013 Brewing storm (3)

Thadak, thadak.....

It was way beyond midnight. Me and Nero, decided to check in on something, and decided to sneak a peek at those red guys' place.

"Are you sure something was amiss?", Nero asked riding his and horse keeping up with my pace.

"Yeah, it was definitely strange, even though they wanted us to catch them, they were too simple minded, without much of a plan. I'm sure we will find something at the site, something we missed" I said speeding up.

Nero didn't say much and just followed me.

In the last few months me and Nero grew quite close, he started to reflect on his actions and he was quite an easy going guy.

"Nero, if you remember yesterday, the guy never opened his mouth once, he was confident about something, despite me threatening to discover his family, I think he is sure that his information is protected",

"Is that so??, As expected you're smart Roy. I didn't observe all that but what you did yesterday was kind of cool",

I just sighed. We quickly arrived at the spot and I bound my horse's leash to a nearby tree, concurring Nero to do the same.

We began walking towards the direction where the group had led us before. I could still feel the lingering, scornful gazes of the poor people but I couldn't help much with that.

I quickly controlled my breathing and reached the run down house.

As it was late at night, I couldn't see whatsoever.

But then I thought of an idea, as I was already fairly good with my mana control abilities, I directed my mana towards my eyes, suddenly a warm feeling enveloped my retina and my eyes began working like a night vision lens, but with a better spectrum of colours.

I could also see various other things like prescense of a life form or some strange thread like substances lingering here and there.

"Nero, does Aura also have such an ability??" I asked describing my eyes.

Nero was shocked, he looked like this was first time he had come across something like this.

"W..well, we Aura users have naturally heightened senses so I can see in the dark too" he said a bit perplexed.

'Why didn't I think of something like this before?? Haa, it's just as they say, a man awakens his innate potential during dire situations' I sighed.

Right now wasn't the time to ponder so I quickly got on guard and entered the house.

This time we were caught by something else, something non human, drinking or chewing on the coagulated blood on the floor.

The corpse of those individuals seemed to have disappeared while 4 huge rodents as large as a well fed cat were feeding on the red enigmatic semi solid dispersed on the floor.

I quickly drew my blades, I also noticed Nero doing the same.

"Blood rodents" he uttered looking slightly disgusted. Even though Nero was a muscle head, he knew his way when it comes to monsters.

"Don't let them bite you" he warned, looking ready to attack.

I simply nodded and tapped my foot. This caught their attention.

Although you could argue that stealthily killing them was better but in this situation it wasn't.

Nara explained a lot regarding battle tactics, 'Only use stealth killing if you know that you can disguise without falling in the radar of your enemy. Otherwise just go for the kill.' Is what she believes.

I followed her words exactly, I knew Nero would handle things himself so I focused on my task beforehand.

I quickly saw two rodents running towards me in blind rage, their crimson red eyes showcased a sense of fury.

I didn't make a move first but observed their point of choice.

The slippery bastards suddenly split and began to approach me from two different directions.

The thrill of my first battle enticing me, I lunged towards my right.

With my mana eyes I could see the movements being slowed down, the rodent pounced at me trying to give a headbutt. I just dived above the rodent hitting his torso with the hilt of my sword.

Of course this didn't kill him, he just sped up and reached my right thigh, trying to bite it, I just elbowed him and slashed my scimitar horizontally.

Splurghh,

I cleanly cut the rodents body in two halves but forgot about the second one.

The second rodent slashed my back with its nails and tried to bite me like his friend,

Although hurt, I deflected his bite with the blunt end of my sword, kicking it on its face.

The rodent tumbled back in pain, but before it could wince again I lunged forward slicing its body into 4 pieces by swinging both my scimitars.

Huff, Huff

I took a moment to catch my breath but I was content.

I wiped the sweat of my face and looked at how Nero was dealing.

He simply banged his greatsword at the last remaining rodent kicking it's battered body to the side.

He noticed my gaze and displayed a proud smile.

Sigh,

"Let's search" I said as I began walking towards the dried up blood pool.

There wasn't much to see so I kept walking a bit more front until a small woolen bag came to my field of vision.

It was well hidden as without my mana eyes I wouldn't have noticed.

Scrutinizing my gaze, I could see a weird flow of mana, surrounding the bag.

Next to the bag a few corroded weapons were thrown which looked like they were made from Black mithril.

Although they looked corroded I thought they might be useful and collected them with the jute bag we had brought.

I then began looking for any other signs when I was hit with a foul stench.

The stench of a rotting body.

"Roy,!!!" Nero called, alarmed. I looked at his direction, and blinked with astonishment.

He had found a small door which gave way to a small room, what was unique was that the door was made of concrete so when Klein was present here yesterday, he couldn't have guessed such a detail. Though, I'm still puzzled he could miss such a huge bag.

I wanted to enter the room but the staunch smell and the thick mana in the air advised me against it.

"Nero let's take these swords and that bag. We shall inform dad and the others about this place." I said retreating.

He simply complied without much hesitation as he knew that they were in no position to face whatever was present behind the door.

We quikly gathered our loots and began heading towards our horses.

Looking at the gazes again, I felt my heart limper.

Without wasting time I untied the leash and waited for Nero to get ready.

After confirming I quickly pulled the leash disappearing into the darkness along with my friend.

_______________________________________

"So what do you think caused him to adapt such decisive and mature behavioral traits Anna, I know you've been avoiding something from me regarding Roy so I just made use of yesterday's events to showcase it to you" a black haired man with an eyepatch uttered.

"I....I don't know what to say Sir Rey. I noticed his changes long back, I know you had noticed it too but I felt you might become a bit impulsive in your decision." Anna said with a tinge of worry in her voice.

"Impulsive....ha, towards my own son!!! But I guess I can understand where that is coming from. You're talking about the hasty decision I made to throw away my own royalty and comparing it to this aren't you?"

"I.....I don't know. I don't think Roy deserves this. He was constantly bullied for until Iike two months back. His usual easy going demeanor also vanished. He became lifeless, completely devoid of any emotion. Ever since, yours and lady's.....well incident he lost all of his valour. But he changed during the early blue lunar crescent. We thought he changed back to his old self but yet again--",

"He became unreadable, is it??Hmm, his incredible intuition yesterday, and such remarkable observation skills, seems like he underwent an awakening maybe??"

"Yes, I think that is the only possible explanation. He also acts like he lost his memories before the crescent moon day. He never tenses up when Alice is around or doesn't look at me with hate in his eyes",

"Hate huh?? You don't want him to remember the past do you Anna?

Sigh,

For now train him with his mana. To think my son had an awakening and I wasn't present for that, tch. I will take care of his fire affinity, you and Nara take care of the rest" he said with a bit of regret.

"And that weird chain ability you said, are you sure he used a cursed power Anna?"

"Yes Sir Rey, he was using a cursed power. I could feel the cursed Aura around him"

"Haa what a fate",

'Don't worry Roy, your father will protect you' Reynolds said clenching his fist.