Broken

A laser.

A yellow laser shot out of Ben's mouth, piercing the wolf's head. The wolf's body rag-dolled right past Ben, flopping beside him. Gray recollected the situation he just witnessed. ("Did he just shoot... a laser from his mouth?")

Ben plonked to the rock he stood on. "Alright, I ran out of mana, I'm going to sleep now."

"What, you're out of mana already?!" Gray sighed seeing Ben's state. "Ben, why would you develop a skill like that if you don't even have enough mana to begin with?" Ben chuckled at the question before giving a half-assed answer. "Cause it's cool,".

As soon as Gray was about to respond, he was interrupted from his sentence by more shuffling noises around them. Coming out of the bushes were 5 more wolves, nearly the same size as the first one that was slain.

Gray collapsed to his knees. It was over, he thought. There's no way he's getting out of this alive now. Closing his eyes shut tight, he prepared for the impending doom. ("This is ridiculous, I just started in this new world!") His fists were balled up tight, the pain from his broken fist didn't seem to bother him in his rage. He teared up just a little at the moment-imagining the life he could've had. ("What if I were to fight back till the end?") he thought, opening his eyes.

The sight of the wolves surrounding him quickly shut down his confidence. ("It's useless, that would make my death more painful!") He shut his eyes once again. Expecting death, he slowly crept back, relaxing his body. ("I've already died once, dying again won't be so bad this time.")

Then with a noise that whiffed through the air, one of the wolves whimpered. Gray opened his eyes to see that one of the wolves had gotten killed. The other wolves were distraught, not understanding what just happened. With another noise that flung by, another wolf is hit, leaving a clean hole in its head. Gray stepped back and picked up Ben. He then hastily went behind a tree and ducked down for cover.

Each attack sounded like a bullet railing through the air, it was very familiar because Gray's dad kept bringing him to the shooting range when he was a kid. One by one, Gray listened to each wolf whimper to death before cutting to silence. Listening out to the massacre, Gray gulped before peaking around the tree. All the wolves were dead. 

"What's going on..." 

Each wolf had a hole through its head, a clean outline. Gray was scared that he might be the next target so he hesitated taking a step. This fear was all cut out by a loud crash of a beast before him. Right before him was a giant turtle with a vibrant jade shell. Right on top of it was Lavenda with a bold stance that affirmed power. Gray's face brightened up, seeing a reassuring face.

"Hmph, we leave you alone for just a moment and this happens to you?" Lavenda said in a snarky tone.

She had a white bow with green feathers that were twice the size of her. Releasing the grasp of the bow, it dissipates away with the winds. "Lavenda, thank you for saving me," Gray spoke. He was utterly speechless that some little brat like her could get so powerful. 

Lavenda stepped down from the tortoise, brushing herself of dust. "Don't thank me, go and thank Howard for telling me to watch over you." 

"By the way Lavenda, where were you this whole time?" 

She pointed at the trees in a far distance. "Over there." 

It was unbelievable, she was on a tree, watching their training this whole time. Gray didn't forget about her strong powers though—easily taking care of a group of wolves sounded like an impressive feat—especially for a child like her. "Lavenda, how did you get so strong?" 

"Howard trained me."

"Howard? He trained you how to do magic and stuff?"

"Yeah, he taught me magic, manners, English, pretty much everything essential to be a maid." 

Lavenda was more superior than Gray expected. He thought of her as just a simple-minded brat to mess around with but from what he witnessed, he was far off. Lavenda approached Gray and grabbed him by the shirt. She then tossed him on top of the giant turtle she stood on. "I'm taking you back now." She also turned around the tree that Gray hid behind and picked up Ben as well, tossing him right next to Gray. "You have one weird pet by the way." 

After hopping onto the giant turtle, she snapped her fingers, causing the turtle to propel them towards Swayar Manor. 

Smashing down onto the floor, they were greeted by Howard and Ludia. With both of them stepping off the giant turtle, they were both greeted by the love and care of Ludia's nice and warm hug. "Oh, I'm so glad you two are safe, I was so worried!" Ludia clasped her hands around Gray's face. Her hands were soft and warm and had a gentle feeling to the action. Feeling his mother's soothing hands, Gray felt much better after what had just happened in the forest.

Checking Gray's body, she noticed Gray with a broken hand. She gasped in terror at the sight. You could nearly see bones sticking through the skin! 

Ludia turned to Howard with an angered face, almost as if she thought of Howard to be the cause of this. "HOWARD! GET GRAY TO THE NURSE THIS INSTANT!"

Howard nodded before taking Gray's hand. "Come, Master Gray, I will transport you to the nurse immediately." Howard forcibly dragged Gray out of the front gates and set him down. With the snap of his fingers, maids quickly escorted a horse carriage to Howard's feet.

***

As they traveled to the Kenoble Kingdom to reach the nurse, Howard decided to strike up some conversation. "Master Gray, how do your injuries feel?"

Gray took another look at his broken hand, barely able to turn his wrist at all. It had extremely sharp pains, but mentally—he faced worse throughout his previous life.

"It hurts but I can manage till we get there."

"Ah, I see. Normally children your age would be crying for the whole ride but it seems you're calm about this."

The only thing Gray was truly concerned about was whether his hand would heal properly or not.

"Also, why did my mother look so angry at you?" he asked Howard.

"Well, I did promise her that even if you were in that forest, you were under supervision and that you wouldn't be harmed. But it seems that I was wrong."

"My bad," Gray said.

Howard smiled, facing back at Gray. "No need to feel sorry Master Gray, mistakes always happen."

*

*

*

"Harold..." The voice called. It almost sounded as if it were underwater.

"HAROLD!" it screamed.

Snapping out of his daydream, Harold assessed the situation once more. "Oh right, bandits," he murmured in an annoyed tone.

Rizzart slashed at one of them, cutting their neck wide open like butter. With one of the bandits collapsing, he turned back to Harold. "Now is not the time to be dozing off, we're on mercenary duty!"

Harold yawned before raising his palm and shooting out a streak of lightning, killing three bandits in one go.

Rizzart's right-hand man, Dolsa, smiled at Harold's skill. "Wow, and he's only just five years old? It was a good choice to bring him under our squad Rizzart."

Rizzart nodded, seeing Harold massacre even more bandits with lightning. "Indeed, it was a great idea to bring him here, especially to train him. The thing is, this wasn't my idea to take him."

"It wasn't your idea?" Dolsa said in confusion.

"Yeah, it wasn't. The boss told me to put him in my squad."

"The boss?! Why would she tell you to put a little child in one of the most savage squads in the Crook family?"

Rizzart sighed. "All she told me was that Harold had an insanely powerful talent, one that rivals even the greatest ones in the world."

"And what would that be?"

"I don't know, she never told me. She only told me to condition him for battle." Rizzart stated.

Amidst their conversation, they were interrupted by an explosion. It was Harold, finishing off the last remainder of fodder with a single lightning bolt. Harold turned his head towards Rizzart, with a stern and unamused expression on his face. "I'm finished, can I go back to the horse now?" Rizzart gave a thumbs up. Honestly, he was kind of scared of what Harold could turn out to be in the future. 

As Harold started to walk to the horses that were by the trees, a huge stone slab nearly hit his foot, the size of the stone slab was almost as big as him. Harold faced the direction of where the slab of stone was shot from, seeing a burly man in cheap, worn-down armor. 

"Heh kid, you've dealt a ton to my bandit troupe, but you'll never get past me with that puny magic!" The man roared. This bandit seemed different than the others, he had a more intimidating presence around him and felt stronger than the ones Harold had fought before. "My talent is the Dog talent, but I've been training it for quite a while so I'm pretty strong!" Using his fists, he punched the ground, making a clump of dirt from the ground rise in front of him. He then made a waving motion at the dirt clump, flinging it to Harold at an incredible speed. Rizzart and his men went in front of Harold, having their shields up. "This is bad, that attack is actually pretty strong!" 

Harold shoved Rizzart out of the way. "Move," he says. Harold aimed his palm at the dirt before firing a bolt of lightning that pierced through it. On impact, the dirt clump dispersed and spread around the vicinity while the lightning bolt struck the bandit right through the heart. The bandit twitched for a moment, mustering his last words before collapsing. "W-Wha, how..."

With the bandit falling to the ground, Harold continued walking to the horses as if nothing happened. Rizzart and the rest of his squad stood in silence, watching Harold walk off. "You know, I have never seen that kid smile." Dolsa stated. "I do agree, it's like that kid lost his humanity ages ago." replied Rizzart.