Chapter 5 - Silverwing

Shin woke up to the face of James, urging him to get up.

"Let's go, the Baron is already waiting."

Shin quickly moved, despite the grogginess, and dressed himself with the help of James.

Maybe it was the comfort of this house or the sense of safety he felt but the insomnia that had been haunting Shin had disappeared despite the short time he had stayed here.

And thanks to this, the time he slept and his quality of sleep had drastically increased.

A small sweet bread and a glass of milk later, James led Shin down to the basement through the door that was located at the back of the living room.

Shin had always thought that it was another room but it instead hid wooden stairways that led downwards.

An arena of a sort with stone flooring appeared before Shin's eyes as he entered the training area.

It was a large square area that seemed to be around 25 to 30m in length and width with high ceilings.

One would never expect such a large area to exist below the ground.

Baron James stood near the middle in a completely different outfit than what Shin was used to seeing.

The Baron usually wore a suit upstairs but today, he was dressed in tight clothes with leather armor atop of it. This caused his well-build body, despite his age, to pop out and give off an even more imposing aura than before.

'Right... He was a knight before.' Shin then remembered that James had told him about the Baron and how he had been a mid ranking knight of the empire prior to his retirement.

Baron Hendrick Silverwing.

The majority of the population of the nation did not have a sirname and to have one meant that they were either from a noble family or have contributed to the empire enough for his highness to grant them a name.

Hendrick had also been born a commoner as one of 9 siblings. He had been sold away by his parents at a young age and gone through the lands. He had eventually ended up being sold to a knight, which was rather commonplace, and learned to become a squire after years of service.

The knight had noticed his talent during this time and used his recommendation ticket to entrol Hendrick into the academy to train as a knight. Each knight, when promoted to being one, recieved one recommendation ticket to the academy from the empire. This was mainly to continue the knight lineage and was mostly used for their offsprings but this knight had no family after the war took them away from him.

It could be said that Hendrick was lucky.

But he also had talent.

He trained day and night and managed to become a knight within 3 years of training which was pretty fast given that most people needed 4 to 5 years.

Once one graduated the academy, they were granted the title of a knight and also a position within the various positions of the army if they so choosed to join. Some people left and returned to their home towns to defend their village or work as mecenaries but the majority of them stayed for the resources and the chance to rise up even higher.

Hendrick was offered a position in the royal corps. An elite group within the army that answered only to the emperor and was where the majority of commanders and leaders were trained.

Sadly, Hendrick did not have talent as a leader. He was a great warrior but this was hit limit.

But he did not complain.

It was already an amazing achievement for him to have come this far. Less than a hundreth of the members of the royal corpse were of non-knight bloodlines and the majority of them were sons of merchants who had been trained since birth.

On the 17th year of his service:

At the western battlefront, where he was granted the positon of a platoon leader. His entire platoon had been surrounded by the enemy and had almost been wiped out from a surprise attack but Hendrick had managed to charge forth and break through a weak point in the enemy's ranks.

This resulted in the entire platoon surviving and he was meritted the name 'Silverwing' and a medal to prove his bravery.

He spent the next 10 years coninuing to contribute to the empire in various battlefronts and eventually gained enough merit to recieve the title of Baron and decided to retire.

The emperor granted him this small house and with the wealth Hendrick had acculmulated over the years, he had more than enough to live a semi-luxurious life for the remainder of the time he had.

But Hendrick had no noble blood within him.

He couldn't quite get used to the various servants and luxuries he was entitled to enjoy and he slowly reduced their numbers and started to live more and more humble by the day.

Of course he still lived a very good life in standards of a normal citizen but it was very frugal for a noble of his wealth.

But despite his retired life, he could not break off his old habits as a knight and trained on a daily basis. He realized that he needed a sufficient space to train and decided to build his training arena beneath his house.

And yesterday night, after listening to Shin's resolute words. He decided to use his recommendation ticket on him.

However, he still needed to prepare Shin for the academy.

The academy was not a kind place, it was a place where the strong fed on the weak and only the brightest stars rose above all. The dim ones would either leave the academy on graduation or enter the army as a normal solider to rise up to a squad leader at most.

Hendrick saw Shin's eyes, the flames that lay deep within those small and bright eyes.

He was going to train this boy into a knight. Whether the boy walked the path of light or the path of carnage would be the boy's choice in the end.

Of course, Hendrick will try to steer him into the light as much as possible.