Return of the Fallen Volume 1 Chapter 56
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Author: Blue_Rat
ch56
Garn was escorted to his home just west of the palace. Once inside Garn shook his head disappointingly.
(He took everything. Whether I agreed or not, David already took my things.)
The inside of Garn’s place was huge. It was a large mansion, which could house dozens of people comfortably. With many ornaments and furnishings, magical equipment, trinkets, and decorations. From the simple bookshelves to the fancy crystal chandeliers, King David had removed it all.
Garn now sat in an empty quiet home, utterly and completely alone.
*Haaaa*
(Is this how my life’s journey ends. Locked away to rot alone and die of old age.)
*Haaa*
Garn began to contemplate his life and wonder about the choices he’s made. Curious as to where it all went so wrong. The anger and resentment Garn felt for King David left a bitter feeling in his gut.
(I gave everything for this country. I gave up everything to help raise you up. A wife, children, I have no one to pass anything down to. No one to love and care and no one to love me back. How could I be so foolish? How could I not see it clearly? This country, the King, all of it’s a waste.)
Outside of Garn’s mansion, several soldiers and Mages guarded his home to ensure that he didn’t take a single step outside. These guards had no clue what was going on and were only told that Garn was under permanent house arrest and if he were to try and leave, he should be immediately killed. To have to kill their hero, although they were soldiers many of them didn’t have the stomach to go through with such actions.
All they could do was guard the place and hope, no, pray to the gods that Garn didn’t step outside.
Kazuki and the rest were all escorted to their rooms and were placed under heavy guard.
Just as Garn had several soldiers outside his home, the young heroes as well had many, many loyal dogs with swords and shields standing at attention by their rooms. With more constantly patrolling the halls.
Kazuki placed an ear on the door and sent a bit of ki through it. Using his ki to sense any nearby presence and listening closely to footsteps and breathing, Kazuki determined that there were no less than 13 people outside of his room.
Pulling away from the door Kazuki began to think.
(I could fight them but that would obviously draw way too much attention, damn. I definitely can’t stay here any longer. The King has lost his shit and Rust turned out to be a traitor. Guess you can never judge a book by its cover. If the King is willing to do all that to the nation’s hero then what won’t he do to me. No, calm down, why would he do that to me, I’ve never shown any aggression to him, so why would he target me?…No, I can’t go by logic. Everyone saw Garn’s memory in the throne room, he’s literally been the most loyal person I’ve ever seen. Yet the King saw fit to try and have him killed for no rhyme or reason. What he’ll do and won’t do, I have no clue but my best bet is to get as far away from Treia and its King as quickly as possible.)
Kazuki hastily put together a plan before he grabbed a towel from his bathroom and stuffed it under the door. After that, he pushed his bed a few feet over. Kneeling down next to the floor, Kazuki pressed his ear against the wooden floorboards and with his ki, he sensed the room below his.
(Good, it’s empty.)
Kazuki examined about four of the floorboards closely. Each one was around 8 inches wide and about 4 feet in length. Locating where each and every nail was hammered in, Kazuki smiled.
Running into the bathroom, Kazuki filled up a small basin the size of which was about equal to a human head. Setting it next to him on the floor, Kazuki was ready.
With 4 nails in each board and there being 4 floorboards total, Kazuki just had to deal with 16 nails. With his strength alone he could easily rip the wooden floorboards up but that would cause a large ruckus, so that was off the table. With the heat from a fireball, he could burn the wood but that would cause a lot of smoke and the crackling of the wood could give him away. So Kazuki opted for something else.
Kazuki placed his two furthest digits from each other onto a nail. His pinky and thumb stretched outward until the tips touched a nail each, making it look like he was doing the Shaka sign. With both hands outstretched and touching 4 nails at once, Kazuki shut his eyes and concentrated deeply. In order to summon a fireball or something similar, Kazuki would need to make an ancient hand sign to bring forth a fireball.
What he wanted to do now though was slightly different. Instead of creating a ball of flame or any single shape, Kazuki would simply draw magical energy from the outside world and convert it into his element of fire at his fingertips. Although it is simple, the amount of focus this took was a bit much in Kazuki’s opinion.
Without using his ancient hand symbols, the already difficult task of using magic became that much harder, as Kazuki was directly pulling energy from his surroundings and directing it to his fingertips. If it was this much though he could still handle it. Were he trying to create a fireball or a wall of flame or something without his hand symbols, it simply wouldn’t work.
As Kazuki concentrated, he could feel magic gathering at his fingertips and the 4 nails simultaneously began to grow hotter and hotter. Little bits of smoke began to rise but it was so insignificant that it was negligible. The wooden floorboards though increased in temperature a bit too rapidly and a piece of the floorboard ignited. Kazuki didn’t panic and leaned forward gathering a mouthful of water from the basin, like a water fountain, Kazuki comically spit the water out, extinguishing the small fire.
The four nails heated up in seconds until the were just liquid metal. With that, Kazuki silently lifted the floorboard up and set it to the side. The melted metal nails were hot enough to ignite the wood at any second so Kazuki hurriedly continued.
(One down, three to go.)
Kazuki did this three more times. Heating the nails gathering a mouthful of water and spitting it like a water fountain at any small fires that came about before silently lifting the floorboards away. The whole process, though, took less than a minute. In the end, the smoke wasn’t much trouble and only seemed as if Kazuki burned a bag of popcorn and nothing more. With the towel still stuffed under his door, there was no chance of the smell getting out and alerting his guards outside.
Looking into the room below, it was just another bedroom but no one occupied it. Pulling his bed back to its original position, Kazuki stuffed a few pillows under a blanket and blew out all of the candles.
*Phuuu*
With his blanket stuffed to look like a body, Kazuki couldn’t help but shake his head and laugh at his work.
(This looks so dumb, no way anyone would buy this.)
Kazuki though couldn’t do much about it, as time was of the essence.
With a body pillow double in his bed and the bed over the new hole and floorboards, Kazuki crawled underneath the bed and went into the room below.
Kazuki landed silently on his toes and carefully made his way to the door through the darkroom. Although the room was pitch black, with his ki enhancing his body as well as the Blood Orb he fused with, seeing in total darkness was something he could do with ease. Once more he placed an ear onto the door.
*Silence*
Kazuki could hear and see nothing and so he quietly tried to open the door.
*Chiga chiga*
He turned the handle but the door was actually locked.
(My fucking luck.)
Since the hall was empty, Kazuki twisted the hande with a bit of force.
*Chink*
The lock broke and Kazuki cautiously peeked his head out the door.
Looking left and right, Kazuki sighed in relief.
*Haaa*
Making his way down the long halls and corridors, Kazuki was aiming for one place in particular.
(It’s only been a few minutes since we were all escorted to our rooms, so I don’t know if the news has spread of us having to be basically on lockdown and under protection in case of Rust trying to take one of us and use us as a hostage, but it’s probably best I don’t show my face. Otherwise, they may try and force me back to my room.)
Kazuki turned a corner and found his objective. Stopping before the door, Kazuki peeked in and checked for anyone but the place was empty. Walking in, there were still plates with plenty of food on them and cups half full.
(After what happened, it’s no surprise, people are busy. They’re probably scouring the city for Rust.)
Kazuki went past all the tables of half-eaten food and made his way into the kitchen. Finding the pantry, Kazuki went to work.
First, he gathered a handful of flour and powdered his hair and eyebrows. It wasn’t much but as long as one didn’t look too closely, it could be mistaken for white hair. Kazuki grabbed a nearby apron and threw it on. Taking a bit of black grease, he smeared it on part of his face. Grabbing a meat bun, he broke it into a few small pieces and stuffed them into his cheeks.
With a little cornstarch and water, he formed a sticky substance and applied it to parts of his face, with some food dye, he gave himself a paler complexion. As it dried he played with it a bit until it looked as though he had a few wrinkles. Finally, he took some red sauce and dumped it onto his entire body. Looking at his reflection in a clean pan he smiled a bit before thinking.
(Hmm, not quite.)
Bending his knees slightly and lowering his shoulders, hunching himself forward a bit, Kazuki took a full four inches off of his height.
(That’s better.)
Looking at his reflection once more, Kazuki greeted himself.
“Nice to meet you, old man, hehehe.”
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