Don the Hero

Viscount Bart said these words with coldness and sadness in his heart. Don felt his heart tense again as he heard those words. He did not know why but, he felt like Viscount Bart was not saying something. The children got even more unease as they heard this. They had never heard a story so dark before.

Most adventurers would tell them stories of their heroics and awesome feats. The taught that those adventurers could have hard days and be challenged never crossed their mind.

"The last level was to our surprise, quite empty. It only took us a day to map out the main wildlife and terrain of the place. We had never lowered our guard since entering level 2 of the forest and we were not going to until we left that forest. After mapping most of the area, we decided to make camp and rest for the night. 3 People were on watch while the rest of us slept. We did not get to rest for long though.

I had heard screams coming from outside that night. when I Opened my tent...I was faced with a reality I could not except. The monster that was tearing up our camping ground and killing my party as easily as killing ants was a Tiger stripped Tarantula. A 30 fucking foot tall Tarantula." Viscount went from sad to angry in that moment. All the kid's heart sank.

"As I sensed his aura I realized that I could not discern its rank. I quickly asked Megan if she could perceive the rank of the spider, but even she was stumped. This meant that the Tarantula was at least level C6. Even though we were facing an overpowered Beast, we did not cower in fear. Maybe we should have.." He said the last part in almost a whisper.

"When we had first started our expedition, there was 150 of us. When we finally left level 3 there was still 132 of us...."

A little boy started to count the heads of the Knights in the table. When he counted 12 his hand shook in fright at the thought of what happened to the rest of the party.

"The fight...if you could even call it that was...the worst experience I have every been through...Many of our low leveled comrades died that day." Viscount stopped talking after that. His Mind had wondered to the past. Quite a few of falling comrades were his followers that had been with him through thick and thin. The fact that he would have to inform their families of their demise pained him deeply.

The kids went silent. Some of the men that were also in the inn put down their drinks as they heard the story. They were all stunned to silence. They had never heard a story so dark and so sad. They felt like a pail without water, empty. One of the younger girls looked at Viscount with sad yet hopeful eyes.

"D-did you defeat the big bad spider?" she asked. Viscount looked at her with hesitantly. He closed his eyes for a second to calm himself down before he let out a small smile.

"Yes we did. Our fallen comrade...their deaths..were avenged." After hearing this, most of the kids smiled in relief. They were able to take revenge on them at least. The villagers that were listening with one ear also let out a breath. 'Being an adventurer is pretty hard, huh?' they thought.

Don however could not help but frown when he heard that. He looked at the rest of the party. Their faces still looked grim. 'Could they be...lying?' Don thought.

After calming the kid's uneasy hearts, Viscount told stories of past ventures to different places. Some were in Vernia and some were out into other parts of Taurus. The village children's hearts started to beat with excitement again as Viscount told stories that were more align to what they were used to.

Don's frown never let up even after the party went to their room to have a private conversation with Chief Mayweather.

While the Kids were walking out, Maryline could not stop talking about how cool Viscount and his party seemed.

"When I become an adventurer I will have so many stories to tell and will also go to so many different towns and cities. Then I'll be like them, cool, mysterious and brave. Even in times of desperation avenge your comrades!" Maryline said this as she jumped and did a kick attack.

Elijah sighed at his sister's ignorance. 'Yeah like they actually defeated a level C spider. Why am I the only intelligent one beside all these gullible twerps?'. Of course Elijah won't say this to his naive little sister. Even if he did, she probably would not believe him.

"Mar don't you think you're thinking too far in the future? There is just too many steps you are not thinking about. To become an adventurer, you need to get an adventurer license. To get a license, you need to have gone to an Adventure academy for 2 years. To get into an academy, you need to be at least 16 years old" Elijah smirked at this last line.

He was turning 16 in a month and had researched everything he needed to know so that he could try his hand at enrolling into a good academy. He was a confidant boy so he was planning to take the examination to enter into Vernia city's Number one academy, Crescent Borne Academy.

Maryline let out a devilish grin as she heard her brother talk.

"Don't think I'll let you get a head start" Maryline pulled out a card with silver strips on it.

"What's that?" Elijah asked in curiosity.

"My ticket to taking the Exam 2 years earlier." At the response, Elijah's face turned ugly.

"Teacher Zen knows someone in Crescent Borne academy. After the friend heard that he took on a disciple, the friend gave this to him and he gave it to me. he he he" Elijah could only sigh.

"Looks like I can't rid of you yet you little twerp." Elijah roughed up him sister's hair as he said this with a warm smile. His sister was heading to her dream occupation; he was happy for her.

"You can't hide it now; you care about Mar." Don smiled as he teased his older brother. Elijah quickly changed his soft expression into his usually haughty one and gave Don's hair a nice roughing up.\

"How can I care for such a little brat? You are also quite annoying sometimes you smart ass Squirtle. sigh... How am I related to you two?" Elijah walked in front and hid his face from them.

Don ran forward only to see his brother blushing.

"You do care! No. You love us don't you?" Don kept badgering Elijah and Elijah replied with a whole sailor book worth of cursing. At some point Maryline could not keep up with the dissing as insults were not her specialty.

As the 3 kids talked; they finally arrived at their destination, Teacher Zen's Martial arts building. Ever since, Maryline started going to train more often, the flaming duo realized that they were leaving someone behind. So one day without any warning, they dragged their brother who was peacefully reading a book, to the martial arts building.

At first he was a little defiant but soon enough he stopped resisting. Nothing much changed at first, he just read his book in the martial arts building but then something caught his interest. He was not captured by the martial art techniques or sword training but instead by a low ranked skill called Tiger's eye. It was a perception skill that helped you sense things such as how someone was feeling or if you were in a dangerous area or not.

He quickly learned the skill and to Teacher Zen's surprise he became very proficient at using it. He had reached the same level in the technique as Teacher Zen in just a few weeks. Teacher Zen had tried to ask Don how he did it so fast but only got a vague reply.

Teacher Zen did not snoop too deeply after that. It was just a low ranked technique after all. Many geniuses from big families could learn such a skill in a shorter time.

It was because of this skill, that Don felt uneasy about Viscount and his party. It was not that he did not believe them but more that he felt like they were hiding something. The feeling he got sat with him all day and he was unable to concentrate on the new book he got.

After 3 hours of lessons, the Finch children headed home. Their parents were on a date night today so they went right to bed. Each finch sibling had a different room. Maryline and Elijah were separated for obvious reasons and Don got his own room so that he could read in peace.

Or at least that was the reason he told his parents.

While everyone else was a sleep, Don was meditating. As he meditated for a few minutes, his body started to glow and his hand started to emit a colorless light.

4 scenes continued to flash in his mind.

A girl smiling at him and calling him a name a did not recognize.

Then a bunch of people laughing and cheering with him over a bone fire.

A spear in his right hand and beast surrounding him.

And the last scene was the most unusual. He was in the sky with dark grey wings, flying with the birds.

As the scene repeated again, he heard a conversation he had heard many times before.

"When will you realize that you have gone mad? Is this how it ends? Is this how you will live your finale days?" A female voice screamed in desperation. Her voice was clearly hoarse from yelling a lot.

"One day you will understand why I made this sacrifice. Even if you call me mad, crazy, stupid, evil I don't care. This was partly to protect you but it is also partly for the future of our world. Maybe you won't see it, maybe not even the next few generations but don't worry. I will witness it for you" The person who said these words held a sort of mysterious feeling to his voice.

Don had been pondering for the longest time at what these scenes meant and what the man was trying to tell the women. He had looked through books and wondered whether it was the future or the past but he was still stumped.

All he knew was that the moment he started seeing these scenes he had gone through a premature awakening.