Chapter - 5 - The Birthday Party [1]

Walking down a grass path, Joshua was holding a bouquet of purple orchids in his hand. He changed his clothes to a gray shirt and black pants to match the theme right before leaving his room.

After walking for a few more minutes, he reached a tree with white trunk and light lavender leaves which stood a lot quite a lot given that the trees and the ground around him were full of tones of red and brown.

Joshua kneeled down in front of that tree and placed the bouquet leaning against its root collar. Feeling his presence, the tree's branchs shook gently as if it was happy for his arrival. Few seconds later, some of the branches united in multiple places as they engulfed each other, creating nubs. Then, instead of those nubs, what stood in their places were fifteen fruits. Even though the fruits looked like pears, their size were only slightly bigger than a child's fist. They were covered in white but the moment Joshua took them in his hands, he could clearly see that the white had a pinkish colour to it, thanks to its bloody red insides.

And as one could guess, this tree wasn't an ordinary tree but it wasn't a magical tree either.

Nope, it couldn't be considered as a tree in the first place.

"Mother."

It was Joshua's birth mother, Daphne.

Of course, it's not like Joshua was born out of a real tree, Daphne was also a human, once.

The story was quite long but to cut it shortly, let's just say that the Marquis didn't know how to keep it in his pants.

On a day when Marquis Courtner and his knights returned from a [Monster Wave], they decided to drink and sway all night to celebrate their victory. The Marquis, who was fully drunk at the time, made a move on Daphne, the maid every man in the march had wild dreams about.

When she heard the indecent words coming from her lord, Daphne was rendered speechless. Collecting herself, she did her best to politely decline and reminded him about her humble background in the hopes of getting out of that weird situation.

Unfortunately for her, doing so only agitated the drunk Marquis even further, resulting in the 'accident' of him sexually assaulting her.

It was also the day when Daphne got pregnant for Joshua...

When Medea learned about this affair, her jealousy got the best of her and started to torment Daphne for her partner's misdeed from then on.

Even though Daphne wanted to resort to abortion, thinking about taking a child's -morever her own- life made her feel immeasurable guilt and decided against so.

Alas, on her 4th month of pregnancy, Medea started to persuade some of the knights and soldiers to make a move on her and boy oh boy, it was definitely not easy to deal with both jealous women and randy men all alone with nobody to protect her. If it wasn't for Ruby, there was no doubt she would give up on everything.

In the end, on a cool winter night, when sun had yet to rise, with the help of her one and only friend, Daphne gave birth to a beautiful baby boy in a narrow cottage under a maple tree. Due to the noises they could cause during birth, they decided that it was better for them to be away from the main building as far as possible. Mostly because of the fact that they didn't want someone to take away the newly born child or hurt him in any way.

Holding the weak and fragile body of the baby in her embrace, Daphne squeezed it tightly as waves of emotions hit her hard. It didn't take long for her to break down and start crying inaudibly. All those hardships she suffered from was only for this single moment.

Seeing her usually calm and collected friend like that, Ruby hugged both Daphne and the baby boy but knowing that staying out in the cold wasn't the best course of action to take, she quickly went inside the mansion to bring back some blankets. She didn't have the power to carry both of them and forcing Daphne to walk such long way with her exhausted and sensitive body wasn't any smarter either. Which is why, as she left in hurry, she didn't notice Daphne's body that was slowly converting into dead barks.

By the time Ruby came back, all she could see was a small tree holding the body of a crying baby on its pale lavender branches.

And the tree in front of Joshua was the same tree nearly sixteen years later.

Ruby and the others all thought that she died but that wasn't the case at all, Daphne was still alive. She couldn't talk, move or see but she could still breath and sense.

He didn't know if the Marquis and others from the household knew it but he highly doubted it.

'I feel like a real asshole for taking the fruits she hid for fifteen years but come on, I'm not planning on leaving her here alone either.'

In any case, the 'fruits' Joshua was talking about were called〘Daphne's Tears〙. As a symbol of her chaotic emotions after giving birth, the crimson colour its insides had were her blood, sweat and tears. In turn of purifying herself, the tree grew those nubs to vent her impurities.

Well, even though it was a fruit, eating it would be the same as throwing yourself in the arms of River Styx.

-Except dark-attributed people, that is.

And that was the exact reason why he needed them. The person he needed to win over was a dark-attributed one but she had more time until she could spread her wings out.

〘Daphne's Tears〙was an item that would find its way over to her in one way or another anyways. So why not take advantage of it? Especially since she needed it desperately at the moment, it was a golden opportunity.

As Joshua was thinking about this and that, he was jolted awake by the sounds of crunching leaves. Immediately, he put the fruits in the pouch he brought with him before putting it in his left pocket. By the time he made sure it was fully in his pocket, the sounds of rustling were already near. Turning around, he could spot a silhouette riding a horse approach him. The silhouette who looked like a man was wearing a black suit and a blue shirt. The moment Joshua's eyes landed on that person, a deep frown appeared on his face.

'Speak of the devil and he shall appear...'

Unlike Joshua who was clearly displeased, the man looked back at him apathetically. Looking at the eye-catching tree behind the child, he got off his horse and headed its way.

Once he was near, the man noticed the amethyst colour Joshua's eyes had and stopped in his tracks. Looking down at Joshua coolly, he started speaking.

"...So you are the child 'that' Ruby takes care of."

Just hearing his voice was enough for Joshua to want to cut his ears and throw himself off a cliff right after.

'Shit'

That was the only thing paralyzed Joshua could think at the moment. Since he was immersed in the thought of getting everything done before the evening, he completely overlooked the fact that his plans overlapped with the Marquis' walk.

-And given Joshua's heaven-defying luck, he had to ride a horse.

'Dude. Haven't you been living here for more than 20 years now? Why the heck would you feel the need to take a walk to a place so far away from the main building?'

While cursing the Marquis' 18 generations, he suddenly realized that he was his son and his already chaotic mind couldn't deal with the awkwardness, blacking out for a bit.

Mistaking Joshua's silence for fear, Marquis Courtner raised an eyebrow before turning his head back to the tree. It looked like he quickly lost interest in Joshua as he bypassed him.

Joshua let out a sigh of relief inwardly, he wanted nothing more than to leave this place right this instant but he was also curious about the reason why this 'guy' was here.

It was true he was now facing with a red flag but what could he do? This was the first and last opportunity to talk with him a-

"I heard that your body was wrecked but I didn't know you were a mute instead. I don't see a single scar on your body."

'Okay, I take all of those back. To hell with this guy.'

A man with one foot in the grave was provoking a 15 year old? What was this absurd situation?

Joshua could clearly tell that it was Marquis' way of testing him but he was left completely dumbfounded for a second. Collecting his thoughts, he replied to him.

"Is that so?"

'Heh. How's that? A taste of your own medicine.'

If someone else knew of Joshua's thoughts, they would definitely doubt that he would be in his fifties if someone combined the years he lived for in both his lives but there was nothing he could do about that. Let's just say that it was his own way of escaping from the reality and not going insane.

Even though he didn't know if it made sense, after remembering all those things he went through in that hell for one year and a half as if he was re-experiencing them made it harder for him to stand anyone from his family for any longer than a minute. He was quite lucky that he was completely disregarded or he didn't know when he would burst.

And boy oh boy, if it wasn't for him imagining the Marquis' body in the state he was once in, he wouldn't even last any longer than ten seconds.

' It's really unfortunate that we had to meet now, if it was after I became stronger, I'd cut that guy's head without even looking back. War hero? A marquis? One of the pillars of humanity? So what?'

Just because he was known to be a good person on the outside didn't mean he was really like that, especially since they were in the age when even a 5 year old knew how to act in front of foreigners.

When Marquis turned his head back to Joshua for a second, their eyes interlocked before Joshua bowed slightly.

'But not now. If I really want to run away today, I can't gather any attention to myself. Just you wait old man I'm goin- Wait. Should I try feeding him the fruit? Since he isn't a dark-attributed, I'm sure it should serve as a poison... But running away on the day he was poisoned would only gather more attention to myself. Ehhh... let's just offer him one, if he takes it, he takes it.'

Seeing the child before him act very differently from a second ago, Marquis Courtner thought that he was putting on a brave act before which made his evaluation fell to minuses. Not caring about his attitude, just as Joshua was about to offer a fruit he suddenly came to a realization as he broke in cold sweat.

'Damn it. There's no way a war hero wouldn't be able to sense dark-attribute. Was I about to walk into a red flag by myself?'

As he stood still, lost in thoughts, he could feel the presence before him going back to the gray horse.

'That was it? Wasn't he here for any reason? Then doesn't that mean he came here because he knew I was here in the first place? What was the act of 'coincidence' a second ago then? Don't tell me... was he here to visit the tree?'

Watching the horse's back as they disappeared in the distance blankly, Joshua decided on giving the Marquis a present.

-No, he vowed that he would.

Not the fruit, of course but a better one.

"Huuu..."

Sighing ruefully, he was once again reminded of the fact that he had to get stronger as fast as possible. Taking out his phone from his right pocket, he checked the time

[6th October 2203 // 17:47] [P.S. 5:47 PM]

Unbeknownst to him, nearly two hours have already passed while all he did was pick up some fruits.

"3 hours... should I look around for more ability books? Ah wait. Why haven't I used the needles for this?"

Lamenting his brain that couldn't keep up with the tempo, he walked back to his room carefully while making sure the same accident with the Marquis didn't repeat itself.

Before sitting on his stone-like coach, he took his 78 needles out and placed them on the table before him. The needles were made out of all kinds of ores which created some kind of colour fest that was a sight to behold. After that, he took a dark green box with sunset coloured symbol on it. On the symbol was the number <78>.

It was none other than the 〔The Linker〕.

====================

〔The Linker〕

Connected item count--->

[78/100]

⯮ [Acat's Needles]

Please transmite mana to the device for usage.

====================

The second he sent a part of his liquified mana to the box, combining 〔The Linker〕's effects with [Acat's Needle], the needles started to give off a cool aura as black fog engulfed them entirely. Closing his eyes, Joshua started to focus on his controls over all of them.

He would do fine if the number was near 30 but 78 of them together was still hard for him so he had to give it his all.

"Now... it's time to loot the march clean."

/-----/

[6th October 2203 // 21:30] [P.S. 21:30 PM]

Looking down at the watch on his wrist, the young man raised a glass of wine.

"Ladies and gentlemen!"

Waiting for everyone's attention to be diverted on him for a few seconds, the young man looked around. He was wearing a fancy suit that went well with his handsome looks that was quite eye-catching. Once he was sure that everybody was looking at him as they raised their glasses, he started his speech.

"I am very honored today to have every single one of you here on this joyous day-"

After a very long speech, just as everyone in the hall was about to get bored, he finally finished it. Without even a second less or more, his speech lasted for 10 minutes straight.

The moment he did so, sounds of exclaiming and clapping resounded in that enormous hall.

"Geez... they literally shout like jailbreakers who reunited with the sun after a long time. He has to be doing this on purpose."

Even though he was only watching the scene from a balcony, Joshua could feel blood dripping from his ears.

"Why does everyone hate my ears for some reason? It's not even funny."

The person responsible for this with his ten minute long speech was no other than the birthday boy, Aaron. As if he had done nothing wrong in the first place, he was exchanging greetings with the people around him. Meanwhile, just like Joshua, a person was watching Aaron from afar but unlike him, that person had a face full of laughter as he found the situation enjoyable. It was Ivan, his mage brother. Thanks to his features, it wasn't that hard to notice him in that crowd.

'He needs a psychological counseling session for sure.'

For other family members, Marquis was also exchanging greetings with the guests not so far away from Aaron while Medea and Sandra were drinking some champagne as their arms were intertwined, giving off a friendly vibe which was quite unlikely for wives of a single person but there wasn't any meaning in judging a book by its cover.

Yes, it was true Sandra saw Medea as her friend but the same couldn't be said otherwise. Medea would want nothing more than her get eaten by an alligator.

'It was another cliché but what can I say? There was no need for us to put too much thought in background characters but I guess we overdosed on that quite a bit...'

As he looked around the room, he could see more than a hundred people covered in all kinds of silks and colours. Unfortunately, Joshua's oversensitive nose made this beautiful scene unbearable given the heavy fragrance of perfume. At last, he could finally spot the person he was looking for.

A girl that looked only slightly older than Joshua was surrounded by adult men and women which was the exact reason why Joshua couldn't find her easily, given their height. The girl had waist-long straight fuchsia hair and big round maroon-coloured eyes. She wore a pale pink crinoline dress that came down to her ankles, giving her a lively and cute vibe.

It was none other than the person he wanted as his future ally.

Averie Ramirez.

And for a quick note, she was nothing like what she looked like.

'I guess my luck with women sucks... wait, my luck sucks no matter the case. Wow, I want to cry now. ;-; '