After Failing to assassinate Rapt, Jameson and his party had managed to successful escape. They hat the wide area attacks used to slow down the beasts provided by Sora, Kurt, and Abe to thank. They were now kneeling in front of the head of the Freda family and its elders. The first to talk was the current head of the family, Boise Freda, as he pinned the five with a serious stare," Report, was the mission successful or have you returned as failures."
" We failed the mission master Ferda", Jameson stated as he lowered his head in shame. "The Blessed beast's senses are sharp toward danger, sharper than we expected. Even after we blinded it, it still dodged my attack leading us to retreat empty handed because our cover was blown. The blessed beast was in the middle of an attack on another beast and heavily injured at that, yet it broke off the attack and dodge at the last minute."
"Hmm interesting, this creature what does it look like exactly and what level did it have? At least this information shall be useful to the king."
"It was a strange creature like a feathered lizard except it stands on two legs with short arms with talons, a flat snout and a strong looking tail. Its color is primarily a light blue with splashes of white also in the mix, but we don't know what element it has as of now. It seemed to be a strong level 2, but it was struggling against a level 3 rock snake lizard. It would've won the fight with heavy injuries, if not for our interference."
"If I may, Master Ferda" Shan said, her voice filled anxiousness.
"Speak"
"Like stated before this beast seemed to have heightened instincts to the point that only a medium scale attack would've been needed. It wasn't overwhelming fast or strong, but its stat's seemed to be well balanced providing it with well-rounded capabilities. It showed great trust in it's instincts and reacts accordingly. I think it has mana sense, also. From what we saw during the small amount of the fight, It dodged most serious injuries as most of its wounds were superficial with few deep wounds including the one Jameson inflicted in the end."
Hearing this information, the Head and elders dismissed them after stating that their respective family leader would receive their punishments for failing. Boise and the elders went into deep thought to prepare before deliberation on the matter. Sitting in his chair, Boise Freda, was in deep thought about what he had heard and felt ashamed that such a weak blessed had escaped. 'It was due to my negligence.' he thought 'I should have personal seen to it that this blessed beast was killed'.
We shall punish those five and their families for this insolence!!!" the elder Bax said with anger filling words. This caused the 5 elders look around the table as they received this proclamation with mixed feelings. Each of the elders had some type of connection with each one of these families making them hesitant to severely punish them. All the elders return to quietly thinking about the situation they were currently in.
While the elders were thinking, Boise was focusing on what brought them to this conclusion. In all the ranked families all decisions were voted on and made be by them. Those that voted against sending the branch family members were enraged and disappointed by the failure and the loss of reputation that it would bring. While those that voted opposite felt ashamed and embarrassed for those that they had fought for.
Jameson and the rest worried as they heard the elder's outburst, they felt that punishment would come sooner or later and were mentally preparing themselves. They left to go tell their respective family leaders about what happen and to prepare for any punishment that would fall their way.
"No, the fault is on me as the family leader I failed in my judgement and left it up to you elders." Boise said
"You merely followed through with what you thought would be best and now isn't the time to point blame or give punishments. This is the time to use this humbling moment to stoke a fire in our family and push them to grow." Elder Glen said something that brought fire to the other elders' eyes. They were already thinking of the training and wisdom they would glad bestow onto the main and branch families. They slowly started to understand how their leader felt since they helped to guide the family all faults and blame would fall on them.
Unknown, by Jameson and the others, they had brought a reckoning to their family fuel by their failure. The Elder's stop thinking about the failure but decided to focus on the reason behind the failure. They had become complacent and incompetent. Now they would begin to answer for that neglect by making training harsher for those in the family.
The leader Boise left the elders to their plan's and made his way out of the family lands. Walking through he was greeted by all of his clansmen, thinking to himself ' I have failed them'. He, then activated his movement skill [wind walker], a level 3 skill that allowed the user to walk on pockets of air, to quickly skip the crowded streets. Walking above the buildings Boise looked at other citizens going about their day. The hunters preparing to go into the forest, merchants trying to sell their wares, and farmers heading to the fields to tend to the crops.
When he arrived close to the king's castle, he quickly canceled his skill as it was forbidden for anyone except for the guards to use skills without the king's permission. Landing a few meters outside of the castle entrance, he nodded to the guard stationed at the gates as he made his way through. 'Every time no matter how many times I see the castle, I am amazed', thought as he looked at the towering castle. The castle stood in the center of the Kingdom on two squared kilometers of land.
Its lands held the training hall for the guards and Royal Family, housing for the Royal Elders and their families, the Royal Garden, and many others buildings and areas. Most of these were off limits even to the families by decree of the king. Only those given express permission were allowed to enter.
The King had personally built the buildings in the castle lands. It was said that he worked tirelessly for one month on the castle alone using it as training as he manipulated, refined, and built the walls of the castle using his earth skills.
Boise continued to walk to the castle taking in the view of the color scheme provided by the Queen, who used royal blue and dark brown with hints of white and blacks to highlight their marriage. Walking up the steps, he greeted the royal family members as they went about their day and was greeted by the servants that attended to them. He walked to the advisor's chamber where he saw the other ten family Head's standing in front of their seats and took his place in front of his chair.
The room had a u-shaped table with ten chairs for the leaders. Another ten chairs placed to sides of the king's chair that the Royal Elders sat in. With all the leaders present the Elders walked out and stood in front of their seats as the leaders stood up from theirs to welcome the king as he walked out. The king looked at the leader and elders in the room before nodding acknowledging them and taking his seat, which prompted the others to follow.
"Boise report on the mission have we succeeded or failed?"
Boise them told the King what his subordinates told him about the blessed beast and that it had managed to survive. He received glares and pensive stares from the elders and his peers as the King listened with his poker face. "This unfortunate", were the only words he said before he heard the powerful roars of the previous beast's tribe. They were letting it beknown that their scheme had not gone unnoticed. The Leaders rushed to assemble their forces alongside the king as his guards prepared themselves.
The rest of the kingdom went on lockdown as this was the norm when evolved Beasts became active. They (a similar procedure like that of a movie about giant robots V.s kaiju released in the states) reporting to the giant underground bunker closest to their area. Those in the slums had it bad still since the had to store the livestock in their bunker even if other bunkers were could contain some of them. The bunker in the slum would usually be overcrowded because of this issue.
This was where Ria Might sat near her father practicing with mana as she struggled to breakthrough to the next level.