"Will!"

"Will!"

A woman was looking for his son, she opened the door of his bedroom.

"Yes mum, I'm almost ready" the boy answered as he was putting on his best clothes in front of an expensive mirror.

"Hehe, dressed like this even the princess will fall for you"

"MUM!" the boy was first embarrassed but then a little bit excited. He looked at the mirror in front of him. A precious mirror his parents brought him that was made from the endless valley's ice.

His image in the mirror looked a bit round. Indeed, the boy was fat.

Could it be that even I don't look so bad like this? People won't be making fun of me behind my back?

His family was one of the few families that could stay in the upper part of Saint City. The elite of the elite. So people would not offend them directly. But he heard the rumors from the servants of how the people saw his family.

 

Will's dad entered the room.

"Wow, you look like a real man, dressed like this even the princess will..."

"Mum already said that."

Will's dad: "She did, huh! Well, it's true. Weren't you practicing your dance moves this morning? Don't worry! I'm sure it will go well."

Will: "I hope so."

...

They entered the palace of Saint City. The capital of the Saint Ancestor Kingdom. As expected it was very luxurious. After all, it was the palace of the biggest kingdom on the continent.

A great party was going on but Will didn't care. His head was almost spinning. He didn't like expressing fake interest to build connections. But he endured for his family, which gave him so much. He was living a good life, he had money, food, and whatever he needed.

After some time he had to do his part. He had to dance. To show the prestige of his family. He had practiced for a long time.

One step, two steps, all was going well. Even the princess was here. She was sitting to the side of the king with two of her servants.

To the other side of the king there were high officials of the kingdom, between which there was the archmage. 

Will had surprisingly good senses and he could sense many things. 

Looking at the archmage and the king he could feel the tension between the two.

Looking at the princess he could hear her speaking with her servant.

"I have never seen a pig dance, so gross."

 

That broke him.

...

The day after Will was in the kitchen speaking with one of his family servants, she was called Meg.

"Amazing, you recognized all the 24 ingredients in this dish just by taking one bite."

Meg was amazed by Will's talent in the kitchen, she had never seen someone so talented. But his parents would not let him become a lowly cook. If only he wasn't the son of the elite.

Will: "Thank you, by coming here and staying with you I always get better."

Meg: "I'm here for you young master. So tell me, what happened yesterday. Did you fall that badly?"

Will: "Like a pig rolling down a hill."

Meg: "Hahaha. Come on. It couldn't be that bad."

Will: "Hahaha."

 

Laughing was a way to cope, and eating was another way to cope with the anxiety brought by the expectations that his family had of him.

His daily routine consisted of studying, eating, studying, going to social gatherings, eating, and going to bed.

He did not care much about any of this but he was serious about cooking.

'I'll definitely convince my parents. I can choose my future' he thought.

But...

"Will, are you here?" It was his mum.

"How many times did I tell you to not go to the kitchen. It is not a place you should be. Go immediately to your studying room."

"Yes, mum." Will couldn't say it in the end.

'Next time, definitely next time I will fight for my future.'

 

At that moment his mother went to open the door. A mage in a blue robe had arrived. What was he doing here?

Will went to his study room and lived his usual life for a few days until he was woken up by the sound of an explosion. 

The entrance door of his house was busted open and soldiers came in.

"Take everything of value and arrest those traitors."

 

Will had made little sense of what was going on and he found himself tied up and brought in front of the king.

He heard the words "stolen taxes", "traitors", "worms".

Apparently, his parents were entrusted to collect taxes together with the mage in the blue robe and they stole a part of them.

His parents accused the man in the blue robe of inciting them and saying to them that they would split the profit. 

 

Were his parent's criminals. No, it couldn't be.

Will had good senses so he knew the truth. The truth he didn't want to remember. He remembered his parents discussing money. His father saying that with the next investment they would repay all the debt. But that investment didn't go well. So his father said that with the next one...

Basically, his family wanted to live the life of the elite but was not rich enough. So they continued to accumulate debt.

They could have done it. 

They were arrested and their property confiscated. Will was released outside the upper city where the common people lived.

They were furious.

"Thief"

"Pig"

They ridiculed him and praised the archmage for capturing the thieves.

Will kept going down trying to escape the mob until he found himself at the entrance of the city.

"Here, come here."

Meg brought him to an abandoned building. 

"Take this, it's the only thing I could take before they busted into the house" she gave him two knives.

Will: "Thank you"

Meg: "What will you do now?"

Will: "Find my way, I guess."

 

Will departed with tears in his eyes leaving Saint Ancestor Mountain to his back. He wanted to go south but he felt it was dangerous. So he went east.

After walking for a few hours even walking east seemed dangerous. So he went north. He passed through a few villages and went back to the side of Saint Ancestor Mountain. If he went north again he would pass the army, the fortifications, and then go into demons territory.

But he felt a strong and hostile presence coming from the south so he kept going north.

'Strange, why is the army not here ?'

There were fortifications and the army was supposed to be stationed here.  And yet there was no one.

The presence to the south got closer so he had to cross into daemons territory.

 

After a few hours of walking Will was inside a forest and the presence to the south disappeared. Will was exhausted and was about to stand down to rest when he heard someone walking.

"Hahaha, you are worthy of my time indeed. You sensed my magic power from a great distance and choose to go to this desolated place where nobody will hear your screams."

It was the archmage, why did he follow Will?

The archmage kept talking: "I lured you here.  Hahaha, your sharp senses will be your doom. You are a variable that can oppose my plan.  I won't let you grow anymore. Your life ends here."

Will understood. It was the archmage who tricked his family into stealing the money and by exposing them, his fame, his riches, and his control over the kingdom had grown. He had got rid of an obstacle and now the archmage brought Will to this desolated place to finish the work and eliminate every variable.

Was Will's family completely innocent? No, but it was still his family. And he was not guilty.  Why did they have to kill him?

He took one of his knives and was ready to fight. There was only the archmage and a soldier.

The archmage conjured a huge ball of fire and was about to throw it. He planned to kill Will with one move.

Then another soldier came running and shouting: "Sir, we have found Agnes. She is in a library, not far from here."

The archmage reabsorbed the fireball with little energy loss and turned to the running soldier:  "Fast, let's go."

Then he turned to the other soldier and said: "Kill him."

The archmage and the soldier left and Will jumped back. He started running, not out of fear but because he had a plan. The remaining soldier reached him a few moments later.

"Do you think a pig can run from me?"

Will: "You are about to be killed by a pig."

"You" The soldier's face distorted and he was about to swing down his sword when from a hole in the ground a tusked pig came out.

The pig squealed and launched itself on the soldier. The soldier was launched against a tree and his head hit a large rock. The pig attacked the confused soldier while Will run away.

Will had sensed the smell of the pig and had moved to that location. But he didn't imagine his plan working so well. The soldier was now dead and Will was far away from the gruesome scene that was happening to the soldier's dead body.

Will avoided the lairs of powerful monsters and used his skills in cooking to make bait and catch fishes. Some days he had to run from some of these monsters but he managed to stay alive. He moved deeper into the demon's territory to escape from the archmage.

One morning he woke up in the shelter he had built on top of a hill, under a tree. From the hill, he could see the forest, Saint Ancestor Mountain, and the daemons' territory. The morning dew painted the landscape and the flowers on the hill making the view...

Magnificent

He then looked toward the daemons' territory with its crimson sky and desolated land. The sky above his head was already a bit crimson but it became even more crimson the more you looked north. In the north, he could see the start of a majestic road. It was the road to the demon portal and the daemons supply road. Above the road there were cumulonimbuses. If the sky was clear he could probably even see the demon portal.

Another cloud caught his attention. It was moving south and was covering something. A few moments later the cloud passed near a lake and Will could see from the reflections in the water what was hiding below it.

It was the daemons' army.

Why were they moving south? Would they attack? He immediately ran south, towards the human territory. If the daemons saw him he would be dead in less than a second.

He walked for days towards the human kingdoms, fortunately, the daemons army was moving slower than him. He even managed to kill some animals that attacked him. He always used the same knife for killing and the other knife for cooking. Since he moved so much in these days he had even managed to lose some weight. He was not as fat as before.

 

One day he saw some azure plates moving in the sky. As he got close he understood where he was. 

[Crash site of Le Roi Soleil]

While hiding in the bushes he saw the archmage and some soldiers going towards the crash site. Surprisingly, Meg was with them, forced to carry a heavy load of provisions.

'Peace of ****, he's using her as bait to lure me out.'

Should he try to save her? He would surely die. So he chose the next best thing.

He said in his mind: 'Please endure, Meg. I will come back when I am strong enough. I promise. And I will destroy him.'

The suffering in the last weeks made Will grow. It awakened in him, a lazy boy, the spirit of a hegemon. He wanted to win the trial. Take Le Roi Soleir. Free his parents. Save Meg and destroy the archmage.

Without hesitation, he entered the first trial and slaughtered his way through. Full of wounds he entered the second trial to be faced by an army of wolves. He was at a deadly disadvantage but he kept fighting.

"Look, Mom, Dad. Look at where your son had come. Could you imagine that he would pass the first trial? Yes, your lazy son did this. I'm sorry, I think this will be my stop. I'm sorry I could not save you. I was foolish."

He slashed his knife with all his remaining strength but a wolf attacked him from behind. With a sad expression, he recognized that he could not defend himself and that he would be dead in the next few moments.

 

Then a book fell from the sky.

The book was Book-san who had just looked at the comments from the previous chapter.

---

You received:

Molotov from Trinox

A glass bottle filled with alcohol, with a piece of cloth coming out of the orifice on the finish. Said piece of cloth is lit on fire.

---

Book-San launched the Molotow and the wolves' fur was lit on fire. All of the normal wolves died but the wolf king still remained.

Will could not defeat him alone and was losing consciousness. He managed to see a few Beatles opening the book and some words appearing on the page.

Before the wolf king attacked him Will pressed his bleeding thumb on the book page. As he did that a contract was signed and Will felt a new form of energy strengthening him. He managed to trust his knife at the wolf king once more before losing consciousness.