“Speak up!! Why did you commit such a thing?!”
Seeing his brother keeping his silence over the matter, the older brother’s anger rose. He gave more strength to his grip which slowly choked Ashv. Ashv, who felt the pressure on his neck then, spoke.
“I-I don’t know!! I was just hunting the sash for breakfast as you ordered. I never did something like that. Gan is lying, brother!!”
Ashv lied, blatantly. He knew very well what he did, but he feigned ignorance. He didn’t want to, more like never wanted to accept the accusation against him. He felt like what he did was right and his brother and Gan were the ones who were wrong.
“I did nothing wrong. I was just hunting as you told me to. What did I do wrong to get treated like this?”
“This brat...”
The older brother gets angrier as he raised his hand and was going to slap Ashv, but before that, Gan interjected.
“Young master, please calm down!”
Gan quickly held back the older brother as he was going to slap his brother. Gan, knowing that the situation is going out of the hand slowly tried to meddle in their conversation. He freed Ashv from the older brother’s grip and tried to drag away the older brother from Ashv.
“Young master, forgive him. HE is your brother!! How can you raise your hand against him?”
“Then what do you want me to do? Listen to his rubbish lies? Listen here, you piece of shit!!”
Freeing himself from Gan’s hold, the brother again caught Ashv’s collar and slammed him even harder against the wall. He was fuming with rage as he looked down at his brother.
“Make no mistake!! I knew something was wrong with you, but I ignored it because I thought you are young and that you are just being all quiet. But that doesn’t mean you will fall to the level of those bastard knights. If I ordered to hunt something for our breakfast, just do it in one go. How dare you go so far as to torture a creature like that? Who gave you the right, huh?”
“I... wasn’t torturing them!!”
To his brother’s barrage of questions, Ashv spoke. He looked into his brother’s eyes, albeit with fear.
“I-I was trying to kill them in one go, b-but they were struggling and I couldn’t kill them properly, so I just tried to scare them a little.”
Again, it was a lie. He was not trying to scare them or anything, he was playing with them. He never had the intention of killing the sash in one shot and brought it to the camp fast. He wanted to enjoy their screams, their agony, and their helplessness. But accidentally, he got interrupted by Gan.
He thought he had convinced his brother with his words as his brother quiet down. He also let go of his collar while he closed his eyes. Ashv thought that his brother finally has forgiven him, but he was wrong as the older brother turned around and looked at Gan.
“Gan, describe the situation to me again.”
“!!”
“Young Master, please let...”
“GAN!! Describe the situation that you saw to me again.”
Gan tried to end the farce that ensued in the room, but the young master in front of him wanted nothing to end. Filled with rage, he shouted at Gan, wanting to hear the details of what Gan saw.
Ashv tried to make eye contact with Gan, signaling him to lie and make him dissuade the matter, but Gan, out of the sense of his duty, spoke.
“... Young Master Ashv, when I found him, was holding the head of a sash, presumably a male while he was covered in its blood, smiling like a manic and looking at two other sashs, one small and one of average height. The sashs were cowering in fear while the young master was watching them.”
“Then what happened after that?”
“Brother, he is ly-”
Colors slowly disappeared from Ashv’s face as Gan thoroughly explained every single detail to his brother, betraying him.
He tried to speak up, but he felt a gaze on him. A gaze so heavy that it choked him and didn’t let him speak up at all. The gaze was of his brother. After that, Gan continued to speak further.
“... After I stopped him, the two sashs then collected the head of the sash and...”
“And?”
Gan hesitated, as he knew what transpired afterward would surely stir the matter more and it would not just end with a simple argument.
“... Young master, please forgive hi-”
“I said AND?!”
Gan tried to persuade the young master, but the older brother was adamant. One thing he couldn’t endure is the duty their father taught them about being broken like this. He thought his brother was young and careless, so might have done something by fault, but the more he heard from Gan, his heart slumped even more.
He didn’t believe Gan at first, but as he slowly noticed his younger brother’s action, he slowly realized that the one in the wrong here was not Gan but his brother. He looked at Gan and pleaded to him.
“Gan, please CONTINUE!!”
Left with no choice, Gan then spoke out of the rest of the things.
“... The two of them placed the head with the torso of the sash and... prayed. They... cried and prayed in front of us, wanting the dead sash to be revived again.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“....”
A chilling silence descended upon the room. The three of them just stood there silently. Just then, Ashv tried to speak.
“... Ah-Haha Brother, why care about animals? They are just our food, just igno-”
SLAP!
“Arghh!!”
Out of nowhere, his brother slapped him so hard that a tooth flew out of his mouth.
“SHUT. YOUR. DAMN. MOUTH.”
Ashv stumbled and fell to the floor. The slap shook his brain too much that he experienced light-headedness. Blood slowly dripped from his lips, signifying that the damage by the slap was more than he expected.
The inner wall on the left side of his cheek tore apart just by the force of the slap. After a while, he looked at his brother, but was forced to look down again. His brother looked at him with a distrusted and disgusted gaze, which showed what his brother was really feeling at the time.
“Gan, prepare the horses right now. We are leaving for the county.”
“W-What do you mean, young master?”
“That is what it means. We are leaving. We will drop this bastard back at home.”
His sudden orders stunned both Gan and Ashv. With much trouble and passing countless obstacles and hurdles, they have finally laid their feet in the land where they will establish their guild. But now, the older brother wants them to return back.
“I cannot create a guild with a bastard like him who has this much darkness hidden within him. Did you see that despite all that, how he is laughing and feigning ignorance? He will only sully the name of my guild and our lineage.”
“But young master-”
“This is an order, Gan. Father must know of his disgusting act. Only he can now discipline him.”
“!!”
Hearing about his father, Ashv trembled in fright. All over his body, hairs stood up and his face paled up in an instant.
Getting beat up by his brother, he can accept that, but his father is a no. His father is more strict and scarier than his brother. Even though his brother has pride in being the descendant of a great lineage of the warrior class, his father was beyond being just prideful.
His father has based his identity based on his lineage. His father cannot bear someone who breaks the moral law of the warrior class, so what will happen if his son would break it? He cannot dare to imagine what will happen to him when his father will hear of this.
‘He will kill me for sure. He will thoroughly kill me ’
In front of his father, his brother looked like an angel. His slap felt like the blessing of the goddess in front of what his father would do to him. So now, having no choice, he dropped his pride.
“B-Brother!! Please forgive me!”
He coiled his hands around his brother’s legs and begged to his brother for mercy.
“I was wrong!! I just thought of playing with them a little. I never had the intention of breaking the moral law of our family.”
Again, he spouted lies. He knew exactly that what he was doing was wrong, yet he commit that heinous act. He remembered the moral laws of their family, yet he tortured the sashs cruelly.
“Please brother. I will do anything. I will claim nothing of the guild you will create. You can have anything you want. You can have the share of the inheritance too, but please anything but that. Please don’t tell father. I beg you!!”
Ashv cried and begged for mercy. He was ready to give up the share of the guild they both would create. Their father sends both of them to create a guild together in which they both will have an equal share.
But now having a problem, a big one that stands tall in front of him, he thought of bribing his brother by giving his rights of the guild to his brother, thinking his brother might forgive him.
With a cheerful face, hoping that his brother would now forgive him, he looked up, only to find the face of his brother, looking at him.
“So...you have an image of me like this?”
His brother now showed no expression and just looked at his brother. His eyes lost the anger that they contained seconds ago. Now, there were no emotions. His face now looked devoid of any emotions.
“You think I am after your rights? Is that correct, Ashv?”
“B-Brother, t-that’s-”
“Enough!”
His brother shouted, but this time, there was no anger behind his voice, nor any other emotion. It felt like the voice of someone who has lost something. He turned back and came towards Gan, held his hands, and bowed to him.
“Gan... Please!! Listen to me and pack the bags. We are going back.”
“...Fine, Young Master”
Gan felt his young master’s hand trembling. He knew exactly what the older brother was going through. He wanted to console him, but no words came out. After sincerely pleading, not giving an order to Gan, the older brother tried to leave the room.
“B-B-Brother!! P-Please! I didn’t mean it by that. I-It was my mistake.”
Looking at his brother trying to get out of the room, Ashv tried to grab his brother’s legs, trying to hinder him from walking away, but now, the brother never stopped in his path as he walked out, even though Ashv tried his best to stop him.
“B-Brother, p-please!! L-Listen to me!!”
“...”
Without a word, the older brother kicked away Ashv and then exited the room.
“G-Gan!! Please stop my brother. I-I beg you, please do something.”
Having his brother gone from there, he found his next target, Gan. Crawling towards Gan, he held his legs too, crying tears of an alligator while begging to stop his brother to Gan.
“... Young Master Ashv.”
“Y-Yes!”
He looked up as he thought he had Gan in his palms now, but even Gan had the same expression plastered on his face as that of his brother.
“You have gone too far.”
“...!!”
“You do not know how excited the young master was when he reach here. He said to me that with you, he will create a guild that would one day stand tall with the guild of the heroes. He thought of making you the guild master too. But you-”
Gan’s eyes now looked like they were looking down on low life. The respect he had for Ashv disappeared and now, an immense disgust filled his heart.
“I advise you to pack your bags. I don’t know what will happen in the county, but there’s one thing for certain.”
He said so as he looked at the gate from which the older brother exited.
“You have said something that you shouldn’t have.”
With that, he also left the room, leaving Ashv behind, speechless, on the ground.
***
“Young Master, let’s set up a camp here.”
On their way back to the county, Gan suggested setting up the camp as night as fall.
“Do as you please, Gan.”
The older brother replied half-heartedly. From the moment of their conversation inside the room, he had a dull atmosphere that didn’t let Gan approach him fully.
Behind them, Ashv also rode a horse with his head down. Both Gan nor the older brother ever spoke to him after the conversation in the room. He also didn’t speak to them anymore.
As Gan climbed down from the horse, both the brothers also followed him. After getting down, the three of them tried to set up the camp.
*Grab*
While the older brother tried to somehow open a tent, Ashv suddenly grabbed the pieces of equipment in his hands.
“L-Let me help you, broth-”
*Drop*
The older brother dropped the equipment he held quickly, as he didn’t let Ashv continue to talk and do some other work.
“...”
Gan, who saw this, didn’t speak, as he had no right to interject in the matters of both the brothers. Even though he knew it was right to report to the older brother about Ashv, he felt that because of him, a rift has been created between the two brothers.
As so, the three of them continued to set up the camp quietly. After a while, Gan lit a bone fire and cooked the food.
After the food is cooked, the three of them ate while none of them spoke even a single word. Before the farce happened, the three of them, especially both the brothers on their journey, happily conversed with each other. But, now, even eating beside each other became unbearable for them.
“I am done. Gan, wake me up if something happens.”
Finishing his meal, the older brother got up and entered his tent without speaking any further, leaving Gan and Ashv behind.
After a while, Gan too finished his meal and got up without speaking a word as he too entered his tent, leaving Ashv behind.
Left alone, Ashv threw away the utensil he was holding away.
“Damn it!!”
Now, being alone, he showed his real self.
“These bastards, who do they think they are? Treating me like I had committed a grave crime.”
***