"Kieran Stormrider, you are hereby banished from Mistwood Village!" One of the village elders shouted, his order soon followed by the audible chatter of the other members of the village council.
Kieran stood before the village council, facing judgement for what had transpired the previous day. The harm he had threatened to bring upon the village while being in control of a demon, it could not be ignored by the village council. Thus, just like everyone else, he wasn't above the law.
Kieran bowed down his head as a sign of respect to the village elders. He requested that he may take his leave. After looking at each other, the elders gave him permission, he would have to head back home and pack all the things he would need before leaving the village. Although the elders felt sympathy for him, even they could not afford to go against the law for fear of invoking the wrath of the villagers. Mistwood Village had always been a community that valued traditions above all else.
He then turned around and left the large building structure that served as accommodation for the elders. "I guess this is the end of my time here."
Upon leaving the large building, Kieran clenched his fist and started running towards his home.
"To think that after everything I did to hold myself back, I wasn't able to resist the influence of that demon for much longer. What the hell am I going to do now?"
Kieran slowed down his stride and stopped. He placed both of his hands together, and a faint ball of light began to form. When he was just a few meters away from a fairly-large boulder, he threw his hands forward and the beam of light shot out from his hands.
Kieran had nowhere to go, he had no other relatives outside of the village who would bother to take care of him now that he was banished. Hence, he knew that the only thing he could do was somehow find a way to grow his magic powers, make himself strong enough to survive in the outside world all on his own. As the light travelled through the air, it quickly reached a point where it completely vanished, a far distance away from even touching the boulder.
"Hey! Who's that?" A kid among the crowd of children playing on the open street said. "Is he trying to cast a magic spell?"
A crowd of children had immediately formed around him, interested in what he was trying to do. One of the kids ran up to him to ask him a question.
Upon making it closer to the Kieran, the kid felt a hand grab him from behind, pulling him back. When the boy turned to see who it was, he could tell that it was his friend giving him a warning look. The kid instantly backed away and acted as if nothing had happened.
The moment the boy moved back, Kieran could see the boy's friends laughing at him.
"I can't believe you actually wanted to talk to the 'Demon'"
"I forgot that my parents told me to avoid him!" The boy retorted, shaking his fist.
Ignoring the children, Kieran moved aside and looked down at his hands. He tried to activate his magic once again, but to his dismay, he could sense nothing. Instead of thinking much about it now, he decided to head back home and deal with that issue later.
"This day just keeps getting better. I wonder what's next?"
Today was supposed to be another day of Hunter's training for Kieran, however, instead of attending the class as usual, he was called in by the village council to face judgement for what he had done. According to the law, he is guilty of commiting domestic violence and destruction of private and public property. His punishment was also meant to serve as a warning to everyone else that no one was too special to be considered above the law.
He didn't bother to stay long and quickly left as soon as the elders passed on their judgement, he quickly picked up the pace and dashed back home, this time not stopping for anything. As he ran, he saw the villagers having conversations among themselves. There were those having smiles on their faces and others who looked either confused or angry. Kieran wasn't a part of any of this, at least not after the incident that ruined the rest of his childhood. He had no friends after that incident. He was always alone.
When he arrived home, he immediately started packing all of his belongings. He didn't have much stuff in the first place, mostly just clothes he would wear for over a couple weeks before deciding to wash them. A traveller's suitcase suited for all of his belongings to fit in.
The suitcase was provided by his mother in case of times where he might want to relocate someplace else. On top of his bed was everything he currently owns.
He walked towards the table, immediately picking up the sword his mother bought for him. It was long and slightly heavy, with a firm handle. The sword hilt was in a colour that resembled golden yellow. In the centre, a pinkish red ruby could be seen, glittering when placed in the sunlight. Both ends of the hilt were curved backwards. Meanwhile, the blade itself was long with a sharpened edge.
"Let's give this a swing," Kieran said as he lifted the sword and swung it down.
He quickly went into the storage room and brought out a training dummy that his father would usually use whenever he was training with a sword.
"This is going to be my fifty-secondth time training with a sword. Let's see how much I've improved," he started swinging the sword at the training dummy.
"So far, I seem as good as I've always been," he proceeded to continue to swing the sword at the dummy, but there seemed to be no improvement to the way he handled the sword.
Carefully, he examined the sword while making mental notes. Seeing how much damage he had done, he was glad that the dummy had a considerable amount of resistance towards physical attacks.
"No progress. Why hasn't my strength or speed increased that much? Why are all my physical stats so weak?"
This was his fifty-secondth time training with a sword outside of Hunter's training. Not only had he been unable to do any reasonable damage to the training dummy, but it seemed like his physical conditions have reached their limit. He had even tried undergoing the harshest forms of physical training he could think of, walking on hot coal, holding his breath for extended periods of time underwater, thus nothing had worked to overcome his physical limitations.
As soon as he was done packing up his things, he brought out a piece of paper to write a letter to his mother.
"Dear Mom, I know you may be heartbroken, but just bear with me. The elders told me that because of what happened, that I'm now banished… I don't know what I'll do now, but I'll figure something out. Your son, Kieran."
The mention of banishment had always been on his mind after the incident six years ago. Kieran would always hear the villagers talking about how they wished for the elders to banish the devilish child so they could all live their lives in peace knowing that there was no potential threat living among them. They hated him and wanted him ousted from the community.
With no means of appeasing the villagers' desire for revenge, the elders decided to strike an agreement with the people that if he ever lost control again, that he would be banished without any form of exception or pardon. Of course, the villagers agreed to this, hoping for the day he would once again loose control so he could finally be banished. Upon finding out the news, the citizens were overjoyed. And as for the children, well, they were just as ecstatic.
Every individual hated him, regardless of whether or not they were affected by the actions of the demonic influence. The people despised him for years, so he grew up no longer experiencing the joy of basic human interaction.
Whenever he had nothing to do, he would always use that time to try and improve himself, either by practicing his magic or learning to use the sword. He began training ever since he was ten in hopes that he would one day become strong enough to change the way the villagers feel about him. Even so, he had so far displayed minimum potential and nowadays his training would yield little to no results.
Obviously enough, the frustration had gotten the better of him, but instead of giving up, he decided to push on with his training, hoping that one day something would change. Only those who were born with reasonable potential could become powerful in the world, but that didn't stop him from trying his best everyday.
It was the way he saw himself. Mediocrity wasn't something he could afford to settle for and he would rather die that spend the rest of his life as a nobody.
Kieran had never received any form of assistance from the teacher of the Hunter's training. The man had agreed to have him in his class, but that was it. The man never bothered to offer any form of assistance to him when he needed it, him being the 'Demon' of Mistwood Village, he was always glazed over by the instructor. He was well aware that it was because of his reputation that the man paid no attention to him.
"Why does life hate me so much?" He muttered, upset about his situation.
Placing the sword into the suitcase, he sauntered his way towards the door. He pulled the door open and headed towards the main entrance into the house. On his way out he noticed that there were still a couple blood stains on the wall from the time when the demon had tossed her across the room.
"I've made her suffer enough. Now she can finally have her peace," he uttered as he stepped out of the house. The mixture of emotions he had been bottling up was hard to surpress as they were visible on his face as he walked through the street.
"Why does life always treat me so badly?"
After a while, he finally made it to the entrance leading into the village, looking up at the large signboard stating the name of the village and the number of its inhabitants. As Kieran walked out of the village, a tear drop ran down from the corner of his eye and landed on the ground.
The journey to the nearest living settlement would take a while if he were to go there on foot, however, he had no other choice, he began the long trek, travelling until it had gotten dark.
Kieran decided that he would set out a tent and make a campfire to keep himself warm for a while. The heat from the burning fire made the chilly wilderness a little less freezing and more tolerable.
"What am I going to do now?"
The fire emited a bright radiance as it blazed fiercely. A few seconds later, and the sound of leaves rustling could be heard, the growls of a beast. Kieran couldn't take his eyes away from the moving leaves. He couldn't bring his body to move. His sword was placed somewhere in the tent. Nevertheless, he doubted he would even be able to slay the creature if he had the weapon in his grasp.
When the creature finally came into view, it pounced at him, barring its sharp claws and canines. At the same time, his body rolled to the side. Kieran's body began to shake uncontrollably, and with that, he stumbled and fell.
But just before he could get back up, he heard the voice of a woman yell out.
"I will finally kill this beast!"
Unable to maintain his composure long enough for him to run away, Kieran got slashed by the claws of the beast.