The Birth of The Prince and The Raven

Part 9

Kim Rok Soo had a problem.

Well, he had many problems and a lot of them had names and were currently sleeping on top of him.

He didn't ask for any of this. He'd just wanted to read quietly by the fire and then the munchkins had just naturally gathered. First it was On and Hong, crawling up into his lap and pawing at his book. Then it was Rue, sitting a comfortable distance away with a book of her own. Then the black dragon had curled up morosely near his head, vowing to keep a close eye on him. Finally Cale Henituse of all people had shown up, glowered at him, and took a seat on his other side with a bottle of alcohol and started complaining about his day.

And now all the children were asleep and they were all quite heavy and it really brought into focus just how fucked he was.

His original plan to run far away from the Henituse territory had crumbled more and more by the day. It had steadily evolved into a plan to keep the Henituse territory safe from the war. And now he was ruminating on ways to prevent the war altogether.

He was fully divorced from his original plan but he didn't have a whole lot of confidence in his new plans.

It would be different if he were, say for example, the Kim Rok Soo from about a decade in the future. A man who had honorably upheld a leadership position despite the odds and had the experience to juggle all the complicated details of war.

But he was Kim Rok Soo at the age of twenty-five. He'd lived five years through the apocalypse, done his best, followed team leader Lee Soo Hyuk, and nearly lost everyone he cared about again in the battle against an unranked monster.

At his base, Kim Rok Soo was always Kim Rok Soo and he would make similar decisions and have similar capabilities. But there was a lot that ten years of experience did to iron out the hiccups in a leadership position.

He wasn't confident he could protect all these children who depended upon him.

He didn't really have a choice though. Now that they were under his care, he wasn't going to leave them to fend for themselves. Especially not knowing about the war that was about to send the entire continent into chaos.

It was always the little people like this who suffered the most in times like those.

Well, maybe Cale would be okay, but Kim Rok Soo had to admit that the snooty brat had grown on him. He'd like to help the kid avoid getting beaten senseless if he could.

His to-do list was ever growing and the danger was pressing closer and closer as the time of the start of the novel approached.

Even with Cale's explicit support, there were still limitations to how much money and influence he could utilize to keep them all safe.

'Aigoo... my poor life.' Despite it all, he felt a smile tugging on his lips as he let the warmth of the moment pin him to the present.

They were heavy. But they weren't a weight that he'd shake off.

Some weights were worth it.

–

Choi Han was having a strange day.

Well, it would be more accurate to say that Choi Han had a very strange life and this was another day that fit well within the overall theme of his existence.

He was the only foreigner among the villagers in a strange world that he'd finally escaped into after decades of misery living in the Forest of Darkness. He was making very earnest attempts to learn the language spoken here and making rapid progress in that endeavor.

He had entered a strange solace after years of loneliness, fear, and despair.

That was why it made him understandably apprehensive of change.

And especially apprehensive of suspicious individuals who rode into town without a single explanation. The village was so small that there wasn't even so much as an inn for the strangers to stay in and yet they camped out at the edge of the village, near the Forest of Darkness and with an overall conspicuous presence.

Choi Han felt that as the only person within the village with significant offensive skills, it was his duty to intervene in such potentially dangerous situations and offer his abilities as necessary.

He wasn't really going up to the strangers with the intention of fighting them but should it come down to it, he wouldn't have any reservations about drawing his blade.

So why had the encounter been so very queer?

There were two men who appeared to be in their early to mid twenties and were just about as different in appearance and aura as possible. The shorter of the two was a fair skinned and fair haired man with a gentle face and a certain nobility that brought Choi Han's thoughts towards royalty unbidden.

The sort of man who would be likely to be called a prince regardless of any actual royal lineage.

And the guard dog of a man that had stood between Choi Han and the fair man was tanned with dark hair, angry green eyes, and plenty of scars. He was the one who'd done most of the talking.

The talking had mostly consisted of 'who are you' and 'leave us alone' and 'who are you working for' and other equally suspicious statements. Choi Han felt just a bit like he was being barked at by a neighbor's overzealous dog.

And they'd made absolutely no attempt to declare their intentions.

Choi Han had left only because the pair had seemed more scared of him than he was of them. They could be on the run from something or perhaps they had their reasons for acting so suspiciously.

That didn't mean that he treated them with any less suspicion or that he didn't observe their campsite closely throughout the night but he felt that perhaps there was something more to them than met the eye.

He felt that he'd probably judged them as benign far too quickly when he was suddenly attacked in the dead of night.