"He left for the city? I see... Send men to watch over him."
"Yes, Sir!"
Felyp was conflicted. He knew his son was too young to be shown a bloody battlefield. Even though Noah was subjected to the same education he had as a baby, which was a special education the Vyolor family created to ready the next heir psychologically from an early age. He was still the father of that kid, and he didn't want to see his son getting traumatized, just like most fathers out there.
'I am sorry Noah... But it is better for you to be shocked now than stutter and hesitate later...'
Being a margrave wasn't an easy task, and one had to be raised thoroughly to be able to be a general, soldier and a politician at the same time. That's why Vyolor heirs were educated about violence and when it is necessary at as young as three years old. After that came familiarising the kid to death by teaching them how to hunt and butcher small animals.
And usually, the heir is shown a battlefield between the ages of six and ten. Noah had just become a six year old and Felyp didn't want to do this at first, but a chance to show him an example of a colossus, which is one of the main enemies a Margrave has to deal with was too good to pass.
After apologizing to Noah once again in his mind, he walked out of the tent and watched the battlefield. Men were dying, and he felt bitter. He saw numerous battlefields in his life, both on land and sea, and he fought many battles. But he still felt bitter after seeing men die at his orders. Even though he got the education of the family, he wasn't shown a real battlefield until he was sixteen years old, because of an unusual period of peace and low colossus appearance during his teenage years.
He blamed his empathy that was still alive even after being to many wars and battles on this. He thought that the reason he still felt bitter was because he didn't get the chance to get used to the battlefield before puberty.
That's why, enduring the pain that came from seeing his son in pain, he forced himself to show Noah this scene, which made even him feel bad and horrified.
But the situation wasn't all that dark, as the soldiers were pushing back the monsters little by little, and it had been like that from the start. The only problem was the surprize of a colossus appearing, but it's effects were already gone, and humans were winning.
Even still, the battle needed to end before night. Humans had to sleep, but monsters usually didn't. Colossus' and their minions which usually showed weird behaviours that differed from monsters like nest building or multiplying were an exception sometimes. These bugs were one of those, even though they needed sleep for some reason, they were taking turns to sleep. The battle has been going on for three days, and the bugs were still organized.
Felyp, watching the battlefield, saw a slight opening in the monster horde that could let him attack the Horde Queen without problems, and he had no choice but to bet on this opening. He quickly gathered Dennis, Jack and Clark; and took them with him towards the battlefield again.
This time, they were flying over the battlefield with the help of Jack's magic and Dennis' protection. The group barely managed to get near the queen, and Felyp ordered his men to stop the minions from bothering him while he fought with the Queen.
His group quickly took care of the task and created an area around Felyp that no minions could come into.
Felyp started attacking the Queen, but his sword wasn't strong enough to damage it's armour. Since his sword wasn't made for an energy mage like him, he couldn't use his magic to boost his attacks, and had to use his magic without the help of his sword.
In the end, he couldn't do much damage since the Queen's pink-purple exoskeleton which was almost like a metal armour, was strong against heat and other types of his magic attacks.
To get the help of his men, he ordered a corridor to be made towards him by normal soldiers and free his men to aid him.
After an hour of fighting with the Queen, with the help of his comrades and at the cost of many lives, Felyp could blow a big blow to the Queen, cutting it in half with the attack. The half of the Queen with the head left it's minions behind and ran away.
Because of his bravery in battling the Queen, Felyp was rewarded with materials from the colossus, which in the near future would be made into his sword Mordais.
The Queen was announced defeated after neighbouring countries confirmed no reports of it's appearance.
*****
Noah was wandering around the streets of Asmil city. He was feeling down, and his mind was a mess. The sight of the battlefield was hard to forget, and the questions and thoughts floating in his head were too heavy to handle for a six year old boy like him.
Maybe that's why, he found himself in front of a confectionary shop. He walked inside and looked at the colourful sweets and desserts. No one was inside the shop, so Noah continued looking at the cakes and a dessert that looked different than the others catched his attention.
The dessert was made from many thin brown strands, with crushed nuts on top of it. The dessert looked wet, and smelled like sugar.
"Do you want to taste it?"
"Hya!"
Startling Noah, a boy of similar age suddenly appeared behind him.
The boy had short dark orange hair and black eyes with the slightly brown skin colour of the Ale-An people. He was wearing a white sleeveless t-shirt and egyptian blue shorts.
The boy had a friendly smile on his face.
"Hi! My name is Hadeem Il-Muht, what is your name?"
"N-Noah."
Noah felt the need to hide his surname, and he only muttered his name.
"You were looking pretty intently at that dessert. Do you want some?"
"No- Yes I do, but that's not why I was looking at it."
"Hm?"
"I never saw something like that, so I was curious..."
"Oh! That's normal. My family owns this shop, and we are Ale-An's from the south. That's an Ale-An dessert. So, this is your first time coming here, right?"
"Yes."
"Then you can take a slice for free!"
"I-I can't-"
"Take it! It's a gift."
"Bu-"
"If you want to pay, then become my friend as payment!"
"Huh? A-Are you sure?"
"Yeah!"
Noah took the dessert and ate it. The dessert was syrupy, but the heavy sugar was softened by a milky cream inside the dessert. The stringy dough matched greatly with the crushed nuts and everything together matched really well into a great taste.
"Is it good?"
"Yeah."
"I know, right?"
Hadeem took a slice and ate it himself. After drinking water to wash off the aftertaste of the syrup, Hadeem asked Noah to play together and started to teach him about a game Ale-An kids play together.
*****
"Your Highness, the Altus Empire has defeated the colossus. We can return the army from standing on guard at the border, if that is what you wish."
Sitting on the throne of the Armilat Kingdom was Rahid Il-Armilat, the king. With his dark yellow coloured hair under the traditional crown that looked like a red cylinder with golden ornaments on it, his pale blue eyes had a piercing gaze.
After hearing what the servant said, and a little bit of thinking, he opened his mouth.
"We suffered from droughts for a while, right? Just at the other side of the Werga, is the fertile land of the Altus, fed by the Brutea River..."
"Your Highness, do you mean?.."
"Yes. Prepare the army, we will be crossing the Werga from the Twin Peaks while they are disorganized and recovering."
"Yes, Your Highness.", said the servant and left after bowing.