BANG!
A body flew out from a window, crashing into the crowded street.
The shards of glass drizzled downward like the last spurt of a heavy rain, sparkling like a fine mist. Leonidas, though, felt that it was more akin to a final pinch of piss, the kind a man would have to ease out with a squeeze of his fingers and a flick of his wrist.
Something like seeing the beauty in an unfortunate event wasn't like Leonidas at all, especially when it was he who had been flung through the window to begin with. It only made it worse that he felt some of these shards of glass tear into the skin of his back.
Leonidas coughed, glittering blood that seemed to be just a tad too violet coming from his lips.
As he stood, his chest heaved, a toothy sneer revealing a row of glistening teeth. It was immediately obvious that Leonidas' canines were far too prominent for a normal human. It only made it worse that droplets of blood, clearly a brighter red than his own, dripped down from them and onto his lips.
Disgusted by this foreign blood, Leonidas used his ragged sleeve to wipe it away, taking his own coughed-up blood with it. He struggled to his feet, ignoring the stares of the passersby.
The storefront Leonidas had just been kicked out of rumbled, a hulking man barreling forth from it.
"Leonidas! I'll rip you limb from limb and hang your corpse out to be eaten by the summer birds!"
The crowd turned their gazes toward the hulking man before their expressions became somewhat weird.
In one hand, the hulking man held up his pants. Unfortunately, he didn't do a very good job, revealing a clear line of sight to his hairy upper thigh and ass.
In the other hand, he held his belt, seemingly with every intention of using it as a weapon. His eyes were lit with fury as he charged after Leonidas, but suddenly sensing the presence of the crowd, he froze.
The crowd looked from Leonidas' bloody smile, to the hulking man's sagging pants, back to Leonidas' blood-trickling lips, and then to the hulking man's belt. With each pass, their expressions became weirder and weirder.
The hulking man's face turned a deep shade of red, then violet, then it became an unhealthy blue as he completely forgot to breathe. He was furious, but he suddenly had nowhere to vent.
Leonidas finally stood all the way to his feet, spitting harshly at the ground.
"Fuck you."
These were all the words he managed to say. Even considering how ridiculous the hulking man looked, they still sounded somewhat weak.
Leonidas' voice was two octaves too low for the shape of his body. It was like the rumbling of his vocal cords might rip his skinny frame apart at any moment if he said anymore. But, he still managed to stand, his two piercing red eyes wanting for murder.
The hulking man took several deep breaths. He already realized that it was too late to do anything. If he didn't realize that Leonidas had goaded him into kicking him so far away, even at the expense of such a heavy injury, he would be even more foolish than he looked.
It only took a moment before the hulking man's frozen expression turned into a sneer. Leonidas' words might have sounded brave and like a final act of defiance to someone who didn't understand the situation. But, to the hulking man, it was no different from a weak retaliation by someone with no more power than an ant by the roadside.
The hulking man began to laugh.
"Your squire position? Consider it revoked! If I see you anywhere near this Lord's territory again, I'll give you ten lashes!" The laughter continued to resound. "No, no. This is far too lenient for you.
"The plot of land your mother has been buried beneath will be reclaimed. You penniless scum birthed from a whore, do you think your blood is worthy to be interred on the property of this esteemed Knight?!
"You have three days to remove your mother's filthy corpse from my lands or you'll face the penalty of death!
"I, Gauteron, Knight under the Witness of her Holiness, Yves, declare it so!"
Leonidas' fists clenched, but his tendons were so weak he couldn't even make his bones crackle.
He stared toward Gauteron as though to sear this image into his mind. But such a look only made Gauteron's sneer deepen.
Leonidas was already 19 years old today. He had lived his whole life in this shabby old town with a population of not even a thousand. By now, the number of people he had dealings with was numerous and there wasn't a single soul that didn't know his name nor the fact his mother was, indeed, a whore.
In these 19 years, how many times had he been humiliated? How many times had people stepped over his head? How many times was he treated no differently from dirt?
Yet, wasn't he still standing here doing nothing but glowering and cursing? What had he accomplished? What had he done to make anyone take him seriously?
The crowd continued to watch. But, as expected, just like it was every time, Leonidas could only walk away, his posture arched into a slouch.
Gauteron's laughter resounded again.
"Fuck! Someone come clean this shit up! I'll give you one copper!"
The crowd surged, pushing and shoving. The result was many knocking against Leonidas, trying to make way. It seemed that everything about the previous show had been forgotten in the face of money.
As for Leonidas, he too was forgotten. Hardly anyone spared him a glance after Gauteron's decree was levied.
It could be said that Gauteron was Leonidas' final hope to make something of himself in this town. Now that he had lost it, there was nothing left for him.
He had truly tried everything. But in the end, he couldn't lay down his pride.
***
Leonidas sat on his knees before a small gravestone, if it could be called that at all.
The land that Gauteron so graciously allowed him to use for his mother's burial was located in a half-burnt expanse of immature trees. All around, trunks no thicker than even Leonidas' own wrist poked out of the ground at awkward angles. Just to make it here every time he visited, Leonidas would need to suffer the cuts and scrapes of this unkempt land.
This place, which Gauteron apparently valued enough to snatch away from Leonidas, was just a small corner of his land right at the very edge, not far from a sheer cliff. Even from here, Leonidas could hear the sounds of tall waves crashing against the rock.
The sharp branches and unkempt trees were actually kept here to make sure none of the livestock traveled too far and fell off. When things were put that way, burying his mother here really did seem quite sad. Well, not that he would be able to continue to do so for much longer.
Without a word, Leonidas bowed his head in apology before reaching for the gravestone and pulling it up from the ground.
The so-called 'gravestone' was actually nothing more than a plank of wood Leonidas had carved some words into with a butter knife.
His mother's name was just 'Red'. It was a fantastic name for a whore, truly. Leonidas couldn't commend the one who gave her such a name any more.
However, the name he wrote on the 'gravestone' was Yvette.
'Here Lies a Loving Mother'
'Yvette'
If others knew that Leonidas had given his mother such a name, he may very well be burnt at the stake.
Yves was the name of the God their small town worshipped. It was quite taboo to have a name that sounded even somewhat similar. It only made it worse that Leonidas had specifically chosen this name because he felt it was the better version of Yves.
Respect for the Gods? Leonidas had never had such a thing. But who knows, maybe that was why his life was so terrible in the first place. Maybe if he had some Faith, things wouldn't be this bad.
This wasn't the first time Leonidas had changed a name. His own mother had actually named him 'Fox', quite apropos given his lineage, but Leonidas had always wanted a name that could make others quake in fear. So, as soon as he managed to learn to read and write, he changed his own name to the most powerful sounding one he could think of.
It wasn't long after, though, that Leonidas realized how meaningless it was for his name to sound like it had strength if he had none of his own.
Leonidas gently placed his mother's gravestone down and began to dig through the ground. Of course, he could use nothing but his hands, pulling up clumps of dirt as large as he could muster one by one.
Though his arms trembled beneath the strain, Leonidas' movements seemed machine-like. One scoop after another, he worked his way down.
Using a shovel? Only the rich could afford to use iron in such extravagant ways. A wooden shovel, maybe? If only Leonidas had the money to spend on such a thing.
Just the plank of partially rotting wood he used to mark his mother's grave used up two weeks of his savings. Everything in this world cost something. Clean water, wood, iron… The only thing that seemed worthless in this place was human life itself.
Well, not that Leonidas was exactly human.
Leonidas' mother, Yvette, was a Red Fox Half-Beast. As for his father? Well, that was a funny tale indeed.
There was no touching love story to be told here. Nor might there be a heartfelt reunion later on down Leonidas' road.
The union of Yvette and Leonidas' father was the product of a battle. Their small town, just about 20 years ago, was ravaged by an enemy town just 10 kilometers away from their current settlement.
As for Leonidas' father? He was a Lower Ogre part of the enemy army that just so happened to choose to rape his mother on that fateful night. According to the other whores of the brothel Yvette worked at, his 'father' had died humping his mother after being shot through the skull by an arrow.
Truly a manly way to die, Leonidas had to admit. He managed to pass on his seed even in his final moments. A real trooper.
Somehow, his mother survived both being impaled by such a cock and subsequently being crushed beneath what must have been at least half a ton of flesh before eventually giving birth to him months later.
The result? It was him, Leonidas, in the flesh.
He had the blood of the Red Fox, a member of the Lower Half-Beasts, while also having the blood of a Lower Ogre, the weakest of the Giant race.
One would have thought that the least his father could do was give him an ugly mug, but nope. Leonidas gained all the delicate, uselessly fragile flesh of the Red Fox. At the same time, though his bone structure was also that of a Red Fox, his bone density was that of an Ogre.
It was a beautiful combination, indeed. His body weighed over 200 kilograms despite the fact he was only six feet tall, or so he believed. His flesh was too weak to withstand his heavy bones, so his posture was constantly slouched, making it quite difficult to tell what his true height was. All his movements were slow and lugging his body around was a chore in and of itself.
To make matters worse, he was handsome. Devilishly so. He had the broad back, shoulders and stature of a giant but the delicate features of a dainty beauty.
One might think that this was a joke, but this was the real world. A cruel world that sought to rip your heart out at every turn.
As Leonidas' delicate flesh was torn against the coarse soil he was slowly digging up, he remembered how Gauteron pushed him to his knees and tried to shove that foul thing into his mouth.
For the first time in a long time, his shoulders trembled, his red eyes glistening with unshed humiliation.