“Stop bullying her!” Lucky exclaimed, glaring angrily at them.

“Whoa!” The both men exclaimed in surprise. “We’re bullying her?!”

“You’re hurting her! That’s bad!”

As the kid looked at them as if they were in the wrong, the two men looked irritably at him.

“Kid, I don’t know where you came from, scram! Get lost!”

“You’re protecting a bad person. Do you know that?”

Lucky was startled, but he remained steadfast to his beliefs and retorted, “No! The only bad people here are the two of you!”

“What?!”

“Didn’t you hear her trying to plead with you? Trying to say she was here to eat, and she even offered you money! But you suddenly got angry out of nowhere and attacked her! That makes you bad people!”

Lucky was weak, and he knew of this fact, but he somehow felt the urge to defend the girl behind him from these two bullies. As for the men, they were glaring at him angrily and looked as though they were ready to attack him at any second.

“How dare you put the blame on us?!” The companion of the bulky man exclaimed, looking furious. “We’re doing our community a favour by kicking this scum out of here, but this stupid kid is trying to protect her and is labelling us as bullies? I can’t believe it!”

“Move aside, kid,” the bulky man said, looking dangerously at him. “If you don’t, I’ll have to hit you and make you take responsibility for protecting that Demon.”

“Do your worst!” Lucky shouted, trying to sound brave and confident.

The reason for his confidence was because he believed his father would protect him. Sure enough, when the enraged companion of the bulky man grew angry and lashed out at him, Indra had already moved forward and caught his fist before it could land on his son.

“Taking a shot at my son, are you?” He asked the man, speaking in a deadly voice that perfectly matched the expression he wore on his face. “Not going to happen.”

There was a moment of stunned silence in the street before the bulky man shouted, “Let go of my friend.”

He lunged towards Indra and punched at his face. However, Indra merely tilted his head to the side and dodged it with ease. Then he clenched his own fist and drove it into the face of his attacker. In an instant, the lights behind the bulky man’s eyes went out and he stumbled backwards before toppling over and falling flat on his back on the ground.

“Bro!” His friend shouted, shocked by what just transpired.

Lucky stared at his father’s back in amazement and a bit of awe because of how cool he appeared to him.

“You’re all that’s left,” commented Indra, shifting his attention to the man whose fist he still held onto.

Sweat began to form on the man’s face as he asked, “Don’t tell me…? Y-You’re going to… kill me?” Then he shouted to the crowd at large, “Please! Someone! Help! This apostille of the Demons is going to kill me!”

He continued to shout for a few more seconds, hoping that someone would step out and help. Unfortunately for him, no one did, and he was left with the harsh reality of facing the wrath of Indra.

“I wouldn’t need to kill you if I do this.”

In an instant, he pulled the man forward by one step and grabbed onto his wrist and began squeezing it tightly. The man cried out in pain and used his other arm to try and grab Indra’s neck. His move failed when Indra grabbed the man’s other arm by his wrist also and easily moved it aside before squeezing it tightly as well. All the man could do was cry out in pain as his wrists got slowly squeezed that resulting in him feeling a great deal of pain.

That was when he knew he made a mistake by messing with the wrong person, and that they never stood a chance against someone like Indra. However, it was too late for him as both of his arms were slowly crushed under the strong pressure from Indra, who looked at him coldly as if he was staring at a bug.

“Please! I’m sorry!” The man exclaimed desperately, disregarding his pride and apologising to the stronger man. “Please, forgive me! I was in the wrong here!”

“Don’t tell that to me,” said Indra cold. “Tell that to the kid.”

As he gestured towards his son, the man turned to Lucky and said, “I’m really sorry for scaring you, kid! Please, forgive this stupid adult and tell your dad to release my hands.” Then, thinking his plea would fail, he shamelessly asked, “Pretty please.”

His last word made Lucky raise an eyebrow in surprise, but the one who spoke to the attacker was Indra.

“Not just my son. Apologise to the that girl as well.”

“What?!”

The man exclaimed in shock because the thought of having to apologize to someone from the Demon race made him feel sick to the stomach.

“I won’t do it!” He retorted. “I won’t apologise to a Demon!”

Indra narrowed his eyes and said, “Fine. I guess you’d rather have your arms crushed than apologize to someone you were recently attacking. Fine. I’ll deliver your wish,” and he put even more pressure into the man’s arm.

“AAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!” The man screamed from the agony he felt.

Everyone watching winced and felt scared of the cruel act that Indra was performing. At the same time, no one in the crowd stepped forward or raised a voice of objection to Indra’s method of subjecting the man to pain. Surprisingly, it was the Demon girl who managed to get up to her feet and tug on Indra’s clothing.

“Sir,” she said when he turned to look at her. “I don’t need his apology. Please, let him go.”

Her statement surprised Indra, her attacker felt relief and glad that she was the one who requested that. But Indra did not change his mind and turned back to face the man with a cold look in his eyes.

“Sorry, miss, but I’m not satisfied with that,” said Indra to the girl coldly. “He attacked an innocent girl, and almost attacked my son. Apologising to my son alone isn’t enough. He must apologise to you.” Then he squeezed the man’s arm real tight and demanded, “What will it be? Your apology, or your arms?”

Finally, unable to beat the pain anymore, the man gave in and exclaimed to the girl, “I am deeply sorry, miss! Please forgive this fool of a person! I was wrong! Please,” and tears began appearing on his face at how low he had been reduced to.

“Pathetic,” commented Indra in disgust, and he finally let go of the man’s arms.

The attacker, now reduced to the state of a crybaby, sighed in relief and looked fearfully at them. He took a few steps backwards, then he turned and began running away as fast as he could, leaving his friend lying unconscious on the street.

Indra sighed and look around to see everyone gazing at him with fear in their eyes.

“What’re you still staring at? Move along already!” He snapped, and they jumped before deciding to go about their daily business.

As the bustling street began to move again, Lucky said to his father, “Wow, dad! You were so cool!”

Indra nodded at his son’s praise and simply said, “Yes.” Then he looked shrewdly at him and asked, “But, tell me Lucky, why did you sound so confident? Is it because you thought I had your back?”

“Well,” began his son and looked sheepishly up at him, making his father chuckle.

“It’s fine to do these sorts of things when I’m around to support you, but I won’t always be there for you, Lucky,” his father said, looking serenely at him. “You will grow up and eventually go on an adventure, where you have to act, fight and defend for yourself. That’s why, it is necessary to train hard, get stronger, and keep your guard up.”

“Yes, dad!” Lucky said, smiling confidently at him. “I realise now the importance of your words, and I promise that I will not lose the next time that I have to fight!”

He was being serious when he said that because he realised the truth of his father’s words more vividly now after having such a close encounter. As such, he was determined to get stronger and be able to deal with situations like these on his own and not be a burden to anyone.

As Lakshmi walked the horses over and fussed over her son to ensure he was fine, the Demon girl said to Indra, “Thank you for saving me, sir.”

The older man nodded, and pointed to her son, telling her, “It’s fine, but you should really be thanking him. He jumped off the horse and rushed over to defend you.” Then he added, “Just so you know, he doesn’t know how to ride a horse, so it surprised me that he’d jump down from that height and run to help someone. So, you should really be thanking him.”

The girl nodded and turned her attention to Lucky, who saw her looking at him and turned to face he with curiosity.

“Thank you for protecting me,” the girl said, smiling serenely at him.

“Ah. It’s fine,” he replied with a smile as his mother withdrew still looking worried. Then he extended his hand towards her and said, “My name’s Lakshman, but call me Lucky. What’s yours?”

“Lucky, is it?” She asked, nodding in understanding. Then she extended her own hand out and shook his while saying, “My name’s Sumara Manjuvad, with Sumara being my first name. It’s nice to meet you, Lucky.”

As they shook their hands with smiles on their faces, the red crystal atop of her forehead suddenly began to glow. Lakshman was surprised to see it glow while she felt something, a great deal of energy coming from him.

“Incredible,” she thought to herself, looking at him with amazement as they withdrew their hand from the shake hand. “There is so much power! It’s incredible, such a young man possess this much power in him.”

“Wow!” Lucky said, staring at the glowing light with surprise on his face. “Why’s it glowing?”

Sumara smiled faintly at him and said, “This is glowing because it detected a great deal of power from you. It’s really big.”

“Oh,” he said, looking at her forehead in surprise and saw the light in the crystal die out. “Oh! It’s vanished.”

“It’s only an indicator and won’t continuously glow,” she replied with a smile. Then she turned to his parents and asked, “For him to possess that much power, is he an Advanced Ranked Magician?”

Her question surprised the parents and made them look surprised.

“Advanced Ranked Magician?” Indra asked curiously. “Can you explain, miss?”

His question confused her as she said, “Yes. Well, my crystal is something like a detection crystal, it glows when there is danger, or when I make contact with a powerful person. Of course, I normally keep the ability disabled, but since I am travelling and am cautious of my surroundings, I had kept it active and that’s how I detected the large scale of power your son has.”

“Really?!” Lakshmi asked, looking amazed. She shoved her husband aside and asked the girl, “Are you sure that my son is capable of learning magic?”

“Learn magic?” Sumara asked, looking surprised. “Are you saying your son hasn’t learnt any magic yet?”