Slave Company Chapter 9 A Game Of Assumptions
-Sorry, but you do not possess the necessary qualities to become a hero, you have to go.
-I see…I understand; I will leave before sun rise don’t worry.
Arriving at the given location, time returned back to present as Avian replied, his voice extremely calm and composed, just like his cold expression as he wasn’t bothered at all about what he had just heard or the fact that he was basically being kicked out with no place to go.
A full 2 years had passed since he arrived in this world, hearing that he was being let go only after 2 years would probably make a lot of people mad or flustered on top of which they had no way of getting back home to their original world.
But the kings representative explained to Avian very concisely what the reason was for Avian to be let go, already knowing what he was going to hear, Avian listened to the man explaining that his blessing was not compatible with the task of saving the world and that they couldn’t do anything to help, if Avian insisted that he still wanted to be a hero then he would only weigh down his comrades, staying in the castle was also not an option as that could incite some ill will from the public about the heroes if only one person refused to do his duties as a hero, at this point they were essentially planning on completely crossing Avian’s existence from the records to make it seem like he never existed in the first place while also saying that he could return once they found a way to send him back.
The way the representative explained it to Avian was extremely compelling as well, the representative made it seem like it was Avian’s own decision to walk away and help his comrades probably expecting to reach for the righteous side of Avian’s character like all the others.
Unfortunately or fortunately, Avian didn’t have that side to him, but he still played along acting out his role as a self-sacrificing young hero who was in a bit of dismay over his inability, not even the representative was able to see through Avian’s acting as he naturally assumed this was right.
The representative though still did think this conversation would be difficult considering what he was about to say, but surprisingly everything went fine making him also sigh out of relief in his mind and wanting to finalize the discussion with Avian.
All the while Avian was actually thinking how lucky he was that he was being let go like this, furthermore he wouldn’t be let go without anything either, the king would still provide some farewell gifts or rather startup funds so that he wouldn’t starve to death right after leaving the castle, in return though Avian had to leave the capital and move at least 5 towns away, where he would go was of no concern to the king as long as he stayed away from the capital and the heroes, he also didn’t state that he couldn’t leave the country in on itself, essentially turning Avian into a freeman with no restriction on where to go making Avian feel even luckier.
As for how the king would explain Avian’s absence from the other young heroes, he gave Avian a pyramid like device which was actually a sort of video recorder, he wanted Avian to leave a message to his fellow heroes telling them the reason he left and that they shouldn’t worry about him and defeat the demons so as to calm them, the reason Avian couldn’t personally tell them was because it would likely cause a riot among the young heroes who would say that Avian leaving was a bit too much, leaving a video wouldn’t give them an opportunity to object since Avian would have already left by then, Avian had no problem with that, but while he was taking the device to record the message, he couldn’t help but still feel very wary about the whole situation.
While he felt confident enough that they wouldn’t kill him after letting him go and taking the video recording since there was no reason to do so, he still decided to play the one card he prepared before-hand to really make sure or at least make it unlikely for them to do anything drastic to him.
-By the way, I actually gave Mary my life amber a few months ago because of a promise we all made, together with the video and the life amber I think those guys will be assured of my safety that much more!
-What?! Ehm… if I may ask, can you tell me what this promise you made with the [Sage] Mary was for you to give her your life amber?
The representative inquired not seeming to have expected this, Avian simply smiled awkwardly before pretending to look apologetic and replying.
-Sorry, I can’t say, I made a promise with Mary that I wouldn’t talk about the contents to anyone.
-I…I see…well it is good to look out for each other as fellow heroes hehe..
The representative said while laughing awkwardly before regaining his composure, Avian at that moment could vaguely guess what he was thinking as he must have come to a certain conclusion after hearing what Avian just said.
The person called Mary in this situation was the person who inherited the [Sage]’s inheritance and was also the current person who had the blessing of the [Sage], out of all the young heroes she was arguably the most important as she had one of the strongest blessings, she was also the smartest, and while she was as righteous as the rest she was also the most skeptical among them, not hesitating to ask the king some sensitive things that could be construed as stepping out of bound or doubting the kings intentions.
Avian in fact was aware that Mary somewhat suspected the fallacy of their summoning to this world, the king knew this as well which is why he stepped cautiously near her whenever she asked anything likely telling 9 truths while mixing in one lie to make it difficult for her to judge.
With Avian’s revelation of the promise, the king’s representative and the king would likely figure that this must be some kind of measure on Mary’s part to make sure that everyone was well and safe, while not even guessing that it was all Avian’s idea.
The life amber after all was an item that showed whether or not the creature it was connected to was alive or not by encasing a piece of the person inside a magical amber which can be anything from blood to hair.
Once a person dies the glowing amber would immediately cease to glow indicating that the person who was connected to the life amber had died.
Meaning that once the video was shown to the others and if something did happen to Avian to cause his death, Mary would immediately be able to put two and two together and create a theory that the king or someone connected to him had tricked Avian behind the scenes to kill him and make it seem like an accident, an obvious interrogation would come forth with Mary asking the king what happened, from it a conflict was very likely to spurn in which Mary’s trust in the king would immediately plummet which would really take a blow to the king.
This all wasn’t a bluff either, the promise Avian made with Mary regarding the life amber was real, but in reality it was Avian who initiated it making Mary promise that she would never tell anyone about the kind of promise they made and that she would hold onto the life amber for him until he asked it back from her.
The reason Avian made this promise with Mary was first because he knew her skeptical nature and also because he figured out that the king liked to avoid conflict if he could and that he didn’t want the [Sage] to distrust him as she was an extremely valuable piece, while he didn’t play for this particularly situation in mind it was still very useful regardless of what may have happened since it involved Avian’s life, the only trouble he had was getting close enough to Mary to be able to make the promise while also somehow making sure that the king would know of this promise to connect everything.
Luckily the first problem was something Avian was able to solve easily as Mary was actually a very avid reader, at the beginning coming to the library just as often as he did allowing him to get close to her, what he didn’t expect was how perceptive the current [Sage] was, she wasn’t blessed as a [Sage] for nothing after all, Avian always had to take care that his true nature wouldn’t be found out by her as they talked, but he succeeded in the end, giving an elaborate reason as to why he wanted her to keep his life amber.
And as for the second problem, he had just solved it by talking about the promise in front of the king’s representative, right now everything was falling in place, but in the back of Avian’s mind he was still not fully satisfied.
In the end Avian hated the idea of leaving his life In the hands of others, if he could have done something else he would have done so ages ago, but since Avian knew how little influence and strength he currently had he had no other choice but to do this instead which was the only plan that allowed for him being able to go unsuspected by both sides and leave unmolested, and even then the plan relied on both sides being sufficiently smart enough to connect the dots and make their own assumptions, Avian thought about this plan for a couple of days and tried to think many other things, but in the end none of them would seem to be able to help Avian as all those plans were too unfeasible at the moment.
Either way, Avian could only judge the result of whether or not everything worked once he got out.
Finalizing the terms with the king’s representative, Avian made the video recording for the young heroes before they wished each other good night.
As Avian left for his quarters to pack his stuff, he watched the kings representative with his [Blood Sense] while also scanning his surroundings to make sure no one was present.
He left with a sigh as he could only pray for everything to go well at this point.