The Third Party - Chapter 63

Ken’s Person’s POV (12 yrs. and 8 months old)

Okay, time to go time to go, I have already had my breakfast, took a bath, gave my parents a morning kiss, with a clean mouth, because I can use magic to clean it as a substitute for toothbrush and toothpaste, cause, why not, and now I’m on my way to my friend’s house.

I stop in my track. Oh wait, we’re still here at the Northern Village, I forgot. Now, where did they sleep again?

3rd Person’s POV (12 yrs. and 8 months old)

Ken abruptly turned around from the house that he came out off which was just of simple design, one room where to sleep, the kitchen and living room connected for easy access, old school style, with wooden flooring and furniture.

Yeah, one room for the three of them, since Ken can still fit in both his parent’s embrace.

“Ma, where did Uncle Erick, and Auntie Lorna took residence again?” he asked as he opened the door, his mother who was right at the sink, washing the dishes with magic, turned to his direction, his father had already went out to have a discussion with the leaders.

To find another place for them to build another house, if they found their last house destroyed.

“They’re settled at your Aunt Coralia’s place.” said Lyn, and returned to her dishes.

“Okay ma, thank you.” replied Ken and hurriedly went out. His mother smiled at her son’s actions, thinking to herself what could her son will be doing as of now, asking as to where her aunt and uncle at.

Ken didn’t waste any time and dashed across the little bit dusty road of the village passing by houses of all shapes and sizes spread across the road and on the large trees. He came upon the center of the town, looked at the town hall, and went to the direction on its right.

The road before him became lush with greenery as it leads to a dense part of the village, where trees are much larger, perfect for building houses on the trees, bridges could also be seen connecting small houses to other small houses.

Some of which were outposts.

Ken dashed again, but this time he used his momentum to propel him from tree to tree, with the strength of his legs and a little bit of magic buff, he jumped from tree to tree, from the side of a tree, on a branch, swung on one branch, flipped in the air, landed on the side of a tree, and propelled him further up.

All the while the magical beast residents watched in awe at Ken’s display of skills, although it looks to be more of bragging, but hey what can we say, Ken thought that by doing so, he’d arrive at Coralia’s cottage faster.

And arrive he did, he landed on a platform on the house of Coralia, he could hear from the inside that everyone was talking and having a good time. Okay, let’s bust their happiness, just kidding, he thought.

Ken entered the cottage like tree house which was large, for it was especially situated on a large tree, as the people inside greeted their new guest, looking for Wilbert and surprisingly found Celine as well.

Klein who had finished his discussion with Alfred, Erick, and Vin, slowly walked towards the field where his students would practice, on the way, he can’t help but feel heavy of the situation at hand.

His forest was destroyed, some parts of the valley were still not attended to, and he has to find places where he can situate the beast kin of the other leaders, he did not expect that their population had grown over the years,

Coupled with the thought that his students would not be there on the field as they would rather have a relaxing day rather than more stress to deal with.

Klein heaved a sigh and continued walking, with the objective of finding out whether his students would be there, but he suspects otherwise.

Deep in thought, Klein didn’t notice the chatter at the distance, as he was all in his own world, but his thoughts didn’t show on his face as he still pulled that taut and stern posture and expression while walking and facing forward.

He stopped at the edge of the field and when he blinked that’s when he noticed that all eleven of his students where present, his eyes widened in surprise, but he quickly reverted back to his normal self catching himself from getting out of character.

But that expression was unfortunately caught by Ken, he just smiled to himself, and thought what could be their master thinking, but he composed himself and smiled softly this time.

“Good morning Master Klein.” said Ken and bowed, effectively cutting off his friends conversation and bowing after him.

“Good morning students, I see you have come to the session today, good, good.” said Klein, getting lost in thought, almost, he shook his head to rid himself of any lingering thoughts but one thing is for sure, he is relieved, of his students showing up for today.

“What will we be doing today Master?” asked Allen. Klein didn’t know what to do, witnessing those fights his students did, made him thought that there is no more to teach them, especially with how skilled they were.

He can’t obviously say this out loud or he’ll be a disappointment, better yet, this would be embarrassing to talk about with his students.

“I’ll give this day for you all to freely do what you want to do, I need to sort things out first.” he said. His students nodded slowly at his statement and eagerly looked at one another.

This was a surprise for them, they all came here with the thought that their master would make them train, who would have thought that they would be given a free day, now how do they spend it.

“Thank you master.” said Celine and bowed, despite being in the middle of discussion with everyone else, Klein nodded, appreciating the effort his student made, which was followed by the others as they happily thanked their master.

“I’ll be off then, don’t forget to be careful.” He said, and turned around.

“Aren’t you not going to have some fun with us father?” asked Allen, Klein turned his head slightly, gazing at his son.

“No, I have other things I will be doing first.” said Klein, as he turned back to the path and walked away, but his initial tonality of voice indicates that maybe some other time he’ll spend it with his son.

That thought was more than enough for Allen as he read in between the lines of what his father meant. He turned towards his friends as they continued to eagerly talk about what to do for the day.

“I want to play with snow.” said Ken abruptly, catching everyone off guard, they all turned to him confused.

“Why?” asked Wilbert. Ken snapped out of his trance and looked at him, blinking his eyes.

“Did I just say that out loud?” said Ken, Wilbert chuckled along with some of his friends.

“Yes.” replied Wilbert, Ken’s face flushed red at his blunt response, cannot help getting embarrassed at his habits, but there’s no use brooding over past actions, now is there.

“Well, what do you guys think?” he asked, setting aside the initial moment of utter… he doesn’t remember the word.

“Hmmm, if you meant playing with ice, then wouldn’t that hurt?” asked Glen.

“No, what Ken meant is a softer kind of ice, called snow, here, I’ll show you.” said Riyah, conjuring up a white ball of snow with other snow droplets floating around it atop her hand.

Everyone stared at her creation and marveled at the pure whiteness of its color.

“Can you let them touch it Riyah?” said Ken, as he too conjured a ball of snow on both his hands, and let his two best-friends touch them first.

“Okay.” Riyah gestured the ball of snow towards Glen and the guy eagerly touched the creamy surface, feeling the softness of its entire being then plunging his finger further, cool coldness seeping through his fingers.

“Let me try.” said Allen and approached Riyah, also eagerly touching the ball of snow, he felt that he was on cloud nine as the softness feeling did not recede, both boys where entranced.

“Easy on there boys, or do you actually think you both could keep it to yourselves.” remarked Ken and conjured up more balls of snow, as well as Riyah, and sending them to their friends for them to play with.

The two abruptly retracted their hands from the snow and dusted off the dampness it brought to their hands, all the while acting like no one saw them. The others chuckled at their broad as daylight antics and shook their head.

“Actually, Allen, you can just do it too.” said Ken.

“How?” asked Allen.

“Imagine conjuring cold energies, but despite it being cold and hard ice, imagine, white fluffy clouds and I’m sure you’ll be able to do it.” instructed Ken, Allen nodded and did as instructed.

After three attempts, he finally conjured snow as the other first two where purely ice, and the other, a cloud, a literal white fluffy cloud, to which Ken laughed hard as he could feel the tender softness of the cloud for he could hold it.

“Wow, I can’t believe I haven’t tried this yet, who knew ice had other properties.” remarked Allen, Ken nodded and continued making more snow for everyone to have fun with, he suddenly had an idea.

“Who’s up for some fun! Let’s play a game of Snow!” he suddenly said and conjured a snow ball on his hand, ran towards the field, tossed it high in the air, and after landing, it created a snow oasis, as the field got covered in tons and tons of snow.

The sudden chill in the air, made everyone shiver, but seeing the energetic and happy smile on Ken’s face, intrigued them.

“What do we do?” asked Icarus, excitement evident in his eyes.

“We have to create two teams first, but since we’re short on one person I’ll conjure a clone of myself.” Ken said, as a clone of pure arcane energy formed beside him. Everyone then turned into two teams with Allen, Ken, Princess Lang, Riyah, Wilbert and Saber on one team,

While Celine, Glen, Icarus, Lila, Flin, and Ken’s clone on the other. Both teams on other ends of the field, the clone Ken didn’t startle them for they’ve seen this spell before.

“Now what do we do?” asked Glen.

“Scoop up some snow, turn it into a ball, and throw!” instructed Ken as a snow ball flung itself on Icarus’s head, surprisingly, the snowball didn’t hurt that much.

“Is that it huh? Well, two can play that game.” Icarus scooped up some snow and threw it on Ken’s direction. “Take this!” and the snowball fight began.

Laughter and cheers rang out of the field catching anyone’s attention passing by the place and got intrigued at what these eleven where doing. One such ball had flung itself on one of the bystanders watching making everyone to look at them stunned.

The group stared at what they had done for the person that was unfortunate to be hit by the trajectory of the snowball was none other than Master Ulysses, and on the face at that, the group gulped their saliva in fear.

“AAHHHHH!!!! TAKE THIS, MEGA SNOWBALL!!!” shouted someone in the group as a snowball as large as a boulder flung itself into the air and falling down on the opposite team, covering them in a hill of snow.

That person was none other than Ken, as he happily cheered for his victory, seeing this predicament, Ulysses just smiled and made his way out but was quickly brought back when a wave of children beasts came rushing towards their location.

“I’ve brought back up! Now, let the fun begin!” said Glen. Everyone, including all the adults of both magical, and animal beast alike, were thrown into a game of snow, as snow all but flung themselves in the air one after another, inciting more loud cheers and merry in the area.

The other leaders were not also spared as they were all but literally dragged into the game and the kids started pounding snow into them as soon as they stepped into the field, but they wouldn’t be leaders if they didn’t have some certain skill in this too, wouldn’t they,

As they all but engaged in a world of fun for everyone, sending snow after snow after snow at one another, with a little bit of skill display as well.

The day was spent with nothing but joy in everyone’s eyes and with endless supply of snow at that, forgetting their worries even for a bit, at least, this gave them a moment to revel in the joy called life, and here they were, acting like children in their days.

“Allen, what do you think of today now?” asked Ken, beside him as they took a break and watched as kids with their parents played in the snow.

“What do you mean?” asked Allen, turning to Ken’s direction, for Ken’s question did not make any sense.

“Okay, this may seem a bit too deep to talk about right now, but do you think we grew from yesterday’s event?” said Ken, Allen fell deep in thought, looking at the people in front of them.

“Well, yeah, I think so, I mean, we literally fought a demon army and fended it off, doesn’t that count as us growing? And besides, with you here, I’m sure we would have plenty more times to grow.” said Allen, albeit with a little emotion, looking as stern as his father.

“You have a point, I also think that we have grown through the challenges that we faced, though I can’t really comprehend why we had to go through this, it’s like a test of our strength as we have always kept on training.” said Ken.

“It’s like this was the moment we had been waiting for to prove ourselves that our training paid off.” He added.

“Agreed, although a bit of a dangerous one, as lives were also lost, we too almost lost ours.” said Allen, looking at Ken.

“Yeah.” Ken remembered the time where he got scolded by his friends in regards with his powers. “About my irregular sleep, I’m very sorry why it usually happens.” he said.

“It’s okay, over time, we’ve slowly tried to understand why you undergo such kind of phenomenon, and it’s safe to say that we’re more than capable of handling what you can throw at us.” said Saber behind the two, walking to Ken’s other empty side.

Ken smiled and felt grateful at his friend’s words.

“Thank you.” He said to Saber. He turned to Allen’s direction. “You know, this has always been one of my many concerns as I didn’t really want to hurt you guys, but knowing that you all have found ways to negate it, surprisingly eases my worries.” Ken shrunk to himself, hugging his knees.

“No worries, I’ll definitely find the reason why I do such kind of things, and I’ll make sure that I’ll put a stop to it.” He added, sitting straight, chin up, while still clutching his knees, his friends chuckled at his reaction and just left it at that.

“But first, let’s prepare some food for our stomach, come on, you two will be helping me.” said Ken, standing up, and pulling his two friends with him, the two indulged Ken in his endeavor and the three quickly went to the town hall’s kitchen to help out prepare lunch for everyone.

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