Summer Competition

The sound of Kara's footsteps was so silent. Very few creatures in this world leaves their trails as silent as it were. He came out of the house located at a hill in the town, and saw that the fire burial outside the town had gone faint.

"Seems like they finished," he said.

After this, he looked at the skies that were like a box of jewelries and shook his head. There was one thing that Kara could not forget for now. It was what his new subordinates had thought of him.

"King?" He said slowly, thinking how could that be. He never thought what a king was, nor was he interested. 'But I wonder how could that feel?' he thought.

Then, looking at the world stretched away from him seemingly endless, he thought about the great ambition of the shadow clan… taking over the world.

"If I take over the world over them and every damned creature in this world, it might be enjoyable." He said, and pasted a smile on his face.  But he has to admit, he was not a creature cursed with ambition or passion, "I do not even feel anything when I say it."

But wasn't that a great idea?

He can just try then die. Who knows if that might be the reward?

Indeed, the idea of taking over the world was not striking him as crazy as the elders of the shadow clan or the kings and powerful individuals in this world. However, pissing them off would definitely be enjoyable.

Just then, a boy dressed in a black coat showed himself to approach Kara.

"Lord Kara, I had finished what you told me," Chris said.

"I see," Kara replied, and took three black pearl earrings from Chris.

Kara had asked Chris for something as soon as the fight with Astrid and the holy knights were finished. Seeing that he had talent over things like this, he asked him to make the black pearls used to summon the S-Familiars to take the shape of earrings. As expected, Chris had worked fast.

Kara checked the three black pearls that had been transformed to earrings and nodded. Next, even if it was dark, he simply picked the earrings up one by one and put the three black earrings to his ears right on his earlobes, piercing his ears at the same time, drawing blood.

"How's it look?" Kara asked.

"It looks fine," Chris said, as he just watched Kara pierced his own ear in an instant, right before putting the earrings on.

After that, Kara and Chris went down the hill to go back to the building.  Using his crimson eyes, Kara calmly gazed at the sky once more.

'Now that I'm here in the outside world, I'm going to make sure that I'm going to trample on everyone. In land, sea, skies, and even in the heavenly realm.'

---

Meanwhile, there was a conversation between Gary and Sir Faller and Hamon of the special operations squad in the burial burning.

Looking at the few flames yet to disappear in the area, Sir Faller and Hamon glanced at each other. After that, Sir Faller opened his mouth.

"Who would have never thought that silent and seemingly harmless boy we travelled with was that powerful as a mage? How terrifying! We think we don't encounter them, but they're just everywhere." Sir Hamon said.

After he just remembered the fight between the angel and Kara and how he took care so easily of the holy knights, Sir Faller just smiled at this.

"That kid is going to be extremely dangerous moving point. So we need not to anger him, or we could put the entire dukedom if not the kingdom in trouble."

Seeing that Gary was staying silent, Sir Faller said.

"Gary, we are returning tomorrow."

After a few seconds of delay, Gary replied.

"I see."

His voice sounded as unconcerned as ever. His back was turned against them as he watched the flames burning. Because of the glow from the fire, his gold hair was shimmering crimson.

"From now on, I would like you to remember that you are no longer the Gary of the Capital, the top student of the Knight Academy." Sir Faller said.

"That's right," Sir Hamon added, "I'm sure your family would be sad to hear of your death. Are you really sure about this?"

When Gary heard this come out of Sir Hamon's mouth, he could just shook his head.

"We all know that's not true. The noble family of Sitrakus had always been strangers to me." Gary said in the same nonchalant voice, but Sir Faller and Hamon could also mistake it as silent anger.

"Hahaha," Sir Faller and Hamon laughed awkwardly.

Gary was one of the youngest siblings of the Noble family of Sitrakus, which lives in the Capital and has been one of the most influential families of the continent for thousands of years. Coming from a family of powerful knights, Gary was a prodigy in the sword but extremely despised his family. That was no secret. Joining the special operations squad was his way of slowly cutting his ties with them.

"Hmph. Well, take care of yourself, young boy. I agreed to let you stay here for one reason, because you dared to go against the Williamson Theocracy. If you come back to the capital, you might die anyway, so don't try to waste your life again."

Sir Faller looked at Gary's right arm which had been severed, and asked. "How's your arm?"

Gary caressed his arm tightly and replied. "Nothing changed. The royal doctor took care of it nicely."

"Doctor Angelo is a mage, after all. He's not one of the four royal doctors of the king for nothing. He would be extremely helpful to mage Kara and this civilization from now on."

Just then, they saw the last flame went out.

Seeing this, the adventurers which were in charge of burying the last corpse after it was flamed, took the shovels and buried the skeleton covering it with soil.

"Faster, I'm hungry!" Jane complained to John and Corre.

"Then you should have helped us a little," John soft-spokenly replied.

There were no more things that had happened at that night, except the little feast of boars in the town square that the knights hunted in the nearby forest before nighttime.

"We get to leave this town tomorrow, huh? I miss the capital."

"Idiot. We still got weeks of travel in those horse carriages. I think by the time we get out of the dukedom's territory, it's already the summer competition. Sadly, we might not watch it."

"Is it that time already? I never noticed, but you are right, the summer competition is close."

Hearing this, Kara found himself foreign again to the weather changes on this part of the continent. 'Are they talking about the weather?' Spotting Gary standing by his side while Kara was leaned onto to the wall biting a big chunk of meat, he asked. "Gary, what do they mean? What is this summer competition?"

Gary was quick to answer this and said.

"Every year, the dukedom experiences four weather changes. One of them is the highly symbolic summer season, it seems. It is said summer is when the first duke was born. Because of that, the duke gives out gold to honor the first duke."

While Gary was talking, Kara noticed the excited expressions on the knights talking earlier.

'Why do they seem so excited?'

"Is something going to happen in this summer competition?" Kara asked.

With his nonchalant facial expression, Gary looked at Kara and explained, "That's right."

"The duke doesn't just give gold to the people. A big event where all fighters which will represent their village, town, and city in life or death battle as long as the place is a part of the Dukedom are going to be held in the Capital in a few months. It's a chance to witness the best fights."

"A fighting competition, huh?"

"That's right. It's called the Summer Competition. It is the biggest competition from what I heard around here. Whoever wins can get sufficient gold to support a village for twenty years, it seems, a town for twelve years, and a city for three years."

Kara did not know about this, but this seemed good. Seeing the mayor looking at him as if he had something to say while he was listening to the knights talk about winter, Kara called him, making the mayor even speed walk.

"This Summer Competition, will  we be competing?"

This put a sad expression on the mayor's face, but also a bright expression right afterwards he talked.

"Unfortunately, we gave up a long time ago. This town is too far, making travelling very dangerous. We also don't have any fighters that have a real chance of winning."

"I see." Kara said and grinned. 'This summer competition is going to be interesting this year.' He thought.