Chapter 62: Chapter 50: Confronting the Past…

Echoes of Fire and Shadows

Chapter 50: Confronting the Past…

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-----Luna's POV-----

I've changed… Or at least, I thought I had changed, and yet… Why do I still cower by the mere sight of them? Why do I feel so powerless and afraid even though I've learned magic and even managed to overcome my shyness?

As soon as I laid my eyes upon them, I became terrified… My body was covered in a cold sweat, I felt like there was a huge knot in my throat preventing me from uttering even a single sound, and my legs were shaking uncontrollably…

"It makes me sad that you two came back and didn't even bother to come and say hello… That's not how friends treat each other, you know?" A serious voice said with fake sadness.

"Even though we all used to be as thick as thieves back then… It is just so inconsiderate of them!" A snarky female voice agreed with the previous voice.

"Indeed! Even after all the things we did for them, this is how they pay us?" A proud male voice said with outrage.

"Truly, how ungrateful can they be?" A cold feminine voice said judgmentally.

"Friends!? Who the fuck would be friends with a group of assholes like you lot!" Liliana was enraged.

"Oi! I thought that I had made it clear that you guys weren't welcome here! Piss the fuck off my property!" Aunt Laura said to them with hostility.

"Shut up, you nosy elf. This doesn't concern you." The owner of the cold female voice replied.

"I'm pretty sure that the street is public property!" The same proud male from before said with a shit-eating grin.

“Just because you wear that uniform doesn't make you better than us, you nosy bitch!" The snarky female immediately insulted my aunt. “In fact, do I need to remind you that your senile grandfather owes a huge amount of money to my father? So you better stay the hell out of this if you don’t want my family’s debt collectors to pay you a visit!” The snarky female then threatened her.

Aunt Laura was left with her mouth hanging wide open… Like she wanted to fight back, but she was holding back her tongue… She was shooting daggers at the snarky female and the rest of the group while thinking about how to get out of this situation.

"Such hostility… There's no need for us to be at each other's throats, you know? We just came here to greet our old friends and hang out with them, so you shouldn't insult others like that, Ms. Laura. Also, stop glaring at us like that, we are all neighbors here, so let’s get along." The serious male said in a fake attempt to keep the peace.

Those guys are people I know very well… They were the ones who used to bully me back when Dad was a knight and our family still lived here in the capital… Those people are Gideon and his goons, Tabitha, Emeline, and Rufus.

Before we left Mutm, these people made my and my sister’s lives a living nightmare… They bullied us in such horrible ways that they made me dread even going outside our old home…

But it wasn’t always like that… At first, we were actually friends with Gideon ever since Liliana and I learned to walk. He’s four years older than us, so because of that and the fact that his family lived in the house to the left of our old house, it was only natural that we would play together all the time.

When we were little, he used to come to our house all the time with his mother and father who were desperately trying to form a connection with my father, who was becoming increasingly famous because of his power and his heroic deeds as a knight…

I don’t remember much about that time, but Gideon never really complained about having to play around with a pair of toddlers. He actually seemed to enjoy himself reading to us about geography or the fauna and flora of our country even if we didn’t understand what he was talking about, and he never even complained when we forced him to play around with our dolls. He always looked like he was having fun.

In fact, he later even started bringing his friends to play around with us too… Those were Tabitha, Emeline, and Rufus...

Gideon, his parents, his friends, and even their parents started coming to our home pretty much every day in the afternoon to spend time with our family, so Liliana and I quickly grew attached to Gideon, who at the time, had become a brotherly figure for us… There was a time when I did consider him to be my big brother…

But that was nothing but a huge lie… One evening five years ago when my sister and I were 6 years old, while my mother had gone to the bathroom, we overheard his parents talking with Gideon while everyone was preparing to leave for the day that he and his friends had to keep treating us well so they could keep profiting from their relationship with our parents. The other kids' parents agreed with them and told their own children the same thing… That they should humor Liliana and me in whatever we ask no matter how annoying we can be… All the children simply agreed with a nod.

It would have been good if everything had stopped there… It was heartbreaking for my younger self, but I genuinely think now that it would have been way better if that conversation had ended there…

Both the adults and the kids immediately started talking badly about my parents, about our house, and about my sister and me…

Even to this day, I still remember the exact words that they used to describe how trashy the decoration of our home was, how my mother had such a terrible sense of taste, or how my father was just another stuck-up arrogant noble who was disinherited by his family because of how much of a monster he actually was, and how the world would be better off without two annoying brats like Liliana and I…

Each and every single one of their words felt like a dagger stuck in my heart… That evening my heart was thoroughly broken by the people I thought were our closest family friends…

And to rub even more salt into the wound, Gideon, the person I considered an older brother, not only agreed with everyone, but he was the one cracking the most jokes about how he was so tired of having to deal with two annoying babies such as my sister and I and that he prayed each night to the gods that the two of us would die painfully so he wouldn’t have to see us anymore, but he would continue to do so if his parents kept buying him toys so he could at least endure spending time with us…

Back then, I couldn’t understand why they would say such horrible things about us… I couldn’t understand what we had done to gain their hate… Well, even to this day, I still don’t know what we did for them to talk that way about us…

My older sister and I were so heartbroken and so shaken by what we had heard that we rushed in tears to our mother…

I don’t remember exactly what happened after that since I was so overwhelmed and traumatized by the event… The only things I remember after finding Mom and telling her everything between sobs are the scary expression of pure fury she had on her face after she listened to us and her threatening to turn every single one of them into ashes if she ever saw any of them around us again…

My father’s reaction was not much better than my mom’s… He was so mad that he destroyed an entire cliff that used to be visible from the city with a single punch… He even had to be convinced by my mother not to send everyone to an early grave…

Still, that never did make me feel better… For weeks, I could only stay in bed while crying and wondering about what we had done wrong… What had I done so wrong that Gideon hated me so much to wish for such a horrible thing to happen to me and my older sister?

During that time, we never saw Gideon or his parents even though we lived right beside them. We never saw any of his friends or their parents either as they had all been personality threatened by my enraged father. 

However, that wouldn’t last for long… One particular day, my father had to leave the city to go on a mission with his order of knights. He was going to be gone for about a month or so, which was already a regular occurrence for our family. The incident with Gideon and the others had finally slipped from my mind thanks to the help of my sister who hadn’t been affected as much as I was.

During that particular day after my father had left, my sister and I were playing on the street while Mom was making lunch. I was happy that I could play around with my sister peacefully, but… There were some people who didn’t agree with the fact that I was happy.

After weeks without seeing them, Gideon and his friends appeared before Liliana and me… They all wanted to “play” with us and to show us that they had changed and to “let bygones be bygones”. Liliana and I just yelled at them to leave us alone before we tried going inside to tell our mother… Gideon and his goons didn’t approve of that…

Even after we threatened them with our dad and our mom, they still decided to restrain us. That’s when the bullying truly began… When my nightmare truly began…

While Rufus was preventing us from leaving, Tabitha and Emeline started mocking my sister and me… They made fun of our “ugly” faces, our ugly clothes, the fact that our father is a bastard and a “monster”, and that we should just go hide under a rock forever so people would have to witness our “ugly” selves ever again.

Their nasty words made me relive all the feelings I felt during that time I heard them and their parents talking badly about us. It was like someone was constantly stabbing my heart with a dagger over and over again…

To make matters worse than they already were, Gideon started talking to us about he was about to punish us for not being good girls and that we should just stay quiet… With a maniacal grin on his face, he poured a bucket of goblin blood onto our dresses, forever staining them…

It wouldn’t have been as traumatic as it was if those dressed had been our day-to-day dresses, but no… Those dresses were much more important than that… Those dresses had been the last gift Granny Arentia had given us before she passed away… Those dresses were special to us in so many ways and Gideon and his goons ruined them just to teach us a “lesson”…

But it doesn’t end there… They were not satisfied with just that, no… They took off our shoes and made us walk around the neighborhood barefooted, making it seem as if parading us while we were covered in goblin blood was a huge victory for them…

They also threatened the two of us with their magic, telling us that we would regret it if our parents found out about what they had done or that we were just “playing” around like the good old days…

Contrary to me who immediately started crying, my older sister began fighting against them tooth and nail, shouting as loudly as she could with hopes that Mom would come to our rescue. Even when they started punching and kicking her, Liliana never stopped fighting back, unlike me, who could only hopelessly watch everything unfold while I cried…

She has always been the braver one out of the two of us…

Fortunately for us, someone did hear Liliana's desperate shouts… Our Aunt Laura.

As soon as she came out of our grandparents' house screaming bloody murder, Gideon and his goons ran away in a hurry, leaving my sister and me laying on the ground after pushing us away with all their strength.

I couldn't understand how they could be so cruel and do such a thing… To ruin one of my most treasured possessions with smiles on their faces.

Even after our Aunt took us back home and explained everything to our mother, the bullying didn't stop… When our mother confronted Gideon's parents and the parents of the other children, they all just feigned ignorance about the matter or they defended their actions by saying: "kids will be kids" or "they were just playing around with them"...

I didn't understand why back then, but now I do. I know why they were so cruel to us… It was because that was their nature. They were showing us their true colors.

"Liliana, Luna, you two were about to go out, right? Then why don't you come with us? It is perfect since we have so much catching up to do!" The serious male, or rather, Gideon said with a fake kind tone… He extended his hand, beckoning us to come closer to him.

"Who the fuck would go with you!? Get the hell away from here and leave us alone you fucking asshole!" Liliana shouted with anger.

“Careful now… That’s not a way to speak to your friends, Liliana.” Gideon looked at my sister with a threatening expression.

“It seems like she hasn’t changed that much after all this time. She’s still the same brat that I remember…” The cold female, or Emeline, shook her head with disappointment. “I believe we should do her parents a favor and set her straight… She needs to be taught a lesson, don’t you agree Gideon?” Emeline raised her hand and aimed it at my older sister and me. She was gathering her mana in her palm…

As soon as she did that, countless bad memories started coming to my mind… I was terrified beyond belief… My whole body was shaking uncontrollably thanks to how scared I was…

“Wait! Let us all calm down! Don’t do something that you might regret afterward.” Mark said in an attempt to defuse the situation.

“Oh? And what are you gonna do, you dirty mutt!? You think that just because you wear the uniform of the Imperial Academy that you’re better than us!?” The proud male or rather, Rufus shouted in a fit of rage. “Then let me tell you something good!  Every single one of us has been offered scholarships to attend the Imperial Academy because of our immense talents! You know what that means, right? If you want us to stop you’ll have to fight us here and now!” Rufus said with a voice full of bloodthirst…

“Hold on! What the hell do you think you’re doing!? Even if my grandfather owes money to one of your parents, I will not allow this to continue! Threatening two children and acting as if you own this place… Where’s your honor!? You bring disgrace to the name of Imperial Academy for such cowardly behavior!” Aunt Laura yelled at Gideon and his friends.

“What you’re doing is a serious criminal offense. If I were you guys, I’d take my leave before things go south for you. I will overlook this incident if you guys never show yourselves before us again.” Felix said calmly to the people in front of us.

“And what if we don’t leave? What are you gonna do about it, you scrawny punk!? Are you gonna go cry to mommy and daddy and snitch on us? Your parents are at the bottom of the command chain in the Roses of Nebandia! no one is going to listen to such low-leveled knights! In fact, even if someone did listen to them, that order of knights is irrelevant! They have no authority here in the capital!” The snarky female, or rather, Tabitha immediately mocked Felix with an evil grin on her face.

“It seems like you guys don’t have any intentions of backing down… Seriously, this is your last warning. Leave now and never show your faces in front of us. You’ll truly regret it if you don’t leave.” Douglas let out a deep sigh as he warned the people in front of us. 

“You’re the ones overexaggerating things. We just came here to say hello and hang out with our old childhood friends.” Gideon said with a seemingly charming smile while looking at me.

Gideon’s smile immediately sent shivers down my spine… Just seeing that smile again made me want to run away from this place as fast as I could… I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me whole just so I wouldn’t have to see that horrifying smile ever again…

“But, if you guys insist on getting in the way of that, I suppose we have no choice but to teach you a lesson. Not that I’m complaining since I’ve always wanted to tear down that annoying prideful attitude you guys got after you got accepted into the academy.” Gideon said with disdain. He gave a quick nod to his friends before looking at us again. This time, an unsettling expression had appeared on his face.

Gideon and his friends all raised their arms at the same time and pointed their hands toward us…

“O, great flames! Accept our offering and heed our call! The fallen feathers of the emperor phoenix shalt mark the end of the world…” A surge of mana enveloped Gideon and his group as they chanted in unison

In response, my aunt and her friends immediately moved as soon as they realized what Gideon and his goons were about to do. They were about to cast a spell and it was going to be powerful.

“Everyone, Formation B! Protect the children at all costs!” Aunt Laura shouted to her friends while pushing Liliana, Leaf, Mia, and Klein closer to me.

“Understood!” Douglas, Emily, Felix, and Mark all replied at the same time before putting themselves in front of us to shield us from Gideon and his friends.

Even my Aunt Sarana had suddenly returned to her human form… She was surrounding all of us children with her arms…

“Laura, if you give buy me twenty seconds I can get the children to safety and come back to offer support!” Aunt Sarana said with a serious tone all the while she was gathering her mana to cast her own spell.

“You’ll have them! Everyone, I want a barrier now!” Aunt Laura nodded in response before giving her orders.

“Aye!” Douglas, Emily, Felix, and Mark replied as each of them focused on summoning their own protective barriers to shield us from our enemy’s spell.

“Now consume it all and scorch the earth, [Blazing Hellbomb]!” The moment Gideon and his group finished casting their spell, dozens of huge arrows of flames appeared, floating right above their heads. 

Without waiting even waiting for instruction from their casters, the flaming arrows were shot in our direction.

“Hurry up! If you don’t get that barrier ready right now, we’ll be fucked! Cast faster!” Aunt Laura shouted while providing mana to the others for the barrier.

“Aye!” Aunt Laura’s friend yelled in unison as they poured more and more of their mana to form a barrier to protect us.

However, even if I was deadly afraid, I could tell with a single glance… Even if my aunt and their friends managed to cast a barrier just in time, it wouldn’t be strong enough to fully block the power of the enemy’s spell… A Grade 5 spell…

Sigh… So much for a change… I genuinely tried my best… I genuinely thought that I would be okay facing Gideon and the others again, but I was wrong… I haven’t changed in the slightest… I’m still the same little girl who hides behind her everyone… I can’t help but envy Liliana… Even though we went through the same thing, she’s still strong enough to be brave and stand up against the people who tormented us…

I guess that it was impossible for me to change from the beginning… There was no way for me to stand beside Julius or Liliana… My fate is to always be weak no matter what I do…

Julius… Just why can’t be as strong as you are? Why can’t I be as brave as Liliana? It is so unfair… I want to stand by their side, not behind them… I don’t want to keep being protected… Why does life have to be so unfair…? 

I don’t want to be weak!

“It is almost here! We don’t have any time left! C’mon!” Aunt Laura shouted while trying to hold it together... Just by looking at her expression, I could tell that she knew that we were in deep trouble.

I couldn’t do anything else but watch in despair as the arrows of flames rapidly approached us and curse my own weakness… Even when a small barrier was formed in front of our group, I had closed my eyes and given up all hope…

“I see… So they are the ones that…” A familiar voice spoke from behind us, seconds before the arrows of flames crashed against the recently formed barrier.

That voice was a voice that I recognized far too well… As soon as I opened my eyes, I saw a bright red scarf fluttering in the wind and a familiar back… Julius’s back. He was standing in front of the barrier with his short sword in his right hand. His sword was painted in a deep orange as the arrows of flames flew around it and were absorbed into the blade.

I just stared at his back… Although he was smaller than me, he was always so reliable. The mere sight of him immediately made my heart beat faster and faster, but unlike before, I no longer felt afraid. Even though I didn’t want to keep being protected, I felt safe thanks to his presence…

“Sorry for the wait. I suppose I chose a really bad time to take a shower…” Julius said to us while looking at Gideon and his friends. “But you all don’t need to worry anymore, I’ll handle things from here. I have a few things that I want to say to these people…” He was extremely calm and composed.

There were a million things I wanted to say to him… I wanted to stand up and join him, but my body wouldn’t listen to me in the slightest. Even if I was no longer afraid, I could only watch his back in silence…

You are reading story Echoes of Fire and Shadows at novel35.com

However, my vision suddenly became hazy and the scenery around me morphed in the blink of an eye…

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-----Julius’s POV-----

Boy, that was close… Had I arrived a few seconds later, everyone would have some pretty severe burns now…

“I’m grateful that Sarana took the girls and Klein away from here. That way, I’ll be able to fight without restraint.” I said with a cold tone while looking at the people responsible for the spell from before.

I shall make them pay… For everything they did to Liliana and Luna, they will suffer. They will suffer the wrath of a future Demon King.

It is needless to say that I am enraged beyond belief… Even when I fought Rexon and his bandits, I wasn’t as angry as I am currently…

Two young men and two young women, all of them human and presumably around 15 years of age, stood before me.

One of the men was tall and pretty muscular, probably around 1.86 meters tall. His head was completely shaven and his eyes were brown-colored. His face screamed that he was the big dumb idiot type. He was wearing a simple white shirt that barely fitted him since most of his chest was fully exposed, some trousers, and an ugly pair of black shoes. That guy was Rufus.

Contrary to Rufus, the other man was actually of average height, around 1.70 meters tall, and didn’t look particularly strong… In fact, he looked a little scrawny. His hair was long and light brown-colored while his eyes were blue. Just by looking at his face, it seemed like the guy had some charisma, or at least he wanted to give the impression that he was charismatic. In truth, he looked like a failed wannabe fuckboy. Unlike his idiot friend, this guy was wearing some expensive and nicer clothes just to give the impression that he was important… Nice white robes above an expensive-looking black shirt, some dark brown pants, and a pair of very impractical shoes. That guy was Gideon, the leader of the group who had caused so much pain to my sisters.

As for the women... Both of them had pretty much the same physique and height, both being around 1.60-1.65 meters tall.

The one called Emeline had a very prominent resting bitch face. She was mildly attractive but thanks to her action I found her immensely repulsive. She had long cyan-colored hair and a pair of yellow-colored eyes. That’s all I could say of notoriety about her… In fact, everything else about her was pretty average. Her clothes were pretty much the standard of what you’d see any common person from this world wearing, A simple white blouse, boots, and a knee-length green skirt. She had no other notable qualities that I could see.

And finally, the one called Tabitha, she wasn't particularly good-looking or even remotely interesting, she looked as plain as she could be. She had short dark blonde hair and a pair of gray eyes. Her face literally screamed that she was trying too hard to stand out and be more noticeable than the other members of her group. Her clothes were basically the same as Emeline's but in different colors.

"You know, I've met a fair number of idiots during my trip here, but you guys definitely take the prize as the most idiotic people I have met so far…"  I said with a serious expression as I extinguished the flames my blade had absorbed with water magic. "Seriously… Were you guys dropped as children? Who in their sane uses fucking fire magic in the middle of a neighborhood where most houses are made with wood? Were you trying to set the entire district ablaze? You people give an entirely new meaning to sharing a single brain cell…" I couldn't help but feel baffled at their stupidity.

"You… Just who the fuck do you think you are appearing all of a sudden and insulting us!? Do you even know who you are dealing with!?" Tabitha became enraged because of my words.

"A group of imbeciles, that much is crystal clear to me." I retorted while putting my sword back on its sheath.

"You've done it now… I don't know who you are but I don't care! I'm going to teach you a very painful lesson for meddling in our business!" The big hulking idiot Rufus said, clearly more enraged than Tabitha thanks to my comments.

I didn't even bother to listen to his cheap villain dialogue or the fact that they cared more about my words rather than the fact that I had easily blocked their spell. I preferred to focus my attention on someone else… The person who had placed a hand on my left shoulder. That hand belonged to Laura.

She was standing behind me with her friends, who all looked immensely relieved.

"Thank you, Julius… You really saved us back there…" She spoke with an awkward mix of admiration and shame.

"Don't mind it. There’s no way I would let you guys get hurt… Especially since this now concerns me." I replied with a serious tone, while not taking my gaze away from the idiots who had caused this conflict.

(Julius, you have my permission to use everything you have against them... You don’t need to worry about the consequences as Catris and I will handle everything.) Just like I was, Lia was completely enraged thanks to the actions of the group in front of me. I knew that if she was in my place, she would definitely not hold anything back against them.

(Don’t worry… That was the plan from the very beginning.) I agreed with the goddess.

Had it not been for Lia, I wouldn’t have found out what was happening outside the house until it was too late… Thanks to her powers, Lia was able to give me a quick summary of the identities of the people who had tormented my sisters as well as Laura’s and Sarana’s friends, and finally the nefarious acts of the sorry excuse of a human being called Gideon and his lackeys.

"I was actually starting to panic there… Had that spell actually hit us, we would have been left in a pretty bad shape… I’m very grateful to you and I will certainly pay off this debt." Douglas lowered her head and thanked me.

"If we just had a few more seconds of preparation, our barrier could have easily blocked the spell… My pride feels a little shattered, but I’m definitely glad that you showed up…" Felix said with a dejected tone.

"It is clear that we still have a few things to work on as a group… Though, we really got careless…" Mark smiled bitterly.

"I agree with you on that Mark, but more importantly… Did you all see him deal with that spell as if it was nothing!? It was incredible! Why didn’t you tell us that your nephew was actually super strong, Laura!?" Emily immediately expressed her admiration for me.

“Truly, I feel like a freshman again instead of a senior… The fact that we haven’t been involved in a battle for months has really taken a toll on our coordination and our battle senses…” Douglas said with frustration.

“I’m actually quite surprised that you didn’t make a barrier earlier, Laura... I could’ve sworn that you were a user of the Voiceless Method just like Mom and your grandmother.” I said to Laura with a confused expression on my face.

If it was Mom, she would have more than enough time to cast a barrier. No, she wouldn’t even have the need to do so as she could easily dismantle or redirect a spell of this caliber.

“Who are you taking me for!? Yes, I am a user of the Voiceless Method like them, but I can’t even hope to match their ridiculous casting speeds!” Laura crossed her arms and averted her gaze, clearly feeling a lot of embarrassment.

Hmm…? I don’t think it is that ridiculous… Liliana, Luna, and I pretty much have almost reached the same casting speed as Mom… Well, whatever. That is clearly not important, right now…

“Impressive… to be able to redirect and dismantle our spell in so quickly… You are pretty talented for a little kid.” Gideon looked at me with interest. He didn’t seem to mind that his attack was canceled. “If you don’t mind me asking, who exactly are you?” A serious look appeared on his face.

I simply stared at him back without saying a word… Scenes of him and his goons bullying and abusing my sisters were replayed like a movie in my mind…

It seems like these guys either haven’t heard the rumors yet or they simply haven’t connected the dots about my identity… I’m gonna use this to my advantage to instill as much fear and despair as I can.

“I advise that you answer Gideon’s question, brat. You might have been lucky enough to dismantle our spell, but I can assure you that it will not happen again. So answer now.” Emeline pointed her hand towards me. She was gathering her mana in her hand in an attempt to scare me.

“Oh, really? Are you going to bore me to death with your long chants? Because if that’s what you intend to do it will be certainly more effective than that pathetic excuse of a spell. The lack of spell control you guys just displayed is simply baffling.” I couldn’t help but air my anger and frustration thanks to Emeline’s pathetic threat.

Yes, their spell was certainly “powerful”, but that’s about it. Their spell was nothing more than a huge accumulation of their combined mana mimicking what the real spell should have been like. They all failed in the most important area, which was having a defective mental image of the end result and control over the spell itself.

The spell definitely had the potential firepower to cause a lot of severe injuries or even death had anyone been hit by it, but again, it is precisely because of that lack of control from its casters that I was able to take over the spell and control it as if it was my own. For any mage with a decent amount of knowledge of the Incantation Method, the Voiceless Method, and a tiny bit of common sense, the flaws of their spell are far too easy to spot.

So, because of my education in all the methods to cast magic, I was able to immediately identify the flaws of the spell and take over what little control they had over it and finally absorb the mana that formed the spell into my sword.

“This is not just some amateur mistake… This is just sheer fucking incompetence. This is the first time I ever see someone screwing up so badly in the easiest casting method…” I shook my head with disbelief, while I was seething with fury on the inside.

“I dare you to say that again, you rat!” Rufus shouted as loudly as he could. His face was filled with indignation.

“I don’t know who you think you are to think that you can scold us and call us incompetent, but I’ll definitely make you eat those words.” Emeline said coldly, this time actually preparing herself to cast a spell.

“Your luck ends here!” Tabitha spoke with an ugly smirk on her face.

Emeline, Rufus, and Tabitha all raised their hands and started gathering their mana to cast another spell. The only one who remained quiet was Gideon, who seemed to be trying to analyze me.

“I should warn you… You guys will be visiting the realm of the Goddess Skell before you even get to finish the first half of the chant.” I quickly grabbed the hilt of my sword so I could brandish it at a moment’s notice.

“Wait, Julius! Let us work together and…-” Laura was unable to finish her sentence…

“Stand aside and do not interfere, Laura. I have a beef with these walking piles of human waste for what they did to Liliana and Luna, so this is something that I will deal with on my own.” I interrupted Laura while putting a bit of pressure on my voice for her to stand back.

For the first time since I had arrived, I broke eye contact with Gideon and his braindead friends, to exchange a serious look with Laura and her friends. Laura seemed like she wanted to say something about me handling this, but she decided to stay quiet as soon as she noticed how serious I was.

“Are you sure you want to deal with us without their help, kid? You might regret getting into this fight since…-”  Gideon spoke with fake concern, but I immediately interrupted him.

“Since you’re being backed by the Laurents? Don’t worry about me... I don’t give a single fuck if they are involved. I’ll deal with them too and I finish what my parents weren’t able to do in their stead.” I said to Gideon with a threatening tone.

My sisters started being tormented by these guys when they were 6 years old until they turned 8 years old. The bullying only stopped after they moved out of the city thanks to our father’s task to fund a village in the Great Forest of Falgren.

It is not like my parents were unaware of what was happening, on the contrary, they were quite stressed out and reasonably angry about the whole ordeal. Things got to a point that my mom and my dad even physically threatened Gideon’s and his idiot friends’ parents for things to stop but they wouldn’t listen. They would use excuse after excuse to protect themselves and their children until eventually, they aligned themselves with my dad’s former family, the Laurents.

The only reason why the bullying continued for as long as it did was that my dad was usually gone for months at the time on expeditions thanks to his job as a knight, so he and mom were afraid that the Laurents would try to do something to the twins and mom while he was away…

My parents knew that it wouldn't be beneath the Laurent to send assassins to break into the house and try to kill Mom and the twins in their sleep while Dad was out of the city, so that made the situation all the more difficult for my family.

There was also the fact that dad was a knight on active duty and the parents of the trash in front of me were all civilians. Dad couldn't outright attack them unless he wanted to make the situation worse and have the Emperor, Eliana, and the rest of the Ten Songs, the only people who actually had a chance to defeat him, come after him.

Lia told me that dad was so incredibly enraged by the whole situation that he punched a gigantic hole in the walls of the city after having to deal with the bullshit of Gideon’s parents.

Unlike my parents, however, I don't have such limitations. I am not burdened with a position as a knight like my father was back then, and I have the active support of two goddesses. If the worst-case scenario were to happen and the Laurents decided to get involved and come after us, I could simply always ask Eliana or Marina for help. There’s also Alicia backing me up now too.

In fact, I could also out myself as the apostle of the Goddess of Love and gain the protection of the church if things were to get too troublesome…

I also have a few countermeasures in mind in case the Laurents try to play dirty and send assassins against us.

So with that being said, this situation is entirely under my control. Because of that, I'll return to these guys all the frustration my parents felt and all the pain my sisters endured tenfold…

Their parents will be next after that…

"So you know what you’re getting into? A shame then… And here I thought you might be a reasonable person... No sane person would go against the Laurents, you know? Even the all-powerful Skull Crusher backed down when the Laurents started supporting us. You’re signing your own death sentence, kid." Gideon scoffed, instantly labeling me as a lunatic.

"I could same the same thing to you guys. I’m surprised that you and your families decided to mess with the daughters of the strongest man on the continent… You fools are only alive because my father is nothing like the Laurents. But you can rest assured that I won’t be as kind as him…" I said with a fearless smile. Thanks to my unyielding rage, I was raring to run hands with these bastards.

It was time for this group of incompetent idiots to learn about the true meaning of despair. I’ll show them what real magic is.

“Wait… Your father…?” Gideon suddenly looked at me with confusion.

“Oh? Didn’t I tell you? My father is the Skull Crusher.” I sneered at him. “But that is not important right now…” I erased the smile I had on my face… An expression of pure fury had replaced it instead. “As I said, prepare yourself, Gideon. You and your friends will forever regret tormenting two of the people I love the most.” Immediately after saying that, my mana started to pour out from every pore in an explosive surge before my body was completely engulfed by my [Fighting Spirit].

Since Lia had given me permission, I stopped restraining my strength in every sense of the word. The surge of energy produced by the release of my battle aura was so intense, that it was producing powerful gusts of wind all around us. Thanks to the wind, the windows and the doors of all the nearby houses were rattling uncontrollably.

Gideon’s eyes went wide as soon as he discovered I could use [Fighting Spirit]. Gideon and most of the idiots in his group started to seriously panic moments later…

“Wait… How did you…?” Gideon asked while being completely baffled thanks to what he was seeing.

“Shit! Why the fuck can a small kid like him use [Fighting Spirit]!?” Rufus yelled in surprise.

“If you have the time to ask that then you better focus on casting a spell, you damned idiot!” Emeline said with a mix of frustration and fear.

“Who cares if he can use that aura or whatever, we just need to blow him away with that spell as we always do! Now focus!” Tabitha was the only one who didn’t seem afraid. She looked rather motivated for someone that was about to get beaten to a pulp.

“Right! Even if he can use that technique, we’ll just need to blast him away with our superior firepower.” Gideon hurriedly calmed down and nodded to himself. He immediately raised his arms and started gathering his mana like his goons were doing.

Superior Firepower? I’ve already seen enough to tell your skill level…

“Just so you know, amateurs, pouring obnoxious quantities of mana into a spell will not make it more powerful without the necessary level of aptitude and control, both of which you guys clearly lack.” I mocked the group for their clear lack of basic knowledge.

“Shut the hell up! You won’t be acting so high and mighty after this!” Rufus shouted.

Soon, Emeline, Gideon, Rufus, and Tabitha, all closed their eyes and started to mix their mana to produce a supposedly “powerful” spell which I imagine they were going to use as a trump card…

“O, great abyssal drake of…-” The group began chanting, but they didn’t even get to finish the first sentence of their spell.

As soon as the group had begun their collective chant, I decided to strike. My target? Gideon.

“I told you guys… That you all would be meeting Lady Skell before you get to finish the first half of your chant.” I spoke in a cold tone to the group after closing the short distance between us in the blink of an eye and having given a roundhouse kick to Gideon directly in his face.

Because of the strength of my attack, Gideon was sent flying a few dozen paces away from me and his group. He limply fell face first against the cobblestone street.

Emeline, Rufus, and Tabitha all stopped chanting and looked at me with horror and disbelief.

“That was for throwing goblin blood at the twins and ruining the dresses our deceased grandmother gave to them.” I said as I started walking towards Gideon, completely ignoring the other three assholes. “You are going to pay for each and every single one of your transgressions… I will make sure of it.” I looked at Gideon’s back with disdain.

Much to my delight, Gideon was still conscious after my attack. He was struggling to get on his feet and he seemed quite dizzy, almost as if he had just gotten a terrible concussion.

“C’mon, that was just a love tap.” I said with a fake tone of concern. “We are just getting started, you know?” I smiled at them.

---

Chapter 50: Confronting the Past…

END

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