Book 2: Chapter 66
Both Shaun and Elijah moved back into the city at the pace Elijah set, although they could have moved quicker if Shaun just picked him up and flew, he held back and moved the normal way. They didn’t speak much on the walk until they were a few minutes from the home, only then did Elijah speak up.
“What are you planning on doing to her?” Elijah didn’t sound worried or scared at what was about to happen, if anything he was curious and excited to finally get to see his tormentor put in her place.
Shaun had though about it since he found out what the woman had been doing, he wouldn’t kill her, but he would definitely be ensuring that she felt fear beyond anything she had before, he would make certain of that. After though? He wasn’t sure.
“What do you want me to do to her?” He was curious as to what Elijah hoped for, it would be telling as to just how angry and hurt he was at what occurred.
“I don’t know…….If we aren’t coming back I want to get everyone’s stuff. We don’t have much but it is ours.” He stopped talking for a moment and looked to be deep in thought. “I want Astrid to pay for what she did to us. But I want her to live with the consequences too.”
“Works for me. I have the perfect idea, just hold on a minute.” He ducked into a side street that was slightly hidden and then shifted up onto the roof of a house unseen. There he changed back into his armour but kept his weapons in his Inventory. When he was done, he jumped off of the roof and walked back to Elijah who looked at him first with confusion and then with awe.
“Shaun, man, I knew you were in the E grade but what level are you exactly? I have never seen anything like this before! Its so cool! What is it?” As Elijah spoke he got closer to him and looked like he wanted to touch the Wyrm armour he now had on. He hesitated before actually touching him and Shuan just gave him a nod and held his arm out so the boy could feel the material.
“The material is from an Adult Death Wyrm, I bought it in the tutorial and then crafted the armour. Cool right?” Elijah’s eyes went wide and the moment he felt the armour a full body shiver went through the boy and he took a step back. “It is Epic grade and trust me when I say that it has some interesting features that I think will come in handy when dealing with Astrid. Just don’t be scared, when I tell you to move behind me don’t hesitate, I will shield you from the effect as much as possible. If you want you can leave the building when I approach Astrid, it may be better if you don’t feel the fear that I can emit with it on.” He had purposefully left out saying anything about his level, that would be a much larger conversation they would need to have in the future.
“No! I want to be there. I have to be there. Please.” Hearing Elijah plead to him to let him stay, Shaun considered it for a moment and agreed to let him.
It was only a minute or so later that they got to the house in question, it looked not that much different form the outside from those around it and he felt two people inside. Since he had put on his armour, he had been getting more looks from people in the streets but none had approached or bothered them, if anything they were curious.
Stopping at the door Shuan turned to Elijah, giving him one last look before he gave him a small smile and opened the door. When they both walked in he got a good look of the house, it was very open plan on the ground floor with a few rooms including what looked like an office, where the two people were currently in. Upstairs was the bedrooms, and at current all were empty considering the kids were not here.
“You ready for this?” Elijah only hesitated a moment before a look of pure determination came over him.
“Yeah, I am ready.”
Taking that as his queue Shaun walked up to the closed door to the office and knocked on it three times. Immediately one of the people in the room moved to open the door. The person that greeted him as the door opened was Astrid. She was a middle aged women on the slightly short side and when he identified her found here to be level 7, higher than he expected.
Looking past her he saw that the other person in the room was much stronger at level 19 and from what he could see looked to be someone with influence, at least in this area going by the smug look on his face.
“Oh Elijah, what have you done now?” Astrid spoke directly to Elijah behind him before looking back at Shaun with an apologetic look on her face. “I apologise for any trouble that he has caused you. He is a troubled boy, but I promise I will set him straight.”
“He has caused me no trouble, and don’t apologise to me, I believe that you owe him the apology.” When he gestured at Elijah she started to look confused. “I know about everything that is happening here, everything you have been doing to the kids.”
“I have no idea what you are talking about. I have done nothing to them except make sure that they are cared for! I was appointed to look after the kids and I have done so in the way they need!” Astrid was getting angry, furious even at the idea of someone asking her to apologize for what she had done. That just made him angry in turn.
“I don’t know who you are but that stupid armour doesn’t scare me. You know who I am? I am one of the main guards here, I will happily have you thrown out of the settlement if you don’t back off!” The other guy in the room was an idiot, had neither of these people identified him?
Shaun chuckled to himself, people really were stupid. This was why he preferred to be alone. “You should be scared. Why don’t you identify me and try to piece it together. If you are a such an important person you should have no issue figuring out who I am.”
It took a minute for them to identify him, when they did they started looking confused and then scared. Now lets see if this idiot can figure it out.
“You….Your him……” The guard stumbled out the words, but it seemed like he was in the know as to who he was to this settlement, or at least as much as Viv had decided to tell people.
“I am me.” He chuckled again at the ridiculous of the situation. “Now why don’t we see if we can do his again. I think Elijah here deserves an apology, not to mention the both of you are going to need to pay for what has occurred here.”
“I don’t care who you are! I will not apologize for putting these kids in their place. Without me they have no one! I will not have these delinquents ruining the only place that can keep us safe!” This woman is an idiot.
“Let’s see if we can change that, shall we?” Leaving no room for more talking he started letting his aura out, specifically aimed at just the two people in the room, making sure that Elijah was protected from the effect.
He had only let out the smallest amount of aura he could and still the effect was noticeable. Astrid started to get wobbly on her feet and he could see that she was beyond terrified. The guard though was holding up slightly better, if only barely. Seeing that they weren’t about to faint he let out a little more of his aura, really focusing on inducing the fear of death on them. This time they both fell to the floor, Astrid even started sobbing.
“This is only a small amount of my power, I’m afraid if I released all of it you would both die. But don’t worry, I won’t kill you now. But if you ever harm another kid, I will ensure you will be begging for death.” When they were very near their breaking point, he sent out a final, more powerful wave of his aura which rendered them both unconscious.
Turning around he looked at Elijah. He had protected him from the auras effect but he still witnessed what he had done. Rather than looking at him like he was a monster, Elijah was looking at him like he was some kind of god.
“You are incredible!” That was not what he had expected to here from the boy. “You didn’t even touch them and you were able to knock them out! They looked like they thought they were going to die! Was that a skill? Can you teach me?”
He couldn’t help chuckle at the enthusiasm that Elijah was showing. He couldn’t blame him but he had expected more fear to come from him considering what he had done. “Why don’t you head upstairs and gather everything you need. We can talk more about me and what we can do when the time is right.”
Elijah looked like he wanted to argue but held himself back, showing a good amount of restraint for a teenager. It only took a few minutes for Elijah to run upstairs, gather everything he needed and then rush back down. He was panting by the time he was done but he couldn’t fault the boy’s eagerness to get out of here.
“So where do we go now?” the excitement was clear in his tone, he was ready for what happened next.
“Last time I was here I was staying in the big house off of the town hall, although that wasn’t in this city, but it isn’t far from here. We will probably head there but I will check with Eric.” It took only a few seconds for him to contact Eric and confirm that was where he was headed with the other kids, he tried to talk to him more about what Grace had told him, but Shuan cut him off, wanting to have that conversation in person.
Shaun brought up his mental map of the area and found that the house he wanted to go to was going to take at least a few hours walking at Elijah’s pace, that meant that it would be a while yet for Eric to arrive.
“Hey Elijah, are you scared of heights?”
“No, not really, why?” The boy was looking somewhat suspicious of him now.
“How would you feel about riding piggy back so we can get where we need to go quicker?” Just say yes, please.
“You want me to ride on your back?” When Shaun nodded at him, Elijah considered it for a moment before replying. “Only if you answer all my questions.”
“Deal, but only if you don’t scream.” This is going to be fun.
They both walked outside and onto the street. Rather than hide anywhere Shaun motioned for Elijah to climb onto his back. He only hesitated for a second before he did as he was asked. At first the Elijah didn’t really hold on that tightly to him, so instead Shaun grabbed hold of his arms and held them tightly so that he wouldn’t fall.
People walking by had started to give them weird looks, but ignoring them was easy enough for him, for Elijah, not so much.
“I don’t know about this anymore, people are staring. Maybe I should just walk.” Too late.
“Nah, this is way more fun.” Not giving Elijah any more time to back out he pulled the air around him in and building pressure under his feet he pushed himself 50 metres into the air in a matter of seconds.
Elijah having been given no warning screamed into his ear and clung onto him for dear life. He couldn’t help but laugh at the situation. Whey they reached optimal height Shaun started leaping through the air at a quick speed, aiming to not only get to the house as quickly as he could but also to have a little fun while doing it.
It didn’t take long for Elijah’s screams to turn into shouts of joy, before the integration the idea of running through the air would have been ridiculous, now though, it was a reality. It didn’t take long before they approached the house, cutting down hours of travel to minutes. Elijah made the most of every second, whooping into the air and laughing almost the entire time.
When the house came insight Shaun started lowering to the ground slowly until he finally touched down right at the front door. Plenty of people had watched him do it but his air affinity was no secret, so he really didn’t care. The moment he let Elijah off his back the boy nearly fell down, only Shaun grabbing his arm and steadying him saved him the embarrassment of falling.
“That was amazing! We are so doing that again!” He had only known Elijah a matter of hours, but if he was to guess this was the first time the boy had felt this amount of joy since before the integration.
“Come on Eli, let’s get inside and away from the on lookers.” For the hell of it Shaun messed up the boys hair which was already sticking all over the place from the flight.
When they got through the door and into the house Shaun knew there was a few people inside. The moment they heard him enter they came straight for him. The first person he saw was Gabe who didn’t hesitate to run up and hug him. Quickly he saw Li and Viv come into the entrance area as well as a few people he didn’t know.
“So, you finished all the E grade dungeons?” Vic was the first to speak to him and she looked a little annoyed. He let go of Gabe and gave everyone else a nod.
“They are. The terraforming will be another 3 days and then I can finish what I need for the ward.” His tone wasn’t very friendly, he was still pretty pissed at the state of what was happening in the settlement to really be able to put on a happy face. “Before that though, you have some explaining to do.”