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27.2% The embodiment of a new world / Chapter 37: The Coming of Age Ceremony

Chapter 37: The Coming of Age Ceremony

The few days Eden spent before Athis' coming-of-age ceremony passed at a very high speed.

Athis stayed in the room assigned to him by his mother when he came with Eden. He didn't leave this room, and even seeing the servants coming for delivering food to him made him uncomfortable.

In addition, the fact that Eden only kept him company during the evenings made things all the more complicated. He had to stay alone all day. There was practically nothing he could do in this room that seemed so small, but at the same time so big.

Finally, there was nothing he could do but think about the things Eden had told him the first day when he had finally to woke up.

'What should I do? I want to stay with him, but is it a good thing for him? Aren't I selfish to want to remain friends with him when I have nothing to offer?' It was this kind of thing that Athis was thinking about while he was alone.

On the other side, Eden had a bunch of things to do, and he managed to accomplish more or less all of them.

The first thing he did when he let Athis sleep after he had spoken with him was to find Aether's contact information.

He suspected something when he saw the behavior that Athis had with the members of his family that a few things were not going well, and he needed answers.

Eden then tried to ask Karaine, Rosalyne, the guards, or even the servants, but everyone seemed to be sewing mouth. Even Christian didn't tell him anything about it.

So he decided to take Aether's number, which he obtained through the Empress, to ask him what Athis had, and above all, why he behaved like this.

At first, seeing that Eden had contacted him, Aether was overjoyed, only to be disappointed by his friend's requests. Aether wanted to spend some quality time with Eden, but the latter had more important priorities than caring for his childish behavior.

So Aether told him everything that had happened. Everything from his childhood to now.

Athis' father who was different from that of Christian and Aether was only a commoner, while those of his brothers were respectively a nobleman and a merchant with great influence.

Athis' father, whose name was Shöto, was at first completely with Karaine. The two of them made Athis after only a few crazy dates.

They were both very happy. A child was a good omen after all, until the day Karaine learned that Shöto had cheated on her with another woman.

That day, the latter died, leaving Karaine who was 8 and a half months pregnant alone to take care of the future Athis. However, after she saw Shöto deceive her, she also wanted to kill the bastard's son who was in her womb.

Unfortunately for her, the moment she wanted to do it, Athis came into the world. After that day, Athis was abandoned by his mother, then by his mother's subjects who followed her in her every step.

He grew up in fear of the next day, in fear of not having food on his plate, or in the fear of being tortured by his brothers who beat him until his last breath, before healing him, to repeat the process once again.

The two princes didn't know why they were doing it, but it gave them pleasure, so it was a sufficient factor for them.

Things got even more complicated when Athis received his class at the age of 16. On Hydrel, all those who were not of the first generation of elected were granted a class at the age of 16 by the system. The class that was attributed was often related to those of their parents. This class was also subsequently influenced by the parent with the most value in the 'eyes' of the system.

Christian obtained for example the power of his mother's, the control over time, but only the offensive side, while Aether obtained the support side. Athis however obtained the class of his father, that is to say, the summoner.

This class was off-records in every single library or forum, and after seeing the uselessness of it, coupled with Athis' cowardliness, his harassment had only worsened.

Hearing the story of Athis, Eden wanted to set fire to the royal palace, but he calmed down quickly when he saw that protections were placed everywhere, in any corner of the palace.

"Can you tell me what changes does a status brings to an individual? Surely you were not stupid enough to judge a person with this, right? I'm sure if he was the son of a nobleman, no one would have touched him." Eden asked Aether in an annoyed tone.

"Things are not that simple, Eden. No matter what kingdom they reside in, every person must obey the rules of those who protect them. Here, in this case, my mother protects the kingdom, so each person who lives there must live according to these statuses." Aether replied proud of himself.

'It disgusts me. All these things they inflicted on him just for a simple rank? Just for a simple cheating?' Eden thought after calming down once again.

After talking with Aether for a while, the two men went their own way once again. Aether still had a lot of work to do, and he had abandoned it when Eden had called him.

The second thing Eden absolutely needed to do was to find a cure for his mana channel problem. Just thinking about it made him nauseous, and if he didn't want to end up useless, he had to find one.

Unfortunately for him, he found absolutely nothing about it. Nor did he want to ask the Empress for fear that his debt would only increase. And then, he was sure that he would find something at the academy. Surely they would have a giant library with a lot of books on these subjects right?

Thus, Athis' coming-of-age ceremony came very quickly. The latter was both grandiose and devoted to emotions. It looked like a book written by an amateur. It was certainly grandiose since it had been made by talented people, but there were no emotions inside as if it were to show the feelings that the royal family felt towards Athis.

The ceremony took place without any major events. But even though it was Athis' birthday, no one was interested in him. People only had eyes for Christian, Aether and finally Eden towards the end of the evening.

Their behavior made Eden angry to no end, but he remained passive throughout the evening, with the most beautiful of his business smiles.

After the ceremony, and after seeing all the attention he received because of his race, Eden decided to use his connection with Karaine to ask her for something that could hide his race, and those, even inside the academy.

He could certainly predict that the academy would have protections against this, so that's why he asked the Empress to get him one. He suspected that those he had seen in the virtual markets through his watch would not be enough to pass the protections of an academy where all continents sent their children. The academy couldn't let this kind of thing pass, and it did everything in its power to avoid a dire situation.

Karaine then gave him a small silver ring with a tiny diamond on top.

After inspecting it, and hearing Karaine's explication about the ring to input his mark in the magical object, Eden left her and went to spend his last days before going to the academy with Athis. He didn't know if they'll be together again once there, so he wanted to enjoy some time with his best friend as much as possible before it was too late.

And above all, the most important thing, since they had to leave the next day very early, Athis had to give him his answer.

Eden hoped that what Athis was going to tell him would be what he expected with all his heart. Unfortunately, Lady Luck is a cruel mistress, and this last one likes to leave when she was needed the most.

So Eden arrived at the door of their room before the sun could even set completely. Taking a deep breath, Eden knocked on the door

"Athis is Eden, can I come inside?" He asked in an angelic voice.

"Of course, it's our room, not only mine," Athis answered from the other side of the door.

Upon entering, Eden could see Athis lying on his bed, with his pajamas already on. He was lying down and was looking in the opposite direction to Eden.

Seeing his back, Eden sighed. He was not afraid of what Athis might say to him, but he would be very sad if he told him that he wanted to cut ties with him.

"*Siiigh*, Athis, I think we have to talk," Eden Said after a long sigh, before sitting on Athis' bed who still had his back turned.

"Yeah, we need to talk"


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Karme Karme

Good and bad news guys.

The good one is that I'm back.

The bad one is that I won't be able to write a chapter per day.

Anyway, I hope you still like TENW, and don't hesitate to leave a comment.^^

next chapter

Chapter 38: The decision

"*Siiigh*, Athis, I think we have to talk," Eden Said after a long sigh, before sitting on Athis' bed who still had his back turned.

"Yeah, we need to talk." He replied. "So, what do you plan to do tomorrow? Are you excited? Or stressed maybe?" Athis continued after turning toward Eden.

'Is he trying to avoid the topic? God, it's a bad omen then.' Eden thought while worrying internally.

"I don't know actually. I probably apprehend things a little bit? I mean, it's the first time that I will go there, it will be a new environment, and I don't know if I will meet good or bad people, or even if they have hidden agenda or not." Eden said while trying to bring what they were talking about toward what he wanted to know.

"I don't know where you grow up, or how you lived before coming here, but you don't have to worry though. Mankind isn't that bad, so you don't have to burden yourself with those types of thoughts." Athis replied with a gentle smile.

'Is he the one who's saying that? After undergoing what people did to him every day?' He thought while being even more worried.

"What about you? Do you feel scared? Or are you excited to meet new people?" Eden asks in return while sending back a beautiful smile.

"Hmm, I don't know actually. You know how I am with new people, and I'm afraid that they will go away once they will know how useless I am." He replied with a worried face.

"For god's sake, who said you were useless? I'm going to beat him to dea..." Eden was saying before seeing Athis' face.

His face was normal, at least for someone that didn't want to pay attention to what he felt. If someone truly cared for him like Eden, it would be easy to see how sad he was.

"Athis, what happened? Why does your face is that sad? Can you talk about it with me?" Eden asks in succession while approaching Athis a little bit more.

"Yeah? I'm really okay, why do you ask?"

"No your not, Athis. Why do you try to fool me so hard like this? I can tell that something is wrong. Did I do something wrong to upset you?"

"No, no, you got it all wrong. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Then why are you avoiding what we talked about the last time?" Eden asked with a firm voice. Unbeknownst to him that his eyes were glowing with a little tip of red.

Of course, Athis saw his eyes, and while he find it pretty, it also sent down shivers through his spine. It was like something was urging him to tell Eden the truce.

A truce that he didn't want to say.

While Eden's eyes were glowing just for a millisecond, the following silence was way longer. Both of them were waiting for the other to say something. But at the same time, they didn't want to say more.

While Eden was waiting for Athis to tell him what he wanted to know, Athis was waiting for the shiver to go away.

It was beginning to tire him out. Not physically, but mentally. So much that even his back was sweating.

After a few more moments, Eden decided to say something. It was quite sad, but he couldn't force Athis to answer.

"*Sigh*, so be it then. I won't force you to answer me, but at least hear me out." He said with a sad face. "At the beginning, I wasn't going to be friends with anyone in this world. I live some things that just crushed my hope in mankind, but as you said, not everyone is bad.

"I wanted to be friends with you. The memories that we did during our last outing were amazing, and I couldn't ask for more. You're an amazing guy, Athis. I'm sure that you could have a lot of friends, and when I say friends, I mean true friends, not just acquaintances. You just need to be a little bit more confident in yourself.

"Unfortunately, even though I still want to be your friend or even your best friend, there's no relationship that can exist when it's just one way. And before you say something, I know that you too, want to stay like this, but it will be hard if you don't give me an answer.

"And, Athis, I don't find you useless at all. I know that people can't go hand to hand, or even kill someone just like this, but I never ask you for any of this. I just wanted to be friends with you. I wanted to level up with you, laugh, or even cry, but well... it can't be helped.

"And one last thing, if you want to fight, then don't forget that a summoner doesn't need to go hand to hand. Your summons can do the job for you. You, you just need to analyze the enemy's pattern, and react accordingly, by giving a buff to a summon for example or even calling back one of them to send another one more appropriate for the fight.

"You don't have to be sad for what happened back then. I know that you could have done something, but I don't think that any of your summon will have been enough to defeat even one of these guys."

"Anyway," He said while standing up. "I'm going for a walk, and I will probably come late at night, so you don't have to wait for me." He said while heading toward the door with a caring smile.

After Eden had taken the door, Athis was alone in the room. Once again, he felt like his room was way bigger than what it was, and unbeknownst to him, tears were flowing down from his eyes.

What Eden had said had touched him more than what he was prepared for, and his resolution for breaking their friendship had once again crumbled.

During this week, he had changed his decision as often as a kid who wanted a specific flavor for his ice cream.

He had gone from staying friend and continuing their lives, to disappearing totally from Eden's life.

And yet, here he was, alone in his room, not knowing what to do. Tears were continuously flowing, and he didn't know what to do anymore.

Meanwhile, Eden was heading toward the garden. Taking a walk during the night with beautiful flowers everywhere was calming his mind more than he could've imagined.

Once there, he walked for an hour or so, before deciding to go toward a hill that was a little further away from the garden.

There, there was a giant cherry blossom tree, with petals that were flowing everywhere. The moon shone brightly, and it was reflecting on the cherry blossom. The scene was amazing, and only someone with night vision could appreciate such a moment.

"Did I do wrong by saying all of these to him?" He asked himself after seating down under the tree. "I know that it's hard to tell him these things, but he needs to be a little more decisive.

"… But was it necessary to say things like that? I could've just let him go without saying anything." His thoughts were conflictual, but he couldn't do anything about that.

Some would've said that what he had done was a good thing, but not for him. Not now at least.

He liked Athis like he was his little brother. He needed to make sure that he would grow up in a good environment, but it was all too late.

He had come in his life too late, and a day of good memories couldn't possibly replace years of bad ones, right?

"Haigh, I don't know what to do..." He said while leaning back on the tree.

"You should just let things flow normally" A voice suddenly said from behind the tree.

"Who's there?" Eden asked while creating his clones and waving multiple spells.

"I mean no harm, young one." The man said while coming from the back of the tree. "I'm just like you, I go out to take a little stroll, and for your information, I was there since the beginning" He continued while crossing his arms behind his back.

The man was quite old, in his late sixties maybe. Despite his age, he had a handsome face, blue eyes that shone under the moon, white long hair, and a beard that was blowing with the wind. He wore a grey wizard robe with gold shade on both sides of it. There was also a little wisp that was floating at his side, but the more prominent feature of the old man was his pointy ears.

"I see, hope you have a nice evening mister," Eden said before deactivating all of his spells and turning back.

"You don't have to go, young one. It will even be pleasant to talk with a vampire like you" The old man said with a benevolent smile.

"How do you know?" Eden asked before once again creating all spells he could imagine.


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Karme Karme

Sorry for not posting much last week. I will try to upload more chapters for this one. ^^

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