The Fearless War

Truth from the past

Without thinking I cleared the mana I had adsorbed for my eyes, the person behind the door didn't even seem to have the ability to control mana at first glance, but something I could observe with my enhanced eyesight, on the side of her head there seemed to be a horn hidden by a flow of mana. The horn was small and curved backwards following the flow of her hair.

"And who are you? A thief?! But the door didn't detect anything!"

"No, I just came for Melinda's help."

The young woman with the horn had already walked through the door and found me sitting in the dining room. Already without the reinforced sight I could see her appearance, she had straight platinum white hair, her eyes were green but seemed to change to gold in the light. In her arms she carried several books with covers referencing methods of alchemy and magic. Her head did not denote the presence of any horn, but instead she wore a silver brooch in the shape of a horned rabbit.

"Ah Oz, I see you've already met Leoma."

"Grandma … who is he?"

"Ah yes, this is Osbert, he and his uncle Miles will be staying with us for a couple of weeks. Oz she is my niece who doesn't seem to understand that I am her aunt and not her grandmother! Her name is Leoma Hayleye and it's safe to think you already saw through the brooch she's wearing or am I wrong?"

"Gra... Aunt! Why do you say such things, we don't know if they are dangerous! Wasn't Miles Wolfric the maniac you're always talking about?"

"Leoma don't be like that, yes it's true that I complain a little about him when I drink, but it's just the things I say drunk! And by the way if I had Oz as an enemy nothing would be left of the workshop. You can feel it right?"

Between niece and aunt, a little unsparing discussion had been launched but when Melinda threw a question to her niece, she inspected me but her eyes this time completely golden. Unlike Melinda's glasses or uncle Miles' fake eye, those eyes seemed to sparkle with a life of their own. But the glow only lasted a few seconds until it returned to the changing green and gold.

"Aunt, what kind of monster did you let into the workshop?!"

"Did someone say monster? Because this much meat in the soup is monstrous."

Just as Leoma finished examining me being the only person who didn't manipulate me as a study subject. Out of the kitchen came Uncle Miles carrying a giant pot and wearing a stained apron. The room fell silent as Uncle Miles set the table and served some rations on several plates.

"By the way Mell, I don't suppose I owe you anything about stone refining for being the victim of your drunken insults, do I?"

" Darn it the Wolfric's hearing ...."

" Aunt, what are you going to do about them?"

"Nothing Leoma, they are guests, don't give it a thought, while they stay you can keep trying to get your golems to work."

"Oh, that's right, I didn't see something like a core while we were moving the golems, how do you plan to make them move Leoma?"

Uncle Miles let out his curiosity-filled side just the moment he had a chance as he sat down to eat. The rest of us followed his lead and started dinner, even though there was a full table, there were not enough topics to talk about, Leoma between whispers was trying to think how to deal with my uncle and me. Apparently, there had never been anyone other than them on the upper floors of the workshop. After a while, dinner was over and the table was left with only a few glasses and cups of tea that had been prepared.

"Since we finished dinner, I have to get back to the subject I wanted to talk to oz and you Miles. So, Leoma, could you take off your brooch?"

"Are you sure about this aunt?"

"Whether you want to accept it or not, I wouldn't trust anyone but a Wolfric to keep a secret."

With her hand trembling Leoma removed the brooch from her hair and at that moment, the color of the brooch changed to a pure black only highlighting the gems in the horned rabbit's eyes. From the base of her hair, it seemed that from nowhere little by little a horn of the same color as her hair was growing.

"Miles, Oz. Leoma is a dragonian, specifically the daughter of one with a human. So, her ability to use magic or handle mana is almost nil. the most she can do is use her dragon eyes and defend herself by growing scales in small parts."

"And I have to hide my horn with the brooch that Aunt Melinda made from the magic stones of a chameleon."

"Thirteen years ago, her mother was thrown out of the home of a nobleman who no longer wanted her, upon learning that she had a daughter on the way. Unfortunately, Leoma's mother did not survive the birth as her body could not receive mana. She had handcuffs that blocked the passage of mana and the nobleman forced her to sign a magical contract for criminals, in essence turning her into a slave."

As she related the story of Leoma's mother, Melinda pulled from a sealed box a pair of silver-colored handcuffs with black inscriptions. Their outward appearance did not go so far from very large bracelets, but the intricacy of the engravings and the fact that mana seemed to flee from them rectified their origin and purpose.

"In the same way, my sister suffered a similar fate, only that she was killed by the same nobleman who threw away Leoma's mother. At the time, my sister was engaged to another man, but when the nobleman saw her, he kidn*pped her and tried to hide all existence from her. And before you kill me with your one eye, will you continue Miles?"

Uncle Miles began to express intense anger as Melinda told the story involving her sister. Likewise, he seemed to look with disgust and fear at the handcuffs that had been placed.

"Ahh, I don't like being cornered but good. I was the one Rue was going to marry, one day after fulfilling a guild mission, she accompanied me to make the report and it was on the street where that monster who calls himself a nobleman saw her. After only seeing her once, he stalked her for weeks, months even. It wasn't until he threatened to lock Melinda up for fraud that Rue agreed to see him at his mansion. He took advantage of the fact that I had accepted another mission and kidn*pped her and planned to make her his mistress."

"It wasn’t fraud or anything, he simply manipulated Rue's emotions to take advantage of her!"

"Ugh, so when I arrived again, I only found Melinda locked up and Rue missing; when I discovered where she was, I went to get help from the knight order from another territory, but the captain had already been bought out. I had no choice but to go straight to that rotten viscount and prostrate myself, begging him to let Rue go. It was at that moment that he made me work for him and forced me not only to gouge out my own eye, but also to create handcuffs that would allow him to dominate a mystical race."

The truth about Uncle Miles' hatred of the nobility was already in the light, but each time he told more, his face became distorted with the emotions he experienced as he recalled his past. All around the table, sadness abounded while in the center, the handcuffs that Uncle Miles himself had apparently created did not help to relax the anger and frustration that were felt in tandem.

"Just when I finished the prototype of the handcuffs, the son of a b***h sent an assassin to kill me after sending mercenaries to deliver Rue's body to me. She had already died when I first arrived with the viscount. Leoma, I don't know if you can forgive me, but the reason your mother couldn't escape or fight is my fault, I'm sorry..."

"To tell you the truth, I can say that we were all victims of an orc in human skin, I have never thought of blaming anyone but the one directly responsible for my mother's death, you did not know that Aunt Melinda's sister, your fiancée, had already passed away, and my mother did not know that she was going to be kidn*pped. And as for myself, aunt Melinda says that my mother not being able to use mana, prevented me from dying since being half human, I would not have been able to survive the mana that a normal draconian absorbs at birth. Besides, the tears over those who died have already been shed. I just try to live my life as I can. I've been trying for several years to succeed in making an autonomous golem to protect everyone and not depend on the nobility."

Leoma did not seem to express hatred, but neither did she seem at peace. Still, she had a goal in mind, that people could live without the complete need for nobility and to give that freedom. While the partial goal of my journey was to understand my grandfather's last words, I also sought power, not to abuse it or profit from it, but to protect all that I cared about. At that moment at the table, I experienced a feeling of oppression and a desire to better myself even more, a desire to not have to stand by and do nothing. Before I knew it, the conversation was over, and Uncle Miles had asked to take the handcuffs away so he could begin to undo his work.

Once inside the hut, uncle miles was undoing the handcuffs in sections, keeping the center, which was nothing more than a metal cylinder with an emerald sheen and many more inscriptions than on the outside. Seeing the green ring no bigger than my wrist I was overcome with a feeling of disgust and anger, despite being on the opposite side of the already small hut, the feeling was so overwhelming that I even felt too sick at one moment.

"You can feel it, can't you Oz? I guess having a very high affinity to mana this affects you just by seeing it. Who knew that in my desperation I would have created something that negates the very essence of life, I need to find a way to eliminate the effect."

"Do you think that the viscount is trying to sell the handcuffs to others like him?"

"I don't think so Oz, I'm sure there's even more out there. I don't want anyone else to suffer the same fate. Much less a race like the draconians. If humans, elves, and dwarves are considered magical races, the draconians are no less than a mystical race."

"You know no one blames you for what happened Uncle Miles."

"No one but me, Oz."

The sky got dark quickly, and uncle miles put each piece of the handcuffs in a metal box, with that box I could no longer feel any sense of displeasure, but I still could not sleep. So, for the first time in a while, I took my grandfather's notebook out of my backpack. I strengthened my eyesight just enough to see in the dark and began to flip through the notebook and its stories. Before I closed it again, my eye caught the title of a story I had paid zero attention to before.

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[The dragon paladin]

This story begins in a desolate field, littered with the remnants of an intense battle, in the center of the field nothing but holes from explosions of magic and bodies of various soldiers from allies to enemies, death gave no distinction whatsoever. Suddenly something moved on the field, a slender figure with bronze hair. His eyes with vertical pupils and an intense blue color. He carried with him nothing but a rusty sword.

The figure that belonged to a man walked through the desolate countryside for days until he came to a village whose inhabitants were preparing to escape from an impending battle that was about to take place in their home. The man watched sadly as innocent people were forced to leave behind everything but their own lives. As he left the village, several villagers walked alongside him, until there was no one else in the village.

A day passed at most, when suddenly a horn was heard in the distance. Soldiers with red flags were approaching the caravan from behind. They carried horses and increased their speed without stopping, readying their weapons and with faces full of perversion and morbidity. The villagers ran in desperation to escape certain death, but the children and sick were left behind as they could not run at the same pace.

The lone man who had blended in with the others, turned as he drew the rusty sword and trotted towards the approaching enemies. The first soldiers and knights who came to where he was, tried to spear him but instead of advancing with the attack, they were thrown back and cut down by the man. The blades of the spears caused his clothes to fall, exposing his torso. It was covered with scales that appeared to be bronze, but its hardness was unlike anything ever known.

The other soldiers rushed up with their weapons pointed at him, trying to avoid the torso with their attacks. But to no avail, the scales on the torso vanished as if they had been absorbed and appeared again blocking the incoming attacks. The man moved slowly but still managed to finish off his attackers, his body on the other hand was constantly changing. From one moment to the next the scales covered one side only to move to another without hesitation.

Light was already reaching a shade of dusk when the last enemy knight fell to his knees bleeding to death. The man then cleared his body of the scales and as he walked away. There was no better description than to say that he was loved by the mana. Every time the scales on his body moved and spread, a strong flow of mana could be felt and almost seen.