Chapter 28

  [Axel's POV]

  I was born in the capital city of Pyremane in the Soleo Kingdom. My birth name was Azrael Sol Lionheart. My father, Uriel Sol Lionheart, is the brother-in-law of the esteemed King Leonidas Sol Proudmane.

  Our role in the kingdom is to act as the shield of the royal family, think of us as glorified servants. We get all the bells, whistles, and fabulous wealth, but it is nothing more than drapery to make us feel less like a pack of trained dogs.

  Can you tell that I was not particularly pleased with my position?

  Imagine being born with talent greater than your supposedly blessed cousins, putting in more work to push yourself even further, and at the end of the day, they still look down on you. It's not exactly fair, is it?

  Why was my name different than it is now? I’m getting to it, don’t worry your little head.

  So by the time I had turned 12, I already had the respect of every military-minded person in the court. I had successfully wielded aura as the youngest in Soleo history, my mana capacity and flow were both at 7.1, and I could outperform trained soldiers in combat.

  I was a gods-damned legend in the making. More importantly, though, I was clever. Clever enough to catch on to the irritating politics and nonsensical beliefs I was expected to abide by.

  Chivalry and honor. If you are a Solean, you are expected to have these two things engraved into your very core. Fight directly and with respect, don’t hit an opponent when they’re down, no tricks or cheats, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah.

  It’s stupid. All of it. A knight of Soleo is expected to be a graceful, dignified figure on and off the battlefield. Do you know how ridiculous that is? Do you know how many decent fighters I saw dying pointless deaths that were then celebrated as heroic and used as a positive example for everybody to follow?

  Way too many times. With my skill I was sent out on multiple missions to wipe out bandits, goblins, wild animals, you name it. Of course, I had to go with an escort, so even then, I couldn’t fight properly without some nagging moron criticising me.

  I was not exactly quiet in my criticisms of the code of chivalry and knighthood in general, so they always stuck me with the most sanctimonious ‘role models’ whenever we went out on an expedition.

  The funny thing is that it only taught me all the right lessons.

  A heavily armored knight who can use aura and easily crush any bandit camp? Why fight that head-on if you’re a bandit robbing farmers of chump change?

  They didn't. They snuck up on him while he was bathing and riddled him with poison-tipped arrows. Armour and aura don’t mean shit if you’re caught naked and unaware.

  A punitive force of 50 soldiers is sent to stop a peasant rebellion armed with farming implements? Obviously, they won’t win, so instead, they burn the fields and flee into the hills, escaping while the pursuers try to save the crops.

  What did I learn? That you need to use whatever you have to beat the odds. And if you want to overcome these things being used against you, you need to be truly powerful.

  Fast forward a few years, and little Azrael is now 15 years old. He’s already a disappointment in the eyes of the nobility and the royal family. He runs around beating up gangs, without even announcing his name and rank, or doing a dumb little bow! Oh, the shame of it!

  There are reports of him drinking, gambling, and even sleeping with women who weren’t arranged brides chosen for political purposes, instead of mutual attraction.

  One day, while the nobles are bickering about taxes and ungrateful peasantry, sweet Azrael’s behavior rubs a young knight the wrong way. With everything to prove and nothing in his brain, the young knight challenges sweet Azrael in front of the court.

  A duel of first blood. He loses, of course, and innocent, perfect Azrael didn’t even use a weapon. This humiliation is met, you guessed it, by another challenge.

  This time, the young knight wants a proper combat. And by proper, he, of course, means a fight with a million rules and no stakes beyond a hit to your reputation.

  Azrael once again defeats the young knight, but instead of praise, he is met with scorn.

  How could you break his leg, Azrael? Stop kicking him when he’s down, Azrael, you’re supposed to let him get back up and try to stab you again!

  Three rounds this went on, and the young knight continued to be praised as a hero who embodied the spirit of the knight’s code. Finally, Azrael had had enough.

  If the idiots around him would not listen to reason, he would show it to them firsthand.

  He pretended to get injured and fell to the floor. Then, when the young knight walked over to demand surrender, the cunning Azrael kicked out his legs from under him.

  How was I supposed to predict that the fall would break his neck? If he hadn’t dropped his aura, he would have survived easily.

  The slaughterer of Soleo, renowned for numerous victories and a brutal disposition, had just killed a knight in the royal court.

  An apology was demanded, along with a sizable donation to the man’s charity. I refused both. I don’t care if I just had to give a half-assed apology and a couple of gold pieces, I was not in the wrong, so why should I accept any punishment?

  The king did not take kindly to my refusal to take the blame, and I was stripped of my title. The ‘Sol’ was dropped from my name, signifying the patron spirit’s blessing had left me, and the inherited name of Azrael was forbidden from being used when referring to me.

  Thus, I became Axel Lionheart. I was still free to stay in the kingdom, but my future prospects had been severely limited. I decided that if I couldn’t rise through the ranks in the kingdom, why not go somewhere my skills were valued?

  The Black Crown Empire valued results above all else. Their knights are a completely different beast and would employ any tactic necessary to accomplish their goals.

  So, I traveled to the empire and secured citizenship. They didn’t care at all about the political dangers of accepting a former Sol, because they could see I was an asset worth the risk. Then, I chose the surest way to promotion: Enrolling in the Imperial Military Academy.

  And now, here I am!

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  ***

  [Rex's POV]

  Axel finished his tale and proudly posed before the group.

  “Nice story, maybe don’t refer to yourself as ‘sweet’ or ‘innocent’ next time, though.”

  I commented, resuming my petting of Tiara.

  “That’s it? That piece of history is a renowned story across the empire and kingdom, you know?”

  Axel seemed displeased with my lack of reaction.

  “It answers a lot of questions, sure, but it doesn’t change anything for me.”

  I shrugged, and Lily directed her attention to me again.

  “How could you not know any of that already? You’ve been living in a building with him and the two people who hate him the most for a whole month already. Not to mention that everybody was talking about it three years ago.”

  “I lived in a forest for seven years, leave me alone.”

  Being stuck in the Feral Abyss left me alienated from the recent happenings of the world. My knowledge of current events was not exactly impressive.

  “Anyway, back to me.”

  Axel took the spotlight again.

  “What do you think? Should I have apologised and kept my position?”

  “No. I’d have done the same in your shoes.”

  He was testing me, wanting to gauge my thought process. However, my response surprised him.

  “Really? You know I don’t feel guilty for killing that guy at all, right?”

  “He challenged you repeatedly, any idiot should know injury or death was a possibility. It’s his fault for not quitting while he was ahead.”

  “Right? That’s what I said.”

  Axel nodded approvingly.

  “I knew you were my kind of crazy, Rex. The moment you brought me in on the imp culling, I knew we’d be good pals!”

  There was a subtle shift in the atmosphere when Axel brought up the imps. It couldn’t be called depressing, moreso cautious. The quick glances aimed at one another, the words coming to everybody’s lips only to be swallowed out of fear. They were indicative of an unwillingness to be the first to say something risky.

  Finally, the one who had already proven he does not care about the opinion of others broke the barrier for us.

  “You three didn’t seem to give a damn when the blood started flying.”

  Axel nodded towards the girls. Fleur spoke up first.

  “It was sensible. The only surprise was that the kobolds were not exterminated as well. That is how my brother would have handled things. Then we would keep the remaining tribe under our thumb to maintain control.”

  “Huh, I had no idea elves could be so merciless.”

  Lily responded, then added her own view.

  “I would have liked the imps to win, but losers die, winners kill. It was the predictable result.”

  I didn’t understand how this commoner girl had developed such a twisted personality, but I suppose this world had all manner of people.

  “...I was not interested in any of the tribes.”

  Meztili followed suit.

  “Once our team lost, I also lost any reason to care about their fate.”

  It struck me at this point that the five of us were all twisted in one way or another. It raised a question in my mind that I couldn’t help but ask.

  “Was this the first time any of you have killed an intelligent creature?”

  They all looked at me. Axel just laughed, knowing he didn’t have to say anything.

  Fleur and Meztili shook their heads emotionlessly, and Lily just smirked and giggled.

  So all of us were killers then. I didn’t know the context for Lily and Meztili, but I could guess Fleur had killed goblins back home before, based on her occasional comments these past three days.

  It would explain our joint outlook on the realities of the world. We had all been exposed to the harsh morbidity of life in one way or another.

  But we had adapted in our own ways. Axel seemed immune to it, Lily reveled in it, Fleur and Meztili accepted it for what it was, and carried on quietly. And I…

  …How had I been affected?

  I was already emotionally mature, and my time in the soul stream had somewhat dulled my emotions. Maybe it was because of that, but when I first took a life in the Crucible, I felt nothing beyond the acknowledgement that the action was taken.

  I killed this person. They are no longer a threat.

  That was the extent of my thought at that time. But what about the others around me? They did not have the same experiences as I did, yet they seemed well-adjusted.

  I looked at Lily.

  Relatively well-adjusted, at least.

  ***

  We called it for the night and returned to the academy dorm room. As we thought, nobody was waiting for us at the gate anymore. We assumed the others received their brief in person. Professor Kuhn’s drone flew off the moment we arrived, heading towards the window of its maker’s office.

  “You prepared for the morality brigade to jump down your throat?”

  Axel grinned at me with his hand on the door knob.

  We had decided to stay together as a group to smooth things over with the others if any issues arose. However, since I took on the leadership role, it was obvious that any animosity would be mainly directed at me. We knew Guy would cause a fuss, but still did not know how Paris or Bridgit thought of my actions.

  I nodded, and we entered the main room. Bridgit immediately stood up from the couch. Zachariah was sitting with Lloyd opposite her, they each shared a look of concern as Bridgit's outburst began.

  She called out to us, her tone all but friendly.

  “You!”

  She stormed over and pointed in my face. Her finger came a little too close, and I instinctively swatted her hand away.

  “You dishonorable thug! I expected this from him, but now I see I’m surrounded by murderous scum!”

  I met her hateful glare with calm indifference and responded with a tone to match.

  “You treat the wilds like a court of noblemen playing pretend. You are out of your depth here, princess.”

  “You think because we have to fight savages, we must stoop to their level? That makes you no better than them.”

  She retorted, but before I could cut her logic down, another problem arose.

  He didn’t say anything, but he must have heard our voices as he came stomping down the stairs and straight towards me. I felt Axel tense up next to me, ready to intercept.

  But there was no need.

  “Guy.”

  Lloyd had quickly and gracefully crossed the room and grabbed Guy by the arm.

  “Let’s just talk about it, alright?”

  His voice was firm yet kind, devoid of bias. Like a natural-born leader, he defused the tension in the room with a few words.

  I may not like the guy, but I appreciated him at times like this.

  “You weren’t there, Lloyd. They had no way to defend themselves, they surrendered! And he—”

  Guy pointed at me from behind Bridgit,

  “—massacred them!”

  “I know, Guy, but we should at least hear him out.”

  Lloyd looked at me with a serious expression. It seemed they had already heard about the results.

  I sighed, not really feeling like having an intervention or being lectured by idealistic idiots. However, if I walked away, it would just make future teamwork more difficult to pull off.

  I mentally prepared the same diplomatic, placating tone I used whenever I had to deal with crazy people in my previous life. It was going to be a long night.