Adventure Awaits! Huzzah! 03

"Yo!" Himmel rushed down as fast as he could. It was time for his magical adventure to start yet again!

No. He was letting his childish body take control. He needed to temper his expectations, lest he be disappointed... For all he knew, Kris' special gift was just some toy he had gotten from the big city.

His guardian smirked. "Well, someone is excited." Normally he would heavily scold the boy for making such a ruckus so early in the morning, discipline was important. However, today he would make an exception.

So instead of reprimanding him, he simply smiled. "Happy birthday, Himmel. May many more come."

The boy nodded. "Yeah." He was happy he didn't get some random medieval disease and kick the bucket. Praise be to Mila! Praise be to the Mother!

His guardian got up from his chair. "Now... without further delay, we should talk about that surprise I talked to you about." He chuckled to himself. "Though I suppose it isn't much of a surprise since I warned you."

Himmel gulped. "Right. I'm ready, Sir." He had taken a deep breath and lowered his expectations.

Magical training time!

Kris grinned. "Your gift is..." He walked across the room... and eventually motioned towards a chest. "Inside of here." Wait, it was actually a physical gift!? Goddamn it!

Himmel slowly walked over towards it. "Cool. What is it?" Now that his dreams had been dashed, he was kind of suspicious of this whole thing.

It also didn't help that he recognized the chest. He had never messed with it, since it didn't look all that special, but it was certainly not something new. Though he supposed Kris could have just bought something and chucked it inside of it.

Kris crossed his arms. "Your inheritance, left by your honorable father." Oh. He talked about him.

Not that Himmel cared too much about that. He already had money signs on his eyes as he kneeled down and got ready to open the chest. "Merchant life, here I come!" He would use his inheritance to copy Gray's parents.

Even if his father hadn't left much money behind, even a small amount of gold would be extremely useful and put him ahead of most of his poor village peers.

Kris snorted. "Merchant life...?" He didn't understand the grind. How foolish.

Himmel was even more foolish however, for the chest did not open. "Huh? Oh..." He pouted. "This is a test of some sort isn't it?" That sounded like his strict guardian. "And I just failed by being super greedy or whatever..."

His guardian ended up laughing. "Worry not, I shall not begrudge a child for being excited at seeing what his father left him." Awesome. Why the troll then!? "However... before you open this chest, you must earn it."

"That is to say... when you become ready, I shall give you the key for it. In that way, this is indeed a test. Not one of greed, but one of resolve, one of will." That was...

So lame! So he just wasn't getting anything for his seventh birthday!? If he were actually a kid, he would have started crying! In fact, because of this kid body, he wanted to cry anyways!

Himmel pouted. Which was very mature of him. "Oh, yeah, then when will I be ready?"

Kris shrugged. "Who's to say, perhaps you shall never become ready for it. Be it due to incompetence or due to choice." He grumbled to himself. "And with your speed at learning... I doubt the first option has any chance of happening." Yes, yes, he was a dirty, cheating adult.

"However, I know just saying when you're ready can be frustrating. So here's an actual date... when you become twelve, I shall hand you a sword. I shall also hire that magical teacher we talked about... if I think you are worthy of receiving that boon, that is." Twelve, huh... around the age where puberty started.

It made sense to truly start training there. His muscles would truly begin to develop, and his stamina would start to skyrocket, making magic much less dangerous. It still felt a little too late for Himmel, however.

"Naturally, this shall also be the time when that chest will be opened. It contains an item that can help with your training in the first place." So it isn't just random amounts of gold? Neat.

Though as for items that could help him train... perhaps some sort of tome for magic? Well, with his shitty talent, he doubted his father had been a mage. Unless he had been a shitty mage!

Himmel grinned. "Twelve, huh?" Even if it wasn't what he had been expecting, getting a concrete date was still nice! "Wait a sec, you still haven't explained what would make me worthy." He just added more rewards.

If Himmel proved himself, when he became twelve he would get his inheritance and get the training he desperately wanted. If he was unworthy, he got... nothing. Now, how does one become worthy?

Kris's face became completely serious. "And so here comes the next part of our talk... Himmel, when you were young... I... I got into a fight with plenty of good friends on how you should be raised."

"Some wanted you to hold a blade as soon as you were born... I agreed with them for a while. Soon, however, I... saw things and decided that no child should live like that... much less you." Kris took a deep breath. "My friends and I parted ways, and I settled here."

"I have strived to give you a good childhood... But with your speed of learning, it is about time we moved onto the next step." Himmel braced himself. "From now on, you shall begin learning etiquette, politics, and war tactics." He was not ready for that.

Why the hell was he teaching him all of that!? What kind of backstory did he have!? He was totally some long-lost noble, wasn't he!?

Calm down, village boy, you can't even cast a fireball. Alm outsmarted you in hide-and-seek the other day. "Neat." What else was he supposed to say to that...?

Kris tilted his head. "You have no objections?"

Leaving aside how weird it was to ask that of a seven year old... "Not really. I'm okay with it." It all sounded like worthless stuff for his life as a village boy. But if it was necessary for him to learn magic eventually...

Kris avoided his gaze. "I see... Himmel, would you... would you have preferred to have held a blade from the beginning?" He grit his teeth. "If you... if you truly desire it, we can begin that step of your training right now." He sounded serious. This wasn't a test.

Himmel wanted to say yes, desperately.

But he knew that would be the wrong choice, because Kris desperately wanted to hear no. It was clear from his tone of voice, to his distraught expression, and even from the trembling of his lips. If Himmel said yes, the man would probably burst into tears right there and then.

And if that wasn't enough... he also needed to consider this from the viewpoint of a child.

Sure, Himmel was fine with training until his mind couldn't take anymore, but no other child would. And naturally Kris didn't know Himmel was very much not a normal child.

Having made his resolve and hoping to have no regrets, the boy answered. "Nah, I'll pass." Kris's eyes widened. "And don't get me wrong, I do want to start that type of training... but I also understand that it's probably not the right choice."

He scratched his cheek. "If I was raised like that... I think I would have given up along the way and become weaker. I wouldn't have a reason to grow stronger after all." Funnily enough, this was actually true even for his adult self now that he thought about it.

Kris seemed confused. "What do you mean...?"

This time Himmel was quick to answer. "A person needs a reason to grow stronger. Ram Village is mine. If I was just told to swing a sword all day like a maniac... I probably just wouldn't have done it. I mean, you told me to stop training, and I still kept at it. I can be stubborn."

He could see a world where he had been trained to an extreme level since birth. A world where he didn't have a single thought about the little village brats or about how strangely fantastical Valentia could be...

It sounded like a really boring world.

Himmel prepared himself to say something really corny. "Besides... my friends grant me strength!" He was blushing by the time the words escaped his mouth.

He really did believe it though... just not in the way an anime protagonist did.

Building a community around oneself was extremely important. Far more important than learning how to blow up a mountain. Because the simple truth was... people didn't really function without friendships.

He had no desire to become a lone wolf edgelord anime man, thank you.

His guardian slowly began laughing. "That type of logic...!" Hey, why was this jerk laughing at the seven-year-old who comforted him!? "Is exactly the type of thing your father would have said. He would be proud." Probably not.

In fact, if this place did have an afterlife, Himmel was expecting an ass-kicking from his papa eventually.

Kris continued, now more talking to himself than anything. "Besides, strength alone won't win this... I know that." It seems his guardian was slowly regaining his confidence. Good.

Now he could finally ask the real question here. "By the way, Kris, is this actually my present? Does this also count as my twelve-year-old present? Or do I get another present when that time comes?" Important things to know.

"I... You want to call your friends over for cake?"



//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////



"Ugh...! Fuc-...!" Himmel held himself back from swearing.

It would be a bad habit to develop when he was supposed to be a little kid who didn't even know what sex was yet. That said, his... homework was really annoying, and it had given him a massive headache, so he hoped he could be forgiven.

"Hey Himmel, what are you doing?" And then his thoughts were interrupted by Alm.

Himmel sighed. "Just... just thinking about a situation, I guess. It's about how I would deal with a castle invasion." At this point Alm knew about his training in tactics... in fact, so did all of his village friends.

And one day Alm himself would be trained in tactics, as one would expect from a knight's grandson. His grandpa just didn't think he was ready for it yet.

Alm tilted his head. "A castle invasion...? So, in this situation, are you the invader?"

Himmel shook his head. "No. I am desperately trying to defend my castle from the enemy." He sighed yet again. "How does one stop a juggernaut while being human?" That was the crux of the problem.

"A juggernaut? I guess if he's an amazing soldier like Grandpa... you surround him or something? Or maybe you outright avoid battle with him and focus on his companions." Alm's idea sounded about right.

But he didn't really understand what juggernaut meant.

"Nope. It doesn't matter how many men I throw at him, and it doesn't matter if I avoid him, because he can single-handedly take over my castle, and so I would fail my win condition." A one-man army.

Those didn't truly exist back in his world, and for a decent time he had thought they didn't exist here either. He was wrong. There were many monsters in this world, and right now he was thinking about one. Even if one who had died some hundreds of years ago.

Tactics in this world were hell. They were way more complicated than the medieval warfare of this world. Which was a consequence of mages who could teleport running around, or warriors who cracked bolders with their bare hands.

At first Kris had given him situations where there weren't any of these complicated factors involved. That had recently changed however, he was slowly trying to introduce Himmel to a more complicated and hard to predict world of warfare.

Alm scratched his cheek. "I feel like I need more information about this."

Himmel nodded. "So... this thought exercise is based on a real historic event that happened in Jugdral in the past. There was this minor noble who decided to rebel for one reason or another... Naturally, his lord prepared himself to strike him down."

"It was supposed to be a subtle thing, but stuff got out of control, and before long the minor noble locked himself into his castle and prepared himself for a long siege." It was a dumb option as well. He had rebelled because his lands were going through a famine and not receiving enough support, while taxation only got higher and higher.

He was destined to lose.

It's just that he lost in a really embarrassing way. "But a siege never came. Instead, his lord came basically by himself, with just a few servants for comfort and the like. He was the current heir of House Chalpy who wielded Major Baldr Holy Blood. Before long he had slaughtered every single person in the castle with his legendary sword." Terrifying. Way too terrifying.

"After the whole thing was done and over with, the lord remarked that the hardest part of the whole thing had been containing himself to not bring down the castle." How was a man supposed to prepare himself against that!?

There was no tactic that could bring victory.

Alm flinched. "Wow... that was pretty scary." Alm knew about Holy Blood, but he didn't know how scary it could be.

To be honest, normally he wouldn't even know about that, but Himmel had shared with his friends as soon as he learned about it.

Those who had Holy Blood were direct descendants of some legendary heroes. They were naturally stronger than everyone else, and if their blood was pure enough, they could even use certain specific weapons. In essence, they were eugenic super soldiers. Jugdral's answer to something like Mila and Duma.

His continent's goddess was still cooler though. And there was no bias there. Nope, not at all.

Alm put his hands on his hips. "I guess... I would... I don't know." He now understood what Himmel was moping about on the corner.

Himmel put a hand on his chin. "I think the answer was probably never rebelling in the first place. Sir Kris is always saying a war is over before it even begins." Maybe the lesson he was being taught here was to know how to pick one's battles.

Though... even if the minor noble chose to just never fight, he would have probably starved. Or at least his lands would have. It was just kind of a shitty situation.

Alm gritted his teeth. "Choosing not to fight, huh...? I don't really like that." And he didn't even know about the famine situation. Maybe Alm should become a Duma faithful!? "This Holy Blood thing is totally unfair!"

Himmel couldn't argue against that. "Yep. Though this world is just full of unfair things..." It reminded him of something like Naruto. The Uchiha existed, and not everyone was going to be one. "Who knows though? Maybe you secretly have Holy Blood?"

He snorted. "Any weird marks on your body, Alm? The brand that signifies one has Holy Blood is supposed to manifest when you're a kid." Naturally, Alm didn't have it, he was just teasing him.

Alm nodded. "Yeah, I have a strange mark on my hand." He began removing one of his gloves, right now it was snowing, so it was only natural Alm would wear them.

They were approaching the end of the year, the current season being Wyrmstym. This world's equivalent of winter. And Valentia was seemingly in a place where it would snow across the whole continent, though it was particularly bad up north in Rigel.

Once Alm had removed the glove... Himmel noticed that he had not been lying. He did indeed have a very, very intricate mark upon his hand. The sort of thing that simply did not happen naturally.

Okay, now there was no way he could hold back a swear. "You actually have Major Holy Blood. What the fuck!?" B-but that was a Jugdral thing! Not a Valentia thing!

And furthermore, if Alm had such potent Holy Blood, he should have been living in Jugdral as a super spoiled little shit. Not spending his life with an old retired knight in some forgotten village.

Alm blinked in confusion. "Fuck... What's that?" And then he shook his head. "Actually, forget about it..." He blushed. "This isn't a sign I have Major Holy Blood or anything like that..." It definitely was!

Immediately theories started running through Himmel's head.

Mycen was a retired old knight of Zofia. He had definitely been born and raised in Valentia, so there was no way he had Jugdral's Holy Blood. Probably... But Himmel knew nothing about Alm's parents. Perhaps that had been it? Mycel's son/daugher married some run away noble from Jugdral and Alm was conceived? They both then probably passed away...

Alm continued talking, unaware of Himmel's thoughts. "It's just a birthmark... I wanted to show you, b-because... well..." He looked down, even his ears were red. "You're my best friend. Yeah." Oh, that was very sweet of him.

But... "That's... a birthmark?"

"Yeah! At least that's what grandpa says." No way. It was way too goddamned intricate to be just a birthmark. "I... I never actually showed it to anyone, since grandpa says it to keep it secret." Well, wasn't that immensely suspicious.

But it made sense, because if knowledge of Alm's lineage became public... his life would be over.

Jugdral would naturally hunt him down 'till the ends of the world. There is no way they would just let their precious blood spread around outside of their continent. They kept a tight leash on those who descended from the crusaders after all.

Meanwhile, Zofia would probably... would probably do some fucked shit like forcing Alm into a breeding camp where he could... erm... make more super soldiers. Sure, they wouldn't have his lineage's special weapon, but just having Major Holy Blood from some crusader was already a immense boon.

Alm's lineage could not be found out, because it would mean war between two continents. Or at least war between whatever country from Jugdral Alm descended from and Zofia. Clearly Mycen understood this.

Alm had a nervous smile. "S-so what do you think? Does it look cool?"

Himmel took a deep breath. "Yeah, Alm. It looks super cool." He was so fucking jealous of it.

Alm's smile became more confident. "Awesome! Anyways... Do you wanna go build a snowman with everyone? That's the reason I came here to look for you." Well, didn't that sound very nice.

Ah! A war between two continents! A goddess battling legendary heroes capable of taking castles all by themselves! Hundreds of thousands would die! The land would be forever scarred! Mutual assured destruction!

Himmel smiled. "Sure, Alm." He was taking this secret to the grave.

That said... Geez, just when he was beginning to think his backstory was something great, Alm came and completely outshone him. Welp, that's what Himmel got from getting a big head.

Differently from his chosen-one-type friend, he was a village boy through and through.