The afternoon sun rose high and mighty, bathing its light at the vast grassy plain. The mild warmness of early winter was unlike the north as the far south was spared from the bone-chilling coldness. A carriage with an escort of two knights rode through the dirt road, heading to the port at the far end. A legal matter needed to be judged, and Rohan, who sat on the carriage, was the young man who was given the responsibility to do so. He was neither anxious nor excited as boredom was all over his face. Staring in a daze, he daydreamed of his bedwarmer that made last night a night to be remembered.

Rohan descended down the carriage and smelled the briny ocean breeze. Before he could even stretch his arms and legs, he was dragged by one of the escorting knights, Sir Simon, the tedious. The knight with partly grey hair was one of the reassurances from his father to make sure he got the job done.

Soon, he stood before the court, in the town hall. Taking his place at where his father usually sat. He was now judge and jury at the tender age of seventeen years old. To be fair, it was ridiculous to see a young man preceding over a judgment. But with Rohan’s status as the second son of Lord Dunmer, he was more than eligible to bring down the hand of judgment. And it was not without reason.

‘I’m starting to regret reading that law book,’ Rohan thought.

The young man looked down at the man who was kneeling in front of him. His hands and foot were bound by black metal chains. The long greasy hair covered half of his face. His eyes were looking down, empty with no hope. While the rest who stood in a line behind him were more pitiful in appearance with clothes looking like rag-sacks and their stenches that were awfully obnoxious to the nose.

‘So a slave trader. That’s a first,’ Rohan read through the documents in his hand then glanced a few times at the defendant. ‘It’s either he’s an idiot or the coins in Elad are worth the risk.’

Questions and answers were exchanged between Rohan and the man in trial. There wasn’t much to the answers as most of them were the same thing; yes, my lord. Indeed, my lord. That is true, my lord. It was either that one or another. The slave merchant knew that once he got caught, the death penalty was inescapable.

Soon, Rohan rose from his seat. His short dark black hair cut in a crew cut style, differing greatly from those around him who mostly had shoulder-length hair and even longer. He had a soulless light behind those grey eyes of his. Eyes that represented the true look of a true heir of Prynne. The silver badge pinned on his right chest displayed the insignia of the Prynne noble, the griffin of Elad.

“On behalf of the Lord of Elad, Lord Dunmer the Ninth. I, his son, Rohan Prynne shall lay down the verdict,” Rohan knocked the surface of the table three times with a small mallet and gazed back at the slave merchant. “Following the Valerian Records of Law and Order, I hereby sentence you to death…”

The scene changed to outside as Rohan sat on an elevated platform a distance away from the gallows. His mood had been soured after giving that verdict and his stomach wasn’t playing nice. This was his first time sentencing someone to death and the feeling wasn’t so good. His head rested on his clenched fist with a stoic face. Yet deep down, he tried to calm himself down of what was about to come.

The executioner tied a noose around the slave merchant as he stood on a stool. Then it came. The stool was kicked and the slave merchant felt his life slipping away.

Rohan turned his eyes away as the crowd near the gallows went wild. They were rejoicing over the impending death of a slave trader, while Rohan, on the other hand, did not.

“This feels like shit,” Rohan uttered under his breath. His furrowed brows showed what he was feeling inside. Then he felt a hand over his shoulder. He looked at the owner of the hand and saw the stoic face of Sir Simon. The tedious one tried to force a smile.

“Your father will be proud, my lord,” Simon said.

“Uh, thanks . . . I guess,” Rohan replied. He felt nothing over that compliment. He would have if he really was a young lord in the medieval age.

‘For a modern man, I really can’t get used to this,’ Rohan thought was best kept to himself. If someone knew of this blasphemy he had no doubt he would be cast out from his noble family. Rohan had a soul unlike others. He came from a different time in the year 2021, and it wasn’t pretty of how he got here. It was a freak accident, and his death led him here.

Now he had been living seventeen years as Rohan Prynne. And even after that long he still couldn’t get used to these medieval shenanigans.

His work was done and now he headed back to Brightfort, the home of Prynne. The road was bumpy as usual. As the carriage had nothing like a shock absorber in modern vehicles. Rohan had to endure another half-a-day trip back home and he wasn’t coming back empty-handed.

“My lord, once again I advise you not to do this,” said Simon who rode his horse beside the carriage. “Your noble blood should not be sitting there while those slaves have no right sitting in your seats.”

Rohan, who was sitting right beside the coachman gave a glance at Simon. This knight of his father was indeed a medieval man that was stuck with his ideal of separating people according to their ranks.

“Hold your words, Simon,” Rohan said. “I’m just doing what the law book told me to do. Any rescued slaves shall be taken in by those who saved them. The rescuer has the responsibility in sheltering the slaves until they are fit and ready to join in the ranks of fellow citizens of the land of Valeria.”

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One thing was for sure, the policy of slaves in the continent of Valeria was a big up in social advancement.

“But there’s no need for them to ride the carriage meant for a Prynne,” Simon muttered. Like always, he was stubborn as a mule.

“Then what? You want them to walk to Brightfort?” Rohan asked. “Even a carriage needs half a day, and I don’t even want to think about how long walking would take.”

“My lord, we can hire a—”

“Hired what? Another carriage? With whose coins, yours or my family?” Rohan said.

Simon was rendered speechless as his eyes looked down on the ground. He had nothing left to say with all those remarks thrown at him mercilessly from the young lord.

The awkward silence reigned and Rohan cared less about it. He had enough in his mind to worry about than some cheap-pride of an old knight. ‘What am I going to do with these slaves?’ he thought. He was sure that his father would hold him responsible for those five people in the carriage. And it made him wonder whether his father had anticipated this. Since that lord father of his really had a knack in giving him duties or more accurately burdens in Rohan’s book.

‘Well, let’s think about that later. Right now, all I need is a little bit of nap,’ he leaned back on his seat, trying to get some shut-eye. But a big bump on the road made him jump on his seat. His eyes went wide as his hands held tight over the hard seat.

“Forgive me, milord,” the coachman said. Forcing an awkward smile.

“It’s fine,” Rohan said. “Let’s just focus on the road.”

With his nap turning into a dud. Rohan had no other choice but to stay awake for the rest of the journey.

“You know milord, I’m really thankful we get to leave the port as soon as possible,” the coachman suddenly started a conversation. “I can’t stand being that close to the eastern sea, not with the Silver Fleet this near to land.”

“Yea, you’re right,” Rohan said. He looked back at the port and at the sea behind him. If his eyes could see afar, he would have been able to see the famous Silver Fleet. But alas, even when this port was the closest to the sea lane where the Silver Fleet traveled, it was still far from the naked eye.

“Like they always said, milord. Don’t sleep close to the sea and the Nocturns won’t get you in your sleep,” the coachman said. It was a bedtime story told to every child in the continent of Valeria. A tale that was believed to be true at one point in history, but nowadays it was just a fairytale.

‘The Silver Fleet, one of the things I enjoyed reading in this internet-less world,’ Rohan thought. Back in his younger days when he was three or four, books were his source of entertainment. And being the son of a noble made it easier for him to find things to read. A whole library waited for him to be devoured by his mind. And this interest in reading was one of the reasons his father pushed so many duties to him. His lord father knew his potential and he was wise in nurturing Rohan even when he was young, placing more importance on the second son than the firstborn.

‘I really shouldn’t do that from the get-go,’ he thought in regret. He should have been more secretive in his keen interest in reading since most boys his age were more interested in wielding a sword than reading literature.

Then out of nowhere, the ground shook. It was an earthquake. The horses went wild and the coachman fell frantic as the leash went loose from his grip. The carriage sped up, hauled by the panicking steeds. The coachman tried to rein in his horses, but the leashes were lost, dragging on the ground.

While behind them, Sir Simon and the other knight gave chase on their war horses. Their honors were at stake here as Rohan’s life was equally important as their lord.

Rohan, who fell in a daze for a while, snapped out of it. The situation was dire and with help beyond his reach, he only got himself to get out of this situation. His eyes scattered around, searching for a way out of this. Then he spotted the leather straps that connected the carriage and the horse harness. He found his way and he unsheathed his dagger on his belt. Rohan balanced himself, keeping himself low, fighting against the trembling carriage and the unending quake. It was a do-or-die situation and he wasn’t going to let himself die at the tender of age of seventeen.

He managed to reach the straps and the dagger went on working. Gritting his teeth, his hand moved back and forth, slicing the thick leather strap as his other hand grabbed tight over the side of the carriage. He didn’t want to imagine what would happen if he fell.

Soon he cut them and the carriage started to swerve. Rohan lost his balance and gravity pushed him down, but a hand grabbed him. He looked back and the anxious coachman pulled him back with his coarse hands. Rohan fell back on his seat with a sigh of relief. That was a close one and it wasn’t about to end. The screams from inside the carriage were enough to tell him that lives were at stake here.

“Hold on to me!” he shouted across the strong wind at the coachman and the man in his mid-forties nodded vigorously.

‘If I’m going to do this, I better be prepared being thrown forward,’ Rohan exhaled and focused. With the coachman’s help, he reached for the leather straps. Sweats dripped down his temples as his eyes were all at the dagger on the straps. Then he did it. The snapping noises echoed loudly in his ears then physics took over. The coachman’s help didn’t do much as the momentum of the whole carriage lunged Rohan forward as he was thrown into the air straight towards the ground.

Rohan was in the air and by instinct, he covered his head and twisted his body for a body roll. It all happened in an instant and within a few seconds, he was rolling on the ground and kept going until he was more than ten meters away from the carriage.

“Young lord!” Simon dismounted and rushed towards the unmoving Rohan. The tedious knight turned Rohan over and saw the man still alive with his eyes opened and his chest heaving for his breaths. He had a few cuts and there with some minor bleeding. Other than that he got pretty lucky.

“Thank God you’re alive,” Simon said. The knight aided his young lord to stand.

‘I almost died, didn’t I?’ he chuckled at that thought, glancing at where he was and the horseless carriage. The coachman was a few meters behind him and his luck was pretty bad compared to Rohan.

“Check on the coachman,” Rohan said.

“But young lord, your—”

“Do it, Simon,” Rohan ordered as he was adamant in his tone.

“As you wish,” Simon nodded slightly with his hand on his left chest, a gesture of courtesy from a knight to someone he served.

After Simon went off, Rohan’s leg grew weak again and once more his ass fell back to the ground. He saw his legs trembling as what had happened was utterly terrifying. Then he noticed that the quaking had stopped. ‘It stops?’ his hands touched the dirt ground as throughout his seventeen years of living here in this new world, never once he had experienced an earthquake.

Out of coincidence, his eyes found something to the side of the road. His eyes stared widely with his jaw gaping wide. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing as he swore that what he saw should not be there. He got up for the second time and stared with mixed emotions at the tower that came out of nowhere.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”