Laurent seated himself on one of the steel chairs as he watched Silver pay for the medical bills at the counter alongside Calandra who had a worried expression on her face. After they were done, Silver put his hands on Calandra’s shoulders and explained something to her, in this noisy environment he couldn’t really hear anything but it was probably just words of consoling and Silver seemed to be incredibly good at it as he watched the battle healer calm down.
The three of them waited outside Calandra’s brother’s ward as the time slowly ticked by. But it wasn’t long before the doors opened and the surgeon emerged before informing them of the good news and permit to visit the patient.
Calandra’s dusty face lit up with joy as she bounced a little, it was evident from her actions that she couldn’t contain her happiness and relief. She rushed in the ward, followed by Silver and Laurent at last.
‘What?!’
Laurent almost instantly took on a defensive position as he saw who was on the bed. He was what you could call was the partial reason behind the Ruler’s battle in which he died.
‘He is Calandra’s brother? Wait, is this the reason that we picked a fight with the alliance that had the goblin planet’s representative as the leader?’
He wasn’t a particularly big figure in his past life and even his father didn’t share everything with him due to the fear of psychics finding it out by scouring his memory. But he did know about the big events which nearly everyone knew, and this was one of them, a necromancer has once tried to provoke their alliance and oddly enough he had succeeded.
As one of the strongest alliances, they shouldn’t have responded to such things but Calandra in particular had responded quite intensely and quickly got backup from his father and Lusjardo. Calandra’s reaction in particular was towards a summon of the necromancer, or you could say, the strongest summon of the necromancer. Yes, it was this young man lying on the bed right now crying in a somewhat miserable manner.
It all made sense now, if that strongest summon of the necromancer who provoked them was the brother of Calandra, it was obvious for her to react in a way she did.
‘Does that mean I picked up a bargain? Haha.’
Laurent watched by side as Calandra tried to converse with her brother but he kept crying while mumbling he killed someone. He looked miserable to be honest but Laurent didn’t blame the guy. When their world got initiated and the Great Awakening took place, a lot of people were forced to kill and a good percentage of them broke down due to trauma.
Laurent watched as Silver came in for the clutch again and calmed down the guy. The siblings talked for a few minutes and when everything felt calmed down, he coughed to gain their attention and asked,
“Could I have a talk with him? Privately?”
Calandra’s eyes turned alert but he quickly assured her that he wouldn’t have given the money to her if he wanted to harm her brother.
When both of them left the ward, Laurent dragged a table next to the guy and asked his name,
“Raymond.”
With a proper name to address him, Laurent asked what both of them overlooked,
“Soo, what was it that you were crying about? That you killed someone?”
Raymond’s nearly calmed down face abruptly scrunched up as tears resumed running down the corner of his eyes. He gently put a hand on Raymond’s shoulder and said,
“Look, no one’s blaming you okay? I am not some investigator or anything. I merely happened to pass by your sister who very much wanted to save you —”
It somewhat slowed down his mumblings as he opened his eyes to look at the turquoise colored eyes of the young man who had entered the ward with his sister.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Laurent just established a common point between them so that Raymond could trust him a little more, and make their upcoming conversations better. But his eyes still held fear in them which only magnified as he heard the next words,
“Just that there are some things which need to be coincidental and you happened to have been dragged into it, possibly even your sister and the other guy, Silver. So? Could you make it easier for us so that I can do what I can? It might even save the rest of you from some unfortunate happenings.”
The next thing was obviously threats and even including the close ones as people wouldn’t get the severity of the situation otherwise. As expected, it worked well as Raymond’s quivering lips formed a different and coherent words for once,
“N-N-Nathan…. Nathan H-Hawthorne”
Raymond wasn’t a fool, to feed their family of two, he had chosen to drop out of school at an early age and work so that his sister could continue her schooling at a local government school. It wasn’t much but it helped to keep the both of them alive and prospects of a better future, until today that is.
As a person who had stepped out into the adult world, he of course knew the name of the Hawthorne family and also who currently sat on the top of that empire like business, Nathan Hawthorne. Well, not anymore.
And that was exactly why he was worried sick, but before he could ask the young man to save them, he saw him get up and hold his bandaged shoulders, almost making him scream from pain but stopped himself as he looked into his serious eyes. Withstanding the pain, he heard the young man ask,
“How did he die?”
A constrained voice left his mouth as he answered with difficulty,
“A car accident”
The pain instantly heightened as he couldn’t hold on anymore and involuntarily let out a muffled groan, fortunately the young man seemed to have realized the situation as he took back his hands but continued asking with the same seriousness in his eyes,
“Was there no one else in the car?”
“No”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes”
Instantly Laurent straightened up and instructed Raymond with utmost seriousness,
“Stay here, I will be back. You are in a bigger mess than you realize. I want to hear the entire story but there are urgent things to take care of. Stay here.”
With that, he bolted out of the ward and without paying attention to the two standing outside, he ran out of the hospital while simultaneously finding a number on his phone,
He kept running, utilizing his enhanced physique as he ran outside of the poverty stricken area, into a surrounding with fairly moderate buildings as he stopped a cab going by. He finally found the number and called it, it ringed for a three times before the receiver picked up,
A bored voice entered his ears but without bothering him Laurent informed in a low voice so as to not let the driver hear,
“Your mother and sister’s life are under threat today, quickly come to where they live.”
He then leaned back and breathed out as he thought,
‘I would have almost missed this if I had not met Raymond.’
He wouldn’t have bothered so much to be honest if this wasn’t related to a big event. But it was important. If he played his cards right, he might even get the favor of another genius and stop a future tragedy.
*****
“Arghhh”
In a residential building near the University, a young man frustratingly threw his phone on the bed as he removed the glove on his left hand. From the looks of his room where a punching bag swung lightly in the middle of the room, it was apparent that he was boxing just before the call came.
But he didn’t let his annoyance affect his speed, the young man removed all the accessories and dashed out of the room after putting a kitchen knife in his pocket. He ran through the narrow valleys between the buildings and didn’t hesitate to jump from large heights.
Where a normal man would’ve had some bone in the leg break, his knees only buckled up before he continued running at the same speed. The young man annoyingly muttered as he parkoured through the obstacles towards where his family lived, he would get there faster than any vehicle.
“First that bitch on the bus and now a threat from Classmate. I swear I’ll send that annoying piece of shit to the hospital if he lied about something as serious as this. Fuck I feel like killing someone, no one should dare even think of harming my family.”
Yes.
It was Lorcan.
The Malevolent Blade.