《Story of a Hero》


 Prologue

    Prologue


    Sapti Valley, Year 112


    ¡°I have to meet the king. NOW. Find out where he is and inform him my arrival.¡±


    Panic could be seen on the man¡¯s face. Soon, his assistant gave him a slip of paper about the king¡¯s whereabouts. He changed into his uniform and started rushing towards the western courtyard.


    ¡°My lord, I have received a message. The Chief of Security is coming here to meet you¡±.


    ¡°Send him in and arrange a carriage for both of us. If he is coming to meet me at this hour, something has happened¡±.


    The Chief of Security entered the courtyard sweating. He couldn''t decide on how to break the news to the king. If he misspoke, it could end fatal for him. He took a deep breath and decided tobe straight forward and be done with it.


    ¡°What¡¯s wrong chief? Is it those bandits again? Where have they attacked now?¡±Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    ¡°My lord, your father is missing. Any trace of him is gone.¡± The Chief of Security knew he need not explain any further. The King should know the consequence of this. The Kingdom of Sapti has been the hegemon in this world and no one has opposed them, partially due to the presence of that old man. Now that he is gone¡­.


    But to his surprise, the King didn¡¯t seem to panic upon hearing this. He just smiled at the sky. ¡°So this is the time eh. Sam (Chief of Security), my father should have left a letter. It should be in his study. Please bring the letter to me. You can stop the search and no one can know about this.¡±


    An old man could be seen walking up a hill, to the tallest point in the capital. He gazed at the city and sighed. "This could very well be the last time I can see this view. But some things... has to be done."


    He could see a silhouette of a figure already waiting for him. He knew the time has come to keep his promise. The old man was waiting for this day, since he made that promise 70 years ago.


    The figure suddenly moved. He threw a dagger at the old man. The old man smiled and lifted his two fingers to catch the dagger.Just when he was about to catch the dagger, it vanished and appeared in the figure¡¯s hand again. The old man was shocked upon seeing this.


    The figure stood up and walked towards the old man. ¡°This should prove that am more than qualified.¡±


    The old man still in shock stammered, ¡°Of¡­. Of¡­of course. You have grown a lot since the last time I saw you kid. Take care of this world.¡±


    The figure smiled, ¡°Take care of my family¡±.


    The old man vanished.

 Chapter 1 - News!!

    Chapter 1


    City ¨C Penia, Country ¨C Riley, Year - 123


    ¡°Let us go through this once again. Marie will distract the front guards. You have about 5 minutes to get in and out. You have already surveyed the building and have a rough map with you. This is just an archive storage facility, so the security is not tight. Ron will be waiting across the street and I will be waiting in the street adjacent to the building. So plan your exit accordingly. Any doubts? ¡°


    The four young people looked at the woman in front of them. The woman seem to be in her fourties. Her face always looked serious making it difficult to approach her. She has been with them for the past six months and her result is going to decide their fate.


    ¡°No, mam¡± cried the four in unison.


    Ron looked at them and sighed, ¡°If you guys do this correctly, we can be home in the next carrier. Take rest, pack your equipment and meet us here at nine thirty tonight¡±.


    The four left to ready their equipment and decide their strategy.


    Ron saw them leave and turned towards the woman, ¡°Jenny, I have been assigned to the northern border to gather Intel. I will be leaving directly from here. You have to take these kids home. ¡±


    ¡°You take care¡±.


    The four of them left the hotel and met at the restaurant before the archives building as planned. They nodded at each other and started moving to their respective positions.


    They saw Ron standing with a carriage across the street in an alley, talking to a shop keeper. He looked at them and nodded.This is the signal saying Jenny is in her position too.


    The four of them moved to the front of the building. Marie was wearing a low-cut blouse and a jean. She had a costly looking sweater hangin in her arm and a purse in another. She took a deep breath and started walking inside the building.


    The guards saw a beautiful girl approaching them and were startled for a second. Soon they regained their composure and walked towards her, ¡°Mam, you are not allowed inside here. Can we help you?¡±


    ¡°The front one is the married one with the kids and the other one is the bachelor¡±.Marie put an innocent look on her face and looked at the guards.. ¡°Sir, you are also police right? There is a guy following me for quite some time and am scared for my life. Can you please scare him away?¡±


    The guys were standing outside and were watching everything happening. ¡°Bolt, your turn¡±. Bolt immediately went to the front of the building and started pacing to and fro, looking inside the building from time to time almost as if waiting for someone.


    The guards saw this and the married guard started walking towards Bolt. He approached him and politely requested him to leave. ¡°You are asking me to leave? Why should I leave? I am a law abiding citizen and I don¡¯t have right to stand here? Who are you, Sir, to ask me to leave?¡± Bolt started attracting the crowd distracting the guard meanwhile the other two slipped inside the building.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.


    They sneaked inside the building and saw Marie flirting with the guard without any care about the fiasco going outside. They moved to the first floor where the documents were kept. They quickly shuffled through all the documents and found the right one.


    ¡°Hey, whose there?¡° The two of them were startled by this sudden voice. They didn¡¯t expect another guard to be present on the first floor. They started panicking. ¡°Jin, what should we do now? Should we engage? ¡°


    ¡°I will engage him. The guard downstairs might hear us fighting. You go downstairs and help Marie. You and mecan join Madam Jenny and ask Marie to join with Sir Rob. While moving out, ask her to signal Bolt to end the charade and meet us at location three. And remember Sai, only marital arts.¡±


    Sai rushed out and Jin engaged the guard. The guard rushed towards him and swung the baton horizontally towards Jin¡¯s head. Jin slightly moved backwards to let the baton pass through and immediately caught the guard¡¯s wrist with this right hand and pulled him forward. Having lost the momentum, the guard stumbled forward. Jin just hit the back of the guard¡¯s head and he immediately fainted falling into the racks of documents. ¡°Shit¡­. That would have alerted them.¡±


    He quickly picked up the document and was deciding whether or not to go downstairs to help when he saw Sai coming up. Sai looked at him and nodded.


    All four reached the hotel safely. They immediately started working on their reports. They got a good night¡¯s rest and to their surprise weren¡¯t called for the usual morning meeting. All of them woke up around noon and found a message asking them to pack and wait for a carriage to pick them up. The carriage picked them up and dropped them at a building at the eastern end of the city walls.


    ¡°Great Job all four of you! I will be passing all your results to the head. You all have passed. Congratulations. I will be assigning your duties after we have reached our country.¡±


    They didn¡¯t expect Jenny to pass them despite their intel mishap about the extra guard present. Tears welled up in Marie¡¯s eyes. They were all happy and were smiling from ear to ear.


    City ¨C Sarayu, Country ¨C Zatar, Year ¨C 123


    ¡°Greetings madam, Sir has already arrived and is expecting you. He is waiting for you on the third floor¡±. Jenny looked at the huge restaurant before her. ¡°When did they renovate this restaurant? That too in six months?¡± Muttering to herself she climbed the stairs and reached the third floor.


    The third floor was totally empty, only with a single table with two chairs and a man eating. The man looked to be in his fifties, white hair, a long face and a stubble suiting the face. He is the assistant to the Director of Intelligence agency. Seeing Jenny, the man stopped eating, stood up and smiled ¡°Jenny, How have you been? Director couldn¡¯t come personally, so he sent me! Hope you don¡¯t mind.¡±


    After exchanging pleasantries, Jenny took out her report, ¡°Ronald, here is the results for the new trainees. All of them have passed. And regarding the other matter, it is serious than we thought. The Kingdom of Riley has set up a branch at Penia. They have somehow got our research papers on the long distance communication theory and are trying to replicate it. From what I could gather, itmight take another three to five months before they come up with a prototype. So if we are planning to act I suggest we take steps immediately.¡±


    Ronald looked at the report and cross checked it with the information they have previously collected. ¡°Jenny, there is this plant called Manra. They have a special pair of leaves called twin leaves. They both look exactly alike and have a special characteristics. Whatever you do on one leaf is reflected on the other. This is the technology we at the agency currently use for transmitting written communication. It has a very long range and is serving our purpose. We have recently learnt that this information has been discovered by the Kingdoms of Bali and Zhao and they too have been using it pass secret information.¡±


    Jenny pondered over this information for some time and suddenly realised something. ¡°So we are going to commercialize this product before those two and we need to stop Riley from discovering this technology, right?¡±


    ¡°Yes. I think we will be taking action soon. Thank you for the report. There is more to this. But am not at liberty to divulge the information. The director will meet you at the capital about this.¡±


    ¡°Oh. I have some information about your son, the director asked me to pass it to you.¡±


    For the first time Jenny looked interested. She leaned a bit forward and asked ¡°Which one?¡±


    ¡°Ryuu.¡±

 Chapter 2 - Return

    Chapter 2


    City ¨C Sarayu, Country ¨C Zatar, Year ¨C 123


    "Ryu??" Jenny couldn''t control her emotion which in itself was rare. The always cold face losing control of her voice was completely new for this man who knew her for almost her entire life. But then again, it is completely understandable. Which mother won''t be happy to hear about her missing child of almost 14 years.


    "Yes, Jenny. This time the news is completely reliable. He is currently being held in broder city Siam. I have arranged for the transport. We will be visiting him after this meeting".


    Jenny was able to understand many things from this small information exchange."Why isn''t Ryu being brought here to me, instead I am being escorted there? Why is the assistant to Director of Intelligence directly telling me this news? And why now? Unless these guys have found something that caused this situation". From her experience in dealing with this man till now, she knows one thing for sure - Not to underestimate this man under any circumstance. He may look like a charming, mild spoken middle aged man with a kind honest smile and a care-free attitude, but if any one is fooled by this facade, they are doomed to be taken advantage of.


    Roland Aida - no one knows about his past. He often interacted with Jenny, training her in the art of espianoge, assigning her various missions and..there is no "and". That''s the end of their relationship. He has always been the assistant to the Director of Intelligence. He doesn''t show his face in public at all and is extremely hard to find/ meet. In short - a very high profile person. If this man is giving her this information direclty, Jenny was seriously worried.


    Quickly re-composing herself, she decided to probe a little further -"When was his identity confirmed? And how do we know it is actually my son? What of my husband?"


    Roland didn''t reply immediately. He lightly tapped his fingers at the table in a rhythm as if he was pondering something. "Ron''s intelligence looks credible. She seems like she is unaware of this information. At least she is now partially in the clear. But why hasn''t she told me about the other information she found during the last mission? Testing me? This girl!! ."This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "We found Ryu a month ago at the border, wounded. He is alright now. Soldiers around the border found him. Luckily, the princess was near by and she identified him. And about your husband...you better talk with Ryu first, let us discuss this after that. So, let us leave as soon as possible."


    A genuine smile appeared on Jenny''s face. All the fatigue from the last mission were gone. "If it is from the Princess, I can be assured it is my boy and no need to worry about his safety till I get there". She understood why Roland was being so careful, If she was in his position, she would have done the same. Even she found the recent events concerning Ryu a little odd but now is not the time to care about these stuffs. She quickly bid farewell to Roland and agreed to meet him near the restaurant in an hour.


    "Sir, do we really need to get her worried? It would have been really easier if we could have brought him here." A shadow near the pillar slowly came out once she left the floor.


    "Ron, don''t you find the situation of the boy a little bit staged? How is it possible for him to fall right in front of the princess, one of the very few people who can still verify his identity?"


    "Sir, are you off to your rambling again? okay, let me entertain you then. If you think it is staged, what''s the reason? I can think of a couple, if he is not who he says he is and want to pass all the security... but that can''t be the reason. He will get caught by Jenny sooner or later and this incident with the princess only puts extra security on him. Assasinating the princess? With that "guy" over there protecting the princess, he can forget it even if he is the best fighter in the world. I don''t really see the point setting up a drama here. Unless..." Ron couldn''t believe it "To meet you?"


    Ronald couldn''t help laughing "I think so too. If true, seems like this brat is not at all simple. First, he should be more or less aware of some of our internal situations. Otherwise, no way he knows I am involved in this situation. Second, he knows that we are keeping an eye on Jenny and intentionally avoided any contact with her. Third, the Princess and her team may/ may not be involved. Oops, seems like I am more chatty than normal. Hahaha! Ron, prepare the transport!!"