In a luxurious manor...

Eminent Nightfall's cup dropped to the floor, spilling red wine onto the red felt carpet. He couldn't even utter a single word as his head was decapitated. An armoured man with a tattered black cape hefted his sword onto his shoulder and sighed.

 

"At least he's dead now," the man whispered.

 

His footsteps thudded against the wooden floorboards as he walked out of the room and quietly closed the door behind him.

 

Eminent Nightfall's body wouldn't be discovered until the next morning.

 

***

 

Milo wanted revenge.

 

But he was weak. He had no clue where to start. He was a nobody with zero connections. He had no resources to fuel any kind of training. In the first place, he was an ordinary class [Farmer]. Plus, he was a decade behind everyone else in terms of their levelling,

 

So what chance did he have?

 

Less than zero.

 

Milo was technically a free man, but he wasn't as happy as one should be. He just didn't have much…control over the world. He just wasn't special in any way. He was ordinary and weak. His past self would have killed to be free, but now that still wasn't enough for him.

 

He was dealing with real problems that people in the real world would deal with.

 

But Milo wasn't mad. It was better than being a [Slave].

 

So what could he do?

 

…

 

Nothing—that's what.

 

What hope would he have against the Inquisition? He had no clue how many of them there were, where they were, or who was the person who orchestrated the destruction of his village, but the person responsible had to be someone with so much power it was unfathomable to him.

 

He hated saying all these things to himself but it was the truth.

 

It felt like he was punching himself in the gut. Like he was an already injured person pouring cups of salt onto his bleeding wounds.

 

During his nine years as a [Slave], there wasn't a single day that passed by where he didn't think about Eminent Nightfall's ugly, old face. He would often have nightmares, or wake up in a cold sweat after reliving that dreaded night.

 

He could only hang his head in defeat and hoped that he wouldn't be in another position like this again.

 

***

 

Tall and intimidating, the [Blue Warden] walked into the [General]'s tent. He had a tough look on his face as he strode forward several paces and stopped in front of the [General]'s desk. Two [Royal Knights] stood beside the man in charge of all 30,000 men stationed at the centre of the Balm Plains.

 

General Killing.

 

Not bothering to tell him to stand at ease, he began speaking in a calm and pleased tone of voice, "Ostin, you did fantastically in our last battle. I am very, very impressed with what you did the day before. You damn near saved seven hundred men with your signature [Blue Shield] that has become lauded amongst the common ranks. Without you, all of them would have died."

 

Ostin bowed, the way that those of the magicks would pay respect to one another. It was one of the things that Master Blue Light had drilled into him. Though, he was dead now. He died a year ago in the battle for Concord, a major trading port on the Grecia Empire's east border. Before he died, Maste Blue Light had somehow dyed the entirety of the night sky in a shade of blue, taking with him the entourage of [Assassins] that had been sent to kill him. That had only been the start of a very long and draining battle that left him in bed for weeks.

 

"I am just a backline mage who cast a well-timed spell. I have not even a slither of the courage that a normal [Soldier] has. I assume General Killing has requested my presence here for a reason."

 

General Killing smiled and leaned back in his leather chair. "Indeed I have. You're free to go home. This campaign is over. While everyone else consolidates our position, you are free to go.”

 

Ostin blinked, unable to believe what he was hearing.

 

Go…home?

 

***

 

A week later…

Milo was stunned as he looked at the wizard of a man who had appeared before him. He had just been in his study, perusing over a book about ancient and powerful warriors like a madman—when the maid told him someone was here to visit him.

 

With her hands clasped together in front of her face and with a face full of excitement, Lisa stood behind Ostin as the two brothers ran into each other's embrace, the momentum of Milo's brief charge sending them tumbling into the hallway.

 

Milo couldn't be happier.

 

***

 

Over tea and sweet bread, Ostin explained to Milo and Lisa what he had been through the previous nine years. During the first three years that they were apart, Ostin trained at a special institution in a hidden village within a remote mountain range. In that village, Ostin trained with other children who had recently awoken to elite classes that would be useful to the Grecia Empire. Like Ostin, no one had been there by choice.

 

After three years of intense training to pad down all their fundamentals, all the students of his year were sent off to different places. Some went straight to the army, some went to the Inquisition, and some went to other unnamed places.

 

Ostin went to Golden Wing Academy, the place where all of the greatest prospects of the Grecia Empire went. If it weren't for the rarity and value of his class compared to more "ordinary" and "common" elite-tier classes, he would never have been sent there. He wasn't even particularly talented compared to the other five people in his grade, but over the course of the next year, he completely changed.

 

After a gruelling final test at the end of the year, he parted ways with a girl named Jude. Lisa and Milo smirked knowingly when Ostin mentioned her. Ostin, however, denied any chance of them ever truly being together as she was an [Inquisitor] and he was just a mage in the army. Her life would be dedicated to Emperor Nimbus and his empire. It was two completely different worlds.

 

Then for the next five years, he participated in the Darlee Campaign, conquering all of the nomadic tribes that called the Darlee plains home. With his shields, the arrows of their primitive armies could not even touch them. If it weren't for him, thousands of men would have been unable to return home and see their families.

 

At the same time, Ostin felt like a cog in a machine, unable to say anything about the morality of their campaign. He could only go along with it all, or be executed for mutiny.

And now here he was, a Level 52 [Blue Guardian].

 

A proud smile crept onto Milo's face.

 

After a month, unfortunately, Ostin had to return for another campaign.

 

And so life continued in strange ways.

 

***

 

Seven years later…

 

"What if I rebuild Kirkstead?" Milo suggested to his fiance, Hailey, as they lay in bed at night, their warm bodies in a tight embrace.

 

Hailey didn't respond. She was in fact asleep.

 

***

 

A year later…

 

An [Architect], three [Carpenters], five [Laborers], twelve [Builders], and six months of work later, two dozen homes were built. Homes were sold for a premium. Milo and his wife—with a girl also on the way—rebuilt beside the wreckage of his old house.

 

Uncle Bill had funded the whole project and with Milo at the helm directing everyone towards his vision, they recreated a place that was strikingly similar to the original place.

 

***

 

Twenty years later...

 

Milo lived out the remainder—at least the majority of it—of his life as a normal person.

 

It was what he always wanted. And he was happy. He would start the day with a smile on his face, every day. He had a wife and four children, and with him as the leader of Kirkstead, the growing village prospered. It was a minor role in the grand scheme of things. But it was enough for him. He wasn't stealing money from others as a stockbroker for the mafia. He was Kirkstead's village chief and he meant something to others.

 

With each passing year, there was always another additional house built for a new family. So in a few generations, Kirkstead would be back at its original size. Knowing this brought a smile to Milo's face. Sometimes he worried that the [Inquisitors] would return and massacre his village, but fortunately, he learned that the Grecia Empire was looking for the person who killed the Goddess of Space. Somewhere along the way, they exterminated Greenlodge.

 

Milo could only hope that the Grecia Empire left them alone. Arr'ya, the Goddess of Space had been dead for nearly forty years at this point, so he didn't expect the [Inquisitors] to ever return at this point.

 

Every day, Milo would remember his family. Mother. Father. Byrn. John. He would always take a few moments to pause and just…recall it all.

 

He missed them dearly.

 

Maybe in another life, he would be able to avenge them all. Milo thought that, if he lived enough lives, he could become strong enough to break the rules of the Eternal System and just go back in time to stop them from ever dying.

 

He imagined countless scenarios of how he would have saved them.

 

But eventually he let go of the past. 

 

He decided to foster the future. He would ensure that such an atrocity never happened again. 

 

Fortunately for him, such an opportunity would later present itself to him in a way he would have never expected.