Forgotten Regrets, Part 1

Beren could be considered young in Yurien’s view, even though he was 23 years old, but his life has always had numerous ups and downs.

【17 years before the arrival of Satoru】

Never having met his mother, who according to his father was a prostitute who didn’t give a damn about her son, so she ran away as soon as she had him and never even set a foot in the city where she used to work.

But for Beren, not even his father loved him, every night the fear of being beaten up by a drunk who didn’t know when to stop drinking. When he was 6 years old, tired, scared, and wanting to continue living, he found a bit of hope, in his city when a parade happened, people were dazzled, with colored flags in white and red.

Knights in their iron armor mounted on horses and they walked the streets proud of their achievements in protecting the kingdom from invaders or proclaiming their superiority in the face of threats that many did not know but were there.

With collars, men, women, and even children of other races haggard faces, their expressions of terror at the hiss of hatred were passed.

The mockery against them expressed the purest satisfaction to the captain of soldiers, with his gleaming armor adorned with lines of gold that demonstrated his authority by thus setting him apart from the rest of the soldiers who were there.

For the young Beren, all that pomp towards the soldiers made that emotions never felt before were finally discovered, following the city crowd, the happy child celebrated with all the citizens on the main street, where a podium was set up and the survivors now slaves of the kingdom, were placed, basins huge with tomatoes displayed there for those who want to play in the inferior races, were one of many entertainments.

Upon returning home, Beren had a smile on his face, now having tasted a little happiness even though momentary stupor was enough for him to decide on what he wanted.

But there was still an evil surrounding him, with an angry expression and with an already empty bottle in his hand, he had a picture of his mother that was painted before Beren was born.

He spent the whole day waiting for his son, but he just returned to the nightfall, caused anger to well up, for him an affront not to know where the child goes and who hasn’t even asked permission to leave.

"D-dad, please, I beg you, it was just this once, I swear!"

Knowing what awaited him, Beren ran to his father and began to beg in tears.

"Corsi, yu pist, daddy luvis yu" Drunk, Beren’s father he stroked its head with an empty hand, however, the child had not finished wiping his tears and felt the hand stop touching him. When he was hit by a slap from his father that hit him straight in the cheek, pain ran all over his face. He then flung a bottle in Bere’s direction, but thanks to the drink, it hit the ground and shattered

"It four yu iarn to rispact mi!"

The last thing Beren heard was the door slamming as her father left the house. Trying to compose himself, her strength gone, Brene turned on her side and curled up on the floor, hands gripping his knee as he cried.

Amidst her wails and reveries, Beren finally got up, but as he moved, having forgotten about the broken glass, his hand was cut off. Withdrawing his arm seeing the blood flowing, he took it and squeezed his hand, seeing the blood running down the floor, a thought took hold of his mind.

⊛⊛⊛

Late at night, the door to her house was flung open, babbling nonsense, Beren’s father didn’t even remember his name, let alone his son, whom he didn’t even seem to have affection for.

Stepping on broken glass, his mind ignored what had happened earlier. Upon arriving in his room, due to alcohol, her whole body collapsed on the old bed and the half-empty beer bottle came out of her hand, rolling spilling the little liquid that was still left, on the floor.

Beren, who had been hiding in her room, when he noticed her father had arrived, began to walk slowly toward the room of the one who tormented him so much. Entering the room, her expression quickly changed to simple and pure hate, her hands shook but her legs didn’t hesitate as he stopped beside the bed.

Even with the uncertainty of what was to come, not knowing what awaited him, Beren knew one thing, if he didn’t do it now, he would never make it. His body bruises told the story of 6 years of pure suffering, he didn’t know who to hate more, if it’s the father who mistreated him in his short life or the mother who left him with this monster.

With a large shard of glass in his hand, Beren placed it around the neck of what was supposed to be the symbol of an example of how to be a decent person, the one that should prepare you and teach you how to live, but he could only show how cruel this world could be to the weak.

Hesitantly trembling with fear of what was to come, his hand didn’t move, he was so long, but why? Why didn’t his body move? His mind drifted away from reality being only filled with uncertainty.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" With a scream as loud as he could manage, Beren yelled and yanked his hand back as he could, and the sound of something ripping was heard. Not knowing what to do now, Beren just wandered off, his mind messed up with his own emotions. Tomorrow the news would reach the people, and that it would completely change Beren’s life

⊛⊛⊛

For everyone who lived near the house where such barbarity happened, the stories about the atrocity the boy had committed spread quickly, some knew about the situation the boy found himself in every day, but others didn’t care or even seemed to care.

When they heard the story, they began to spread rumor after rumor, some seemed harmless, but others were as if people wanted the boy to suffer for what he did. Thanks to this many began to treat him as an assassin who did it merely because he wanted to. But there was someone who thought differently, Auruwin, captain of the guard, after finding Beren at dawn and finding out what he truly had done, Auruwin decided to keep the child safe.

⊛⊛⊛

When he turned 16, Beren, who was raised in an orphanage to which Auruwin handed him over, had now joined the army of the kingdom, becoming a soldier, not even having to bother to stay as a recruit.

All thanks to his protector since that fateful night, Auruwin, no was the most present person, but sometimes showed up to train his protection with the hope that the effort would bring him a good soldier who would standard out who would stand out. Of course, Beren, afraid of disappointing Auruwin and now his captain as well, always trained every day.

To be a soldier you only needed to know how to fight and be strong, everything else could be considered disposable, so many homeless people joined the army. On his first day, Beren was put together in the sixteenth knight division with a total of 60 soldiers who would be his fellows in expedition members.

At first, it was very easy, patrolling the city while it was sunny, one day, on guard duty at night, it was rare that something happened.

When Beren found out about the guard, his dream was to go to the front lines and fight the enemies of the realm, making great contributions and being considered a hero.

However, he could no longer see himself as such a hero, since the incident with his father, something has changed within him, human blood made him sick, for many times, he thought about telling Auruwin, the fear of rejection for being a weakling disturbed him even more.

 Every day, enjoying his peaceful guard life was ideal for him, hiding his weakness wasn’t too difficult.

⊛⊛⊛

Half a year later, Beren along with 6 other soldiers was summoned by their captain. Where they met was only a few meters away from the city walls, the silence was mutual between the soldiers.

Auruwin, wearing his armor of iron and gold, was wearing his helmet in hand, perhaps to give a feeling of responsibility or cause fear with his rigid expressions and imposing garment.

"All of you were called here today because the kingdom and the city value your services for the sake of peace, so a chance of promotion has been decided for you."

Auruwin began to look at each one, but when he arrived in Beren, he nodded a little 

"The mission will be simple, enemies of other races have been found hiding in a village near the city, we will travel there, when you arrive you must take the lead and ask for the cooperation of the inhabitants. However, if they refuse to help, all of you have full right to do what you think is the best."

Everyone was excited at the same time, others not knowing what to do. But Beren who kept quiet had a sinking heart, but he couldn’t show it, so if something happened, he’d just pretend he didn’t see it.

It seemed the best option, so it was decided that Beren followed behind the others soldiers who went to get their horses. After four hours of travel, they saw this village, there were only eight houses, the largest being the village chief and the other that was used as a store.

Without drawing attention, everyone stopped there, still away from the mission site, one of the soldiers took the initiative to act as a leader, while Auruwin stood even further away watching, everyone was being tested there.

"William, Rudy, and Thomas, go on with the horses and enter the village save time talking to the village head with the villagers, in the meantime, Beren and I, we’re going to go on the right side without being seen, if we notice any hint of the enemies we’ll let you know, the two that are left will do the same on the left side, do you all agree?"

"Yea!", all the soldiers agreed with the plan of Ross, the temporary leader of the mission.

Beren, still wary of this mission, kept behind Ross, both of them wearing leather armor and their only weapon is an iron sword.

In the distance, they heard murmurs from the village, this was the sign that the plan had begun. Ross kept an eye out for the few houses, but his objective was the warehouse. Behind him, Beren glanced over, hoping this mission would come to nothing in the end.

As soon as they reached the big red-brick house, the two crept to one of the side windows.

"Hoss, are you seeing something?", Beren looking back asked a little apprehensively.

"Hmmm, it’s very dark inside, you can hardly see much, I’m going in, you come along."

"Eh? Me either?", Beren asked in surprise.

"Of course, you do, now stop being a coward and get in. "

Hoss started to open the windows to lighten the place when they looked at more and more sacks of grain, but nothing that looked suspicious.

Beren relieved that he had found nothing, did not expect a loud noise of people's agitation to interrupt any thoughts of him shortly thereafter. The two ran to see what had happened when all the people in the village arrived screaming and crowding around two soldiers who had their swords pointed at several men who had cat's ears and tails.

It was a total of 2 against 5, and only 3 of the enemies had daggers in hand. The soldiers still on horseback tried to get through, but thanks to the people in the village they were afraid to step over them, so when they saw Ross, the first thing they did was go to him.

"Hey, get out of the way, you’re protecting criminals, if you don’t get out, you’ll end up the same as them."

Ross was furious with his sword in hand. When they notice the sword, those they were protecting took a step back in fear, maybe even they didn’t think it was worth risking their lives for strangers.

But someone disagrees with that kind of thinking, the man who started it all, leaning on a cane, a very old man standing in front of Ross.

"I can’t allow them to continue killing innocents!— Exclaimed the old man, tapping his cane on the ground."

"You… How dare you question us? Last warning, get out of the way, NOW!"

The old man didn’t move much less tremble, just closed his eyes and opened his arms. As the argument went on, the three beast-men held the soldiers, while the other two ran away. Ross was enraged that his chance for promotion was slipping away.

"I told you old piece of shit to go out!"

"Ross, no!"

Beren tried to stop his colleague but it was too late, seeing that Ross had already committed the act of killing the old man. All the other villagers were amazed by the scene, Beren felt the urge to vomit coming but turned and held it.

"Kill anyone who gets in the way, remember, this is for the sake of the kingdom!"

Raising his sword and walking without caring, the merciless way in which he acted made all the villagers even more amazed, thus naturally giving way.

Beren followed close behind, even though he was whiter than usual, however, his attention was taken by the confrontation that unfolded in front of him, seeing that they could stand it no longer, the beast-men jumped in one last attack to then kills at least one soldier, however, an attempt that only wounded the arm of one, because then one of the soldiers mounted on the horse also attacked one of them, passing over it and with the sword cutting it.

Afraid of death, the other two ran towards Beren and Ross where there were just the two of them. Ross swung his sword and knocked one of them off balance, landing a lunge in the enemy's chest shortly thereafter.

The latter, applied a top-down vertical slash, which was blocked by Beren's sword without any difficulty, Beren then cut his target horizontally, but purposely didn't apply much force cutting be shallow.

"I surrender, please don’t kill me." seeing his clear disadvantage, the beast-man dropped his dagger and raised his hands

He pleaded with the defeated, but suddenly the sound of a sword being brandished proved his surrender to no avail, Ross killed him anyway.

"Don't look like you've seen a ghost, we have to catch the fugitives!" Ross grabbed Beren's armor and slapped him."

"Okay, the test is over, you don't need to do anything else. Who said that it was Auruwin leaving the forest to where the two beast-men ran, in his left hand he held the arms of the last one still alive."

"Captain, forgive us for letting them get away, if I may, I can kill this one..."

 Ross took the lead and spoke for everyone, but was interrupted when Auruwin raised his hand and kicked the beast-man leg causing him to go to his knees.

"Beren will kill this one, won't he Beren"

Those words made Beran's body freeze, not knowing what to do, he didn't understand why his tutor was doing this, he didn't want to have to take another life, but if he didn't, the man who trained him would stay disappointed, this caused numerous emotions to conflict.

"Beren! I didn't stay there planted on the ground, that's an order, kill him"

With his fists clenched and his throat aching, Beren only managed to stand still in fear that his body would act on its own, he didn't want to kill again, not anymore, he wasn't even sure if that boy who glimpsed a future of light still existed.

"I don't want to, I just can't take it anymore!"

With no more strength to put up with what has built up for years and years, Beren throws his sword to the ground.

"This is a joke, Beren? Take this sword and kill him, it’s an order"

Auruwin without losing his cool began to speak coldly, all soldiers and villagers stiffened in place, a menacing aura took over everyone doing their bodies will feel as if they are bound by chains, it was almost impossible to move.

"I don't want to, I CAN'T!"

With a yell of response, tears began to trickle from Beren's eyes, but as shaken as he was, he felt it was as if it was snatched from him, something his body didn't take for granted. Auruwin then closed his eyes and bowed his head with a look of disappointment.

"Let's go back, Beren, give your armor and sword to Ross and never appear in front of me again."

"EH! Captain, please, this is not…"

A punch to his stomach so far made the soldier in tears, miss full of air, and fall to the ground, the last thing he saw was the sole of a shoe hitting his face.