A group of adventurers has just returned to the village after completing a task from the guild. After receiving their reward from the guild, they immediately headed to the nearest bar to rest.
"Finally... this mission was so exhausting. Hey Zeta! You almost burned me!" Fenrir complained.
"Blah... blah... blah... I'm tired of hearing your complaints over and over again, Fenrir. I've already apologized, so what do you really want? Do you want me to burn you again? This time I won't miss," Zeta replied.
"No, don't do that! Come on... I was just kidding. Don't be too serious, I'm just trying to lighten the mood," Fenrir replied, trying to calm the situation.
"Brother, how's your arm? Has it healed?" Jose asked X.
"It's a little better, all thanks to Zeta," X answered, showing his arm.
"I'm sorry, it's all my fault," Jose said regretfully.
"No, it's my fault for being a little careless. I should be thanking you. If it wasn't for you, I might have been hurt worse," X replied.
"Hey Jose, you're still the same as always. But... that's why we like you so much! Hahaha!" Fenrir exclaimed, making them all laugh.
"Brother Fenrir..." Jose shook his head with a smile.
"You should follow Jose's example, Fenrir. Be more like him," Zeta advised Fenrir.
"Got it mam, I'll try my best," Fenrir replied.
They laughed on their way back home.
X, Zeta, Fenrir, and Jose were the best adventurers in their small village. They were very well-known and respected by the villagers. Each of them had very skilled abilities.
X was an elf who came from an inland elf tribe in the forest. His body was muscular and strong for a man's size. His entire body was covered in tattoos, including his face, but he covered them up with bandages. His long brown hair reached the middle of his back. X was the leader of this group of adventurers.
X is an expert archer, possessing truly terrifying accuracy. He can hit targets with precision even in bad weather. So skilled was he that he was once offered a position as a knight of the kingdom. However, X declined the offer because he was not of noble blood. Despite the kingdom's assurances that one did not need noble blood to become a knight, X refused. He knew himself well enough to know that any internal conflicts could potentially tear the kingdom apart.
X is intelligent, clever, and a genius. People may see X as a perfect being. He is an ideal leader and everyone respects him, including some knights of the kingdom. However, X is a very quiet person, more passive than his abilities suggest. Unlike his striking appearance with tattoos covering his body, X is someone who acts more than speaks.
Jose is a tall and large-bodied man who wears various armors. He is the front-line defender of his companions, a tanker and berserker in his group. Despite his appearance being somewhat intimidating, in reality, Jose is a very friendly, kind, polite, shy, and even fearful person (with excessive worry).
Jose is the youngest member of the group. Although he has a face that looks somewhat old, he is the youngest among the four of them. His face looks very mature compared to his age. He even has a fairly large scar on his forehead that passes through his eye to his mouth. With this appearance, people often feel afraid when they first see Jose.
Fenrir is a werewolf. He looks like a human with a fairly tall body, around 195-200 cm. His body is quite big, but not as big as X, let alone Jose. What sets Fenrir apart from other humans is his ears, eyes, and tail. Fenrir has long wolf-like ears and tail. His eyes and sense of smell are sharper than those of humans and other creatures.
It can be said that animal-human races have sharper senses than humans. Especially for werewolves who have a sense of smell 10 times sharper than other animal-human races.
Fenrir has long hair that reaches his shoulders. His hair is messy and dark blue in color. His personality is very different from X and Jose. Fenrir is the most talkative person, often seeking attention, not knowing shame, brave, easily angered, difficult to control, and childish. Despite this, he is the person who often lightens the mood in the group.
The last one is Zeta, an elf and a high-level wizard in the group. Her figure is still very mysterious and she never talks about herself to anyone, including her colleagues.
Despite that, Zeta is known as a skilled wizard and is the answer to all the difficulties faced by her group. Among the four members of the group, Zeta has the youngest appearance but the most mature attitude. Even X looks like a child in front of her. In fact, the elf race has a very long lifespan compared to other races, and their growth is also slower. Therefore, even though Zeta is 20 or even 30 years old, her face will still look like she is in her teens.
Zeta has long, wavy blonde hair that falls over her shoulders. She also has a relatively small stature, even the smallest among the four members of the group. Even if Zeta sits next to Jon (Merlin at the moment), she will look like an older sibling sitting with her younger sibling. If measured, her height is around 150 centimeters.
Zeta carries a very large magic wand, even taller than Fenrir. Information about the magic wand is still mysterious. Normal people cannot carry the object, even someone like Jose has never been able to lift it. Only the chosen ones can lift and use the magic wand.
With all the uniqueness of the group, Jon or Merlin has not realized that in front of them is a creature that is very different from humans living on earth. Jon is too focused on the hunger pangs that he is feeling at the moment, so his mind unconsciously dismisses everything he sees, as if what he sees is just an ordinary thing.
-
The atmosphere inside the bar became very silent and tense when Jon mentioned his name, Merlin. "Hey kid! Don't joke around, don't you know who you're talking about? And also... I can't accept your previous words. Don't you know who we are, huh?! You want trouble, huh?!! Whose child are you, huh?!! So rude! Didn't your parents teach you, huh?! Huh!! You're really an uncontrolled kid, aren't you? Your body smells, dirty, your hair is long and split, dirty, smelly, dirty, dirty. Eww... your parents neglected you, right? Hey... answer me, you damn kid! Who are your parents?" said Fenrir, who was drunk, with a face that belittled and intimidated Jon.
"Huh?!" Jon replied while staring back at Fenrir.
Jon felt disturbed by all of Fenrir's words. He stared back at Fenrir with an intimidating gaze. Jon didn't care even though he was just a four-year-old kid, he wouldn't accept it if someone else insulted his parents. The hunger he felt earlier seemed to disappear, Jon's emotions were uncontrollable.
Unconsciously, Jon emitted a dense black aura that made everyone in the bar feel threatened. Fenrir, who was a human-animal, was more sensitive to the aura. Even the fur on his body was tingling, feeling the horror of an aura that emanated from a little boy in front of him. An aura that felt like it was piercing into everyone who felt it.
It's so strange, how could it be, thought Fenrir.
At the same time, Fenrir, X, and Jose tightened their grip on the weapons they were holding. Even Jose, who had a good and friendly personality towards everyone, including criminals, felt shocked and very afraid when he heard Jon mention the name Merlin. He couldn't believe he could point a weapon at a little child in front of him right now. This was something he would never do, even just thinking about it was impossible.
Everyone in the bar was very surprised, especially the four people sitting with Jon. They didn't expect a little boy in front of them could emit such a terrifying aura. This further strengthened their belief that Jon was Merlin, the devilish child suspected of being behind the destruction of the Railis village.
On the other hand, Zeta's large magic wand shook slightly, which surprised Zeta. She had never seen her wand move from magic energy other than her own. At the same time, Zeta felt a sense of déjà vu. She had experienced something similar before, an aura of magic energy that was similar to hers. She was surprised because the magic energy she had felt before was not the kind that could come out of a human.
"So, it's true. You're Merlin. The demon child," Fenrir said with a slightly more serious and cautious tone after feeling the ominous aura emanating from Jon's body.
"Hey, dog! Can you shut the fuck up?! I've tried to be patient, but this time you've really crossed the line. You can insult me, you can say anything you want about me. But... how dare you insult my parents, right in front of me. Do you know what it's like to be buried alive? Or maybe I can do it without a pulse, just for you," Jon said in a low tone, but everyone could clearly hear every word he said.
Jon couldn't accept all the insults directed at his parents, even if they were Merlin's parents. Some words that pierced his heart when Fenrir mentioned that Jon was a deserted child reminded Jon of his dark past. Jon hated that memory, a memory of himself being buried alive by his father.
"Huh? What did you say? Dog? Dog??? You're dead, I swear. I don't care if you're a child or not, you're dead," Fenrir replied, seemingly provoked after hearing what Merlin had just said.
Fenrir hated it when someone called him a dog. He didn't accept being called that, especially if it was a human child who said it. For Fenrir, the word "dog" was an insult, especially for the werewolf race.
Of course, Jon didn't know about that. In fact, Jon still didn't realize the existence of other races who were even in front of him now.
-
Zeta felt that the situation was out of control and quickly took out his large magic wand from the cloth roll that covered it. His wand was very unique compared to the typical magic wand. Zeta's wand was very large, pitch black in color, and shaped like a block.
Shortly after the wand was released from the cloth roll, it floated in the air. Zeta raised his right hand to shoulder level, then stretched out his palm. Ten centimeters in front of his palm, a magic wand floated. Slowly, small cracks appeared on the large wand, and from those cracks emerged a white light.
At the same time, a significant amount of magic energy was emitted from Zeta's wand, slamming everyone around him, including the four people sitting with him, as well as the tables and people nearby. Everyone looked shocked, speechless, and amazed - a rare sight.
Zeta rarely used his wand because its immense power should only be used in critical situations like this. This indicated that Zeta was truly angry and upset.
"Stop it, everyone! You're going overboard. He's just a little kid. Even if he's Merlin, as everyone's been saying, the story may not be true. Am I wrong? Fenrir, I told you not to drink too much. You're getting emotional over a kid like him. It's embarrassing; you even almost performed advanced-level magic just because of this kid?!" Zeta shouted, extremely irritated.
"Big sis..." Jose said worriedly.
Fenrir pushed away the table and some chairs that were on top of him after being thrown by the power of Zeta's wand. He then stood up, cleaning himself off. It seemed that Fenrir was more aware than before.
"Zeta, don't you feel the aura he's emitting? Don't you see it? It's black! His magic energy is black! That kid is not ordinary! Can he even be called human?! Moreover, which kid can already master magic energy? If there is one, he wouldn't have that much power at such a young age. You all saw it, didn't you?" Fenrir asked Zeta and X.
"I agree, but... look, he's unconscious," X replied, pointing to Jon who suddenly collapsed unconscious.
"Oh, was I too much?" Zeta asked.
"Yes," X answered.
"Yet, earlier you said not to go overboard with the little kid-" Fenrir taunted Zeta.
"YES! I'm sorry, what now ... Fen..rir?!" Zeta interrupted.
"No, forgive me, I was wrong," Fenrir said.