A Blessing and a Curse

Karina falls to her knees in pure dread. Heath falls back onto the chair behind him and frowns intensely with a few tears dotting his face. Atlas starts to get upset as well with his mother crying and walks up to her. When he reaches her he puts his hands up and starts crying as well. Heath manages to choke back his urge to cry and speaks up,

"Ahem. Well, it seems we'll have to triple the watch when Atlas' ceremony comes up."

Through her tears, Karina chokes out,

"We've already had to double them because of Alvina's class! Heath, we don't have enough to pay the men to triple their watch!"

Heath sits in a thinking pose for a while before getting an idea,

"The Royal family won't sit still once his class reaches them. I say we have his ceremony performed in the capitol instead of our own territory. They'll provide him and us protection, this is if our thoughts are confirmed."

Atlas chokes back his tears and manages to speak up,

"What thoughts?"

His dad gives him a smile and ruffles his hair,

"You may potentially have a Legendary class. General is already a Grand class, but your class is Grand Arch-Magus General. Arch-magus is a legendary class in and of itself, let alone adding two other runes to it."

Atlas turns his head to the side in confusion and asks,

"Isn't that a good thing then?"

Heath kisses him on the forehead and says,

"It is a good thing son, but it's also quite bad. Bad people from other countries may not want ours to have someone with a Legendary class and try to take you away from us."

Atlas recoils in shock and tears start to well up once more in his green eyes,

"I don't wanna leave mommy and daddy!"

He wraps his arms around his dad's neck and hugs him tightly. Heath hugs him back and smiles sadly. He stands up and walks over to his wife, putting his hand on her shoulder and kneels down. He kisses her on the top of her head and brings her into the hug with Atlas.

After holding the hug for a few seconds, Heath makes a statement,

"Well, this is both a blessing and a curse. I guarantee that the Royal family will provide us protection after the ceremony. However, once the news reaches the other countries our family will have a gigantic target painted on our estate. Worst case scenario, they declare war. Best case, they send terrible assassins that get caught immediately."

Karina speaks up for the first time,

"You mean ignore it all together."

Heath gives her a sad smile,

"I highly doubt they'll just ignore it. Especially Trania. At this point we're basically in open warfare with each other. They won't stay still."

Karina gets a dark look on her face.

"Atlas will have to get strong fast. I can only pray to Heltanis that he lives a happy life."

Heath rubs Atlas' head as Atlas slowly falls asleep, exhausted from the crying.

He smiles as he looks at his sleeping face,

"Looks like this little lesson will have to wait for another day. Try to do a little more research into what exactly his class could mean. I'll be going to the garrison to ask for volunteers for now. We've already caught two snakes in the territory."

Heath scowls as he talks about the snakes. Karina nods and walks over to take Atlas from Heath's arms.

"I'll bring him to bed. He's going to be awake all night tonight, haaah."

Her and Heath leave the room, when they open the door; however, an unnatural breeze moves through between them. Feeling a chill run down their spines, they break off from each other.

Karina makes her way to Atlas' room, placing him down on his plush bed that is many times too big for him. She closes the curtains on his windows and pecks the top of his head gently.

"My baby boy. I don't know why Heltanis would give you this blessing, but I'm sure you'll grow to be an important person. I only hope that this importance doesn't come at the cost of your life. I love you with all of my heart."

Heath makes his way to the barracks, taking long strides. As he reaches the door, he feels that same breeze again. Feeling that the second time was a sign, he instinctively slashes out with his hand causing a beam of energy to travel out. However, nothing else happens. As such, he stays there for a second before turning back around and entering the barracks. No breeze followed him this time.

"Heltanis curse these snakes!"

He slams the door behind him,

"JULIEN!"

He yells out. After his yell, stumbling is heard upstairs as someone hurriedly comes down. The soldiers in the mess hall of the barracks all stare at their lord silently as they've never heard him yell like that before.

A man rushes down the stairs, tripping on the last one and falling flat on his face. The man quickly stands up and walks over to his lord,

"YES MILORD!"

The man stands nearly two heads taller than the lord, who's not considered short by any means. He has short brown hair and a well trimmed beard. His body is very muscular, similar to powerlifters.

Heath puts a hand on his shoulder and starts talking,

"Julien, I have something we need to talk about privately. Follow me."

"Yes milord."

They arrive in the room Julien just stumbled out of. The room is very simple. Stained wood flooring and a red stucco wall all around. On one wall, a portrait of a child is hanging up. Heath looks at the painting and smiles,

"How's she doing?"

Julien gives a smile,

"The healer you sent is a miracle worker. He healed her up in only a few days. Jilna is an awful disease. Her arm had nearly rotted off. I owe you even more now, milord."

Heath smiles at him and puts a hand on his shoulder. After a few seconds he speaks up,

"Well, today may be the day you repay me."

Julien gets a serious look on his face,

"More snakes?"

Heath nods,

"More snakes."

Julien walks over to his chair and picks it up off the floor, sitting down behind his desk. He leans forward and rests his head on his hands.

"*sigh* Heath, I can't keep making the guards work overtime. They're already extremely tired. The only reason they've agreed to work so long is because of your father's legacy and the extra pay. We both know you can't offer much more pay, and your fathers legacy can only help so much."

Heath looks crestfallen.

"I know. But… Julien, Atlas may have a Legendary class."

Julien, who was taking a drink from a flagon, drops the cup on the ground. Luckily the cup is nearly empty so only a little beer spills.

"Hah, th-that's a funny joke milord."

Heath gets a sad smile on his face,

"I'm not joking, sadly."

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Author's Note:

From here on I will hopefully be posting once every two days. I don't want to burn myself out like I did on my other books. I have to take time to think about my chapters. I'm no pancakewitch who can post like ten book chapters a day. That person is a superhuman.