26 Rapid (1/2)

It was a bleak summer sky, dry arid earth awaited Nero when he reached the temple ruins and a tall joker-looking man.

It was the weekly meet up. Every Saturday, Nero had to meet his 'mentor', the King.

The king in his view, however, was that of an awkward one.

For the sake of the people's happiness, he had gone through with a ceremony, officially crowning him as the king of Pinnacle. He had no experience as a ruler, only as a humble and well-respected adviser. The lack of experience was well hidden from the unobserving eye, but Nero knew better.

The king wore a long red-braided robe, yet his height made the robe feel... less elegant to what is was going for. With the full-whites underneath and the shiny golden crown, the look was closer to that of a clown.

Clearly either a wardrobe malfunction occurred, or the King's fashion sense fell behind subpar.

Most meetups were just Nero receiving a bunch of books and unwanted advice from the King, but the atmosphere today was slightly different.

And Nero was quickly reminded why by Nova.

'The man probably wants to talk about the Nobles, it is, after all, up a week later.'

”Ah, Nero my boy, how is your training been like with Madison?” The King had no idea about any of the events that had occurred during the past week, no one did.

”Her? She taught me everything and left, she's not here anymore.” Nero wasn't the least bothered by her disappearance.

”HO?! How come she taught you everything in a week? You can tell me if she wanted to not teach you, I'll have my end of the deal back if that's the case.” The old man was surprised, Madison had been pain a whole 1 Gloden Ruby to impart all her knowledge onto Nero, an amount enough to noticeably affect the economy.

”No, no! She has really taught me everything she knew, she had even prepared for me a completely new skill set, compatible especially for me! I'll show if you want, it's quite fast and complex so you'll have to step back a bit.”

”Really? This better is good, I know you're smart enough to not be fooled so easily.”

'Alright, he bought it!' Nero, in truth, needed nothing more than Nova to become a complete master of the Scythe, he would simply be wasting time if he was with Madison.

'Nova, I believe 0.8x is more than enough?' Nero could, after repeated practise, perform everything perfectly, the fast movement speed of the whole set was quite tiresome, any more than three times and Nero would start ventilating.

Moreover, the King would probably gain suspect on Nero, beyond what he already had, seeing as he was a Hunter, as he thought, at an age beyond the norm. There was no doubt that there hadn't been an investigation done looking into his past.

Even if they found out that someone massacred a bunch of Villagers, no one would really suspect a little boy as the culprit, in fact, it wouldn't even be a big deal.

Many sought revenge after gaining power, the way Nero had presented himself was more like playing the role of the righteous man, using demonic deeds to cleanse the world of the wicked.