The Making of a Living Legend

Chapter 4: Not Dealing With A Messed Up Family

“Dad, you have to send that useless idiot away! He’s absolutely hopeless!” Elaris heard a voice as they opened the door and entered the mansion.

“I agree!” Another voice confirmed.

“What is going on?” Elaris turned to Caden who sighed.

“They have always wanted to chase us out of the house since a long time ago,” He started explaining. “Every time you mess up, they bring it up to father and mother. I think he must be considering it now too.”

“You mean our father?” He asked and Caden nodded. “Why would a father listen to such a request?”

“They are at the study,” A maid said to them, and he didn't miss the contempt in his eyes when she regarded them.

Caden replied as he led the way. “He is Lord Wilder, but he isn’t our real father, he’s our father’s friend that our mother married after she had us, our father died before you were born and mother died ten years ago due to a sickness. This household’s patriarch is our mother’s father, but he is at the frontier at the moment. That’s our stepmother, Phina.”

“Great, I have to deal with a messed up family too,” he muttered under his breath before the family members came into view. He glanced at all of them at once turned back to Caden.

“Does our grandfather love our mother?”

“She was his favorite child, why?” He didn’t bother to answer.

The room wasn’t what Elaris expected, the décor and everything fell under the category of things used by people below the average standard of wealth. He stared around the cheap and boring room in disbelief.

How on earth was this guy the third city lord?

The city lords were like the kings of that city, not every city had many lords because they set rules to their preferences.

Visteria happened to be one of those with many lords but all of them were governed by a king, the tyrannical one that ruined his family and his life.

“Which city are we in?” He asked Caden who glanced at him weirdly.

“You don’t even remember that? We are in Astrad City.”

Elaris exhaled heavily, and he couldnt decide whether to be depressed.

Not to mention that he was in an idiot’s body and a messed up family, he was a member of Astrad City, the city referred to as the third commoner’s city among the eight cities that made up the empire–the third poorest city?

The city had no particular resources and they weren't ready to have it either–they would rather study extensively and go to the top four cities of the empire and work as an official.

That was a responsible young man's goal in Astrad, but it was nothing but an elaborated decision to be other people's slave without setting any goals.

Visteria was the first while Astrad was the sixth, both were like hell and heaven. How on earth did he end up in a place so far from home?

“Why did you raze down the Light Moon Performance House this time?” Lord Wilder asked, Elaris just shrugged before he went to have a seat, his pose as he sat was elegant and straight as he ignored everyone who stared at him in surprise.

“You dare enter and not greet your elders? You have been through the rebellious stage already, there’s no use in revisiting it. I am sure that you know how you ended up last time, now stand up and greet!” A man who seemed fairly older than him said, he walked to him and raised his hand to smack him but Elaris caught his wrist and raised a brow at him.

“It hurts! Let go! Ah!” A scream tore through his mouth and his face contorted in pain, he didn't have enough energy to be shocked, all he wanted was to remove the death grip his hand was in.

“And who might he be?” He turned to Caden and asked loudly, still gripping the man's hand. Caden gaped at him for a bit before he quickly removed Elaris' hand and apologized to the man.

“I am sorry but he has lost his memories from the fall.” He hurried over to Elaris’ side and talked to him in a hushed tone.

“He is our uncle, his name is Draven. He is our step-mother’s brother.” Elaris only nodded, he was here to figure out what was the family deal and if they had anything special that made him wake up in their son’s body.

Draven continued to stare at Elaris weirdly.

“He lost his memories, did he lose his manners too?” One of the three young men standing in the room snapped at him. Elaris assumed that he was one of his step brothers.

“Let me teach him some lesson,” Another said, and advanced towards him menacingly. Elaris met his gaze head on and waited for him to get closer to him but when the so-called teacher saw that he wasn’t looking away, he faltered a bit and glanced at his uncle who was massaging his hands, which made Elaris scoff.

“Go back, Jaxon, now is not the time for your brawl,” Jaxon’s father scolded him and he glared at Elaris before he backed off. He turned to Elaris. “Do you admit to your wrongdoings?”

“I don’t admit to things that I don’t remember,” he said nonchalantly, not even pretending to have his attention on the older man.

“As if you ever admitted to anything all these while.” Jaxon’s brother cut in.

“Shut up, Dax! Don’t interrupt!” His father yelled at him which made him glare.

“It is obvious. He had lost the last tether of control he had. Throw both of them out!” Phina snapped, and Elaris stared at her from head to toe before he scoffed at her crude manner of dressing.

She would have been thrown out of Visteria long time ago for being mad. She noticed the disdain in her stare and her face turned hot but before she can say anything, Caden cut her off.

“I apologize, it is just that he’s injured and-” He started but Elaris stopped him by placing his hand on his stomach.

“Try to chase us out if you dare,” Elaris said, staring straight at them, they needed to get straight to the point. “I am wondering what you are going to tell grandfather when he asks for the children of his favorite daughter.” He scoffed and leveled his gaze at them. “You are the visitors in this house and you are the one trying to chase out the owner. That is not a good attitude.”

“You-” Phina said.

“Yeah, me.” He stood up, dusting his clothes before he stared at it in disgust once again.

Never in his life had he ever worn this type of clothing, all his life, he had only seen them on the youngsters of lower level cities that entered Visteria for the first time when he was a general.

“I heard from Caden that you want me to attend the Academy, I can do that.”

“What?” Dax broke into laughter. “Mind I remind you that you have been taking this same exam for the past three years and managed to fail every time?”

“Do I also have to remind you that for the past three years, I have always bailed to perform on stages? If I went to that Academy, I am afraid that you aren’t even part of the people that can stand beside me.”

“What?” Dax said seriously. “Your memories have been replaced by arrogance. It is not a good look on you.”

“You would be lucky to pass on the trial, but what? At the top? Wake up from your dream!” Jaxon said, Elaris didn’t reply to him. He only stood up and turned to Lord Wilder and Phina, he stared at them coldly before he nodded.

“I would do the exam like everyone wanted. When I pass at the top of the class, you would never mention anything about us moving out and if I like, we would move into the main mansion.”

“What if you fail, what would you do?” Dax asked.

“I never thought about it because I won’t fail. You can do the honors of brainstorming and wasting your time.” He turned to start leaving and turned to look at Caden who remained frozen beside Draven who appeared speechless.

“Come on, Caden. I can’t possibly leave you with these people.” He called and that seemed to jolt Caden out of his daze, he hurried over to his brother’s side. He was staring at him with newly found admiration.

Elaris turned to look at all of them once again. “One last thing, you should start referring to me as Elaris.”

He offered no explanation and didn’t wait for their response before he walked out of the door with Caden following after him.

He had been thrown over and forced to start again from scratch and in a difficult position after losing everything he was once familiar with, he would be damned if he couldn’t even retain his name.

He was known in his past life as The Arcane Heir, Young General Lord Elaris Skythorn, he preferred to keep it that way—either by force or will, he would reclaim that title and deal with sneaky cheats crawling around Visteria.