Difficult Times

Layla was waiting for one of the boys to stand up,but was met with no response.

After a few minutes she sighed and pointed to one of the boys randomly signalling him to join her.

Matthew was the chosen one for the first spar but was a bit dumbfounded to the fact that he was called alone.

"Um... Layla I think you called on the wrong person"

"What made you think I chose wrongly?"

"Well... an archer isn't mainly known for lone combat an...."

"SILENCE" Layla raised her voice at Matthew for the words he had just uttered

"Your words might have had no intention of insulting the Archer class but you should be ashamed,you just disrespected the hard work of those who have honed their skills to fight in situations with no team or support at all" she paused, Matthew was surprised at her outburst, he would have been right if he was facing someone but this was not the kind of mentality Layla had.

He would have liked to argue with Layla but he knew he was wrong somewhere, he just had to let every last word she had spoken sink in, he couldn't dismiss her words after all because there was some truth in it.

"You should know by now that the world is a dangerous place, where you won't find help in every situation

You should know this shouldn't you?, but here you are insulting archers the very class you represent, A lot of archers have made themselves known to the world as a one-man army, they have instilled fear in the hearts of many alone but here you are underestimating their abilities and limiting them to your ideals!

She continued with her speech and all Matthew could do was clench his fist also putting his head down, he dared not utter a sound.

This was the first time she had lashed out at Matthew contrast to her behavior, but one thing she hated the most was those who disrespected people who had trained and honed their skills.

Ethan and Leo sat down listening to everything she said silently, it might not have been directed to them but it was something not only Matthew needed to hear but a lot of people who didn't acknowledge the skills of others especially those who worked hard to get to where they were.

It was an insult she couldn't accept as she was also one of the people who had trained and honed her skills to become stronger because of all the ridicule she had faced when she was younger and weaker.

She didn't have it easy has a child because she came from a prestigious family.

Her father always ignored her because she was born a girl and also the only child of her family after her brother Claus had died in an ambush from a rival kingdom.

The attack was meant for only the King and Queen, but the King had gone on a trip to create an alliance and also make peace with another kingdom demanding war, telling no one of his whereabouts not even his family.

When the rival kingdom's soldiers had arrived they burned down houses, slaughtered families and even took kids as slaves to be sold to merchants and rich families.

A group of assassins entered into the king and Queen's manor while all this chaos was going on.

They searched for the family and killed the remaining loyal servants of the royal family.

There was a lot going on and no one was prepared for it because they had not been informed even though the army marched to the kingdom, they weren't informed by their scouts.

The assassins were close to where the three had hidden so the Queen thought fast and took a bold step.

In order for the Queen to protect her children she sacrificed herself.

She thought she had saved her children completely, she thought she had died with no regrets but that was far from the truth as her son was next in line to die in a few minutes.

After they had killed the mother of Layla and Claus, they searched for their father but couldn't find him, this brought a feeling of dissatisfaction to the group.

But their search still turned up fruitful when the heir of the royal family revealed himself to them, in order to save his sister from getting killed.

He had told his sister to hide in one of the secret chambers while he distracted them from searching for her.

She was hesitant at first but Claus was able to convince her into hiding.

He had told her not to come out no matter what until she heard no sounds of a battle coming from outside the chamber.

He had finally finished telling her is farewells, summoning up the courage to face those men in clad in black clothes and a mask to hide their faces.

She tried to grab hold of him before he went out there,so maybe he could rethink his action, but she was too late.

The men would have let him go but couldn't, they just couldn't, they wanted the king, but since the king refused to show himself they decided to take the heir to his throne.

The men couldn't care less about the princess, so they didn't bother searching for her.

It was a hassle since Claus had been trained in the arts of the sword since he was little, so he knew how to fight.

The only clause was that the enemies were too strong for even him to handle.

So after fighting a long and challenging battle, he died at the end.

Several days later, the king returned just to find the kingdom in ruin, he wondered how this had happened without him finding out about it.

After a thorough investigation, he found out about why he wasn't informed. He found out about the betrayal of 85% of his staff.

It couldn't even be called betrayal because they all belonged to the opposing kingdom from the beginning.

They had all been working here for just one reason and it was to get information on the palace.

When the king found out about the death of his wife and his son, his heir he became devastated.

He felt he had lost all that he had and retired to a life of drinking making him unfit to continue as a king.

During this period of time he had also been training his daughter in combat, but no matter how much she tried she couldn't get stronger since she had reached a bottleneck in her training.

Her father didn't care about her bottleneck and thought she could pass it with more and more training but she didn't improve.

Watching all this he had started to give up on her, he called her useless, insulted her, compared her to Claus, he made sure to belittle her any chance he got.

Some years passed and he died due to his excessive drinking.

That was only the cover up story though, since he had died by suicide, it would have been a shame to their families name and reputation if the whole Kingdom found out the king killed himself.

Although the king was dead, his daughter was still alive.

Her father's brother considered her useless and stripped off her title as the daughter of a king, she had now become an orphan and also homeless.

She lived most of her life on the street before she met her savior, someone who would also become her mentor, someone mysterious, someone she couldn't trust but had no choice, she took the helping hand forever remaining cautious of the mysterious figure.

She had finally left the streets and was taken to the home of the figure, where she would train and hone her skills becoming someone the world would fear in her later years