Blood Will

3

Azrea hissed with displeasure at her master, which made the waitress fight to muffle her laughter. The pretty red-haired girl was a little surprised at the strange order. Nodding and writing something down in her notebook (it was surprising that a simple waitress knew how to write), she went downstairs quickly and got lost in the crowd.

Hadjar was left with only his fluffy girlfriend for company. While he listened to the bards’ song, Azrea licked her fur indifferently. She wasn’t one to abide idle chatter.

Down on the small stage, the bards were singing the most popular song in Lidus — the song of the Mad General’s fight against ‘The Black Gates’ sect. It was a bit strange for Hadjar to sit there and listen to a song about his ‘exploits’. As they always did, the bards embellished reality, just slightly, but still enough for people to listen to the song with bated breath.

Some of the guests couldn’t even keep eating, seemingly frozen as they became completely enthralled by the scenes of battle evoked in their imaginations. In the whole tavern, only two tables paid little attention to the bards. At one of them sat a young man in plain, old clothes. He was waiting for his order and stroking the white kitten. At the other, a group consisting of seven children of the officials were having a feast. The girls wore rich jewelry while the boys wore hairpins made from jade and jasper, their clean hair gathered up in buns.

The unkempt Hadjar looked like a peasant surrounded by scholars. Their light, silk outfits, embroidered with gold and silver threads most likely cost more than the annual salary of a general.

The weapons that they’d placed on the edge of the table were worth as much as half of the northern province of Lidus. Just a single ruby from one of those scabbards could’ve been exchanged for a decent palace in the central district.

The Empire really tried their best to ensure that the nobles didn’t even think about raising a rebellion against them.

“They’re singing about that damned General as well,” one of the young men declared irritably.

He was sipping a fairly strong alcoholic drink from a jug. It was the color of a ripe apple, and most of it had ended up on his silk clothes. None of the nobles cared. All of them were too drunk to worry about their appearance.

“Damn it!” the boy snapped, throwing the jug down with all his strength. The clay fragments scattered in all directions. They even seemed to cut someone. However, the nobles still didn’t care. “If only I could meet this General, I’d wrap his intestines around his neck!”

“Come on, Ribon,” one of the girls laughed. “You’re just mad that Her Highness, Princess Elaine, rejected your father’s proposal for you to marry her.”

“It was the eleventh time,” the young man sitting next to him said.

Ribon just growled furiously and grabbed the next jug.

“She knows that my swordplay isn’t inferior to hers.”

“Well, maybe she wants her future husband to surpass her,” the same lady from before shook her head. “Girls love men who are like rocks we can cling to.”

This statement elicited chuckles from the female part of the group. All of them, despite being highborn, were practitioners, and every practitioner valued their own strength and freedom. Especially the women.

That’s why, the farther along the path of cultivation one got, the less common loving marriages were. Not the ones where people spent a couple of decades or centuries together, but the true unions, where people would go through their entire lives and face all of the challenges before them as one.

“Thank you,” Hadjar told the waitress when she put a cup and a bowl in front of him.

Handing her several copper coins, Hadjar took a simple rag bundle out of his pocket. While Azrea drank her milk, Hadjar put some special powders and herbs into the hot water to make his favorite aromatic herbal tea.

“Just look at that bastard,” the drunken young man hissed. “I’m sure he’s been saving up all his life to spend a couple of days on the second floor of this wretched tavern.”

Hadjar ignored the insult and continued to calmly drink his tea.

“He’s even dressed up like that demon of a General. Damn it. Soon enough, all the servants will be bowing to him! Someone needs to rein in that accursed Princess.”

“Well, go do it then, Ribon.”

The nobles laughed, and the young man broke a second jug. Alas, at that very moment, the pretty waitress had been leaning over to pick up the pieces of the previous one. She didn’t have time to dodge the shard that was flying right at her throat. The entire second floor froze in anticipation of the ‘accident’, but...

Hadjar put the shard that he’d caught down on his table and continued to blow on his tea.

No one had even seen him move.

They could only see that the shard that had been about to kill the waitress was now on the table in front of the vagabond.

“Hey, you!” The young man shouted. Swaying, he rose and headed for Hadjar. “Who do you think you are, bastard? Who gave you permission to touch the trash of Ribon Gorey? Even my refuse has a higher status than your rotten hands!”

Hadjar only sighed wearily in response. Apparently, he was destined to have problems with upstart noblemen. The young man stood next to Hadjar, looming over him like a menacing stone. A swaying, foul-smelling, insolent stone.

Ribon was holding a large, heavy sword.

It was hard to imagine this slender man even lifting the gigantic, 7ft long weapon. However, in the world of martial arts, one could never judge a person by their appearance.

Hadjar could wield heavy blades quite well, but preferred to use the classic ones. They were more suitable for his fighting style, which relied on speed, and the dragon’s Techniques compensated for the lack of strength.

“Do you hear me, bastard?”

The young man tried to grab the hobo’s shoulder, but failed. To the tavern’s guests, it looked like the nobleman was too drunk to catch the beggar. Only a few practitioners noticed how smoothly and easily the vagabond had dodged. These people realized that there was far more to this man than met the eye, and so they grabbed their glasses of wine and prepared to enjoy the show.

“Sir,” Hadjar said in a casual tone. “Why are you so angry? Please, do forgive my transgression. If it will help settle our differences, I am ready to treat you to any dish on the menu.”

The young man swayed drunkenly and then roared like a wounded bison.

“You? Order? For me? I’ll teach you a lesson! Know your place!”