395 The Reaper Child
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Joan’s eyes opened in surprise as he heard Gradus speak about that tale, the tale of a child born with the power to manipulate and control souls and infuse them into dead corpses to create Undead.
“The Reaper Child? You mean the Son of Death?” Asked Joan.
“Reaper Child, Son of Death, Necromancer, he had many names.” Gradus sighed. “It was said that he was a son of the devils when he was born due to his white hair and red eyes, and his family was ostracized for such a thing. Back then our village wasn’t big enough, there weren’t adventurers in our village and the church were still ruled by old and archaic rules that discriminated against specific elements or spirits people might be born with.”
“Those times… the Dark Age that ended roughly 70 years ago?”
“Yeah, those times… My parents told me they were rough. Those times were when the first signs of the Demon Kings rebirth were appearing and the monsters and demons alike were growing stronger and stronger over time…”
“The heroes saved the world but these times came right after them, as if the demons were not done enough… Thankfully, a group known as the Bravers managed to defeat those armies…”
The Dark Ages was a period of time that lasted several hundreds of years after the ancient Heroes, led by the Summoner King Allan sealed away all Demonic Towers. The ages before them were known as the most dangerous and chaotic of them as demons poured incessantly from the Demonic Towers and invaded the world. This age was known as the Infernal Age, but little is known about it aside from the Ancient Heroes who were born amidst such chaotic times.
The Dark Ages, which were declared to have officially ended over 70 years ago still left many superstitions and other beliefs behind the old villagers. Especially in these times when the church of the holy spirits used tactics to manipulate people to target certain groups of people, discriminate them, and keep them busy from actually realizing the corruption in the government.
Keeping the sheeple fighting against one another and discriminating one another was the smart choice for the nobles and the church. This way, as the Dark Age continued and people kept starving to death or getting mauled by demons and monsters, people would never realize their problems were due to the government. The total lack of security to protect commoners and small villages that lived constantly in fear, the food getting more and more expensive, and taxes raising up constantly to the point thousands ended in the streets with nothing but their rags…
Due to these many reasons, the Dark Age created an enormous amount of superstitions incentivized by the church priests to cause fear and distrust on people, which were back then almost all corrupt except for a few righteous ones such as the young Ellergest of those times, who constantly was trying to fight against corruption until a new government finally reached most of the nations and the continental alliance, incentivized by richer nations and the powerful races of demi-humans was set in motion.
These changes followed with many coup’s that overtook older leaders and regimes. It could also be said that the connections and the strengthening of the adventurer guilds helped at the Dark Age to finally end, although some neighboring nations, due to the incompetence of its rulers, has already been overrun by demons once more.
Because of these many reasons, the discrimination of people was big, especially based in their physical appearance, the talents they could be born with, or the spirits they possessed when they awakened them at the age of 5 years of age. This village was once small enough for such superstitions to remain for many years, the child that had been born as an albino was discriminated and his family ostracized.
And things didn’t improved at all when he reached the age of 5, as he awakened his spirit and talent…
“In those times, the albino kid awakened his Talent, it was a Five Star Necromancer, and his Spirit was something nobody had ever seen before either, my grandma said it looked like the reaper itself.”
“Back then they thought he was the herald of death that had come to take their lives.”
“Many panicked, and people constantly harassed his family until hell broke loose…”
“I don’t know the details but they said they forced his family to attempt to capture him so they could burn him in the stake or something…”
“Man, those times were horrible, how could they do that to a kid?!”
“Well, they didn’t.”
Gradus quickly looked at the other hunters while gasping for air as he ran with everyone tailing him from behind.
“At the end, that kid went nuts. He killed his parents, raised them as undead, and then attacked the whole village with his monsters. The priests destroyed his undead but he managed to run away… Since then, the Kingdom had been trying to capture him, but after a few sights, he simply disappeared… However, many suspected that the armies of undead that, through the years attempted to attack the Kingdom’s other fiefdoms had been all his job…” Gradus said while narrowing his eyes.
“If that kid was raised well and taught how to properly use his powers, he would had become an incredible ally to humanity, but we made him our enemy instead…” Sighed Joan. “He kind… of reminds me of my son, Blake. If he had been born in those times, I don’t know what would had happened to him… People was really nuts in the Dark Age…”
“C-Could that Necromancer be back? But shouldn’t he be dead already?!”
“We need to bring the Priests out as fast as possible!”
“I’ve heard that twenty years ago there was an Undead army that completely took over a village and left it in ruins… Undead are way worse than demons!”
“If that’s really him… Then may the Holy Spirits protect us…” Gradus sighed, as the hunters finally saw the village’s wooden walls, which were already halfway made.
“We are back!”
“Quickly, hurry!”
The hunters reached the five guards in front of the wall’s gates, as their panicked faces quickly scared the guards, all of them being knights left in the village to protect it just in case by the Duke’s goodwill.
“What’s wrong?! Why are you back so early?”
“Oi! Don’t run!”
“UNDEAD! UNDEAD ARE MARCHING HERE!” A panicked hunter cried.
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