Passing servants on his way out of the manor, he looked at them with disgust, they were like slaves, with no will of their own, and they were used by the nobles, the empire will free them when Amadal is conquered, as well as free all the people of the other kingdoms, many of his comrads were preparing for the empire's invasion in the other kingdoms, they will all burn, and from the ashes a new world will be born, a better world, under the empire's rule. 1
Derman needed to confront what had happened to him yesterday, if what he suspected was true, then he had to make a decision on what to do, and Hannam was the strongest strengthened one who is also loyal to him, Derman could trust him with his life, mainly because he had saved him many times.
After a few minutes, a knock came at the door, followed by a hulking mass of muscles; Hannam was tall even compared to Derman, who was one hundred and eighty three centimeters tall, and was considered to be quite a tall man, looked like a child in front of him, he must have been more than two meters tall, with thick wide shoulders and thick arms, he could split a normal man in two with no effort.
He walked into the chambers with a conflicted expression on his face, stopping in front of Derman, he bowed and waited for Derman to tell him the reason why he summoned him, even though he already knew why, after all, he was present when he killed Kalan.
"I apologize for summoning you this early, Hannam" He said.
"Nothing to apologize for, prince, I was just training when Angar came and told me you requested ma presence, I came running right away"
Hannam was a countryman, he used to be a farmer until he was recruited by the military in the war, where he was found to the potential and trained, when the war ended he came back home to find his village had been looted by bandits, and all his family had been killed, except that he did not find his little daughter's corpse among the others, which gave him hope that she was still alive, so he went to hunt down the bandits.
When he found them, he slaughtered them all, and found his daughter, though she was still alive, unfortunately he was too late and by the time he found her, her mind was broken from what the bandits did to her, he found other captives too, women kidnapped from other villages for the bandits' to play with, he released them all and took his daughter away.
That was when Derman had found him, he hired the greatest wise-ones to try and heal her mind, but to no avail, now, it was almost as if she had no soul, and needed to be tended to all the time, Derman hired a widow woman who had experience in dealing in such cases as she had tended to her own husband who was the same before he passed away.
Derman hesitated a little bit about how to say what he wanted, then just said, "I want to understand what happened to me yesterday, and I want you to train me"
The giant man stiffened "we already tried bloody training you, but you didn't have the bloody potential, as for what happened yesterday... I don't really bloody know what bloody happened, and don't want to bloody find out!"
Derman suppressed a smile, he was used to Hannam's way of speaking through his time being trained by him, any other time he talked normally, but once you brought training to the conversation…
"Either way you are going to try and train me again, Hannam, I need your help, you are the only person I trust who has the qualifications to teach me, you are the best strengthened in the kingdom!" He finished. A little praise will help, especially with Hannam he really loved being praised.
"Of course I bloody am the best, they say that that bloody midget Aghrom is the best, but I always knew you were smart, you see the truth!" He laughed and slapped him on the back, the force of it sent Derman stumbling to the ground.
Oh, and the 'midget' nemed Aghrom that he spoke of was almost as tall as Hannam himself, so if he was a midget, then what was Derman? A mouse?
He looked at him up and down and said "last time we tried to train you we went easy on you, this time, if you don't break through…" He removed his coat, revealing his bulging muscles.
"If I do not break through then what?" Derman frowned.
"If you don't break through your body's limits then your body will break down" He said matter-of-factly as if he was not saying that there was a real possibility that he could die.
"well, I'm sure you will break through now, especially with what happened yesterday, and if you don't… that just would be a bloody shame wouldn't it" He added with a grin, now he did not seem so stiff about what happened, in fact, Derman could almost believe that the man was exited from the wide grin on his face.
After half an hour of pure torture, Derman was breathing heavily, gasping for breath while lying on his back on the floor, he could almost scream from the pain that he felt in his muscles, he felt as if all of them had turned into slime, and still he felt no difference, he still has not broken through his limits, but thankfully, his body has not broken either.
A frowning Hannam kneeled beside him and spoke, "That was bloody weird, never thought you had so much damn stamina, most strengthened I helped break through had already did so by this time, it must be because you were training too bloody hard", He grabbed Derman's left arm and pulled him up like a doll, Derman's arm looked like a twig in the giant's hand, even though he was actually a bit muscular himself, compared to normal humans at least.