Chương 34: Class Selection Part 2

The vision ended, and he was back in the cave, well, the ravine room. The whole experience took less than a fraction of a second, but it also felt like a lifetime. He had seen his mother again. Her face was a blur; most of the people's faces were. He didn't remember them anymore. It had been a very long time. The feeling was... it was as if he had been brought back in time. He was witnessing the scene again, breathing the air of his village, and eating the same food.

He was watching it all from a different perspective, but he also felt everything the boy felt. The little Adolin. His lips curled. It was a good memory. The other ones that would follow, not so much. The blessing was giving him time to prepare. He was going to see all of the memories that had given him the choice of the Failed Hero class. He glanced at Clay. The boy was too busy searching for spiders to pay any attention to him. He was clear to continue with the class selection.

The only sound around him was the fast-flowing water that passed through the ravine. Taking a deep breath, his vision changed. He was looking over a small mining village, nestled in a valley inside a mountain. Watching the scene from above, he slowly moved toward it. Smoke was rising from different parts of the village. The path leading toward the mines was painted in crimson. As it got closer, he could see it better. The village had been attacked. Some of the houses were on fire.

The cattle pen was empty, with a few animals, already slaughtered for meat. The closer he got, the more details he could see. The village was filled with the dead. Along the streets, villagers lay dead from uneven cuts or blunt force. The path toward the mines was filled with corpses. It was where the village militia had faced the onslaught of orcs. They had decided to face the orcs head-on, to defend their families and village heroically. Every single one of them was dead.

The weapons were still in their hands, tightly held. Axes, pitchforks, sickles, maces. Some of them even had proper weapons, spears, and swords. The vision moved toward the village streets, where those who couldn't join the fight were. Some were in their homes, others on the streets. The vision stopped at the entrance of the village. The gate was wide open, and Adolin was standing a few steps inside the village. He could see the emptiness in his eyes and feel the same grief and pain.

He was eighteen years old, dressed in bright blue mage's robes, engraved with the emblem of the Mage Academy of Northus. This was the test he had been given for his second year at the academy. The test that would officially recognize him as a Mage. He had been given enough time to travel to the village and stop the orc raid that the academy had orchestrated. It was supposed to be an easy test, a way to measure his skills. A test that only the most important students of the academy were tasked with.

He had planned it for months, going over every single detail, from routes to the fastest horses. Dozens of times. Yet, he had failed. The plan had failed at the beginning and had delayed him. He had arrived at the inn, a day's ride from the village, late at night, and decided to stay the night. To catch up on the sleep he had missed during the two-week journey. And because of that, the village had been massacred.

The raid should have happened the next day, and he should have been in the village two days before that. He was late by a day, and the orc tribe, the Zrermukh, was a day early. The academy could have stopped it. But they didn't. They let it be destroyed. It made mages more focused and less prone to mistakes. He'd be told afterward. The lives of a whole village were worth less than a lecture for a mage of the academy. The lives of two hundred sixty-three humans. People with dreams and lives of their own.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. He stood at the gate for two days, not moving from the position where he saw the devastation of the village. Not until his professor had come for him. And made him move. He'd burned in grief that day, then he burned in anger. Scenes of the Zrermukh tribe village flashed next. The first scene he saw was the hostages the orcs had taken from the village.

It was a memory he had tried to forget, one that had haunted him in his nightmares. All of the captives were women. Most of them had died before the professor had convinced him to go and finish his mission. The second scene he saw was the orc village destroyed. Barely anything had been left after he was done with it. Every single orc inside the village was dead, from the warriors that had attacked the village, to the women and children. He had wiped the whole tribe from the face of the world.

And hunted the survivors a whole week after that. The Zrermukh tribe, and everyone who carried that name, had died. It was the first event that had caused him to resent the hero dream he had yearned for. A true hero would not have allowed an entire village to be destroyed, nor would they have permitted a village to be used as a test for a mage. Then he witnessed dozens of events. All his failures were played before his eyes. He felt everything and tasted the failures again. Still, he didn't shy away from them.

He consumed the memories again, as if they were happening for the first time. The pain, guilt, and anger. Everything. The nightmares would be clearer that way. The faces in every one of the scenes were clear. He had forgotten his dream, his mother's face. But not his failures. Every single face was as clear as the day he had seen it. The scene changed again. He was standing on a cliff. In front of him was the expeditionary force of the Valantian Kingdom. Over a thousand men, marching, wearing red and white armor.

The colors of their kingdom, and dozens of banners swayed above them. A red griffin and a man riding it were emblazoned on the flags. Above the army, dozens of griffin riders were flying, scouting the area for enemy forces, while others were flying toward the village on the border between the two kingdoms. They were preparing to raid the village. It was a war that lasted two years. A war started over disputes about territory and nobles' games.

A worthless war that cost thousands of lives, and double that number of innocent civilians. He was in his early twenties at the time, standing on the cliff with the general of the Finnen Kingdom—the kingdom he served. He was the youngest High Mage in the kingdom, the strongest below the Archmage title. There were a few other titles that mages could earn, but he had skipped most of them. His growth had been terrifying at the time. He felt the weight his younger self was under.

He had been plagued by two choices, both equally bad. On one hand, he had to kill thousands of men—the expeditionary force invading his kingdom, about to raid the border village. The other was leaving and letting the other mages and generals deal with them. Letting the village's fate fall into the hands of men who didn't value the lives of common people.

"The king has commanded," the general said, his voice steady.

"You are to cause as much damage to the army as possible." He said nothing. There was no reason to. The general was not reasonable, and the order had come from the king. The king's orders were always carried out immediately, and defiance was met with blood. He wasn't scared of his own death, but the death of his family that would follow after his defiance. Treason, as they would label it. His mentor would protect him—and his family—if he decided to desert. He was one of the strongest existences in the world.

But he didn't want to cause trouble for him for no reason. The army would be destroyed; multiple High Mages were already on their way, and the Archmages would follow. He decided after that. It wasn't a decision he was proud of, or one he wanted to make. It was just that the other choices were worse. If he decided to leave, the village would be destroyed, and the army sometime after. If he destroyed the army now, the village would survive. At least for another day. The scene shifted again.

This time, he was on the field. The expeditionary force lay before him, destroyed. Most of it, anyway. There were hundreds retreating, and he just watched them. Let them. The general stood next to him, shouting for him to finish them, but he ignored him. He had followed the order. The evidence was before him. Hundreds of corpses. The vision started moving up, like a bird's-eye view. He saw himself. The same emptiness was present in his eyes. The robe he wore was darker, still blue but far darker.

And his face had lost the innocence it once wore. The dream of becoming a hero had fractured. Instead, his path had become that of a weapon—wielded by those who didn't share his ideals.