《Kyle, just the normal scaly long eared Kyle》 Prologue: Changes can come instantly 200 years after the Empire ended the known world consists of 3 continents. Argos to the north with many deserts and nearly no mountains at all, Grugras in the south/west which is very mountainous and kinda cold and Lundra in the east with nearly every landscape somewhere. Nobody knows what exactly happened to the Empire but it is known that the 3 continents were only conquered and not the main base of the Empire. This mystical place is now known as the "Forgotten Continent" or for some people the "Vanished Islands". It is said to have existed in the middle of the 3 continents with many small islands surrounding it but nowadays the only thing remaining is a big nothing. Or to be more exact a big fog that covers the whole area and everybody trying to pass through it is never seen again. The only race known as superior in the Empire were the Trelons. Everybody else was just treated as second rate or slaves depending on their standing in society. During the end of the Empire there was a huge war on the forgotten continent and every single Trelon citizen was called towards there. So now after its fall the once superior race is all but nonexistant. After this happened everything changed. With practically every single powerful person gone chaos reigned for 100 years until a relatively static powerlandscape was established. In Argos the situation was at its worst because without anybody to rule the food supply in these hazzardous deserts most people died to starvation or water shortage. Even more died to pillagers fighting for the rest of these supplies so now although the continent is the biggest one it does not even have as many inhabitants as a single kingdom on the other continents left and these are spread throughout the whole continent surrounding the few remaining big cities. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Grugras is practically a big kingdom facing towards the other 2 continents and nothing but little citistates behind it in the mountains. Here the change is less dominant because the people in those mountains were always kinda selfgoverned because something else is not really possible and comunication to the mountaintops is not very fast. In Lundra everything changed. There exist some little states governed by a single race, free citystates and some middlesized kingdoms. Everywhere except in these little states racism is nonexistant. With the Trelons regarding everybody else as secondrate over the centuries their different opinions began to merge and the idea of hating someone else just because of their race declined. Of course there are always people who still practice those believes but the general consent changed this way. In one of the smaller sized kingdoms, named Wulgard, a small boy by the name of Kyle was born. Although he was just born his parents already knew he would change the world once more. Chapter 1: Happy childhood Authors Note: Pretty standart beginning, no? After 6 years that world changing event involving Kyle already started. His parents own a small farm out in the country roughly two sayd away from the next bigger town and once again the annual tax collection came. Sadly this years crops went bad and there was no way to get the money together. So they sold off Kyle for the worth of 2 winters of provisions and were able to continue their merry living in their small paradise called farm. Usually he would never be worth that much but since his appearance is already rare at his age they were able to bargain for more, although in the next bigger city the price for him is 100 times higher but thats just the way of the world. Living in Lundra means that having some weird races is nothing unusual but Kyle being half elf and half lamia makes him pretty rare. The difference from him someone you might call normal are his longer clawlike fingernails and the fact that his arms and legs are covered in smooth scales that are very similar to usual skin with the exception being that they become really shiny when Kyle feels happy. In the instance when his parents sold him they used this fact and let him have a nice meal during the work time for the first time while showing him to the slave trader. They didnt know about the condition and though the scales would always be shiny and paid more than usual but that was enough about Kyle being sold off now. The next years of his life were spent happily serving some nobles. Somehow they do not seem to like him though. After being sold to a slave the first slave traders let him live very nice once they figured out his condition but after the first time being sold his scales never once again shined like they did before. So now he serves some second rank noble whose family got rich by backstabbing many rich merchants and now suffer consequences after some of those got their revenge economically. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Everytime the noble family looks at him all they see is a dirty slave with a smile on his face and treat him like trash. Nothing unusual. In Kyles 13. year it seems that the country he lived in, which name he does not even know anymore, has lost a huge war against the neighbouring country or kingdom, who cares. The bigger consequence for him is that this country does not tolerate slaves, so technically he is freed now. As a 13 year old boy in a city you dont know and without any familiar ties to anyone by decision there were not many things he could do. So like most other kids he resorted to becoming a thief... Nah, just a joke, i mean a slave who only obeys to everything he is said from his very childhood on would never dare to steal. Actually he sat on the street outside of the manour he lived in and was lost, physically and mentally. A local trader who passes by every day to go to the market then decides to step up to him after a whole week. He noticed that Kyle did not move a single bit in this whole week and was able to see the very change of him becoming more and more pale and malnourished. Kyle did not even answer after being asked if he wants to join the trader but just stands up and follow him. This was the start of his first real family for the following years. After some time he started to speak a bit more and works for the trader in the market sometime and learned to read and write and some simple maths for the task of being able to trade there should the trader, whose name is Jack, be ill or need to attend somewhere else. But during all this time Kyle did not once shine, his emotions flat and his scales dull. Chap 2: Join the Guilds! Sometime later as Kyle nears is 16th year of life an outsider would say he has a happy life. A caring family, some friends and smiles and laughs often. Those wo heard of his shimmering scales thought it was just a rumor or a lie with time and thus now nobody really thinks tha there is something odd about him. As an apprentice merchant it is now the time to fullfill a quest for the merchant guild to be acknoledged as a fullfetched merchant after learning for 3 years under his new father. There is practically a guild for everything and the usual procedure is that once someone starts to be the apprentice they are registered at the responsible guild and after some years, usually something between 2 to 5 years, or if their mentor thinks them ready, they start a quest for the guild and if it is fullfilled then they can officially join the guild as some kind of junior member and establish their own shop or whatever. So now Kyle is on his way to the capital city Kingshill with a little trading caravan of 5 wagons and has a month to make a profit of 50% or more. This may sound harsh to many people to let a 16 year old person plan a whole trading caravan by himself and be required to make it safe and profitable but such are the hardships of becoming a trader in a country plagued by war wheer people either want to become heroes or escape from warduty through being in a guild. The good he decides to trade with are weapons and armors since his home city, Dragonfist, is located near the mountains and has a good supply of ores. He hired some A rank adventurers and they do their job perfectly. There are many bandits on the roads or deserters trying to overthrow the current government thus guards are very expensive these days. The Adventurers are part of the Adventurers guild. Their ranks are structured with the weakest rank being G becoming better until the rank of S. Higher ranks are practically unobtainable if you don''t kill a dragon by yourself or something similar. Thus an A rank adventurer is one of the top percentage in terms of strenght and could be considered on the level of the Governors guardians and those are really strong since wars break out every few months somewhere across the lands of this continent. Stolen novel; please report. Some may say an A rank adventurers party is overkill, but Kyle made an agreement with them saying that any loot they find they can have and if there are leads to an bandits outpost or hideout then the caravan can make a little detour and raid it if the adventurers feel safe about it. 50% of the loot will then be taken by Kyle and the other half goes to the group. Now after raiding multiple bandit hideouts the capital is in sight and Kyle already has earned more money than the adventurers cost him. Now finally being able to do te actual trades with the local merchants is easy and thus with his way back toward Dragonfist he made a profit of about 80% and would easily become a member of the Merchants Guild. Sadly not everything works this fine. After selling the weapons it is publically announced that the country was attacked by its 2 neighbour kingdoms and an empire to the south and that everybody exceeding the age of 16 and not being part of a Guild at this moment has to join the arms and fight for the country. Upon trying to leave the city with his caravan he is asked to show his Guild membership that he has not gotten yet and was dragged towards the armory, equipped with a badly worn leather armor, a copper sword that has seen better days and a fairly decent oak shield. Afterwards leaving the city in the opposite direction of Dragonfist he has to join the company that defends the north and was started to get trained daily in a boarder fortress that is not in the first line of defense but pretty close to it. Nice days ahead... Authors Note: I know this story is probably very bad etc. but keep the negative attitudes to a minimum ok? im tryin to figure out writing at all and since trying to start a good story didnt work because i always thought "this is waayyy tooo bad" im doin this, maybe this way i''ll get better xD Chapter 3: Food definitelly more important "Are you a lady not wanting to get your beautiful face dirty or why the hell do you not even break a sweat when other people nearly faint? If I see you this way again tomorow you''ll get the frontier duty and i heard the last ones having the honour came back a few days ago, in packages double their number." Somehow Kyle although doing the same amount of training as other people never has the same problems as they have. His condition and strength far superior after the first month of intensive training. The backside of this is that his trainer thinks hes slacking off so that brute lizardman everyone only calls Instructor became very annoyed by that and started to threaten Kyle. The problem is that he is trying to concentrate on the techniques and not blindlessly exhausting himself and thus does not tire in the same time as the other people. A week later the instructor had enough and Kyle got the "frontier duty" meaning he goes patrolling with guards at the border where attacks are most likely, good luck as always. In his unit there are 12 people, 8 of them seem to be experienced warriors and the other 3 look exactly like him. Badly equipped and behaving more like recruits than anything more. At this point in time Kyle is already pretty decent with his sword/shield combination and can hold himself for a time versus other people and would even win if he used his ever groing strenght. But when he noticed his strenght becoming better without him doing extra workout for it he instantly learned how to adjust it to a normal level to conceal him being special. The other 4 recruits are 2 mans with deathly pale faced that seemingly think their life is over and a female who is either really shy or likes to hide in the shadows. Either way no interaction at all except orders from the unit captain so there is much time for Kyle to practice his fighting while the rest does... nothing really, or resting maybe and 2 or 3 people patrolling the camp they have set up for the night. A week after they started patrolling the first encounter happens. They meet a pack of wolves that attacked the camp in the evening. The veterans instantly react and form a trained diamond formation that has the effect that nobody has to really look out for their backs and thus they can concentrate on the 1 or 2 enemies in front of them. With their actions we 4 recruits are Left 4 Dead (hahahaha) and have to fight for ourselves. The 2 other man try to run away but get cut off very fast and die a quick death. Kyle though analyzes his situation and tries to get in a more favourable position. With his back to a tree and shield raised high he atleast has a halfway decent ally that wont move away. While most of the wolves go for the veterans 4 go towards Kyle to finish him and then join the rest of the pack. With his back covered 3 wolves come towards him from the other 3 directions. Instead of staying under the tree where atleast 1 of the wolves would hit him if Kyle defends 1 side with his shield and a second with his sword he quickly accelerates to the wolf on his left side because the last wolf is waiting to finish him on the right side behind the other one. Not having expected its prey to go attack the wolf does not react fast enough and gets a shield slammed into its face, leaving the wolf stunned and then a sword hit right into his head. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Although it may seem as if the situation is better now that 1 wolf is dead in fact it is worse. Without the cover of the tree anymore there is always atleast 1 wolf in Kyles dead angle and just as before 3 of them attack him so indeed the situation did not improve. Knowing that he cannot do anything against the wolf behind him Kyle stands still and tries to listen and maybe hear when that one will move while keeping the other 2 in his vision. For a time that feels like hours already but was probably only seconds he watches the other 2 wolves that fake an attack or 2 to get a reaction out of Kyle. Just as he thinks this does not help at all he hears some harder steps behind him and instantly drops to the ground with his sword swinging backwards. The wolf behind him indeed just started to jump towards Kyle and cant change his direction in midair and thus fails to attack him and gets hit by the sword. Although the hit was not lethal it did some damage to the wolfs leg that was noticeable because the wolf couldnt support its landing at kinda crashed a bit. In this situation the other 2 wolves immediatly start to run towards Kyle because he is on the ground and does not have enough time to stand up again to defend before they arrive. What they did not expect is the arrow in the head of one and the dagger in the others side. The last recruit, the girl, was on one of the low branches of the tree that Kyle used to defend his back and after seeing him already killing one and being that concentrated while facing the other 3 instead of fearing for his life she could somehow overcome her initial fear and try to help him in his pinch. The girl, called Alice, is an archer but can handle a dagger pretty good to defend herself in taverns and cities against thiefes and other people with the wrong ideas. Thus already having her bow aimed at one of the wolves she could instantly shoot her arrow before that one could start to run towards Kyle and then jump down the tree to kill the second one. She may seem like a professional now and her arrow was a very good shot for sure but the second kill was more luck than anything else. With only 1 wolf left Kyle got up after looking at her and nodding once and quickly killed the still collapsed last wolf. The 2 of them then looked at the veterans just to see them grilling them over the campfire and laughing already. Seems they finished earlier and didnt even think about helping. Having so much support to watch ones back is great, would someone wish for more in the borders of a country while probably facing the enemies in the next weeks? Authors note: Yay second character in it! Kill count: Kyle : 2 , Alice : 2, Veteran unit: 17 Chapter 4: Relations? A: Hey, my name is Alice. You dont see recruits staying calm in these situations often. Whats your name? K: Kyle. A: Well.. what did you do to get here? I mean the other 3 were either cowards or just very lazy but you do not fit in either category. You can fight like that and dont lose track of enemies in a 1v4 and stayed calm during all of that. K: Reasons. A: Me too, they wanted to become tooo friendly with me all the time and i defended against them. They didnt like that and now im here to die. So you fight with sword and shield? I prefer to use my bow and dagger, keeps the bad guys away. I always went hunting with my dad and made my mom go crazy because i did not behave like a daughter should and more like a son. Did not work out like that cause in the end i got dragged away because i can use weapons unlike most other daughters. ... Now that Kyle fought besides Alice for 1 time she does not seem to be shy anymore or she just did not want to talk with someone else before who would die like the other 3. Anyways the fact that Kyle is greatly annoyed does not help him at all so he tries to ignore Alice most of the time or only answer with single words or sentences. The problem is that she just does not stop talking. Although Alice does not know anything about Kyle he feeld as if he knows everything about her life after just 1 and a haf days. To keep his mind distracted he started to train even more seriously if they do not patrol the area with their group. The only interactions the 2 of them have with those veterans are when the cook hands out meals. Otherwise both parties are masters of ignoring each other and neither minds this state of things. A: By the way do you happen to have any magical talent? I have a minor talent in air magic that helps me guide my shoots a bit after i release my arrows from the bow. Really practical if you want to hit something like a wolf or just hunt in the wilderness. Sadly i did not have enough time to work on something else yet if you do not count making a small breeze. K: Magic? you mean you can control the wind? A: Yes. Or atleast a bit and maybe more if i had a bigger talent or more training in wind magic. Dont tell me you do not know anything about magic? Where did you live, under a stone? K: How do you know what magical talent you have? A: Wow you talked back, you must really not know this. Well then my dear party member. There are various ways to know if you are talented in magic. The easiest is to use a magical altar but those are for nobles. Then you can try to discover it yourself but since you didnt even know magic exists i dont think that will work. I can try to send some mana pulses through your body and then you can try if you can feel or control something similar in your body? K: Yes, could you please do that, Alice? A: Double wow. I did not know you could be polite. Of course I am gonna help you Kyle! This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. And so after that time every evening Alice sends some little mana pulses through Kyles body. Because she is only a magic beginner it does not do that much at first but after some days she seems to get the hang of it. After his usual training Kyle starts to focus more on his body and tries to discover anything magical in it if that makes sense. Just a week later it finally did... Nothing! Although it is disappointing Alice continues and tries to help him somehow partly because her own ability to control her mana improves with time. Even if it does not help Kyle at all at the moment he decides to discover if he has any talent later. The first goal he gave himself for a long time now. Joining the merchant guild was one but it was not really his own. He just went with the flow and continued to be an apprentice to his step father and the next step is joining the guild in that profession. During the next week they did not encounter anything dangerous. There was one bear that might have been a threat to Kyle and Alice but the veterans handled it with a routine that makes it look very easy. Some days later though this changes. In the evening when everybody settles down and Kyle starts his usual training routine there is an obvious line of smoke in the air just a few miles away. So instead of camping out in the open they continue on and arrive near that area just before the sun complety leaves the sky. With the last rays of light they can see something in a bigger open area in the distance. It is not just a camp but the start of a little fort. Everything in the early stages but they already set up a rudimentary wall of wood around their camp and start to fortify it a but more. And now is the first time the veterans speak with us that we can see these enemies trying to establish a base in our countries territory. Captain: You 2 stay here and try to delay their progress a bit or even more. We will immediately return to the base and report this. Just to clarify this, if you are not here actually working on your assignment then dont think of ever returning to your homes. This country does not take deserteurs and their families well i heard. Without giving Kyle and Alice a chance to reply the group of veterans left. Up until now they were the food supply of those 2, and nothing more or less. But now they can just walk away while giving the 2 an impossible task and no chance of retreat. A suicidal mission or death awaits it seems. Authors Note: Not at home atm and dont have that much access to internet here. Since my chapters were already short before and I have no idea of how long a chapter is in relations to the ones before the ones in the next weeks may not have a stable size and might be smaller in general. Well only fun story anyways so doesnt really matter i guess xD Chapter 5: Alone in the dark After some time that felt like an eternity for Kyle and Alice but was in fact roughly half an hour they finally move again after being in shock for this time. But the unbelieving look is still on their faces and wont go away for quite some time probably. A: We are fucked. K: ... A: Soooo what do we do? My family is already dead so i dont care about trying my best to cross the borders or something. Do you still have family here or what do you want to do? I guess being a deserteur how they want us to be would just prove them right so maybe thats not the best idea. We could just wait for them and then kill them and... K: Wait, you dont have a family anymore? The only thing you spoke about was how you always went hunting with your dad or weird interactions with your mom and something similar and now you tell me you dont have a family anymore? A: ... K: And whats with you suddenly speaking about deserting just because they expect you to? By the was my family is still out here so i will try my best to not get killed as a deserteur. I dont have to come back alive but i dont want them to suffer just because someone framed me as a deserteur. So get ahold of yourself and try to think of something useful or just be silent so i can think of something A: You must really care about them. Although i dont understand why you dont seem to care about your own life. I was one of those who fought for our village, there was a whole army stationed near it and we were outnumbered. Their troops 3 times more than our village has people in it... A: My father being one of the best hunters around was the one to organize our defense but we all knew we would die. The question was if we die fighting and if our side would win then we would be hailed as heroes if we survive or die trying to flee by either the enemies or being executed as traitors from the new rulers no matter who won. So we stayed and fought to our best. A: To our luck the army did not notice our village at the beginning and my father was able to scout and plan for quite some time. In the end he decided to attack from one side giving everybody there bows and then shoot into the camp to get them to move away and then let everybody who has some training in moving undetected into the camp and poison their supplies with the poisons we usually use to safely kill big beasts after a few hours. A: Since we would need to get as many people as possible to shoot arrows everybody, even the ones not having held a bow in their hands for their whole life were handed crudely made bows when the time to attack came. We had to attack then because we overheard conversations of leaving the next morning to start their attack on the nearest city. We would have 5 people sneaking into their camp to poison the food and water while everybody else would attack from the other side and then try to run as fast as they can. A: My father was one of these 5. While we attacked the camp, everybody with 3 arrows shooting without real aim into their camp the plan worked somehow. Nearly everyone of their camp thought it was a big attack and prepared the counterattack. All we did was run for our lives next but i was so clumpsy to fall into a cave opening and lost consciousness. A: The next thing i knew was waking up the day after and trying to find a way out of the cave. When i did all i found was a slaughterfield. Everybody i once knew was there, killed without remorse by those soldiers, most didnt even have a real weapon near. The next thing i did was walking to the enemies camp. It was unreal. Nobody moving around, no sounds and not even an animal near cause they all avoided this camp that smelled like death and poison for them. A: So i knew my fathers plan succeded but at what prize. After looking around in the village and not seeing anybody i walked towards the camp again to search for my father. After some time i saw him, or rather his corpse. He tried to do more than just poisoning them. After that succeded without being noticed he moved towards the leaders tent and then tried to assault them to make it look like the distraction was made to assasinate the leaders. Sadly those expected something similar and he was killed. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. A: I just sat down there and did not do anything anymore then. Something that must have been a week later but couldve been a month for me, dont remember, the army came and all they saw was a girl with a bow sitting in a annihilated enemy camp. And some of these soldiers knew me from the village so they also knew i was no part of the enemies. The tried to get me to tell them how the camp was killed but i said nothing. Just silence and then the next thing i knew was me being enrolled into the army cause those who knew me also knew my skills as a hunter and i did not reject. In fact i did not say a single thing. A: After some years they got me to speak with the other camerades but you have seen me before probably, i did not go to other people to engage in a conversation. In fact you are the first person I ever told anything of all this and i probably spoke to you more then in the last years if you add it up. You just did not seem to listen and i could feel like telling you of my happy life and just talk to somebody again without having to worry about them trying to get more information or trying to use me like those assholes that got me here after their rape attempt failed. A: So here I am not caring about this country and telling you my life story, hope you enjoyed it and... Even though Kyle is a social shutin and does not care about anybody except his foster family a bit but more out of gratitude for letting him stay than real feelings. This person that shows no emotions at all, this dark and moody person just noticed that Alice was preparing to leave him behind and try to leave everything behind not caring anymore and maybe if she may survive against all chances would not even know what to do in the other country. So he does the one thing he could never ever imagine him doing. He gives Alice a hug. Interrupting her speaking about leaving now and just hugs her for the good part of an hour while her tears start falling like rain for the first time finally having closed up with her past in some ways. This would not work usually though. Just imagine you speaking yourself off to someone who did not speak more than 100 words to you ever and then he gets you to stop thinking about leaving and not caring about your life anymore just because he hugs you? If there were any other people nearby they may have noticed something else. There was an aura of mourning in the air. They would have felt grief regardless of their current actions and even more loss. But at the same time they would have felt a slight tinge of hope and the feeling of not being alone anymore, that there is someone there for you. Although Alice did not know this feeling was coming from Kyles aura and was not really thinking at all at the moment this all leads to the situation where she was crying herself out at Kyles shoulder for an hour before finally noticing something else about him. His scales shine a bit in a mix of dark blue and bright red. And mixed into those feelings it emits there is something else. A feeling that is already second nature to her. The feeling of mana. Authors Note: I know this one is probably even smaller than the last chapter but I just couldnt bring myself to write more there. Well this is the first time here i tried to really get something into the story. I would love to hear some feedback towards this chapter because it is something complettely new for me. I dont know if it is the same for someone else but I tried to make it seem like Alice just speaks her soul out of herself and did not interrupt for something like a description of her hollow look and how she did look at Kyle but somehow more through him than at him. Well Feedback appreciated how I said xD Chapter 6: Atleast we had meat Somewhere on the countries border with the mission to destroy or delay a camp by themselves Alice is in Kyles embrace. They are in the wood, standing there for an hour and not even a single animal has disturbed them for this whole time. Usually you would find many sounds in a forest but there is only silence. As if the those could read the mood, ok technically they can because they feel the emotions transmitted in Kyles aura but still there is a complete silence. But it is a good silence, one that lets you focus on yourself and the person near you. One that indicated that there may be many things you can worry about but at the moment you should just be yourself and let the things go. Sadly after 1 hour this stopped. After 1 hour Kyle lost his consciousness and nearly gave Alice a heart attack because in one moment he still embraced her and she slowly started to gain her bearings again and in the next moment her just slumps down like a dead body. After making sure Kyle still lives Alice sets up their tents and then, even though she knows she should be on the lookout she starts sleeping too. It just happened too much and should they be found no matter if they had a lookout or not they would die. In the next morning Kyle wakes up with a huge headache to the sound of Alice cursing. K: Could you please shut up, Alice? My head is killing me, what happened? A: Well... do you remember what happened yesterday...? K: Yes and dont expect me to behave any different just because i hugged you there. You needed it, nothing more. A: ... you did something else meanwhile. Your scales shined and you emitted an aur.... K: ... Just after Alice said his scales shimmered Kyle froze for a moment. Then immediatly he grabbed his sword, grabbed Alice and hold his sword to her throat interrupting whatever she wanted to say. She was just so shocked with his reaction that she did not do anything. K: No not again, do I have to kill her now? no i cant. But i have to, her knowing can only do bad for me. Or she will die, or I will get an unbearable life again. Or ... no i cant... but i have to ... Just a moment after he decidedly trapped Alice the hold of his sword becomes weaker and without Kyle noticing he let his sword fall down and slowly loses his grip on her. Then while muttering to himself he breaks down and after a few seconds nothing can be understood anymore. And a few moment later his scales start to turn pure black and an aura of hopelessness emerges. Before anything can happen this time Alice is the person who embraces Kyle and his muttering stops and with an unbelieving look his eyes cath Alice slowly stroking his head and speaking with him. A: It is ok. Whatever happened in the past, I wont let it happen again. So please Kyle stay here with me and dont lose yourself. Her voice becomes weaker to the end. A: You cant leave me alone here after you saved me, i will help you but stay. ... i need you... Once again they stay like this, Kyle on the ground, on his knees in the embrace of Alice who strokes his hair. After a while Kyle finally breaks the silence. K: Thank you, Alice. I feel like you deserve to know some ... more knowledge of m past but I ... I just cant. A: Its ok, take your time but remember I am here for you. K: So... do you happen to know why i have a splitting headache and I dont remember the end of yesterday? A: Ehmm... yeah i guess. When you did that yesterday the aura transmitted emotions i think. But the most noticeable thing is that it contained mana. I think your magical talent is something really special. Something that has to do with auras probably or maybe even more unique and only emotional auras? I only know that yesterday you used your magic for too long and then became unconscious as you spent all your mana on it. K: Thank you. I will have to think about that. So what do we do now and how long was i out? Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.A: Just the night and we should think about a plan to not get the deserteur status right? I was part of a camp aniihilation once, I can do it again! K: You sure you are ok with that, no bad memories? A: Says the one breaking down to a puddle and spreading his hopeless feelings to his surroundings just a moment ago. And just like that a team of 2 people start to plan on how to best delay the fortification of a 5 thousand man camp alone without immediat reinforcements. After some thinking both of them agree that it should take around a week until the veterans arrive at the next stronghold to gather an army, then a few days of preparation and 1 - 2 weeks until they get here. So the plan the 2 of them are working on should show some results in 3 weeks if possible if the threat of those veterans holds true. Now after all the emotional turmoil is not really sorted out but atleast in control the real problem is the plan. How would you ever plan something as 2 people against a whole camp of enemies without a real chance of infiltration because people build on the outside walls of the camp all the time? And this plan is supposed to slow down the progress of them at the same time. Relly difficult one would say. And although Alice already was in a similar situation there they had a whole village of supposed sacrifices with her being the only known survivor. Another big problem is eating. With Alice being a hunter she can easily take down some animals but making a fire this near to the enemy camp would reveal them. So for the first few days all they would eat was some froots and berries they found in the forest. After some time they found a nice little cave in the surroundings and in there they would carefully prepare the meat so with that they solved the most important threat. Now to start off with a a plan there were many ideas in their minds. But for every idea there were atleast 2 more they discarded and those they did not discard contain things like "somehow get the attention of a dragon and let it smite down the camp", so they were very serious ones. This one was actually one of the best ones because Kyle and Alice atleast heard that there are supposed to be dragons in the mountains a week away from their point. One of the other ideas was to actually use Kyles talent somehow and maybe get the enemies sooo depressed that they will kill themselves? But this one is even harder for them because Kyle lived a life void of any feelings and has no ideas on how to use his mana anyways. So the only thing they really did was trying to poison the water. There was a little river nearby and it can be suspected that the camp will fill their water supplies from there so everyday Kyle and Alice would try to watch those ones and determine if there is a certain time when they go to the river. After that they started to mix some natural toxins Alice made from surrounding plants with her hunter knowledge into the water to hope for some kind of effect. The problem is that the toxins are will never be in high percentages cause they just dilute too much in the river and the toxin itself is only a numbing one because her father never showed Alice how to make the deadly ones. I mean which father would let her daughter handle deadly poisons if all they did was hunt with numbing ones? So the best they could hope for was that some people in the camp may be ill, nothing more. But for all their thoughts the one thing they did not think about was being captured. Even though they ate their meals in the cave some smoke still escaped it and with not being careful enough the inevitable event happened after roughly 2 weeks. They got caught! Authors Note: Trying to get a quick chapter out every evening for the next weeks cause this is the only time i can get to my laptop, sorry if you hate the short chapters but it probably wont change in near future, hope you understand xD Chapter 7: Hopes Calling So instead of further planning on how to undermine the camp Alice and Kyle are now prisoners of the camp. Atleast they wont be called deserteurs now should the enemies be defeated and they survive all of that without being killed at some point. So it has its good aspects one could say. The bad aspects though are that they have to share a cage of around 2x2x2 meters as their prison with each other and are treated like trash. Water is sprayed on them 2 times a day in the morning and evening and they somehow have to get enough out of it to still their thirst and wash themselves. Food is some leftover of the last weeks that nobody wanted to eat anymore or rotten fruits. And all of that because the attacking country is one of the rare ones on the continent that are complettely racist. Kyle is some kind of reptilian elf with his scales and long ears and Alice has 2 horns on her head so she may have a demonic heritage or something similar. The camps people are all without an exception Rapider. It is a race that resembles humans pretty much but has way stronger legs and weaker arms. And their feet are a bit special because they have a little spike on the back of their feet. The usual Rapider has some fast weapons on their hands like daggers or a rapier blade. In addition to that they have some heavy armor on their legs and some even have something similar to a shield on the side of their legs because a they are that strong and flexible. Their main weapons are blades attached to their feat or legs that they use in a similar way to other races swords. Because of this difference in fighting styles they are often left alone and train under their own and after some had the chance their country of battle crazed Rapider came to be. And they only regard strenght but see every other race as weak because in their opinion their fighting style is superior to everybody else. The only reasons Kyle and Alice were captured are because they may have some viable informations and may be used as captives to pressure the enemies. Should they realize that the 2 of them are nto fit for any of these jobs they will become useless and be killed instantly. At the moment though they are still thought to be useful so they are still alive even if the situation is not a pretty one. A: Cant you do anything with your magic here? I mean my magic is useless in this situation. What could i do with a little bit of wind against a cage or so. Could you maybe freeze it or just make our guards go unconscious so we can get the key or something like that? K: Alice, no. I dont even know how to activate it and even less how to control it so it does what i want it to. Furthermore how should i know what i can do. Just wait until the others come back and dont be anoying so we dont die here before they see us trapped inside here. A: So it is ok to die AFTER our countrys man have seen us? I shouldve just walked away when i had the chance to do so! K: ... If you were ever trapped in a small room with another person you know exactly what will happen. Those 2 will start to argue about eveything and since they cant evade each other all it will end up in is silence. And not the good kind of silence at that. After 3 days they havent spoken to each other for a day already. Each day before their meals they are taken away one by one, are forced to answer questions about the nearby area and stationed troups and get tortured a bit if they do not answer. Since both of them dont really know anything about this area in particular they get tortured all the time but are both too prideful to show the other. So they act as if nothing happened there although both start to really struggle. After 5 days in imprisonment especially Alice has it hard. The enemies troops started to look at her with lust in their eyes from the beginning on and now that she did not say anything after all those days they start to becoem impatient and at the 6th day it happens. After they take her away during the afternoon instead of trying to ask her questions all they do is rip away her clothes. Meanwhile Kyle is still ignoring Alice''s presence and acts as if it is a normal day. Everytime they try to ask him questions he answers to his best but all he can tell the soldiers is that he does not know. At the beginning they tortured and hurt him far worse than Alice but even then not even his voice changes so after a few days they just take him for a standart programm since more does not help and take their hopes on Alice. Everyday when Alice gets taken away Kyles look becomes very concentrated and he sharpens his ears and tries to listen to what they do to her. Everyday one could see a light red glow surrounding him if one were to look close enough and maybe feel a slight anger. But all of this is drowned in the sunlight and the anger is nothing unusual for battle thirsty people so it is disregarded too. Everytime Alice comes back though it stops immediatly and Kyles facase of ignorance is put up again. On the 6th day though he hears them talking about raping Alice and that is something that Kyle cannot tolerate. At the beginning he thinks that maybe these people only fantasize about it but upon hearing Alice scream after her clothes get ripped of his mind breaks. Alice is currently the only person he feals any kind of emotion for on this whlole world. Everything else is more of an obligation or paying back favours but Alice is different for him. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Just a second after the scream the cage gets blown apart and there is a dark red aura coming from Kyle. Everbody in his surroundings starts to fume in anger and attack the people near them. They start to get into a berserker modus and Kyle is the only one escaping their anger. He slowly walks towards the direction where the interrogations are held all the time. It is just behind the corner of a tent around 50 meters away. Upon turning the corner one of the soldiers that has a horrible scar running along his face was just about to force Alice to lick his thing and the next thing he knows is seeing the floor. The distance between Kyle and the thug was covered in an instant and the head is rolling on the floor one moment later. Alice already gave up hope and closed her eyes so she doesnt have to see the inevitable. After a few moments though nothing happens and she looks up. All she sees is carnage and in the middle of it a person that looks like a demon. His bloodred scales shine and although it is during a bright day sunshine does not reach the camp. Everything is covered in a dark red aura. This person runs around killing people left and right with an ease that would let everybody think he is on masterlevel in hand to hand combat. But he does not combat with his hands. He does with claws on his hands, a razorsharp tail and claws on his feet. Between these claws on his feet you can still see some leather hanging in between where shoes may have once been. This demon that sends everyone surrounding him into a berserker mode and kills evenmore people himself does not leave anyone unaffected, not even the strong leaders. Although that is not complettely right. One person is the exception. She also is not covered by red light but instead with a wonderful blue. And instead of the anger and carnage all around her she feels protected. She is safe and walks towards the demon. When she arrives all she does is surround him with her arms and put her head on his chest. A: Kyle, it is ok. You dont have to be angry anymore, I am here. Please dont lose yourself. K: ... Yes the demon that nearly destroyed the whole camp by himself was Kyle and the person in a blue light was Alice. Now in each others embrace they sink to the ground and cry to each other. Around them the rest of the people still fight against the other members of the camp but slowly sunlight pierces into the camp once again. 3 days later the army arrives. They were alerted by some veterans on scout duty that there was the beginning of a camp somewhere on their border and forces were gathered as fast as possible. Because the way was through the forest they arrived later than expected but once there they did not understand the sights. The whole camp was a single battleground. The scouts mentioned that there were others in their unit but they all fled after their first battle. But this sight was something to behold off. In the middle of the camp there were 2 people. A beautiful half demon barely covered in some rags and another person who seems to be some kind of reptillian/elven hybrid. But there was something special about them. It can only barely be noticed but the 2 of them seem to be surrounded by a slightly blue glow but the boy was even more of a mystery. Most of his body was covered by fitting scales but the most surprising thing was their colour. They shine in a dark blue that seems to comfort everybody around them. The sight of these 2 is a complete contrast compared to their surroundings. Eveywhere surrounding them all you can see is war. Bloody war. But these 2 seem to be so calm and peaceful. It is unreal for everyone looking at them. Even after giving them better clothes and something to eat all they do is stare at each other and did not tell what exactly happened at that camp. So all the soldiers could do was take them back to the stronghold and get some higher officials to interrogate them because nobody really wanted to interrupt such a moment of peace. Someone of the army''s soldiers was actually so captivated by the sight that he made a wooden carving out of it. For the rest of this war this image spread like wildfire. Even though the story was told at some point the image became more and more popular. For all the soldiers who lost their hope it shows them what they fight for, what they want to protect and what they want to return to. A life of peace with their loved ones at home. Althogh it does not matter right now but after the war on both sides of the war this will be the symbol of a new group. For people trying to defend their hopes and for those who pray to the goddess of peace. And there is a name for these 2 persons whose features got more and more distracted and now resemble more of 2 angels in a field of slain demons. Hope''s Calling Authors Note: Wow really did not expect this one, I mean I as an author did not expect to end this in such a short way and definitely not in this style but hey, happens xD Happy new religion for the future! YAY Chapter 8: Dont we deserve some peace? A week later the army arrives back at the stronghold and everyone living in it was dumbstruck. The army was supposed to defeat a fortified camp of the enemies that would take days if not weeks to do so and it was not even sure if they would be able to defeat them at all. And now after the time to travel between the 2 locations passed they came back instantly in a good mood without a single loss. Nobody even had an idea other than the reports being false at this time. So the captain was instantly called to the strongholds leader to explain. People seeing them walk were able to get a glance of 2 other unknown people in their company. A male and a female soldier that seem to be a pair and are somehow surrounded by a slight blue glow. Finally after being asked by the leader they began to tell their story. Although in this retelling it was some kind of mythical being that destroyed the camp and left them alone and not Kyle. Although this story is unbelievable the leader has to accept it at this point in time because there is just nothing else that couldve destroyed the camp like this. One of the theories is that the Rapiders kingdom angered a hughly dangerous being and this one killed the whole camp. But there are many arguments against this theory because it was the only camp affected so far but for the times being the other camps start to pull back slowly. It seems that they do not want to take the risk of total annihilation of a camp again as long as the cause is unknown. The 2 survivors were returned to their former ranks in the scout troup of those veterans because the leader thought they were captured while on duty and then somehow survived so they did nothing to deserve better but also nothing to deserve worse. The veterans had to make their next scout trip one week later so during that time they had some free time. Kyle and Alice went to one of the cheapest inns and got one room for this whole week. Partly because they wanted to be together and partly because they did not have more money for 2 rooms. During this week they told each other about hteir childhoods and Alice got to know why exactly Kyle was as detatched and distant to everybody. And she got the promise out of him to make his foster parents proud and introduce her to them. Although Kyle doesnt want to acknoledge it Alice thinks he has some deep feelings for his new family and she wants him to discover these now that his cold facade was partly broken. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. The strong blue glow surrounding them became less obvious with time as Kyle learned to control his talent better. But he still left a slight glow around them because for him it indicates the beginning of their time together and cant bring himself to stop this connection although they connected in various other ways every night. After the third night in this free week Kyle discovered some other use of his magic. They started their now daily routine of undressing in their room and started to feel each others bodies as the idea hit him. He drew back his usual aura a bit and then poured his feelings of love and lust in a strong short ranged aura that just hit him and Alice. She was looking at him a bit confused after drawing back his aura and then the new one hit her and she was instantly on top of him on the bed and already starting to mate. That was the most intensive night they ever had and they nearly did not sleep at all. This week of peace was a blessing they needed but during the day of it they would always train their abilities and spar with each other. But this peace only lasts for this week. After it they have to walk out with their scout troop again. So this was a week to relax and prepare for the war. Because this time the 2 of them will definitely be prepared not like the last time. They learned their lesson. Authors Note: Sorry for this mega short chapter but im going to vacation for the next couple of days so im not there to write for the next days. So no chapter for 2 or 3 days, sry.