Forget me not

After washing myself in the cabin, I went back to sleep. For the rest of the days, I didn't clear any more camps and didn't fight any monsters.

My simple training with Rowan went on and finally the day of departure arrived.

'This whole week went by in the blink of an eye. I have no idea what I did apart from killing those Minotaurs.'

It was night time and the stars were still shining like always. Though the moon was brighter than usual.

It was a full moon.

After wrecking my brain over and over, I finally decided to go to Rowan and talk about some things.

"Teacher, can I ask you something?"

"Go on"

"Why did you betray the elves? I-I mean you were one of the Kings right? The King of Edenheart?"

"Did you find that in the newspapers you read every night?"

I nodded my head to his question. Rowan was still smiling like always but I could see that it was somewhat of a forced smile now.

It made him look more tired than happy. And sad too.

He sighed.

"Well, I didn't think you'd ask that question." Rowan said.

"It's okay if you can't say it. I was just...I just thought if I don't ask you this now, I might never know."

"It's okay, I don't have a problem if it's you."

That statement did make me a little happy.

"Well… where should I start. First of all, in the Great War between elves and humans, as we all know, the humans dominated the elves at first. They took a portion of the ancient forest. Everyone thought that the elves would be annihilated. But later the humans just proposed a peace treaty.''

"Yes, I find it strange too. If their victory was so sure, why did they just stop?"

"That's because the war was rigged from the start."

There it was. A big revelation.

"C-come again?"

I thought that maybe I didn't get that right but no, Rowan did say the war was rigged. Who would even believe that?

The outcome of one of the biggest events in the history of all generations, The Great War between the Elves and the Humans was decided from the beginning.

I was having a really hard time comprehending that single sentence.

Rowan continued, "We elves live more than a hundred years as we age slower than humans. And so the elected Elven Kings are generally old fellas with more than sixty years of age."

I knew that fact since Demigods also live a little longer than humans. Well, not as long as the elves and dragons though. After all, we have human blood too.

Rowan continued "But among all those Kings, I was an exception. I was nineteen at that time and became the youngest king in the history of Edenheart, no, maybe in the history of the Elves. Of course, I didn't reach it with my efforts alone. It was because of the special power of my stigmata."

With another sigh, he looked far away to the South where the Elven Kingdom is located and continued speaking.

"The power to see the future."

"...?"

What in the world...

I didn't know that the question I asked just for the sake of my own curiosity would have this many secrets.

I was starting to understand why Rowan never talked about it.

'But seeing the future... Isn't it… like too powerful?'

"I have... never really heard of a stigmata like that. Is it like a Deviant Ability?" I asked.

Aside from the skills provided by the stigmata, we ourselves have a way of learning it, through our own effort like my Fireball or through some other means like skillbooks.

For most of us, even for me, that was the case.

But there were some other exceptions, of course.

Some lucky exceptions.

Instead of an exception, I guess 'anomaly' would be the correct word.

People with Bloodline ability and Deviant Ability.

Basically, Bloodline ability is a skill or set of skills passed through the generations of a family and that family alone. That skill is not provided by any stigmata and is a complete anomaly to these laws.

And nobody even knows why these anomalies exists. They just proclaim it's because of certain mutations.

And another strange anomaly is the Deviant ability. It's similar to Bloodline Ability, except, instead of being present in the family, it's exclusive to that particular person.

In one word, it's not heritable.

It was also a skill not related to any stigmata.

These are basically skills too but since they don't follow the laws of stigmata, they are called as 'Ability' instead of 'Skill'.

And aside from the fact that these skills are not aided by any Stigmata, they also cannot be learnt by others nor can be found in any skillbooks.

I thought Rowan's power was one of these abilities as it would be strange if such a strong stigmata is there and no one has heard of it.

But Rowan didn't answer my question and just smiled. Well, it was already enough to answer my question. It wasn't a Deviant ability, but like he said, it was a skill from his stigmata.

The look he gave me was saying something similar to- "Aren't you the same?"

Though these conversation made me question many things about him, I didn't interrupt him any further.

I didn't know how much of the future he could see but I was sure of one thing that Rowan's stigmata was also special.

Something similar to mine.

"Well, I shouldn't really call it a power. It was a curse, the curse to see the future. And there I saw it... m-more than half of the Elven kingdom destroyed. I didn't see who won the war but I found out one thing, on both sides there'll be great destruction and tragedy. And I saw... I saw both my wife and my newborn daughter's death in that war."

"..."

I was slowly starting to regret asking him about his past.

The death of his own wife and daughter. A tragedy that no one deserves to witness. Is that the reason he called it a curse? Or did he see something else too?

Rowan's story didn't end there.

"I was really confused at that time and I was ready to do anything to save them. I wanted to stop the war and I was ready to go to any length to do so." Taking a sip from the glass of water near him, Rowan continued. "...My brother and I, we went to the King of the Royal Family of the humans to discuss the matter. We were lucky that he also valued his family and didn't think the war was necessary. But... the other elven kings didn't agree with us. They thought it was nonsense and ignored it. They told us the humans only proposed a peace treaty to us because they weren't prepared for the war. The Elves ignored my words saying their victory was guaranteed."

Unlike the King of the Royal Family of the humans who have ultimate power, the power of the Elves is divided among the five Elven Royal Families. I found all these in the newspapers I took from Rowan.

"So I did what I thought was right at that time."

Even if Rowan didn't complete the story, it was easy to guess what happened after all this.

The Royal King of humans must have agreed to Rowan's request of not destroying the Elven Kingdom and in return he would reveal their secrets and strategies to support the humans.

The war that we all know was just a show created by Rowan and the Royal King of humans. It was just a show for the Elves to fear the humans and sign the peace treaty.

Maybe they realized at that time that Rowan had betrayed them and so their defeat was inevitable. This might have left them with the only choice of signing the treaty.

Massive destruction on both sides was prevented at the cost of a single person.

Rowan Edenheart.

The Betrayer of the Elves.

***

Shortly after, Rowan went to his room, and I... I here wasn't able to sleep. I'll leave tomorrow for a new destination, maybe meet new people and see new places.

I was both excited and scared.

I got a gist of what happened in Rowan's past. I had many questions but I didn't ask him.

Like why did his brother become the King after that incident? Wasn't he with Rowan when they went to the Human King? Did he betray him too? What else were you hiding?

I couldn't ask any of it.

I woke up with dark circles around my eyes. I had several thoughts and I couldn't sleep till late.

****

My day of departure arrived but sadly I don't have any luggage with me. I wore my usual training costume which was already too tight.

'It's only been a year since I got these new training clothes and they are already this tight. Sometimes my own growth really annoys me.'

"Are you going to wear this in front of other people?"

I looked back and saw Rowan standing with his usual smile at the door. I dropped my head down without replying to him. I don't know what to say.

I wasn't good at goodbyes.

I wanted to tell him I'll miss him, I'll visit him sometimes, that I really enjoyed my time here. I wanted to thank him for everything he has done for me.

But I could only feel a big lump in my throat. My words didn't come out no matter how much I tried.

"It's okay. You don't have to say anything. I can already hear everything you want to say."

Hearing that made me even sadder. He really knew how to choose his words properly, unlike me.

"Here. Keep this."

Rowan took out a ring from his pocket and gave it to me. Without saying anything I studied the ring. It was a simple broad black coloured ring, with a flat surface and no decorated gems. But the entire surface itself had numerous bright and tiny blue grain-like substances shining dimly.

It reminded me of the dark sky above this forest with all the stars shining.

I observed carefully and saw something written on the flat ring surface. It was scribed in Elvish and as I have already learnt Elvish to some extent, I was able to make out what those words said.

"𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘮𝘦 𝘕𝘰𝘵"

As soon as I read out those words loudly, a light blue screen appeared in front of my eyes.

[Item 'Forget me Not' is now bound to you]

[Forget me Not]

Grade A

Type: Accessory

Skills: Sub-space (5 star)

Maximum capacity: Unlimited

(Warning: Living things or dead bodies cannot be stored.

•Craftable parts from dead bodies can be stored.

• Objects larger than 7'x 5' cannot be stored.)

My blurry eyes grew large and they drifted towards Rowan with a shocked face.

"This is...?"

"Forget me not. It's a ring crafted by the best artisan in the Elven Kingdom on my command. I asked him to make it during the war. I wanted to give it to my wife as a gift before I was shunned from that Kingdom because of my betrayal."

"Th-then I think you should wait and give it to your wife. I'm sure you'll meet her again."

"... I don't think it'll ever happen. Even if it does, this ring will have no meaning then. It was made for the sole purpose of bidding farewell to someone precious."

Seeing my complicated face Rowan continued to speak again.

"Hah... You kid. You need it more than anyone else right now, so just be grateful. There are many storage rings out there but it's the only one that has unlimited capacity. Such a ring was just thrown here by the side to eat all the dust. It's better to give it to someone who really needs it."

I was already grateful. How could I not be? Rowan doesn't know how big of an impact my life had after meeting him. He saved my life, trained me and taught me so many other things.

He may have been strict and always pushed me more than my limits, and well... sometimes it made me really annoyed too.

But he always took care of me like a father does.

I rubbed my blurry eyes and thought about all of my four years here. I fell into this forest to save my life and finally did something to get myself a life.

'But I've to leave now. There are some more things I've got to do. Out there my family was thinking that I'm dead. I have to meet them as soon as possible.'

I may never meet him again after today but right now, there was only one thing I could say to him.

"I'll see you again, Rowan."

"Yes. For some reason, I think that we will meet again."

"Goodbye" Bidding farewell, I almost turned my back only to hear his voice again.

"And lastly, Happy Birthday, Owen"

I opened my mouth to say something but instead, just smiled and looked at his face.

He was still smiling like always.

However, this time his smile didn't have any deeper meaning to it.

It was a simple smile. A genuine smile.