Chapter 23：Desire, Mana, Fate, and Bad Villain (1/2)

The words of Miss Pai last night remained in his mind.

|What I originally wanted to do, ha...|

While thinking this. Yman's face was twitching. Behind his bangs, a glint was visible in his eyes.

And a scene was about to replay inside his mind when...

”Y-Yman welcome back.”

A scene that was supposed to appear in his mind was interrupted by a sudden greeting from the shy girl in front of him.

Yman likes waking up from a nightmare blankly glanced at Chloe. He saw her staring at him with a puzzled look.

He blinked his eyes.

”Y-Yman, are you okay?” She asked.

He also noticed the other trainees glances at him. The two girls and the other boys besides them were whispering to each other while stealing glances at him. He doesn't know what they were talking about, and Yman doesn't care.

Though he felt that their topic was unkind to him. Maybe he developed a new skill that enables him to sense other people that are talking ill at his back. Yman sighed. Certainly, it was only his imagination playing tricks on him.

He turned his eyes again to Chloe and smiled at her.

Same as usual her deity was sitting on her lap connected by a cord of an earphone.

Yman wanted to laugh. |This Chloe really made her deity as an mp3 player!|

This was one of the uses of the deity. They could be used with mundane things such as this.

|Good for her having a docile deity. Unlike my Sistela.| For some reason, he envied her a little.

He doesn't have mana and he had a sulking deity, what an unlucky life.

He smiled and nodded then said, ”Uhm, yeah sorry, I happened to remember something that I shouldn't have. Ah, by the way, thank you for the greeting, Chloe,” he replied. He remembered that Chloe's deity was also a female type like Sistela.

A small and cute voice from a deity also greeted him. But for some reason, it somewhat sounded rude.

”B-Bad v-villain man?” Yman was dumbfounded.

”Did you hear that? Even that deity called him a bad villain.” The girl with green hair beside Chloe whispered to the other girl beside her, which reached to Yman's ears.

He suspiciously looked to Chloe.

Chloe's deity suddenly greeted him 'good morning' but his name had been replaced by a bad sounding name. Chloe was startled from Yman's gaze to her, she hastily explained to him that she was innocent, and she didn't teach her deity about it.

She also said sorry from her deity's mean words. And hastily asked her deity with worried eyes, ”J-Jazz, why did you call him like that?”

And that her reply. ”N-No-no, Jazz, that's not what he... ah, ehm, he did that because he had a reason to do it.”

Chloe who was flustered tried to reason to her deity.

”Mhm!”

She nodded.

Chloe gaped with blank eyes. It looks like it's not easy to convince her deity to change her way of thinking about Yman.

Yman scratches his head. For some reason, he became the enemy of all-female deity!

Yman forces a laugh to Chloe and says that it's fine. And there was nothing they could do, looks like, female deities were programmed as kind and just.

A second later, he felt a slight tug on his left arm. He glanced and saw Bob opening his mouth.

”How are you, bro?”

Bob sitting beside him, asked him after a laugh from the words of Chloe's deity. Bob's deity was sitting on his shoulder like a boss. Yman, even noticed that Bob's deity already had arms. Looks like Bob's deity was at level 2 already, same with Chloe's deity. Whereas his Sistela was level 1 only.

Chloe was secretly thanking Bob for intervening before the situation became more difficult for her.

Although, Bob doesn't know about it.

”I'm fine, Bob. Thanks for asking. I think my stamina is now at 80%.”

Yman replied while clenching his hand close and open to show that his stamina almost fully recovered.

”Haha, that's good. Really, what you did yesterday surprised us. We didn't expect that you're a channeler. It was unbelievable that you joined that fight, even though you don't have mana. Haha,”

Bob said with a grin on his face. In front of them, Chloe was having a scared look, because of Bob's unrestrained words. This Bob was as worst as her deity in way of talking! She thought.

”Hm... But, unfortunately, I failed, huh.” Yman was looking down while saying this, and it was clear that he was having an unhappy face.

He certainly thought that he would succeed in killing at least one monster if he succeeded to drop the boulder in that battle.

But in the end, the resonance of him with his deity had been canceled, unexpectedly.

Looking at him having an unhappy expression, Bob felt that he made a big mistake in his words. ”Ahhh, I - I don't mean bad with what I said, Yman, Bro.” Bob hastily added.

”Ah, no, Bob, don't worry I'm not thinking about that. It just...my bad luck that I'm not strong enough and I'm not gifted by mana. And yeah, I'm a channeler, I learned it when I was a kid, haha.”

Yman scratched his head and forced a laugh to assure Bob that his words were not the reason that he felt down.

Chloe and Bob sighed in relief.

”Yman, wasn't channeling mana was a difficult task and hard to learn?” Chloe asked.

”Yeah, it is. I'm just lucky that someone taught me when I was a kid. And that person said that I have a natural talent in this aspect.”

Yman said while glancing at his palm. Right now, he could only rely on this channeling that he had.

”W-Wow, a master? I bet he was an old man with long white whiskers and hair.”

Bob exclaimed and laughed. In his mind appeared an image of a benevolence master elder, stood while his broad back facing at his student and looking at the far horizon while speaking profound lines of wisdom.

”Haha, no, Bob. I think he's a young man — if I made a guess of his age based on his voice, and the way he brings himself — he was at least 20-30 years old at that time.”

”Eehhhhh, So young! But then again, it's only natural since you were only a kid at that time. Haha, looks I overreact a little. Please say sorry to your master, Yman bro, for my mistake.”

Bob and Chloe were both surprised after hearing Yman's words. Yman thought that these two might be thinking of an immortal master. But Bob noticed something in Yman's words.

”But how come that you based him from his voice and the way he brings himself or is it demeanor?”

”Why not by his looks?”

Bob asked curiously and Chloe added.

”Ah, that? It's because — he was wearing a mask and his body was covered by a long gown from head to feet whenever he appeared before me.”

Yman glanced at the two. He noticed that Bob and Chloe furrowed their brows slightly. It was easy for him to guess what they were thinking at the moment.

He chuckled. ”Haha, I know that you are thinking that my teacher sounds suspicious by the way he dresses. You bet, I also felt that way when I first saw him. But weirdly, when he started talking to me, that suspicion I had at first, magically gone...”

”Oh, You mean...?”

Chloe intervened with an indirect question.

”I mean, he seemed so mysterious, and sometimes he knew what I was thinking. He could also guess what decision I would make at a specific moment.”

Yman added.

”Hmmm...”

Chloe and Bob were having long thoughts.

”Hm... sounds like a Fate Master.”

Mai who was silent for a while suddenly intervened.

”Fate Master?” Yman repeated. The three of them looked to Mai while wearing curious faces.

Seeing their faces. Mai sighed saying 'can't be helped.'

”Right. There was a tale about a person with a weird habit of foretelling someone's fate. Some said it was a false and hoax tale. And some rebutted that he was real and that what he was telling was 80-100% accurate. But I won't say that he was the same person as your master.”

”Yeah. Me too.” Yman agreed to her.

But Yman narrowed his eyes. |Fate Master ha.| This name was familiar to him.

Suddenly, in Yman's memory, the last scene with his teacher before he left, was replaying.

<><><>

”Teacher, why did I need to practice even though I don't have mana? I don't even need to learn how to fight. Since what I want is to become a rich man in the future. And live a normal life. My parents told me that I don't need to learn how to fight. Only magicians have the right to it. Because even if I learn how to fight, it is impossible for me to kill even a monster of rank -D.” An innocent statement of a kid.

He could not read his teacher's emotion behind the black mask with a carve of one big eye in a gray color and inside that big eye was another 3 eyes in a triangular formation; whereas, the third eyes were in a close state. And another eye at the mouth area in an open state.

”Yman come here.”

A person wearing a gown embroidered by — gray and gold — and a mask on his face beckoned on a 5 years old kid Yman.

Gripping the wooden sword that's taller than him, he tottered towards the person that he called the teacher.

”Teacher, why?” He asked.

The person gently placed his hand on top of his head. Then he looked at the sky.

”Do you know that — the person who was born with heroic desires will be blessed with an abundance of mana. The stronger the desire the more mana the person gets, and when his/her desire continues to grow stronger, the stronger the person will get as he/she grows. On the contrary, the person who doesn't have this heroic desire will eventually have a lower chance to grow with mana.”

”Is that mean, the reason I don't have mana was that I don't have that desire?”

His teacher nodded. ”Although you don't have mana, it is also true that the person who has the strongest desire can eventually kill a godly dragon even without mana. What a person needs is a boundless desire and limitless wisdom to step on the peak of the tallest mountain. You could even have a chance of killing the unkillable enemy — that was gazing at you from above.”

Kid Yman asked while looking up at his teacher's mask, who's staring at the sky.

”Master, what kind of enemy is unkillable that you just mentioned?”

”#%¥£$%#$¥€£¥”

He couldn't understand his reply at that moment.

But after saying it, his teacher left. Yman returned to his home and witnessed a scene. It was a scene that he doesn't want to see, he wanted to forget but he couldn't.

Because a scene, in front of him, was a scene where his mother and father were brutally murdered.

A long sword embedded in his father's chest. Whereas, his mother was lying in a pool of blood, underneath his father.