The next day early in the morning Zeun and Helena move into the rented carriage that would take them to the city. Zeun looked at the distant Kroton village where he had been living for more than 2 years but never visited once. Out side the windows, as they were moving through a forest various many exotic flora and fauna was along sides the road , some hanging from trees some plants like snakes crawling on the forest.
The forest path was too narrow for the cart to go, mom's head would often bump with the carriage top. Roots of the trees doing their job as a speed breaker and super bumper , often giving the travellers shock of their life. Helen started complaining for taking too long and how fast she would be if she was alone. It was clearly visible that she was quite enjoying the travel except for moments when she hit her roof.
It was Zeun's first time outside his village so he curiously looked at out, occasionally asking Helena about various plants and animals names.
Except learning magic, this was the first time Helena saw her son acting like a child of his age, being true to his feelings. Rest of the time Zeun would mostly act like an adult.
'The city was not far but it would take them a whole day to reach the city because they had to move around a mountain to avoid ferocious beasts. Mom takes only around six hours to go to the city sell the monster material and then return.
Perks of being a higher circle mage I guess.' Zeun thought to himself.
Helena Donovan was the youngest and most ingenious prodigy from a rich Viscount household. Helena had three older siblings, her oldest brother Timothy Donovan , the current head of Donovan family was at odds with her.
From a very young age as she showed exceptional prowess in magic added with her kind and gentle nature.
She had the potential to become the prospective student of 'ALL EMPIRES UNIVERSITY OF ARCHMAGES '. One has to know that a student after successfully graduating from the university holds fifty percent chance of becoming a 10th circle Archmage.
Beings that stood on top of the realm of Cerulean second only to those Archmages in Sage Realm. This much frightening was her talent! As for Sage Realm, it requires extreme luck and comprehension of universe. They are more exotic and rearer than the Kohinoor diamond on earth.
[Note from MC's :
Since there is only one Kohinoor on Earth and Jupiter is thirteen hundred times larger than the Earth. Hypothetically it should have more than a thousand Kohinoor atleast. But there is less than 100 known Sage realm Living beings on Cerulean]
Hence the family elders strongly supported her most for the next family head position but she rejected it herself telling them that her growth would be hindered if she involves herself in family businesses.
Also Viscount Donovan was against it because Helena was not a pure blood noble. He valued his first wife a.k.a his own sister's son more than any of his other children. To stop any potential threat against the family, Viscount indirectly tried to kill her own daughter multiple times.
In Human Continent of Cerulean, marriage between family members mainly siblings was common as it maintained the purity of a nobles' blood. Sexual disease and other blood releted problems can be cured using high rank healing magic. Thus pure blood Noble children had an inherent tendency to look down on other siblings who had impure blood.
Hence as the daughter of a concubine no matter how talented she was Helena couldn't get any kind of love or recognition from her father or other froster mothers. She was the prime subject of bullying mainly Timothy and other siblings.
So when Helena showed her exceptional talent, her older siblings started taking life threatening actions behind her back. Viscount Donovan didn't interfere even when her concubine was poisoned by his other wives and just outcast them from the family.
Later in order to take care of her sick mother and her medication bills Helena dropped out of Academy when she was a sixth circle Grand-Master Mage and became an adventurer. It was at that time she met Paul and others becoming fellow adventurers.
Later on she returned to the academy and brokethrough to Mage Lord (7th circle Mage). But it was too late to apply for university outside the Empire as her age was already above the entry requirement.
As there was no support from her family, Helena only had the money she saved from her adventurer days and later when Paul used to give her as her pocket money for shopping. She generally did not need money as Paul always spoiled her with everything. Hence she never thought about carrying much money with her.
But whatever materials, armour, wepons and coins she had would worth atleast a billion if not more. However in order to cure her son's Nightmares, she bought a rank 7 darkness crystal which is rarer than a rank 8 beast core that had taken humanoid form ,Hence emptying all her wealth.
'For the last two years mother has been hunting wild beast on her own even when she is injured. I am worried about her. Even with all the knowledge I have from my past life if I can't help mom who have sacrificed sooo much for me then its much better dying than being a burden again.' Zeun promised not to repeat his past mistakes again in this life.
'But whatever I do ,I would never ever not even by mistake attract attention.' Zeun was a big fan of fantasy mangas and web novels back on earth.
He had read multiple times when MCs recreates new things from earth in mediaeval isaki world they would attract unwanted attention. That would bring the protagonist multiple inconvenience sometimes even threatening lives of those related to the protagonist.
Hence Zeun could vaguely estimate that unless his actions touches the interest of Nobles, they would generally not bat an eye.
' Me and my family had already suffered enough hence I won't be a single bit greedy. I shall only do the least of whatever necessary for an average life. For that if we have to something beg for food then I would do that too.
Mom told me that my father's family and uncle is someone very powerful. If he is even more powerful than my mom, (who can even destroy a small hill with her power) and they are searching for us to kill us then I can't imagine how powerful they might be. So best to be out any kind of attention. one can never be too careful afterall'
Zeun did not know that his uncle's family was in a different kingdom than theirs. But its difficult to say what turns fate will take in future as in life happiness and sadness is always followed by one another, a person can never be incessantly happy nor incessantly sad. After good times comes bad times and after bad times again comes good times, and it continues. This is the truth of life after all, without difficulty , challenges and harshness life would be monotonous. What do you think?
"Zeun...." I heard mom's voice interrupting my thoughts "When are you planning to join a school? You have been avoiding it for a year now..."
Zeun's eyes wavered, he slowly moved towards his mother and clung tightly to her a palpable trauma evident in his quivering voice and hesitant movements.
"I...." Zeun couldn't utter any words, his heart was pounding heavily. He moved even closer to his mom, placed his small head on her plump bosom and hugged her tightly from side. He was trembling!
Helena saw this and sighed inwardly 'No matter how mature he acts, he is still a child after all. Her son is still facing trauma of the past that is saved in Zeun's subconscious mind due to his personality.' She gently hugged Zeun and placed her hand on his head.
He stopped trembling and a satisfied peaceful look appeared on his face as he slept in his mother's arms.
He woke up and it was already dusk and the silhouette of a city was visible in the distant. It was more like a small fortress with very high walls and thickness of approximately 5 meters shrouded around the city. Being a border city it had guards patrolling on the walls twenty four seven.
We crossed the city gates on which was written -
'Welcome to Caspara City'