Chapter 4.3

‘Eight on the outside, and two inside that carriage huh.’ Adrian started making calculations in his head as he peaked out from behind a tree.

From his point of view, he could see four guards dressed in gray armor from the neck down on one side of the carriage. However with his skill [Mapping] he could sense another four on the other side.

‘Two on the inside. They have to be weak if they have this many guards going along with them.’

Adrian jerked his head back behind the tree as he sensed that a guard looked his way. His heartbeat spiked, but on his face he had a smile. Placing his hand over his heart, he could feel it beating. As if it wanted to jump out, it went thump, thump, thump. This rush made him even more excited, as he made his move.

Dashing from behind the tree, he lunged at the guards closest to him.

“What the!” The guard said as he started to unsheath his sword from his side.

Adrian had many thoughts running through his head at this moment, but they weren’t random thoughts. It was as if he could sense everything like it was apart of his whole being. The way they were moving their muscles, even their heart beats. He could sense it all.

He used his momentum against them. He threw his body against the guard unsheathing his sword bashing him against the carriage. The carriage was exquisite and sturdy. White sides along with golden symbols on it.

“What was that!” A voice called out from inside the carriage.

His heartbeat was getting faster and he could feel it. This excitement, this rush, it was all beyond him. He never felt anything like this before, at least not on this level.

Adrian grabbed the guard's sword from its sheath then spun around as the sword sliced the man's neck. Black blood sprayed out of his neck as he tried to stop it by covering it with his hands, but it was no use.

Adrian’s hands trembled slightly. ‘I will kill you all! You took her from me! I will take your life from you!’

His hate for these creatures were instantly surfaced. All the emotions that he held in were now being leaked.

“W-who are you?” One of the guards asked.

Adrian didn’t reply, instead he threw the sword at the man’s throat. It pierced through the creature's throat as he fell backwards.

A smile appeared on Adrian’s face as he wiped the little blood that was on his cheek off.

‘No!’ Adrian told himself as he shook his head. He moved his head from the open and slumped down behind the tree. He placed his hands on his head and ran his fingers through his hair.

‘I can’t.’

‘You can. They took her from you didn’t they?’

‘I can’t go down that road, not again.’

‘Do it. They need to die!’

‘I’m not that kind of person anymore!’

‘You are! You never changed!’

He balled his hands up making a fist and hit his head.

‘Deep down inside, you know what you have to do. If you want to kill Everit, you might as well start with them. Look at them, look!’

Adrian took a small glance peaking from behind the tree at the guards and carriage slowly passing by. Their faces, almost looked like his. He could easily tell they were the same race.

‘They took her from you, you need to make them pay. It’ll be easy, just like you did with ‘him’, you know it don’t you.’

Adrian shook his head. ‘No! I’m not going down that road again, I promised myself that I wouldn’t. After what I did to ‘him’, I don’t want to do anything like that again.

‘What you did to ‘him’ was easy, remember?’

Adrian couldn’t help but remember that moment. It was something he hoped to get rid of, a path he never wanted to go down again.

“Shit dude, you were serious. I didn’t think you’d actually kill him.” A young voice said.

Laughing, a young teen patted the other guy on his shoulder. “What do you expect, I told you he would take care of it. And he did. Now, are you in?”

This teen was wearing a black jumpsuit with a bandana around his mouth. His hood was down, so his features could still be seen. His white skin was shining in the rain, as his brown hair was wet and hanging down his side. The look in his hazel eyes told the other male that he wasn’t playing around with him at all.

He was facing another young male who seemed to be around his age. He had brown hair as well, but his looks weren’t nearly on this guys level. The look on his face was filled with confidence, but inside he was shaking. A guy just died right in front of him, and the person who killed him was right in front of him.

He took a quick glance at the young male holding the bloody metal bat. It was raining kind of hard so he couldn’t see his face, but there wasn’t much to see anyways since he had his hood over his head.

“Y-yeah Nate, i’m in.” His voice was shaking as he gave his reply.

The young boy with brown hair and hazel eyes was Nate. Better known as Nathaniel Harris. This year he was thirteen, but the vibe he gave off gave others the feeling that he was older. Nate squeezed the guy's shoulder and nodded his head in approval.

“Good, cause I don’t need to add another onto my list.”

“Y-yeah… no need for that.”

“Well? What you still here for? Scram!” Nate yelled at the young teen as the teen was scared for a moment before he turned and ran away.

Nate turned around and patted the young male with the bat on the shoulder. “C’mon Adrian, we’ve got no time to be standing here. Big Bob is having a meeting in a few, we can’t be late or else he’ll have our asses.”

Adrian sighed as he remembered something he didn’t want to. That part of his life was the worst. A young male trying to find his way in life, he went down the wrong path. Thinking about it, it wasn’t just him who went the wrong way. It was also Nate.

‘Damn, what did we get ourselves into back then?’ Adrian thought to himself.

Truth be told, him and Nate were actually good pales two years ago, however things changed fast a few months after that incident. Nate started acting like a different person, and they fell out. Whenever Adrian approached Nate, Nate pretended like he didn’t know him. One day it got bad when him and Nate had a fight that caused his mother to almost have a heart attack. From the way he noticed how much his mother cared, he decided that he never wanted to see her like that again. He knew he had to change himself, for his and her sake.

‘Mom, what should I do?’

It seemed like she answered him, because all he could see was a smiling image of her in front of him. He knew that it wasn’t real, but he wanted it to be. This was the moment he realized that he was actually on his own for the first time. All through his life, he always had someone who helped guide him along the way, but now it was only him. Everyone else is dead for all he knows, there is no one he can depend on.

‘I see, that’s the only way to survive huh?’

Adrian thought he had a tear streaming down his face, so he wiped it away but he was just imaging it. He looked back up, but his mother was gone. ‘If a first year high school student wants to make it in this new world, the only way to do it is be cold. No more attachments, no one who will hold you down. No more emotions.’ He told himself as he got up from the ground.

What seemed like hours for him was actually a few minutes. The carriage was only a meter away from him, he could easily catch up. Adrian for the first time, took a step out of the forest. This step would mean a lot because not only was this the first step out of the forest, it would also be the first time he would travel this road alone.

He started walking towards the guards, but he already knew that he couldn’t play it out like he would like. His combat experience wasn’t as high as he would like it to be so he wasn’t stupid enough to try to take on eight armed guards bare handed. Heck, even if he was armed he still wouldn’t try such a thing. This ability of his didn’t have any combat like skills, so wishing to be an overpowered protagonist like in a video game was a dream.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

As he got closer, the guards also noticed. They stopped the carriage and they had their hands on their sheathed swords as they let Adrian approach.

‘As expected, who wouldn’t be suspicious of a naked guy coming out of a forest. I guess it’s to be expected.’ Adrian thought to himself as he approached the guards.

Suddenly he got this weird feeling, as he noticed they relaxed their guards when he got closer. It was close enough for them to make out his appearance, and for him to make out theirs.

They all looked young to Adrian so he couldn’t make out their age. These creatures weren’t like humans were you could instantly make a guess at the others age. He stopped a few feet away from them making sure to keep a safe distance.

One of the guard approached and did something Adrian would never have expected him to do. He took a knee and placed his hand over his chest as he bowed his head. It creeped Adrian out, but he would just play along with whatever was going on so far.

“Noble Sir, we didn’t know it was you, sorry for being wary of you sir.” The man spoke with his head still bowed.

‘Noble huh? I guess we’ll go with that.’

Adrian didn’t even think about why he could understand them. They were speaking english, so that's all that mattered.

“Rise.” Adrian told the guard in a cold tone.

“If that is what the noble one wants, this one will do.” The guard replied as he rose from the ground.

“Don’t give me that look, I know how I look and if I were you, I would be looking the same. Don’t be mistaken, i’m not naked because I want to be, that silly woman of mines took my clothes while I was sleeping. I tell you, I’ll never sleep with her again.” Adrian started spouting some nonsense to the guard as he thought that the guard was wondering why he was naked.

The guard seemed to understand him as he nodded his head and smiled. “Noble sir, this one understands. My wife even treats our children like they are trophies, but the woman you were with treats your clothes like trophies.” He laughed a little before he continued, “Truly I wasn’t surprised at your nakedness. We see naked nobles all the time wandering around.”

“Oh, then what were you looking at so intently?” Adrian asked.

“If you want me to say, then i’ll say. It was your horns, i’ve never seen a noble such as yourself with five horns. The most i’ve seen were four, and the only one with four are the sons and daughters of our king. I must say, your blood must be even purer than theirs for you to have so many!”

‘I see, no wonder, no wonder! It seems that nobles of this race have horns, and the purer their blood, the more horns they have. So five should be the max since my race is the closest to my ancestors.’

Adrian laughed a little, “I wouldn’t count on it, how could my blood compare to them? Their blood should be the closest to our ancestors, there is no way a little noble such as myself could even compare.”

Laughing along with Adrian, the guard nodded. “Right, right. I was just checking to see what noble sir thought of his own horns. I say, i’ve taken a liking to you noble sir. What say you catch a ride with us back to town?”

Adrian thought about it before nodded his head. “Sure, but you can stop with calling me noble sir. Adrian Remington C. Miller is fine enough, or just call me Mr. Miller.”

“N-Mr. Miller, this one understands. How about I give you something to wear, unless you want to go into town like that?” The guard asked him.

Adrian shook his head. “No way, I can’t have such an appearance going back into town. What would others say if they knew I walked around naked?”

The guard walked over to the others along with Adrian and introduced him to them. Once introductions were over, he handed Adrian a bag with some clothes inside. Adrian opened it, but the clothes inside weren’t anything too fancy. It was just some black pants with a white V neck shirt.

“Sorry Mr. Miller, but this is all we have. However with your looks, i’m sure no matter what you wear you’ll still be a catch to the young ladies.”

Adrian smiled but didn’t reply as he put on the clothes given to him.

The guard suggested Adrian get inside the carriage, but Adrian told him he would rather not. Instead he would rather walk and talk with the guard, which made the guard seemed pleased.

After walking for a while and talking with the guard, Adrian found out a few things about this world. He would go over the information later tonight, but for now he wanted to know what happened to his mother.

The guard seemed to notice that Adrian was deep in thought, so he couldn’t help but ask, “Mr. Miller, is something on your mind?”

“Actually, there is. What happens to the humans you capture?” 

“Humans? Sir, I think you are mistaken, we don’t capture Humans. We have an alliance with them so we are forbidden to capture them. I think you are mistaking the High Humans with those mongrels.”

“My bad, I meant to say mongrels. Are they used as food, or slaves?” Adrian asked.

He could already guess a little about the current world from the conversation he had with the guard. Since there are nobles, there are bound to be slaves. He just didn’t know if the humans were used as slaves.

The guard laughed loudly making the other guards glare at him for a moment, before he shut his mouth. “Food, Mr. Miller you sure are a funny one. We wouldn’t dare eat such a thing, do you know how rare it is to find a mongrel now? When we noticed them, they instantly attracted our interest and we captured a few. Turns out the other nobles liked them as sex slaves. It didn't seem to matter whether it was a male or female, they were used as sex slaves. However a few days after capturing a few, it seems the other mongrels killed themselves in an explosion. Now finding even one of them is as rare as my chance of marrying into a noble family.”

‘Sex slaves!’ Adrian let out some killing intent which caused the guard to be frightened a little. He couldn’t picture his mother being used as some sort of sexual toy for other's amusement.

“When’s the next auction?”

“Mr. Miller, the next auction will be held in four months from now. I’m sorry to say, but you missed the last one that happened three days ago. I must say they did have some fine mongrels on display. There was this one female mongrel that seemed different from the rest, the looks she had for a mongrel were top of the line. Only downside to it was that attitude she gave us, I fear if it wasn’t for the slave mark she would have attacked us. If one of those mongrels dared to do such a thing, their head would be served on a platter that same night.”

“Mr. Miller? Is something wrong?”

His blood was boiling hot, as his eyes had this sharpness in them. He already knew he was too late. “Nothing.” Adrian spoke with his voice filled with chilliness. However that aura around him didn’t disappear at all, instead with every step he took it was growing. This was a moment where he never wanted to kill anyone so bad. He wanted to cut off their skin slowly, gouge out their eyes as he took apart their limbs and have them watch.

From the corner of his eye, he could make out the guards expression, but Adrian didn’t care. Being the bearer of bad news never had its perks, because Adrian really wanted to kill this man that told him indirectly what happened to him mother.

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Spoiler :

This chapter was difficult to write, I wanted to have Adrian actually kill these guards, but i felt that it would be way to out of character for him to do so. Therefore, I wanted to make him conflicted over what he should do and also give you a glimpse back into his past life. I guess now you know a little bit more about him than you did before.

If you are confused as to what is going on tell me, I didn't know whether I should do the [...........] thing that separates his imagination and memories from whats really happening. Tell me if I should if it will help you guys out.