Dance With the Nightingale - Chapter 21

After the train ride, we were back on streets, with Amy leading me this time.

For all I knew was the tavern’s name and its general location, as for the exact location, I didn’t know that.

During our short walk, I noticed the crowd around us going from gentlemanly to not so gentlemanly, to outright brutish.

And that was not without reason, cause right now we were skirting around the business district of Ellesmere, meaning we were near the edge of the Slums.

Yep, there were slums even in one of the wealthiest cities of the world.

And although I called it a slum, there were very few people who actually had food issues there.

Rather, the most common problem in slums of Ellesmere were poor standard of living, and security.

It was actually more probable to get kidnapped or killed, instead of dying of hunger.

Of course, that was only for newbies, those who survived the first 6 months or so, and learned a few tricks here and there, were guaranteed to live for more.

That was not all though, for if it was, then the Earl would have certainly erased it from existence.

But it was still standing and existing, cause there was a reason to exist.

Because it was a type of necessary evil.

All the shady deals in Ellesmere were carried out in slums.

Drug dealing, weapon smuggling, prostitution, and sale of illegal goods aka the black market, all of them were organized here.

It made it easier to monitor such activities and prevent them from going out of control.

Why not eradicate them?

Because it was impossible to do that in long term, if you stop crime happening this way, they will simply find another.

So, in a way, slums of Ellesmere were quite prosperous, they provided the upright people a place to vent, while for the shady guys…, let’s forget about them.

It’s not like Amy would allow me go into the slums, not that I wanted to, anyways.

Thankfully, the certain someone I wanted to check on, worked outside it, or it would have been a real hassle to convince my maid to visit him, otherwise.

So, with quick steps I followed Amy for a while, but then, I stopped.

Why?

Cause I heard a scream, a distinct cry of, ‘Damn you, Valen!’, and though it was one of the many screams I heard, that name caught my attention.

So, without delay, I asked my maid telepathically, ‘You heard that, right?’, while specifying the ‘that’.

‘Yes’.

‘Then take me there, quietly.’

‘Okay.’, she said curtly, I liked how she was concise and quick she was at such times.

Then her hand grabbed my shoulder and…

…we disappeared.

***

[Valen’s POV]

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Today, Valen knew, he fucked it.

“Damn you, Valen!”

“Come here, you brat!”

‘As if you fuckers!

I just have to reach the Main Street somehow, then you fuckers can eat shit!’

He thought, as he continued to run through the alleys.

But even though, he was running for his life, Valen didn’t forget to check his pockets and backpack as it was the reason he was running.

A small smirk appeared on his face as he thought about all the money he will get after selling these, he rejoiced as he thought that, but then,

-Whoosh

-Whoosh

-Whoosh

He heard the sounds of something cutting air.

“Fuck!”

Cursing out loud, he instantly rolled to the side, entering another alley, as he avoided the three sharp knives thrown at him.

Burning a trickle of Mana, the boy kept his momentum and jumped to my feet, while his assailants continued chasing him.

“Crazy fuckers!”

He cursed again as he thought,

‘Going to the street will be much harder now, I have to lose these fuckers somehow!’

With a tug, he dropped trash-cans, boxes and anything else strewn in the alley, behind him.

Hoping to delay his assailants even for an extra second.

And his efforts were not in vain, after several twists, several turns and several close shaves, a certain distance had been created between both parties.

His assailants were still chasing him, but as long as he remained careful of their throwing knives, everything else would be okay.

‘Persistent fuckers.’, He cursed for umpteenth time are he increased his speed by flaring up a very small bits of mana in his body.

‘If there is any chance to escape then it now’, the boy shouted in his mind as he started his last sprint.

-Whoosh

Hearing another whooshing sound, Valen leaned to the side, as he narrowly dodged the dagger while also pulled a pile of boxes in the same motion.

But that…

…was his mistake.

Suddenly, a large wooden board was swung at him head-on.

With his current posture, dodging it was impossible.

-BAAAMMM

Air was squeezed out of his lungs as he was flung backwards and fell on the ground.

‘I’m fucked.’, He thought as he saw the guys he left behind catch up with him.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’

The situation just got desperate for him.

And it just got worse.

-BANNGGG

“Arghhh!”

-BANNGGG

-BANNGGG

-BANNGGG

***

[MC’s POV]

‘Huuu…’

So, he finally got caught, huh, it was about time anyways.

-BANNGGG

-BANNGGG

-BANNGGG

Ouch, that looks painful.

They really aren’t holding back, huh?

“Should I help him, Young Master?”

“Hmm..? Help him? No, no don’t.”

Amy asked me out of nowhere, as finally after half an hour, the game of cat and mouse that we were watching, came to an end.

Does she have a soft spot for children?, I thought, as I continued watching Valen being beat up.

Valen Rosemary, the future [Potions Master] was more or less, the same as I thought he would be.

(A/N: I know I called it as Master Alchemist last time, will use Potions Master from now on.)

A little boy, same age as Reonald, short green hair, red eyes, petite build, dressed in a thin white shirt and tattered brown pants, clearly lacking some winter wear.

“Just wait and watch.”, I told Amy.

Cause if he really is the Valen I know, then he won’t take it lying down.

Amy didn’t say anything else after that, and just watched the boy getting beat up.

For the next minute or so, the only sounds I heard were, the sound of nobody-goonies swearing at him, as they took off his backpack, threw it nearby, and continued to kick him.

And the boy’s wails of pain.

But a minute later, I noticed something, something I was waiting for.

His wails had stopped, and though his face was covered by his hands, I could surely see a smirk appearing in his face, a smirk that quickly turned into a full-blown smile, a crazy smile.

Even when four men had surrounded, and were kicking him, he smiled crazily as he mouthed three words.

“Die you Fuckers.”

In the next moment, his Mana flared up.

Clearly, he wasn’t trained in any techniques that handled Mana, not even knowing how to channel it.

So, the only thing he could do was to flare it up for a momentary boost in strength at the cost of all the mana he chose to flare.

A very inefficient use, but it still gave him what he needed, an instant.

For an instant a green flame engulfed his whole body, as if his body was on fire.

-Grab

And in that instant, he grabbed the leg of the goon who was kicking him.

And with a jerk, threw him at others violently.

-Arrrghhhh

-Ahhhh

-Kuuuffff

In the same motion, he rolled in the direction of his bag and grabbed it.

And that was it, the short burst was over.

The goons were alive, though with one of them had a broken ankle, whereas he was exhausted, empty.

Both physically and magically.

But just like the crazy boy I wrote him to be, he held on.

Before the goons could get up, he opened the backpack and took out the goods.

Potions.

His handmade potions.

The potions were obviously low-quality ones, but those were the only ones he could make.

So, taking out a small bottle of reddish potion, he gulped it down with difficulty.

From the looks of it, his ribs were fractured.

Not wasting a bit of time, he took another one red potion followed by a purple one, while he kept an eye on the goons.

And because of that, he knew his respite ended there.

Everyone except for the guy he threw, who had fainted, were up.

-Arghhh, it fucking hurts!

-Ahhh, damned brat, you are dead!

-Bloody fucker, I am going to kill you!

And he had to face them.

I’m sure the thought of running away didn’t come to his mind.

For once his personality flipped, it was always do or die, there was no running away.

So, even with numerous small fractures on all his body, the boy stood up slowly.

In his hand, was the same small bag, as three men charged at him.

This time their goal was to kill him.

But, wasn’t that his goal too?, I thought, as I watched the men in pity.

Taking out an orange potion of out the bag, the boy slammed it down on the ground.

Instantly thick yellowish fog covered the alleyway, impairing the charging men’s vision.

Of course, it didn’t affect mine, my eyes followed the boy, as I pumped a bit of my Mana in them.

-FUCK!, what the hell is this!

-Don’t breathe it, it can be poisonous!

I laughed out loud at the genius who overthought this, as I watched the goons covering their noses and mouths.

At least that worked in the boy’s favor, as he quietly moved closer to them and threw two huge red bottles at the men.

-Arghhh

-Ahhhhhh

Two painful shrieks rang out from the smoke which quickly dissipated, as it was just a makeshift smokescreen, showing two men whose skin was turning black while literally cracking.

Black smoke and blood kept coming out of these cracks as their skin turned drier with each passing second.

‘A very strong oxidizing agent charged with Mana.’

Amy informed me, to which I nodded.

Seeing his companions turning into black statues with blood pouring out of them, the last guy freaked out and fell on the ground.

-Hiiiii!!!!, Wha-what is this w-what did you do!?

He said as he looked at Valen.

But what he saw, only freaked him out more.

A small boy, with a broken nose and shining red eyes, freakishly smiling at him while showing all his bloodstained half-broken teeth.

-Nooo!, Stop!, brat stop!, don’t come near me, stop right there!

The man said as he crawled backwards.

Of course, that didn’t work.

-Slump

-Thud

With low voices, the two charcoaled men fell on the ground, dead.

-Gulp, gulp.

-Crasshhhh

And the perpetrator, Valen, gulped the last purple potion he had, then threw the bottle on the ground.

-Crunch

-Huuuuu

He walked towards the last man with limping steps.

While his hands straightened his broken nose with a ‘crunch’, prompting him to inhale deeply.

-I don’t have more of those bottles? So…

And for the first time, Valen broke his crazy smile as he looked thoughtfully at the crawling man, who pissed his pants after meeting his eyes…

-P-please pl-please, d-d-don’t kill m-me.

…And said with another smile.

-…I just have to kill you with my own hands.

-Limp

-Limp

-Limp

He walked to the man, who was almost paralyzed with fear.

Maybe he was bidding his time or maybe he simply got last minute courage, the man took out a hidden dagger from his belt and lunged forward.

Aiming a stab straight at the boy’s heart.

But, even if he was a kid, even if he didn’t have any training, even if he could use Mana only for a second, the man forgot, the boy was still a magic user.

And magic users are built different.

Once again, a green flame burst out from his body, giving it a green glow, boosting its abilities so much that the boy easily evaded the stab and just punched, with all his power.

And his power didn’t disappoint him, the man flew backwards, his back crashed into the wall as he coughed up blood.

His chest had caved in, his ribs were broken puncturing his lungs, and maybe even his heart was crushed.

Any normal guy from Earth would have already died from shock, but maybe cause the man had trained or maybe even the normal people here were stronger than those of Earth.

He survived.

Not for long though…

-Y-you Monster…

…just after saying those two last words, he died.

Of course, that didn’t matter to Valen, rather after delivering that last punch, he didn’t even look at the man.

Instead, he moved towards the man who had fainted.

Or so he wanted to.

After taking a single step, the boy fell down.

He too fainted.

Well, that was expected.

He basically emptied his Mana two times in a row, so he will sleep for a week or so before waking up.

‘What do we do Young Master?’

Amy asked, as she clearly knew that, I had something in my mind.

And I obviously did.

This was Valen’s first kill.

I knew that, as I wrote this scene.

It was quite lucky for me to catch this scene that had turned into a real-life scenario.

And what happened after this in the novel was simple, the Enforcement Knights came, investigated what happened, and due to the fainted guys’ testimony, Valen was arrested.

And the boy actually resisted the arrest, not because he didn’t want to be punished, but because had to do something, something important.

There was a reason he didn’t use the potions in his pockets, after all.

The reason being his ill mother.

But obviously the knights and these goons were worlds apart.

So, after getting bitch-slapped by the knights, he got arrested.

Him being a kid and actually using violence for a ‘just self defense’, helped to reduce his sentence to just two years.

So, after his release the boy looked for his mother, but the poor boy’s mother had already passed away a week after his arrest, simply because of no one took care of her, much less give her potions.

So, after wallowing in despair for his mother’s death for some time, he joined the orphanage of magic users that took in orphan kids that had magical talent.

And from there, his talent for potions bloomed, bloomed enough for him to get selected in the Imperial Magic Academy, to meet Eva, and to make Reonald jealous to the point of making him join the dark path.

But actually, he could have joined the orphanage a lot earlier, in fact he could have joined even now but he didn’t, because he had to take care for his sick mother.

I shouldn’t actually say this, but I made his mother as a dead weight for him, in the novel it felt okay, but now, it was just sad.

-Huuuuu

I sighed as I came to a decision, a villain-like, a selfish decision.

After watching this fight, I knew, taking him in would do more harm than good, so I decided against that.

Actually, most positive characters were like that.

Hard headed, needed tempering, needed to go through suffering, that was why I only had potential villains on my search list.

But that was not all I decided, along with that I decided two other things.

First, that two years of wasted time, those two years of arrest, I won’t let that happen.

So, I jumped down from the two-story building, out of Amy’s camouflage barrier and landed with a lightly on the ground with a small tap.

Naturally, Amy followed me without a word.

‘Leave the boy to me, Amy, you take care of the aftermath, make it such that nothing happened…’

“…and leave no survivors.”

I said the last line out loud, instead of using the link.

For I didn’t think I could keep my thoughts straight, as I said this.

After all, I was asking her to kill a human for me.

Though, I knew she was an assassin, though I knew she was okay with it, though I knew that man deserved it, my heart didn’t.

My stomach churned, as I felt disgusted, but I held it in and told myself to get used to it.

In this situation, using Mana to keep myself from vomiting helped a lot.

Usually, I would get a reply, an acknowledgement but maybe knowing my emotional turmoil, she didn’t answer and got straight to work.

So, I too decided to do my part.

-Step

-Step

-Step

I walked towards the unconscious boy, and stopped just beside him.

The second thing, I decided to do for him.

I decided to remove his dead-weight.

With psychokinesis, I took out the potions from his pocket, along with that I collected some of his blood, and then opened his mouth to feed him a potion.

A potion that healed any and all type of his injuries, with a simple side effect of keeping the user asleep, for two weeks.

With that, I was done.

Done but heavy hearted.

I walked towards Amy, who looked at me while holding a magic circle between her hands.

I knew she had an inkling of what I did, but even then she didn’t say anything, so I did.

“Do it.”, I said as I told her to kill.

Then the magic circle in her hands flashed brightly.

But it wasn’t enough to blind me.

So, I kept looking, at the still breathing body of the fainted man.

The still breathing body, that disintegrated right in front of my eyes.

It hurt, in my heart, it did.

Even for a scum like him, my brain thought, ‘Was that the only option?’

Maybe, I was too engrossed with my own survival when I killed Rayne’s soul, maybe that was why I didn’t feel this pain, or maybe I am just a hypocrite that thinks, ‘It is okay to kill someone, who tries to kill you.’

Whatever it was, I didn’t dwell on it, rather I focused on what I was feeling, I focused on the pain I felt…

…And carved it in my heart, to remember the first person whom I ordered to kill.

And to remember the first person who will die because my selfishness.

(A/N: It meant Valen’s mother in last para.)