“Aight’ everyone it’s time to give in the swords.”, Willow picked up a strange ring, it had mana imbued within it from what I could tell. “What’s that?”, I asked.

“This is an ‘Item Box Ring’, it’s a magic item that allows me to store anything in another space that doesn’t exist here.”, he explained, the ring pretty much allowed him to store stuff. It was amazing the fact that that little ring had a lot more to it, it was probably made with ‘Space Attribute Magic’.

“Where did you get it?”, no normal citizen would have a ring that can store up space in another realm. “I got it as a gift from an old friend. Anyways, let us go.”, he said.

The place we would have to deliver the swords to was some sort of dome shaped building, you could live anywhere in Sintel and no matter what you could always see the dome shaped building in the distance almost directly next to the huge castle.

From Willows shop to the castle would take up to thirty minutes to arrive there, so he ordered a carriage to take us there.

We entered the carriage together with Athena, Azure and Willow, the carriage wasn’t too fancy than the ones nobles would possibly have, so it wasn’t as comfortable.

“Hey Master look over there.”, Azure pointed at a street magician who was actually using magic to impress people. Fire danced in the air and water bubbles mixed themselves with the fire and turned into a rainbow. I had no idea what type of spell he used but it was pretty neat.

“Wow, it’s pretty.”, I said with my same as usual emotionless voice that does not even sound amazed, but Azure knew that I was a little bit impressed by it.

The street magician took of his hat and revealed a pair of animal ears, he was a demi-human with bunny ears. ‘Cliche’, I thought. Unfortunately, the moment he took off his hat the public started showing signs of disgust.

“Hey, why are they disgusted?!”, I was getting irritated by the way the people were acting. But, at the moment I was trying to get out of the carriage a hand grabbed my shoulder, it was Willow with a dark expression.

“Boy, don’t do something rash. We can’t do anything for him, that’s how it works in Dawnwell.”, Willow looked outside the carriage at the demi-human, he was shown signs of disgust and disappointment by the public.

Dawnwell is a human supremacist country, which means that humans are the ruling race here. I couldn’t do anything for him or else I would get into trouble.

The carriage continued its way way to the castle, Athena was looking outside together with Azure and Willow was sitting cross legged as we waited for us to arrive at our destination.

“Hey, have you heard about that noble family?”, we heard a conversation outside the carriage. “Yeah, apparently the family’s been wiped out. Not even the daughter survived.”, one said.

“You mean the ‘Sword Saint’ died. That probably means that her name was just for show, heh.”, another said. They were talking about Athenas family, the news took a while to spread. But word has started to spread already.

I looked at Athena and she was squeezing her hands in frustration so hard that she even started bleeding. She was frustrated by how people talked about her mother, but she was also sad for being remembered by what happened.

I used my spirit form hands and healed her by connecting to her spirit, I then embraced her to calm her down. I was really embarrassed, but I did not know what else to do.

She seemed to have calmed down, and now her was starting to get red. “Master… you can let go now.”, she said with a beet red expression. I let go of her and looked outside the carriage, trying to forget what just happened.

“We arrived sir.”, the driver announced our arrival at the huge dome shaped building, we exited the carriage and were greeted by a guard. “This way mr. Willow.”

The guard guided us into the castle, Athena had to use a cloak to hide her face. She’s a noble child there was bound to be some guards who may or may not recognized her.

We arrived at some waiting room with several chairs lined up, they looked fancy almost high class. “Please wait here until you are called upon.”, the guard said leaving the room.

We sat down on the chairs and waited, Athena rested a little because of the long time she spent on the carriage. Willow just sat there like nothings his problem, and Azure was spreading herself all over me, like literally she turned into her slime form and spread herself all over me.

I was getting a little embarrassed even though my expression is unchanging, she might not be in her human form. But the thought that she looked like a girl bothered me.

“Azure, could you please stop spreading yourself all over me.”, I asked her in my cold voice. “But Master, I want to cling to you.”, she said without a single hint of shame.

I sighed and simply left her to her own devices, she literally felt like a slime. It was kind of like having jello all over you, it was weirdly comfortable.

We continued waiting and waiting and waiting until we heard footsteps coming, I told Azure to turn herself into her human form. Athena woke up and Willow stood up.

“Mr. Willow I am most pleased to meet your acquaintance.”, a man in a robe said, he looked like some sort of sage. He had white beard and no hair, he looked like he was eighty years old or even older.

“Same here.”, Willow said, the sage then guided us towards the King’s aide. We entered a room and there were two people in there waiting, one of them looked like your average citizen, but if you looked closer you could feel an air of importance around him. And the other was the full body armor knight we saw four days ago.

“Oh, it’s you.”, the king’s aide said with a small hint of annoyance. He picked up some documents and set them aside and looked at me and Willow. “It seems you came here to deliver the magic swords, right?”, he said with an evil grin.

“Yep, here I got ‘em.”, he said taking out twenty magic swords from his magic item, the king’s aide eyes went wide open, surprised by the magic swords. He recomposes himself and asked.

“How’d you make those swords so fast?”, he asked suspicious of the speed it took for us to make these swords. “I had the help of this boy.”, he told him while looking at me.

“Tch, a dwarf and an elf.”, he whispered to himself with a hint of annoyance. “Hmm, there are only twenty?”, he asked.

“Hold up, you requested twenty magic swords, no more no less.”, Willow said. The king’s aide made a mischievous smile and said. “What are you talking about? I clearly ordered forty magic swords, as expected of a dwarf. Always trying to bring up lies for their own gain.”

‘What’s he talking about? Why is he lying?’, I wanted to ask but kept my mouth shut, I looked at the knight and he just stood there without saying a word.

“Me lyin’? The hell’re ya talkin’ about!?”, Willow was at his wits end, he had to forge twenty swords in four days. But the fact that he would have to make forty swords in four days seemed nuts!

“That’s just how dwarfs are! Dwarfs, elves and demi-humans, all of you savages should are all one and the same!”, the king’s aide lost his composure and ended up showing his true colors.

‘No way… ‘, I thought about the reason why he changed the number of magic swords requested. He wanted to get rid of Willow because he’s a dwarf. Since other races like dwarfs and elves weren’t really fond in Dawnwell, getting rid of his reputation as a smith would not just ruin his business, it would make him even more hated in the kingdom.

But, what I would like to know is why? Why is there so much hate towards other races? Elves, dwarfs, demi-humans and other, there was so much hate towards them, I would have understood if there was just some hate, but to go this far?

I thought that the treatment towards other races was kind of rash, but this guy wants to take it to a whole other level.

“I’m done acting so nice towards such disgusting creatures!”, he growled like an animal full of rage, his hate towards other races must be so big that he couldn’t hold it in anymore.

Athena who was covered by a coat so that she would not be recognized, was gripping her fists. She couldn’t believe how much hate was in this kingdom towards other races.

I was turning my hate into focus, so that I wouldn’t do something stupid. And Willow just stood there, unfazed by the remarks made by the king’s aide.

“Wanna know what? Ya can keep the swords. I don’t give a damn about this country anymore!”, Willow turned around and looked at me and I nodded.

The king’s aide did not even spare to look at us and neither did we, we left the castle and made our way back home.

“Are you sure that was okay?”, I asked Willow as we walked down the street where the magician was.

“You will lose your reputation and you won’t be able to sell as before much.”, I told him. He continued walking without a single care in the world and said. “Nah, it ain’t a problem. I was thinking of leaving this country soon anyway.”

“So, what are you going to do now?”, I asked curiously, since he did not want to live here anymore.

“Well… that’s up to you.”, he said without hesitation. What did he mean by that? I didn’t know, I stopped walking trying to process what he just said.

“I don’t have anywhere to go. So, why not go with friends?”, Willows life was just smithing weapons and armors, he didn’t have anywhere else to go. “These last couple of days have been a lot of fun, before ya two came, forging swords had started feel so dull. But, when you two appeared it reignited my will to be a great smith again.”

“Don’t you have a family somewhere? Or don’t you have something that you want to do?”, I asked, he could have relatives somewhere or something that he wanted to do. I didn’t want to hold him back.

“Shiro, I don’t have good ties with my family and also I’m already an old man, I won’t get younger anytime soon.”, he said while looking at the sunset, the scarlet colored sky was mesmerizing to look at.

“At some point, I had forgotten how much I loved forgin’ blades’ n armor, but seein’ you make yer own sword was like lookin’ at my old self. It was like it had told me to go’ n try again.”, I suddenly became silent after hearing him out, Athena as well looked at the floor without any words to say.

I got the courage to speak out and said. “You know that I’m going to do something horrible.”, I may have been delaying it, but I was still going to get my revenge. Ralph was in the capital and I needed to find out whether the king was truly behind it all and find the mercenaries.

Willow shook his head and said. “Ya do what ya have to do, I’ll just be waitin’ for ya. I understand why ya would want to get rid of ‘em, what they did to ya was unforgivable.”, Willow said.

“Are you sure?”, I asked him.

“I choose what I want to do, and you choose what you want to do.”, he answered. I didn’t know what he was thinking about me, whether he thought it was okay for me to do what I was about to do.

We have been walking for a good couple of minutes, Azure was tired of walking to the point where Athena had to carry her.

“Master, when are we home?”, Azure was tired from walking to the point where she’s being carried by Athena. “We’re almost there, just wait a little—“, as I was about to finish the sentence, I saw something.

The streets were almost empty, the buildings were enlightened by the red sky. And in the middle of it all was an old man, who’s appearance was almost ghostly.

‘The old man!’, I ran towards the spirit that I saw and looked at him it was the old man that helped me that day. He turned around and looks back at me and smiled. It was the old man who had let me borrow some money and transported me.

‘What happened to him? Did he die?!’, thoughts were crossing through my mind like whirl storm, was he killed? Was it an accident?

“What’s wrong Master?”, Athena asked worried why I ran over here even though nothing was there. She couldn’t see spirits, she wasn’t born with an aptitude for it.

“What happened?”, I asked him, he looked at me with his hollow eyes and said. “It’s good to see that you are well.”,

“Respond to me! What happened?!”, I was starting to get riled up. Why did he have to die? Why?!

He looked at the sun, his eyes were almost empty as if hope was gone and the only thing, he had now was despair. “I wish I would’ve seen my wife one last time.”, he said.

“Who did this to you?! Who?!”, was it the noble? The king? A bandit, thief, or anybody at all?! “It… it was the noble I made a deal with, Raymond Ferrow.”, the nobles name not just made Athena Twitch it also made me angry.

The hell is wrong with this kingdom?! Not just is there a a lot of discrimination against other races, commoners and nobles don’t get along!

“Why did he do that?!”, why, why, why, why, why, why, WHY?! Why did such a good person deserve such a fate. “I don’t know, I don’t remember.”, the old man was starting to disappear. Spirits do not survive long after dying, they would have to be holding a deep hatred to at the very least become ghosts.

“Wait! Do not go yet. What about your family?”, I asked but he didn’t respond. I just watched him go, his spirit ascended into the sky without leaving a trace of his existence.

“Fine, I’ll find it out myself.”, I murmured to myself, Athena was confused, and Azure was sleeping on her back, yawning without a care in the world. “What’s wrong?”, Athena asked once again.

“Nothing… it’s just that I’m done waiting.”, I looked at her and she nodded understanding what I had meant.

<< The levels of ‘Wrath’ and ‘Distorted Mind’ have increased. >>

YeetusFeetus

Since nobody asked me any questions, (I think it's because of how vague I explained it in the author notes) I'm going to tell you a fun fact about myself: I have terribly short memory, for some reason I keep forgetting many things and when I push my head to remember, I even forget about what I was trying to remember. I don't have Alzheimer... I think... It's just that I have bad memory. One more thing, I'm incredibly lazy =￣ω￣=

Oh, one last thing: You can ask questions here in this chapter (please do if you have any) and I'll answer them in a future chapter.