of this manor."
His words triggered strong reactions from the three.
"Master!"
"Shlain!"
Shlain looked at his brother and repeated, "Take them out of this place. Don’t make me repeat it a third time. "
Despite Austen displaying clear reticence, that being that, he still complied with his older brother to take the duo out of the room, who, not without protest, were forced to leave the room.
With the door closing behind the trio, Shlain was left alone with the boy, whom he released from his grasp. The boy fell on the ground, crying, unable to even stand, and for several seconds was confused as to what to do, but then, as his eyes ventured to his father’s lifeless body, the boy crawled toward him.
Mourning his father’s death, the boy cried and screamed before, as Shlain approached, throwing him a deathly stare.
"I will kill you! I will ki-"
"I know." Shlain interrupted.
"...?"
"I will kill you all, I know that. After all, I’ve lived it. I was roughly your age, when I made the same oath to the nobles who took our parents away from us."
"..."
"Unlike you, being born a child of light, I didn’t go through baptismal. I had everything in my hand to start honoring my oath that very day. From that day, till the day the last one of them, from my very own hand, fell. I, just like you said, killed them all." Looking down at the boy, Shlain commented, "You may hate me. But we are the same, you and I."
"What are you saying?!"
"I, more than anyone else, understand what you feel. Today, to you, your father has been taken away unjustly in front of your very own eyes while all you could do was helplessly watch. I know how it feels."
"I, just like you, made that oath." Shlain looked down at his hand before adding, "The only difference between us would be that they, who robbed me of everything, were stupid enough to think that I would ever forget or forgive them, but their worst mistake was to let me live when they had the opportunity to kill me."
Taking a deep breath in, Shlain asked, "So I will ask you, boy, tell me, will you, unlike me, forget that which happened tonight, that oath and forgive me and the ones you saw earlier and promised to seek retribution from?"
A silence took place, before the boy spoke out his answer.
"I see… we can’t do that, don’t we?"
***
By the time Shlain emerged from the manor, everyone was already waiting for him in the manor’s front yard.
"Shlain," Austen called.
"Master?" Shania followed.
But Shlain walked past them. His words were first addressed to his men, "You’ve done well, everybody. Our brother is avenged. It is time. It is time now for us to take our leave. "
Shlain threw a wordless yet meaningful stare at Aryan. Aryan understood that he was expecting to open a portal back to the fortress, but first, he asked, "Mr. Shlain, the boy, what about him?"
Upon being asked that question, Shlain, as he did earlier, reached for Aryan’s shoulder, and this time, felt from his touch that it was slightly but still noticeably shaking.
"We are leaving Aryan. There is nothing else here in the Barista Domain for us left to be done."
"But..."
Shlain interrupted, "What needed to be done was done. So now, I believe we should really leave."
Aryan stared at Shlain, then threw a gaze at Shania, whose face was as pale as his, before replying, "Understood, Mister Shlain," and summoning a portal that would take them back to the Aristocracy fortress.