The next day, Azzard got acquainted with Leila. He told her about his story, how he found himself in an old empty house in the middle of the forest. He also told her that he knew nothing about himself except his name. Leila found it odd for a man to wake up in the middle of the forest with no recollection of himself. 

Leila was a kind person. She spent most of her time with the children. She knew that they would be scared and lonely so took it upon herself to bring smiles to the children's faces. She played and ate with them. Momentarily, the children forgot their worries and had a good time. Leila also told a little hit of history. 

"Children, do you know that we do not have any gods left in our world?", Leila asked. 

"Really? But my mommy said that we should always pray to the Light god for protection.", a child voiced out but when he had said the word "mommy", he started to cry. That triggered a chain reaction among the rest of the children. They all cried but Leila quickly comforted them all. 

"Now, now. Don't cry. You should all be strong. You should show your parents who are in heaven that you're happy. Your parents will be sad if you always cry." Those words made the older children stop their crying and went to comfort younger ones. 

"How about this. I'll tell you a story about the gods of our world." Leila started to tell them the story. 

"In the past, we had gods. We had the Fire god, Water god, Earth god and so on. They weren't friendly with each other and had always fought. Their fighting caused the world to enter the dark age. That happened many years ago. Volcanoes would erupt and earthquakes were quite frequent. More than half of the people in the world died." The children listened intently. 

"Humanity lost their hope and thought that they would all die but one man shattered those thoughts. He led a team who fought against the gods.”

“How could a person fight against a god? They are too strong.”, a young boy was concerned.

“Well that man did the impossible. He actually defeated the gods with the power he had. Rumors say that the strongest god, the Lightning god, bestowed him his own powers in order for him to have the ability to fight against the gods.”

“But those were only rumors and no one knows the truth because no one truly saw the fight between the man and the gods. One thing was sure though he won the fight and restarted the age of human civilization. Unfortunately, the man never appeared again."

The children were amazed. The boys were the most affected. Some will probably dream of becoming as strong as the man in the legend. Can they do it? Well we can only wait and see. 

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"What was the man's name?", the young girl asked, it was the same girl who Azzard saved before. 

Leila turned to look at Azzard, "His name was Brogart Azzard." Azzard was shocked, he had the same name as the guy. As to why Leila didn't say anything before, she had just assumed that Azzard was named after the hero because his parents wanted him to be blessed. Was there a connection between them? Time will tell. 

-----

Ten days later. 

It was time for the squad to go back to the capital of Bradford Empire, Elafris. They were originally stationed there as palace knights to the king. The knight squad was going to bring the children will them. They had also asked Azzard if he wanted to accompany them but he rejected their offer. 

"Are you sure you don't want to come? It can be dangerous being alone. There are a lot of bandits nowadays.", Leila said. 

"Thanks for the offer but I want to travel on my own. I have things to do. If bandits attack me, maybe they'll get struck by lightning."

Leila couldn't say anything to that. She just nodded her head. They started to part ways. The children said their goodbyes to him especially the little girl he saved. 

When he couldn't see them anymore, he went on his way. He wanted to go back to the house he woke up in. He thought that maybe he could find clues about himself there.

------

Azzard had no troubles in his journey back to the house. He opened the door and it made a creaking sound. When he stepped inside, he saw that the house had stairs leading to the second floor. He made his way to the second floor.

What he saw was a room at the end of the hallway. He walked towards it. 

Azzard searched through the room but mostly found old useless stuff. He scanned the room was once again and noticed that something was underneath the old bed. It was wrapped in a white cloth, well it used to be white but dirt and dust mostly covered it. 

He reaches for the item. It was small. Azzard removed the cloth and saw a necklace. The pendant was circular in form and had a lion carved on it. 

There was something with the necklace that drew Azzard to it. It felt as though the necklace originally belonged to him. He wore the necklace and when he did a voice spoke in his mind. 

"Master Azzard..."