The Third Party - Chapter 64

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

The next day everyone returned to their daily schedules of a normal day, but groups were formed consisting of different magical and animal beasts that were sent out to scout the different parts of the valley to scour for any damage to the forest.

Ken and his friends were practicing early in the morning wearing their casual clothes for training and are finishing their exercise for the day. Ken approached Riyah helping her finish up their cooling down.

“Riyah, I’m curious, are you and Icarus always staying at your house, and don’t mingle with your kind?” he asked.

“Yes, pretty much.” replied Riyah, but with some reluctance. Ken gazed at the slowly distant look Riyah spurted, and smiled softly, understanding that this was a sensitive topic to talk about.

Ken summoned wind with a magic circle forming below Riyah’s standing form and a gust caressed her body, cleaning her of her sweat.

“Thank you.” said Riyah. Ken nodded and the two of them started walking towards their table where the rest of their group was walking to.

“If you were given the chance to step out and mingle with your peers, would you do so?” Ken asked, as the two of them walked closely.

Riyah, fell silent as she thought of the question, she doesn’t know how to answer such a question but she knows that with Ken, they’re sure that Ken will continue to pester them until he gets an answer, a satisfying one, as what he would always say.

“I’m still not sure, both me and my brother are still very reluctant to do so.” replied Riyah, the two of them sat down on the bench where most of the girls sat so they could still continue talking, seeing as Ken looked like he doesn’t want to leave the conversation hanging.

His friends just looked at him weirdly for a second and paid it no mind the next, taking their time to rest and recuperate from the tiring morning.

“Next question, then what do you think of being here at this valley? I’m also curious since I haven’t asked this question before.” said Ken. “Don’t worry you guys, I’ll ask similar questions to this one some other time.” He added, each looking at the other three.

Riyah chuckled at her friend’s antics and decided to sate Ken’s eagerness, with that expectant stare directed at her, she can’t help but comply.

“I never expected this place to be exciting.” She said, falling quiet the next.

“That’s it? You don’t have any other explanation? Surely you have something more compelling and heartfelt in regards to your experience here?” Ken refuted, clearly unwilling to accept Riyah’s explanation, to which Riyah just chuckled again.

“Well, there’s nothing much that I could think about to say, so many things happened to us here even in just a small amount of time, but I’m grateful, that despite all of the setbacks, we were still able to continue on with our lives.” she said.

Ken smiled at her statement, as the other smiled as well, Ken simply nodded and the two continued to talk some more, not noticing that the others zoned in on their conversation. Particularly Princess Lang since they stumbled upon the topic of nobility.

“Speaking of nobility, have you guys learned about certain etiquettes in regards to the political world?” asked Ken to everyone on the table, gazing at each and one of them, his friends just looked at him confused.

Of course they do not know of such kind of words since this is the first time they heard about it, but not to Princess Lang and the three, also Allen, his mind became muddled of messy things concerning the word ‘nobility’.

For on one of his father’s travels that he joined, he had come across such people and did not find their interaction pleasant to say the least, they were rude and imposing, it made him feel very uncomfortable.

The princess on the other hand was skeptical, thinking how did Ken know of such a term, only one way to find out.

“No.”

“Yes.”

Almost simultaneously, each and everyone spoke at the same time, they turned to look at each other, confused and at the same time surprised, particularly, Ken’s childhood friends as the five of them stared at Allen, in surprise.

Ken chuckled at their predicament and observed their expressions again, but more on the four. Princess Lang was gazing at Allen a bit perplexed, obviously having conflicting thoughts of the matter.

Flin looks a bit sad but confused, Icarus was gradually getting angry by the second, while a gloomy atmosphere laid down on Riyah, making snowflakes appear beside her, falling softly to the ground.

“It seems that everyone here have some knowledge about nobility and nobles.” said Ken, everyone turned to his direction.

“What does it mean?” asked Saber, out of all Ken’s childhood friends, Saber had always have the intense urge to learn from Ken, especially when it’s something that they have no clue about.

This type of temperament manifested itself when Ken got Saber out of a particularly sticky situation, and I mean a very sticky situation when they were fighting a slimy monster that captured Saber.

Despite his initial excitement in regards to the topic, Saber’s face remained chill and snob. Ken smiled softly and nodded.

“From the many talks that I’ve had with my parents and Wilbert’s parents, nobility is what I would like to call those people that have immense power at their disposal, in regards to money, and man power.” Now that was another word they do not know.

“What’s money?” asked Allen, beating everyone else, in particular, his friends, Princess Lang and the two avian siblings had their attention perked since clearly this valley didn’t use money and just relied on other means to exchange goods with one another.

The question, ‘How did he know that?’, was in their heads.

“Hmmm…. How do I explain this.” Ken turned silent for a moment. “Ah, according to my father, he told me that money is what they use to exchange any goods as some type of payment for the item that they want, or in human terms, buying.”

His friends nodded, internalizing Ken’s explanation, but their heads suddenly perked up, still confused.

“How do we do it?” asked Glen, the rest nodded at this question.

“Ah…” Ken fell silent again, slowly retracting his hand that he raised just now, then touched his chin again, with a thoughtful expression, he looked around for anything to use as demonstration, and his vision caught the princess looking at him.

An idea went into his head.

“Princess, may I ask, is it possible if we could visit the dragon kingdom?” he asked, the question caught the princess off guard as she did not expect him to ask such a matter.

The princess thought for awhile.

“I suppose we could, why do you ask?” she said.

“So that the others could learn of the political world and any other thing about the word ‘money’, and anything associated with it.” said Ken.

The princess’ expression fell, finding it conflicting, if she would allow this or not, obviously since she got attached to this bunch, she doesn’t want them to experience such a world, for her, it would only hurt her friends.

Yup, she has now considered them as her friends, despite her initial disgust of this bunch, but as she got to know them she learned that these people are not that bad, even more so, better than those people she used to interact with back at the kingdom.

“You don’t need to worry too much your highness, I assure you, that I’ll teach them how to manage themselves in such an environment and teach them how to fight those vile nobles.” said Ken, the princess stared at him in shock.

It was like as if he read her mind.

“How…” her statement turned blank, uncomprehending what is happening.

“If you’re thinking about how I know, let’s just say that I’ve learned of my parent’s experience from such people.” replied Ken. This made it all the more conflicting for the princess, so if he already knew how those type of peopled asked, then in the past…

She doesn’t even want to think that Ken had already saw through her bouts and spites in the past, that’s why Ken would and could smoothly redirect any ill mannered speech from her and turned to something peaceful, making her unable to argue with anyone,

Since all she’d ever want to, was argue with Ken in the past.

“Don’t worry your highness, after having known who you are, I don’t associate you with those people anymore, at first I did, but I reminded myself to never fully trust my first impression of people.” said Ken.

“Did you read my mind?” she asked, making Ken chuckle, a bit on the awkward side.

“No, it just showed on your face what you were thinking.” he said, making her blush in embarrassment. “Don’t be embarrassed your highness. Oh, and another thing, I want your help to teach the others of basic etiquette when conversing with nobles and being in such a situation.”

The princess thought of what Ken meant, and slowly, nodded.

“What about you, you don’t want me to teach you?” she asked, teaching one another has been a very comfortable thing for the eleven of them to do, more so bluntly speaking about it to one another, in courtesy to Ken.

At first, Princess Lang was awkward of such a way of speech, but with Ken’s persistent nature, she eventually learned his ways, but she still has her ways of speaking.

“Don’t worry about me, I have learned from my parents on many of the basic etiquettes in conversing with nobles, but if there’s any other things that I’m not familiar with, then I won’t hesitate to ask you, is that alright?” he said.

“*nod* Of course.” She replied.

“Then I’ll be in your care.” said Ken bowing to the Princess.

“Likewise.” The princess only nodded, and when the two of them turned to look at everyone, they found that the rest were staring at them intently.

Finally they noticed, they thought, for all throughout the conversation, they just watched, confused at the puzzling speech the two engaged themselves on, making them stop understanding, mid way, and just stared profoundly at the two.

Although the other four -mainly Allen, Flin, Riyah, and Icarus- felt uncomfortable of the situation, and when Ken asked the princess of such a matter, the mild discomfort, made its presence well known in their stomachs.

Riyah and Icarus felt even more displeased, as they reminisced of their memories with etiquette teachers, scolding them for every wrong action or word they’d say, reprimanding them for not doing well in a test or exam.

Shouting at them for not striving hard to be just as good as their brother. Flin on the other hand, felt some kind of blurry image assaulting his mind, and it was not pleasant for sure as all that he could feel was anxiousness and fear of the distant memory.

Allen, just frowned at the memory that suddenly resurfaced in his head, that particular memory where his father was reprimanded in front of dozens of people by a merchant, flaunting his riches in front of his father and calling him a fool for picking a fight with him.

The two of them left the scene undisturbed, but the man was still shouting at them demanding a compensation for the ‘damage’ they had done, until insulting words were thrown left and right at them that he could not take anymore insult and just blasted out his magic,

Destroying every ‘valuable things’ the man owned, it really wasn’t a pleasant experience for them, especially for him who holds his father in high regards.

They didn’t mind the merchant’s ‘valuable things’ though, as they thought that it was just right to do to someone who was incredibly disrespectful.

Ken didn’t miss the subtle changes in the atmosphere of the four and can’t help but sympathize with them, for in the past, these ten people have shared their worries with him, and him, theirs,

Although it may be just bits and pieces, as a very understanding and analytical person, he put two on two together and immediately understood, even just a fraction of their story.

“I know this may seem overwhelming to the four of you, I’m looking at you Allen, Riyah, Icarus, Flin.” The four turned to him abruptly. “I’ll make sure that everything that princess Lang will teach us, will not be an uncomfortable experience for the four of you.”

“And I’m going to put in a bit of twist as well.” He added, this caught their attention as well, as for the many times Ken used that word, mischief and trouble follows, with that happy expression in the end, as they had fun of the moment.

But this expression… is not of mischief or playfulness, everyone felt a sudden chill in their spine as they watched at Ken’s slowly darkening expression, with a particularly evil smile on his face.

“Woah, woah, woah! You told us that we shouldn’t have evil thoughts, but clearly you are having one.” Glen said abruptly.

“Right!” exclaimed Lila and Celine at the same time looking concerned at Ken.

“Yes, we really shouldn’t hold evil thoughts in our minds, only peace, but this, this type of situation, is not something we’ll be able to settle with peace.” Black lines formed on everyone’s forehead, particularly his friends.

This was something they are not familiar with, an evil Ken, they felt fear for their friend, and what he has become, but nonetheless, they still asked.

“What are you going to do?” asked Wilbert.

“Oh, we’ll be paying a visit of revenge on those ‘noble people’,” with added quoting hands. “And give them a dose of venomous medicine.” This got his friends confused, as they did not know why was Ken evil one moment, then joking the next.

“Care to explain?” asked Princess Lang.

“Oh there’s no need to explain, I meant what I said.” His friends stared at him blankly-

“EH!!!!!!!!!!!” and all but burst down on Ken. I… think this is going to be a headache, I’ll have a lot of explaining to do, he thought.

——-

A.N.: Hello to anyone who were diligent in reading this story -but I suspect that no one had come up to this chapter since my characters are extremely confusing, and there are so many of them that it’s confusing what personality they should hold, peace, actually I’m regretting the decision of adding so many characters, but what can I do but place them in since the flow of the story would be disrupted if I ever try and deduct characters, blame me and my stupid mind.-

Hope I didn’t make you flustered of not getting to read the next chapter, I got meself busy with activities that I needed to give my attention to, hope you enjoyed the chapter.. Peace.