CHAPTER 2: The epitome
Aernight City, Aethelgard.
A week has passed since that day.
The bright ray of sunlight falls upon a large signboard.
, was written on it with beautiful calligraphy.
Below the signboard, a horse carriage just arrived. A pale, thin but solid built middle-aged man got out of the carriage followed by three men wearing black robes. The three’s faces were hidden behind their masks. They stood behind the man respectfully. The middle-aged man was wearing a silver robe fully covered with an elegant design.
In the Kingdom of Aethelgard, one's status could be judged from the color of their robe.
The lowest class usually wear black robes, the middle class wear white, the upper middle class wear Silver. The upper class wear purple. As for the ones with the highest prestige, wear golden robes.
Normally, only those of the royal family have the status to wear golden robes.
The man in the silver robe had an upper middle class background.
Even so, he had some authority within Aernight City. Because, he is rumored to be good friends with a golden robe level character.
As soon as the man arrived, Mr.Ron hurriedly came to greet him with a welcoming smile. He slightly bowed to show some courtesy and then said, "Oh my! Mr.Aveon! What a good way to start the day! My humble trading shop is sure to be blessed today! Please come to my humble shop and grace—" he didn't get to finish as Mr.Aveon stopped him abruptly. And then Mr.Aveon entered the shop. He looked around and saw some slaves being openly. His eyebrows twisted but he didn't say anything. Then Mr.Ron greeted him at his office and ordered a maid to bring tea and snacks.
"Mr.Ron, today I personally came to discuss a very serious matter with you, I do not want any disturbances." As Mr.Aveon said this, Mr.Ron's heart skipped a beat. However as an experienced trader, he always has ways to deal with things. No change of expression could be seen on his face as he clicked on a blue switch on his desk.
And the whole office was covered in a sound protective barrier.
Finding no expression on Mr.Ron's face, Mr.Aveon started speaking,
"Good, quite a nice setting you have here. The most successful trade shop lives up to its name."
Hearing such good words normally Mr.Ron would be greatly happy. However, right now his face had darkened and a bad premonition came over him.
Noticing the slight change on his face, Mr.Aveon's lips curved into a smile as he said, “There is no need to be worried, Mr.Ron. It may be a serious matter for me. But I believe it is of not much seriousness for you.
Last week, our supply had a shortage of two eyes and one kidney. But somehow, Mr.Ron immediately provided us with a teenager boy. Thanks to that, we were able to complete our order. However, something unexpected happened when we were trying to transport those two eyes and kidney. A few of my men suddenly lost their minds and massacred our whole team. After that, they committed suicide. When we went to investigate, we found other eyes and kidneys... But the ones we got from boy, whom we got from , were not present there. And thus, we had to face quite a bit of you see…”
By this point, Mr.Aveon's voice sounded like poison to Mr.Ron.
He had an expression of confusion at first. But by the end of the speech, he was dumbfounded and cold sweat dripped down from his back
Mr.Ron cleared his throat and said, "I have no idea about what exactly happened there. My men found that boy unconscious near Aetherwood, about a year ago. He had no memories when we found him. He doesn't have any name, no background, nothing at all. We were suspicious at first, so we checked him thoroughly and found… .
As if he had just popped out of nowhere in the forest.
But we didn't bother about it much and brought him to sell as a slave. After a few months of grooming, he was sold five times, but he was brought back after every ten days or so by the buyer. They complained about his uselessness and weaknesses. And last week, it was the sixth time a customer brought him back. At that time, it just happened to be on that same day, when I received an order from the black market for two eyes and one kidney. And since he was worthless as a slave, I thought it would be best if I just used that boy to meet the demands of that day... And you know the rest. I have no other information on that boy.”
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Mr.Ron looked at Mr.Aveon's indifferent face and gulped saliva.
The office was silent for a few minutes. Then Mr.Aveon got up and took his leave without saying anything else. Mr.Ron also didn't dare to strike up another conversation and sighed with relief.
...
Mr.Aveon got into his carriage. After crossing a bit of distance from the shop,he summoned the three minions, "Amo, Aemo, Aimo show yourselves."
Three figures wearing black robes silently arrived before Mr. Aveon.
"Us, three brothers, greet the great lord!", they said in unison.
However behind their mask, cold sweat was dripping across their face.
Mr.Aveon looked at them as if there was nothing before him and said in an icy cold voice, "Take me to the place where you threw him away. I need to see for myself even if there's nothing but a skeleton remains!"
"Then we shall!", the three replied. With this, they started to go down the path of Aetherwood.
...
Aetherwood, six days ago...
Unlike yesterday, a bright sun was shining upon the whole forest.
Birds were chirping. Beasts were growling.
Wind was making its presence known by passing through the tiny gaps between leaves. Everything in the forest was looking especially beautiful today.
However ironically the part where the largest and tallest tree was at, had a suffocating presence at the moment. No living being was nearing it. Not because they couldn't, but because, to them there was nothing.
All the wild animals ignored that area subconsciously. As if that part of the forest had been forgotten. It has been like this since the rain stopped yesterday.
At this time, a black humanlike figure leaning against a giant Redwood tree, was staring at the corpse-like body of a teenager before it.
"..."
As it didn't have any distinct features in its face,thus it was impossible to know what expression it had at that time.
A leaf fell from the tree upon the body's forehead.
Suddenly a faint cry of pain could be heard near the figure.
The black figure stood straight and approached the body with light steps.
"Huh? W-Whe—Argh!.. Ohh.", the boy panicked at first, tried to move his body but the next moment he calmed down as if he understood the situation he was in.
The figure saw that scene and moved a bit closer to the boy. When their faces were just inches away from each other, it stopped. And kept staring at the boy's closed eyelids, where the eyes were supposed to be.
"...", it kept staring without making a single noise.
A few minutes passed. And then as if realizing something, the boy slightly chuckled and said,
"Hah, I don't know how or why am I alive. But I can guess. kept me alive till now. But no, I'm not even the least bit thankful for what you've done.Yo- " the speech paused as suddenly he was shocked and noticed that he wasn't stuttering even for once. He took a deep breath and just as he was about to continue, he was startled.
How could he breathe so easily?
Even a few moments ago when he just got back to his senses, he was struggling to make anything out of the situation in his mind, as his body was on the verge of death.
But now he felt as if nothing was wrong with his body since the start of it all. He was speechless. Then he tried to remember the last clear memories he had.
About a year ago, one day someone woke him up from his peaceful sleep under a giant redwood tree. Feeling annoyed, he tried to say something to the man who woke him up. But to his surprise he discovered, he doesn't know how to speak.
Seeing the surprised look on the naked boy who wasn't uttering a single word, the man laughed and started asking questions about the boy's name, family background, why was he laying there naked etc.
The man, after not getting any answers out of the boy, had a dubious look on his face. He hesitated for a moment and then tried to use sign language to establish a communication opportunity for the boy.
But the boy didn't know any sign language and thus the man decided to bring the boy with him.
The man brought him to a trading shop named, as he was originally affiliated with the shop. The shop owner tried to inspect the newly brought teenager but failed to gain any information.
At last, he decided to groom the boy as a slave and sell him.
For the next few months he got a minimum portion of healthy food three times a day and was taught how to speak in the rural language of Aethelgard. Even so, the boy never mentioned his name or any information about his background. Because he simply didn't have any memories of the past.
Then he was sold as a slave multiple times. But each time the buyer would return him with a bunch of complaints of him being useless.
At first, a few times the boy just had a hard time with managing his tasks and got punished lightly. But the last two times were the most painful memories he had. Especially on the sixth time, the woman would torture him with her whip even with the slightest mistake. Even the cat of the household lived an unimaginably better life compared to him. To the point, he would often regret why he was born as a human.
After remembering to this point, the boy's eyebrows knitted together.
He was confused as to why he never had a single memory before that day from a year ago.
And how was he still alive and felt quite healthy, because by now he had already discovered that other than his eyes, there was nothing wrong with his body, even somehow his lost kidney was at its rightful place.
Suddenly his whole body shuddered and he let out a painful groan.
He felt something warm entering his eye sockets. Then without thinking for another second, he immediately opened his eyes and could see a humanlike figure made of black smoke vanishing into nothingness just before his eyes.
Yes. Just now, he got back his lost eyes.
His right hand quickly shot towards the nearly-vanished black figure and tried to catch it, but in vain.
Right after a single second... Something seeped out from his grasp.
A wisp of black smoke.
The boy sighed in resignation.
For some reason, after seeing that figure, he felt as if he would never be able to see again in the future. And he unknowingly felt grief.
He went under the biggest branch of the tree and sat there for a minute, trying to figure out his situation properly this time.
‘Ah… right, I haven't eaten any food for a while now…’, he thought at the stomach’s light cry of complaints.
After looking around a bit he came to the conclusion that he was currently at Aetherwood and decided to go a bit deep into the wild and hunt some easy to catch animals for his meal.
As he left behind the redwood tree and ventured deep into the forest, an invigorating sensation suddenly caught him by surprise.
He felt as if a great and heavy thing was lifted from his very being and a sudden surge of power and vigor washed over his entire body.
He was confused for a second but then decided to ignore that.
Then he started looking for prey.
What he didn't notice though, was that, since the time he left behind the redwood tree, all the wild beasts that were nearby him immediately scattered away upon catching a glimpse of his figure.
They felt a heavy pressure looming over them whenever they saw the human figure.
As if the being before them while having the appearance of a human, was in fact no human at all.
It was something terrifying.
Something that they didn't dare to get near to.
That human figure was emitting a heavy and suffocating aura.
As if all the beings in the world would kneel before him as an instinct.
As if that human was the epitome of