Chapter 23: One Step Closer to the Cruel Avenger

 The apparent calm was only a thin veneer. The village was teeming with a deeper nervousness: patrols glided through the streets, tense glances appeared at doorways, and it was easy to sense an anxiety in the air that could not be ignored. The three immediately noticed the commotion; the guards moved in an orderly fashion, almost hurriedly, as if they were looking for something, or someone important.

Lucius' hoarse voice came from the square, giving orders from a distance. “Search everywhere! Check the houses if necessary!” His words echoed, cold and authoritative, leaving behind a tense silence.

“What do you think they're looking for?” asked Mizuki, watching the soldiers disappear down an alley.

“I don't know,” replied Ren, his gaze attentive. “Maybe some fugitive... a criminal.”

She remained silent for a moment, her face pensive. Then she looked him up and down, as if piecing together a puzzle in her head. “What if they're looking for you?” her voice was low, but with a hint of steel.

“Me? Why on earth?” he replied, taken aback.

“It's obvious,” she replied coldly. “You're the perfect pawn for them: all they need is an excuse and they'll eliminate you. If someone finds out something and starts talking... Lucius can't afford to have the attention shift to him. Better to keep an eye on you, better to isolate you.”

A nervous smile escaped Michael, who tried to play it down. “Mizuki, you're thinking too far ahead, huh?”

“It's not a preview,” she replied, her eyes fixed on the bends in the road. “I just hate injustice.”

The oldest member of the group shook his head, concerned. “Be careful. Don't take any rash steps. We don't want any unnecessary problems.”

“Don't worry,” came the immediate reply. The atmosphere was tense, but it hadn't exploded yet.

“Well, I'm off, work awaits,” the man finally announced. “Take care.”

“Bye,” Mizuki said confusedly, listening to the rustling of the trees and the distant shouts of the guards.

For a few moments, only the sound of insects and the muffled singing of birds reigned. Then a question, addressed to no one in particular, tried to attract attention again. “What do you think, Ren?” But there was no immediate answer to that question. “Ren?”

The answer was a slight clearing of the throat. “Yes, I'm here... I was thinking about what you said.”

“Then I'll be careful. Maybe it's better to show ourselves: if the guards see me, maybe they won't go into the houses and attack,” he suggested with studied calm.

“B-but Ren!” she protested, taken by surprise. “You'll be letting Lucius win!”

The smile that followed betrayed no concern. It was an almost serene smile. “Don't worry. I'll be back soon.”

“Is that a promise?” Her voice trembled slightly.

“Of course.”

So he separated himself from the couple and walked toward the main road. His steps were measured, as if he wanted every movement to appear natural and casual. He headed straight for the center of town, where patrols were moving in a circle.

“Are you looking for someone?” he asked calmly, as if asking a passerby for the time.

For a moment, there was hesitation. Then the soldiers surrounded him in the blink of an eye, forming a human barrier like a vice. “There he is, we found him!” shouted an authoritative voice. “Finally!”

“You'll have to come with us,” said another, already addressing his companions. “Send someone to inform Lucius.”

There was no trace of pity on their faces; their eyes were accustomed to obeying. But behind that mask of discipline, something else could be glimpsed: a more cruel disposition. One of the closest, the captain with the hard jaw, curled his lips into a thin smile, and his gaze betrayed a desire he could not hide. Inside, he wanted to wipe that face off the face of the earth with his own hands.

The air suddenly became heavy. He didn't have time to react before arms closed around him, firmly. Fingers tightened: it wasn't just a capture, it was a warning, a signal that the rules would now follow other orders.

As they were dragged away, the girl remained there, paralyzed by a chill that descended into her stomach. The sounds of nature continued, relentless, but everything else was enveloped in a silence that felt like a premonition.

A guard approached with long strides, his face tense as stone. “Well, well, thought you'd slip away?” he spat, his voice thick with contempt.

The boy remained unperturbed. He replied in a cold tone, calibrated specifically to annoy: “Absolutely not. Why on earth would I run away?”

That simple refusal set the man off. His lips tightened, his eyes narrowed. “Damn brat, how dare you talk to me like that?” he growled, his tone dripping with rage.

The young man laughed, a short, disrespectful snort. “Calm down. I just gave you an answer.”

The guard's anger exploded in an instant: a flying punch aimed at the boy's face. The blow seemed strong, but the reaction that followed was surprising. There was no expected surrender, no collapse. Ren seemed not to have really suffered the blow.

“Stop, Cedric!” shouted one of his companions, throwing himself in between them to stop the escalation. “We need him alive, don't kill him now!”

Cedric growled, but he was not appeased. “I don't care, I'm killing him!” he replied with brutal sincerity.

“Then Lucius will do the same to you!” another tried to warn him, but the words were lost in the general astonishment. One blow, a single blow to the stomach, and Cedric fell to the ground. No one expected it to take so little to knock down that aggressive bulldog. Perhaps it was the boy's repressed fury, perhaps something deeper and darker was awakening within him.

The confusion was interrupted by the cold, sharp voice of the leader, which pierced the air like a blade. “Stop, now!” Lucius spoke with the authority of one who does not tolerate disorder.

“Did the boy start it?” blurted out a guard who tried in vain to ease the tension.

“I don't care who started it!” replied the lord in an icy voice. “Now that we've found him, go and defend our reserves!”

“Our gold?” Ren wondered incredulously in his mind, while the men around him exchanged glances.

Lucius shouted even louder, as if to impress the order into the minds of his subordinates: “Hurry up! Don't waste time, before that cruel avenger steals our reserves too!”

Those words sparked a nervous buzz. “The cruel avenger?” someone whispered, then the voice became more concrete: “Wait... it's the same one who attacked that child's village!”

At those words, the grip on the boy's arm tightened, and something inside him ignited. It wasn't anger for its own sake, but a spark of cold, sharp determination. Finally, for the first time, he had the chance to face a real killer, someone who bore the name and reputation of remorseless brutality.

The path to the so-called cruel avenger was opening up before him. And as he was dragged away with the guards who were now rushing towards the gold, his mind was already mapping out that road: dangerous, yes, but perhaps the only one that could give him back something that had long been taken from him.