Regret

"Huh? Where am I? Did I fall asleep?" JIniro finds himself lying on the ground beside the road that he did not remember travelling to. "Where is this?"  he then felt a sharp pain behind his head. "Is this what they mean by being mugged?" he thinks to himself as he looks around and sees that his belongings are scattered everywhere. "I was told to be careful all the time since there will be people that will be targeting weak people like me but to think that it will happen so soon. What a bad way to start." He said to himself as he wipes the blood dripping from behind his head.

               He goes to all of his things and is surprised that he did not lost a single thing even thought it was apparent that he had been a victim of mugging. "That's strange. I thought robbery is quite common. How come they did not take my stuff? Well, I guess that is a good thing. I don't have to worry about the future at the moment." He can still feel the searing pain from the back of his head but to him at the moment, his location is more important.

               "I don't really know where I am right now and it would be troublesome if I got dragged into the worst kingdom that Mr. Colusos had warned me not to go." He goes back to check on his map but he could not pinpoint his current location even after turning to the help of the map. "This is bad. To get lost right off the bat. This is going to bat problem." Before panicking over his situation, he quickly gathers his things and picks a direction that he deems to be the right one.

               "I'll just have to head to a place that has people that I can ask for directions. Otherwise, I will be in big trouble." Just as he planned, he picked a direction and walk slowly towards it. "I wonder what made them spare me though, I don't get it, really."

               A few hours earlier,

               "How lucky can we be to have seen an idiot standing there in front of us right after we got away from the clutches of the Dark Heaven? Just basing on the look on this kid, I can already tell that he has something valuable with him."

               "Diego's eyes is like a treasure, you are always right on the money."

               A band of thieves carried Jiniro to the wilderness near the city of Thur'na, under the territory of Galatea after knocking him down and tied him and put him on the cart that the group is using to disguise themselves as peddlers.

               "I can't imagine how lucky we can be ever since Diego joined our band." Their leader grabs Diego by his neck with his shoulders and congratulates him for doing a good job. "Well, I am just born with this gift. What can I say, I'm just really lucky this time around." He said with a mischievous smile.

               "This is thanks to the skill that I got when observing the instructor during one of his lectures. I did not expect that I will be putting it to good use." He said to himself when they see that they are a few kilometers away from Thur'na, a city under the territory of Galatea that one of them got interested with Jiniro's belongings and starts to rummage through everything.

               Their leader got angry over this since they have decided to do that near the city so that they can sell of Jiniro to a slave merchant after going through his things and taking everything that they can use. Breaking the plan only made their leader furious and grabs the one that rummage through Jiniro's stuff and pins him to a tree, the others tried to stop their leader but in doing so, they would also show that they are siding with the one that disposed of the plan so they stops themselves before they could regret ever doing so.

               "What do you think you are doing? I thought I have said it clearly that we are going to do it later. Have I not been clear enough?" he said while staring coldly at his men that ditched the plan just to feed his own curiosity.

               "But boss, I-I found something. I-I thin-k w-we should leave that boy here." His suggestion only made their leader even more furious after screwing their plan and now he decides to suggest something out of the blue. The other were surprised as well at his words and did not take it nicely since he had disobeyed their leader

               "You really got balls to disobey me huh? And even tell me something like that. You must have a death wish." The others can already see that they are going to lose another member just a few days after they lost another one for doing something like disobeying their leader since he does not like having a member that constantly disobeys his orders.

               "That guy. He really had to do it. What in the world did he see in that kid's things that made him say that to the boss?" the one that they were praising earlier thinks to himself as he looks through Jiniro's stuff since the other one had already rummage through it so it doesn't really matter anymore. Their leader saw this and is about to lash at the other one when all of the sudden, he takes out an item inside Jiniro's bag with his trembling hand.

               "Boss. I think he is right."

               They all stare at him in silence and confusion. Even their boss is confused as to what made him say that but when he shows them the item, all of them felt grim and turned pale. They all turn to Jiniro as they all gasp in fear for whatever reasons, some of them slowly backs away and takes a few steps to come close to their boss as if they are afraid of something, or even Jiniro as if he is going to jump on anyone and kill them instantly when he wakes up any moment.

               "What in the world. Where did this kid came from?" he turns to loo at the one holding the item and takes a look at it himself to confirm if it really is real, and to his shock, it really is.

               Clearly afraid of item, he even tossed it away but because of the fear that something might happen to him, he takes it back and puts it inside Jiniro's bag in hurry. "Whatever it is. It was a bad thing to have done something to that kid. We might die for this." He looks at his men and sees that they are in the same fear as he is and suggest that they leave is body on the side of the road along with his belongings before he wakes up.

               "That is what he must do to at least save ourselves." They all look at each other and carefully executed their leader's plan to ditch Jiniro, some of them carefully lifts him and puts him on the ground and then hurriedly grabs his things and toss it to the unconscious Jiniro, scattering everything on the ground before leaving without a sound.

               Back to the present time,

               "I have been walking for almost an hour and there is still no signs of life. What in the world is this place? Everything that I heard was not like this at all. I thought there were supposed to be houses on the side of the road even after a few minutes of walk but there is nothing at all. If only I knew that something like this is going to happen, I should have been able to prepare myself." Jiniro is now walking passed the valley that has nothing to offer but shade from the scorching sun, he was fortunate enough that even his water supply was not taken away by the bandits that somehow gave Jiniro relief since he doesn't know where to find a source of water in this wilderness that he is traveling for the first time. With exhaustion finally coming up to him along with the heat from the scorching sun, Jiniro decides to rest and take a break for a few minutes before continuing on the road.

               "Puwahh! Nothing beats water in a sunny day." He looks around and still sees no signs of life and the frustration gets to him and he already regrets being chosen as the chosen one but then, he remembers that everyone believes in him, so he discards the thought of regret and clench his teeth in what is to come.

               "This is not the time to be regretting over things. From the beginning, I have already known that the journey will not be easy so there is no need to chicken out now." He said to himself but there is still one thing that he regrets not doing. "Still, I should have learned at least one sword technique before I left for self defense." Up until now, Jiniro had only been observing people that were training without joining them since they are people that are used to the peace that the mountains had brought to them, they did not have any incident of outsiders trying to harm them since they are very far away form civilization and only animal attacks so they did not develop any skill in fighting against other people, though there are others that had anticipated that there will be attacks in the future so they developed sword skills but not to the extent that they are exceptional.

               Just when Jiniro is about to stand and continue to follow the road, he hears a sound of hooves from a direction that he is still not certain, he looks around and sees nothing but empty road and thought that he must be hallucinating because of the heat when all of the sudden, he sees a cloud of dust from where he came from and sees a carriage with goods.

               Happy to have seen a live person after a long time made Jiniro want to dance and greet the person.

               "This is great! A person! After a few hours, I have seen a person!" he screams inside his head but the happiness is short-lived when he tries to wave on to the coacher to at lets fetch a ride to the city to spare him the effort of going through the scorching heat under the sun, the coacher ignores him and even sees him clicking his tongue at him.

               "Tch! These guys- using a kid as a bait now are we?"

               Even though Jiniro is from a distance, he can hear the coacher spoke this words.  

               "What was that?"