Bab 2: Shin Kinghad

....

For as long as I could remember, I had been living in this hell since I was 3 years old. How did I know? It's because I happened to see the record book of all the children that had been brought here.

When were they brought here?

What were their ages when they were brought in?

Where did they come from?

What was their background?

For how long had they been in the camp?

How much did they improve?

Practically everything they knew about the kids was in there. Some of them were found from the streets or the slums, with no parents and no clear background.

I tried to find something about me, but unfortunately, all I got was my age when I had been brought in and the place where they took me from. It was in an amusement park in the 'Eastern Blue District'. Aside from that, I've got nothing.

In this place, we had to follow a very strict schedule.

Waking up at 5 in the morning to some martial-art training.

Taking different kinds of lessons after breakfast and then continuing after lunch.

Medical and medicinal knowledge, different kinds of languages, all kinds of musical instruments, various types of visual arts, science and technology, and mathematical knowledge.

They would teach us all kind of things.

In the afternoon, we had to do some obstacle training and then sparring with the other kids afterwards.

Then go to sleep after dinner.

Here Strength was Supreme, while Knowledge was Power.

If you were not strong enough, you were going to get beaten up so badly that you couldn't even feel your own body anymore.

If you were not smart enough, there was no food for you to eat.

If you were not good enough then you were going to sleep on the floor with no blanket.

I had been living this kind of dull life for almost 4 years.

Beating up others so that I would not get wasted.

Outshining everyone to get some food.

It was like living in a dull, monochrome world. And I thought I was going to live like that for rest of my life.

Until that girl entered the camp. Clear blue eyes that were full of life, a perfect, oval face, long and soft silver hair and a smooth jade-like skin. She was an energetic and charming girl.

She always smiled at others as if she was not affected by what was happening in her surroundings. Treating other's wounds when they were hurt, sharing her food with those that failed the test and encouraging everyone to do their best.

Then I found myself too close to her. We were always talking to each other when we had some time to spare. There was nothing that I could share with her, but she always used to tell me about the life outside this place. Sometimes, she even talked about her family. She always treated me as her little brother.

I don't know why, but I just got attracted and became dependent on her. And I promised myself that I would protect that beautiful smile of hers.

But life is too cruel. I couldn't do anything to save her when she was executed in front of everyone. And what was worse was that she was executed because of someone else's fault. They said she was trying to escape, but truth was, she was preventing others from escaping. They accused her so that they wouldn't get punished when the warden discovered their plan. They betrayed her and pushed her to her death.

I hated myself at the time for being too weak to defend her innocence! I hated myself for failing to protect that smile!

And because of that, I trained even harder so I could avenge her death.

Even though I had become stronger than them, I still couldn't kill them yet. All I could do was beat them and break their bones during sparring matches. And even though I was always first in everything, I felt really empty because I couldn't have my revenge. So all I could do was wait. Wait for the perfect opportunity to send them to meet her on the other side.

Then one day the Boss presented me the perfect opportunity to strike.

...

A car was traveling to Royal Capital City. And inside it, Shin was sleeping peacefully. A few moments later, he opened his eyes after a long dream and muttered to himself, "So that's what happened".

Even though he was quite confused because of some missing events in his memory, his lips still formed a bright smile. He looked outside the window and whispered, "I have finally avenged you Big Sis. I hope you are happy over there."

When Captain Springfield saw that Shin had woken up and was whispering something to the air, he smirked and said, "Still dreaming? We're almost there, so you should adjust yourself to face a new environment".

Shin gave a side-eyed glance to him and said, "I'm a trained young mafia agent and not some ignorant caveman that doesn't know anything about the world OK?"

The corner of Captain Springfield's smile twitched when he heard Shin's reply. "Hey kiddo, you should learn how to respect your elders."

"But not all elders are respectable." Shin's rebutted. Then he continued to look outside the window.

...

In a Villa in the outskirts of one of the City in the Western Plains Region, a man was lying on a bed. His right arm was swathed in bandages, while his right leg was wrapped in plaster. This man had a triangular face with small, cunning eyes. He had a diagonal scar on the corner of his brows. He was 'Snake Head', the Boss of the notorious 'Black Serpent Mafia'.

A man in a suit entered the room while holding a pile of books. After he put it on the table beside the bed, he turned around to leave, but he stopped his feet when he heard Snake Head's voice.

"What's the progress?"

The man turned to face his boss and said, "We are doing our best to find that B*stard's location. He is going to suffer an outcome worse than death for betraying us!"

Then he helped the boss to get into a more comfortable position before continuing, "As for that kid at the base, we have encountered a very troublesome situation. He was taken away by 'Bernard Springfield' into the Capital City of Main Region to be taken under his wing. And by the looks of it, he is going to adopt the kid so that he can monitor him more closely."

Snake Head fell into deep thought when he heard about the kid being brought into the Capital City of the Main Region, deliberating the pros and cons of the situation. After some consideration he said, "Forget about it, if he is planning to adopt the kid then it is not an ordinary trouble anymore, because there's an 'Old Demon' guarding that place. What about the experiment?"

"Unfortunately, we failed to read deeper into his memories. We couldn't even penetrate his inner mind, as if there was something preventing us from going farther, let alone rewriting it. All that we could do was to erase some of his recent memories regarding the camp."

When Snake Head heard that, he said, "OK, forget about that boy for now. Don't do any stup*d stuff against him without my permission if you don't want to alert those in the military. Just focus all your thoughts in completing 'Project Eve'".

"Alright Boss", after saying that, the man in the suit turned around and left.

After his subordinate closed the door, Snake Head stared at the ceiling and muttered, "In the end, I couldn't even confirm my suspicions in these past 6 years. Shin Kinghad, are you really the son of that man?"

.....

The car that Shin was riding in, finally reached its destination.

The moment Shin exited the car, he couldn't help but stare at the huge Mansion that majestically stood in front of him. He couldn't even move his eyes away from the giant statue of a dragon sitting in the middle of a fountain.

The Dragon was 5 meter tall, looking towards the heavens as if challenging their authority. The boulder under its feet had the words 'Springfield' engraved on it.

He only came back to reality when Captain Springfield called out to him, "That's enough of dozing off, let's go inside."

When Shin heard the captain and saw him walking to towards the door, he caught up to him and asked suspiciously, "How did you get a place like this? Is the salary of a special force captain high enough for you to afford this?"

Captain Springfield froze and shot a deadly glare to Shin. But Shin didn't get intimidated and continued to throw his verbal attacks, "No, that shouldn't be the case. Maybe your parents are rich to begin with or your wife is a very successful woman. A muscle head like you couldn't have that kind of money".

"Kid, will it kill you if you keep your mouth shut?" The veins on captain's head started popping out when he saw that Shin didn't plan on stopping.

Walking into the hall, Shin's eyes got attracted to a map that was drawn on one of the walls.

He wasn't attracted to it because it was a complete and very detailed map, but because it was very rare to see this kind of an old-school artifact anywhere. In this age of Advance Technology, where almost all of the people were using 'Advance Watches', you could practically search anything that you wanted to know.

Moreover, this map was extremely detailed with Cities, Plains, Rivers and all kinds of different places present on it.

The world was divided into seven major continents. The Soaring Continent, Deep Blue Continent, Clear Sky Continent, Dark Continent, Sun-Moon Continent, Silver Wing Continent, and Lost Soul Continent.

Each Continent was further divided into Regions. Soaring Continent had five Regions: The Eastern Sea, Western Plains, Northern Blue, Southern Fog and Main Region.

While Shin was engrossed in studying the map, he heard an Old man's voice coming from beside him, "Impressive isn't it? It cost me a large fortune just to invite the World's Best Geographers, Cartographers and Navigators to make this."

Shin was about to say something, but the moment he turned his head to see who it was, he froze in his place, because the pressure that was being released by this old man was terrifying. The more Shin look at him, the heavier the pressure on him got. It was as if the whole world was being pressed onto him.

The man that was standing beside him had a very muscular and well-built body that was two meter tall. Compare to a 9 year old kid like him, this old man looked like a giant. He was the 'Demon Fist General', Samuel Springfield.

The moment Samuel Springfield heard from his son, Bernard, that he found a kid in the Black Serpent Mafia's hideout, he asked him to bring the kid to the Capital City so that he could take a look at him.

He knew that the Organization had a very high training standard since they had highly skilled special agents. Even though these agents rarely showed themselves, they would be an immense threat when they did.

And since he was looking for a suitable opponent for his grandson, he wanted to give it a try. But when he saw that Shin was able to hold himself straight for a few minutes, he was surprised. Even though Shin's forehead was covered in sweat, he still managed to endure the part of the pressure that the General had released.

"The willpower of this kid is abnormally strong for his age." He muttered to himself before removing his aura.

He looked at Shin and said with a wide grin on his face, "Not bad kid, you have a very strong mind. You have a very high potential".

He turned to Captain Bernard, "You should bring him to his room so that he can rest. Your wife took the children to visit her parents. I guess they will be back after a week or two". After that, he left and entered one of the corridors in the hall.

When Shin was sure that the Old Demon left, he looked at Captain Bernard and asked, "Hey Old man! Who was that Older man earlier? "

The corner of the captain's mouth twitched, "That's my father, Samuel Springfield, the head of this household".

Shin was at a loss for a moment when he heard that. He came back to his senses when he realized who it was. "The Demon Fist General!!! Sure enough, those old monsters are scary."

"You know my father?" asked the Captain while looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Of course! He is one of the people on the 'must watch out for and never provoke' list on the organization", said Shin while looking at the captain as if he was an idiot.

"You...." Captain Bernard got pissed when he saw that look. 'This kid is treating me like I'm just some John Doe on the street'.

"Never mind then. Let's go, I'll show you where you are going to stay for the next few weeks, since your opponent is not here." He led Shin to his room while sighing to himself, 'Kids these days'.