Duran

The suns rays shown down on the heavily sweating and panting body of a young boy. This boy lay with his arms and legs spread out to his sides with a big, relative to his size, stick in his right hand.

The stick was a tree branch that had been debarked and filed at one end to a point to resemble a spear. He wanted to be like his grandfather who had been an adventurer and a soldier in the human army during the war against the elves.

Not that he particularly wanted to go to war against the elves even though they had taken his parents from him. His grandfather curbed that bit of hostility during one of his lectures.

"To blame all of elf kind for your parents deaths would be the height of foolishness. This world is too big to get hung on revenge for people who were just following orders."

Duran, the boys name, wasn't sure if he agreed with his grandfather wholeheartedly, but he wasn't one to argue.

"Tired already? Already 6 years old and swinging around that twig has you gasping for air like a fish out of water."

A tired and slow voice sounded from behind the boy and rather than getting up Duran looked up over his forehead to see the upside down form of his grandfather.

Like his voice the man looked tired and moved slow as shown by his shuffling steps. Though Duran figured that missing a leg from the war would probably slow him down as well.

"Grandpa! I finished the forms you taught me, but I can't move even an inch more!" Duran bemoaned causing his grandfather's lips to curves into a faint smile.

"Well, that is just rather unfortunate. To think I came to tell you the adventurer's had come throu-"

He didn't even get to finish as Duran had already rolled and kicked off the ground with as much speed as he could muster. Which was quite fast for his age as he has spent as much of his free time training with the spear as well as unarmed combat that his grandfather would teach him.

At first his grandfather was just humoring Duran, but the boy never complained and frequently asked for more instructions once he completed something satisfactorily. It was no exaggeration to say that Duran was both the strongest and fastest child in Marlow Town of his age range. Even boys and girls a few years older couldn't keep up with his speed.

Duran made it to the town center, setting a new pace compared to all his previous attempts. His body screamed with burning sensations in his legs as they pushed to meet his demands. He wasn't a lazy child after all, if he was laying on ground like he had been then he had truly been exhausted.

Only his curiosity in adventurers could allow him to push even farther past his limits, so as not to miss the opportunity to see them and hope they will train with him. Or if he was lucky, spar!

The group he saw was a new group or rather a new group to Duran as it seemed the other villagers recognized them. Duran stood off to the side of the town square gazing with sparkling green eyes, and his short brown hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. With the dirt sticking to every inch of his body even Duran knew he was not a most appealing sight.

Turning to a bucket next to a building he dunked his head in relishing the water that had been kept cool by the shade of the building. While under water he rubbed at his face trying to get as much dirt, sweat and grime off as he could, only to feel a large hand grab him by the back of his collar and lift him out of the bucket.

Flailing and brushing water out his eyes as well as pushing his now soaked hair out his face he was met with the stern glare of the town butcher. Marston. Marston was a huge bear of a man standing somewhere above 6 foot 5 and his shoulders were nearly as long as Duran was tall.

Scars marred the man's body giving him a menacing appearance, but soon the face softened and sat Duran back on the ground.

"Mr. Marston! Sorry about using your water again, but this was an emergency! The adventurers are here and I couldn't show up all dirty, how could I expect them to take me on as an apprentice if it looks like I've been freshly beat up and tossed around!"

Marston just stared down at the boy before patting his head and turning to the bucket then back to Duran. He smiled which sent a small shiver down Duran's back which was quickly replaced by a full body shiver as Marston dumped the rest of the buckets contents onto Duran's head.

Duran looked up at Marston with a face of surprise as Marston looked him up and down and then nodding.

"Clean." His deep and baritone voice spike through his thick facial hair that almost seemed to muffle his words or word rather.

Duran stared at him a moment longer and then began chuckle before devolving into a full laugh as he stood and began wringing out his clothes. Though his efforts didn't produce great results he looked up at Marston with a smile and took off.

Marston was complete opposite of his appearance leading to most adults having pleasant conversations with him, but Duran one was one of the only children that knew this about him. All the other kids were terrified of Marston, though he was a little sad at this predicament he put up with it.

As it was a way he could make sure the children stayed safe by not straying into the woods. One time a child was about to run into the wood and his lone yet fierce voice stopped the child in her tracks.

The girl had been about to step on a dangerous snake, but Marston stopped her. Though the girl didn't realize that and took off running back home as fast as she could. From that day on the children of Marlow never stepped near the forest again unless accompanied by an adult.

Finally reaching the adventurers with his soggy clothes sticking to his skin, he was immediately mesmerized by the man holding a large spear and he cursed himself for not bringing his own.

The man he saw was probably in his 20s but he had a lean muscular body with long red hair put up in a combination of a bun and ponytail.

"Hey, Mister! Train me." Duran walked right beside the adventurer and with a pleading look in his eyes.

The red haired adventurer turned to Duran and looked down at him skeptically.

"You should choose a different path kid, I don't feel even a bit of mana coming from you. Coreless adventurers don't last long and I'm not encouraging one to meet an early grave." The man waved off only to be smacked in the arm by a woman with black hair tied up and eyes that glared at him.

"Adam! The child is still young, you can't just say things like that." Though she had been trying to help Duran he couldn't help but feel like he'd just taken another blow, a softer blow, but a hit nonetheless.

"Helen, take a look for yourself. The kid has almost no mana in his body, and me and you both know what that means." The man now known to Duran as Adam had hooked his arm around Helen's shoulder and turned away from Duran as he spoke in a hushed whisper. Though Duran felt another blow to his ego that brought him to his knees.

'No mana?' How could that be? His grandfather had reached the light orange stage of his core and had he not been crippled during the war would have made it to the yellow stage. His parents, though he never met them, had apparently been great mages as well. Reaching the light orange stage at just 22 and 23 and had bright futures if not for the war.

Duran just couldn't wrap his head around the fact that he could possibly have no mana, or at least so little that adventurers would so firmly tell him it's impossible. He heard a faint ringing in his ears as he stared at the ground and he no longer felt the ache in his body from his training.

Soon he felt a giant palm rest on his back and he turned to see a man that rivaled Marston's size kneeling next to him. He had a soft face in contrast of Marston and looked at Duran with pity, which only served to send another song through his chest. Looking down at the ground he realized he had at some point began to cry.

Adam and Helen now noticing him both turned and knelt in front of him as they tried to come up with a way to calm the crying Duran.

"Hey, kid. Look I'm sorry about what I said, but I couldn't with a clear conscious push you towards becoming an adventurer. It's really dangerous after all." Adam rested a palm on Duran's shoulder, but the next thing he knew a snap fist found it's place in his solar plexus, knocking him back.

Duran had shot up to his feet and glared at Adam with determination before pointing at him.

"I'll show you adventurer Adam. I'll become the strongest spear user in all of Sapin! No… I'll become the strongest person in all of Dicathen! I'll train and become an adventurer, and then when we meet again I'll challenge you and defeat you, so you better remember the name of Duran of Marlow Town!"

With that Duran took off running back home leaving the half of the Twin Horn party shocked and mouths agape. Though behind them another black haired girl could be seen with a slight smirk on her face and if any of her companions had seen it they would have been even more surprised. After all Jasmine Flamesworth was not much for facial expressions of any kind.

Adam though could only hear the name Duran of Marlow reverberating through his head and couldn't shake the feeling that the kid wasn't lying. Somehow he felt that the kid would really find some way to live up to why he claimed, and he would be waiting for the day Duran came to challenge him.

Though he didn't know why Duran wanted to challenge him so much as Adam was only a B rank adventurer. There were plenty of other stronger people in Sapin for Duran to aim for. This lit a fire inside of him in anticipation, he would have to train harder to live up to this kid's expectations.

~~~~~~Chapter End~~~~~~~

First chapter down, let me know what you think.

This is also my first try at 3rd person writing so if you see any mistakes or if anything is confusing don't hesitate to point it out. Also any inaccuracies in the TBATE lore I welcome you to point those out as well. For a timeline the Twin Horn's are currently on their way to Ashber to pick up the Leywins and take them to Xyrus. Making Duran 1 year older than Arthur.

No Duran will not be traveling with them.

Lastly as for the weapon choice I felt like i haven't read a single fic for this story that gave love to spears so here it is.

Most likely love interest will be Claire Bladeheart, but I haven't fully committed to it yet.

See you next chapter.