By the time Ezra and Aurelia returned home, Lord Sebastian and the others had already gone to sleep. It saved Ezra the trouble of having to explain himself to his father, but Aurelia still remained cold to him. “Good night, sister,” Ezra wished her, hoping she would return the courtesy, but her words remained measured. “Night,” she replied curtly as she walked back to her room. Marlin was starting to enjoy this family drama, and he could not help but mock Ezra. “Oh, the poor little boy…Losing his only friend in the world. Must feel sad?” “Aurelia still loves me and cares for me,” Ezra replied. “She’ll never give up on me.” Marlin wanted to amuse himself a while longer by taunting Ezra, but he once again proved to be more mature than Marlin had expected him to be. As soon as Ezra was back inside his own room, he shut the door and set to work on his Gunsmithing workbench. Retrieving all the crafting components from his inventory, he put them on the table. He selected the blueprint
In the dead of the night, when the clock was about to strike three, Ezra woke up with a start, feeling a searing pain in his right leg. As he parted his eyelids, in the dim glow of the night lamp he spotted something black and slimy squirming on his wooden door. “What the hell!” Ezra sat up straight and tried to pull his leg free, but something pulled it back. He quickly threw his quilt aside, and his eyes widened in horror as he discovered a writhing mass of tarry black tentacles wrapped around his leg like vines. “Let go of me!” Ezra kicked the squirming tentacles with his free leg, but a second pair of tentacles grabbed his left leg as well, binding him in place. The more Ezra struggled, the more the tentacles constricted. Soon, they cut off the blood flow to his thighs, and Ezra felt his legs going numb. The squirming mass of slimy black tentacles covering the keyhole, spread all across the door, blocking Ezra’s only exit. It slowly spread to the surrounding walls, growing new
Aurelia had barged into Ramel’s room with the intention of accusing him of attacking Ezra and bringing him to justice. However, what she saw completely altered her perspective. Ramel was still confined to his bed and it didn’t seem like he could even attack a fly in his current state. “How did a damn maid manage to stab you?” Aurelia enquired, looking around the room. “You seriously expect me to believe you could not stop a simple commoner from attacking you?” “I...did not see it coming. She must have drugged me, sister,” Ramel whispered back, gritting his teeth to fight the pain. “Could…we maybe talk…after I get some treatment?” Aurelia did not want to involve any outsiders yet, so instead of calling for a physician, she yanked the knife out all by herself and helped Ramel drink a healing potion. It took a few seconds for the wound to heal, after which Ramel slowly sat up straight and threw his quilt aside. Touching the scar on his stomach, he grinned. “Good thing she didn’t use
Lord Sebastian still could not believe what his son had done. Capital punishment had been outlawed long ago, and this barbaric act of shooting a prisoner in the head was nothing short of brutal tyranny.“You took her life despite knowing she was at our mercy,” Lord Sebastian’s voice deepened as he spoke, and his eyes gleamed with suppressed rage. “Ramel Romanov! You have disgraced my name! It’s a crime to kill an unarmed woman.”“Lolita wasn’t innocent, father. She was a follower of the Lord of Decay. And she sealed her fate by betraying our family,” Ramel replied. “I do not regret my decision. In fact, I’d make the same choice a thousand times.”“So, you feel you can just take a life without any consequences?” Lord Sebastian reprimanded, raising his voice. His keen eyes seemed to peer into Ramel’s soul as he chastised him with his words. “We should have given her a fair trial. We are not barbarians! The Goddess does not support killing the unarmed.”“I think you have grown far too so
Now that the bitter truth Lord Sebastian had kept hidden all these years had finally resurfaced, it threatened to break their family.Ezra had been raised as a noble and was always led to believe he was a Romanov. All these years he had endured all the mockery and ridicule without losing hope because he wanted to prove himself to his father and bring honor to his family.But now that Lord Sebastian had revealed he wasn’t his own son, it left Ezra disillusioned and aimless. “Who….am I really? Who are my real parents? Why did they abandon me?” The questions came pouring as Ezra struggled to hold back his emotions. The storm raging inside his heart threatened to wreak havoc on the man he had called ‘father’.“You are Ezra Romanov. I am your father, and Lady Fiona was your mother. You are my son.” Lord Sebastian reached out to hold Ezra, but he stepped back, pulling away from his embrace.“All these years…I kept calling you my father. All these years…I kept believing that I was a Romanov
Ezra slowly clambered back to his feet and dusted his clothes, ignoring the threats from the bandits around him.“Are you deaf, pretty boy?” one of the rogues yelled. “Did you not hear what our boss just said?”“I heard him all right. I just don’t give a damn,” Ezra snapped back at him, his eyes gleaming with rage. “Get the hell out of my way unless you want to go back home in a wheelbarrow.”“You son of a gun!” One of the younger bandits corked his revolver and prepared to shoot Ezra in the leg when their leader stopped him.“Calm down, Willy. This one’s an angry young boy way over his head.” He chuckled, staring at Ezra from head to toe. “Judging by your clothes I’d say you are quite well off. Probably a noble, eh?”“I’m a Gunner,” Ezra replied curtly.“And which noble family do you belong to? I reckon your wealthy parents will pay good coin to see you alive again?” The bandit leader stepped forward and pulled back the bolt of his rifle. “My name’s Harwin. What’s yours?”“I don’t ha
Ezra realized he had set foot inside Centaur territory and immediately became cautious of his surroundings. Before venturing deeper he downed a healing potion to mend his fractured collar bone.“You need to be careful, my Lord. The Centaurs are a lot more territorial than bandits and excel at setting traps and ambushes,” Marlin advised as Ezra headed deeper into the forest.Having no experience of dealing with Centaurs, Ezra had no idea what to expect. All he could think of at this time was reaching the monastery and uncovering his past.“It must be heart-wrenching to know you are not a noble at all but some stray orphan abandoned by the peasants,” Marlin whispered, touching Ezra’s weak nerve.Ezra tried to ignore his comments, but the old Gunsmith kept poking him till he could not take it anymore.“If you don’t shut up this instant, you’re going to be in a world of pain!” Marlin chuckled at this. “You already know you cannot hurt me. I am a part of you now.”“You still need to feed
Ezra found himself in a precarious situation. He had been poisoned by the barbed vines and was now being hunted by a group of Centaur Warriors who had already picked up his scent. The Centaurs were among the few non-humans who still hated mankind. Though their populations had dwindled over the years due to the extensive raids carried out by the royal knights and paladins, the survivors still remained a huge threat to all humans. Since Centaurs possessed the upper body of a human and the lower body of a horse, this gave them the dual benefit of having binocular vision as well as strong hind limbs for chasing prey and fleeing from pursuers. Being humanoid hybrids also meant that Centaurs possessed an extremely high level of intelligence and excelled at working as a team and setting traps and ambushes. Hiding behind a tall woody tree, Ezra peered around the corner and observed the Centaur Hunters nearby. They were inspecting the corpses of their fallen brethren and trying to figure o