"Friends of yours?" Zaos asked.

"You can say that," Derenus replied while he was sitting on the right side of the entrance to his house. "Remember when I told that I lost all my friends, these guys are their children and grandchildren."

"I see… so they discovered about me, do you guys want to fight?" Zaos asked. "I don't want to, but I won't let you guys hurt me, I need to recover as fast as possible and get the hell out of here."

"You think we will let you?" A certain man in his twenties that had long, light-brown hair said, and Zaos recognized that voice. "You attacked many villages and captured several of our people."

"I could say the same about you," Zaos said. "Not to mention, you almost buried me alive, so I would say that we are even."

"Don't joke around! You have been persecuting us for thousands of years, because of you we have been living in this place that doesn't grow anything!" The man shouted.

"I am not that old, so that statement is incorrect," Zaos said.

  That man and his friends pointed their hands toward Zaos, but he ignored that. He kept pushing the snow bear toward the hut, and then they finally attacked. Zaos blocked the fire arrows shot at them with his enhanced left arm. He felt some heat spreading around, but it was bearable. Those guys frowned when they saw that they didn't cause any damage… it looked like the extra power got in their heads, and they were thinking that they were invincible or something. After all, they were quite young, probably around Zaos's age, so it was no surprise that they would get ahead of themselves.

  Those kids increased the firing speed of their magic projectiles, and Zaos was forced to use both arms to block them. At that rate, he will stay there all day unless he attacks them. Without any other choice, Zaos dashed toward them, and before they could react in any way, he punched them in the stomach. Zaos held back, so he only made them fall unconscious. When some of them noticed that Zaos was too fast for them, they tried to move away and use defensive spells, but Zaos didn't let them.

  In the end, Zaos got dizzy after knocking down those kids in the snow. He couldn't even do a light exercise like that… he was worse than he had imagined.

"Shit… I need to recover faster," Zaos said while he was fighting the dizziness.

"That was impressive, how come your magic can be more powerful than ours?" Derenus asked.

"Because I trained hard," Zaos replied. "Anyway, do you know how to cook a bear? I can give you half."

"Half, huh… I guess that is fine," Derenus said. "Still, before that, help me carry those idiots to inside. Even idiots that grew up in this region can catch colds."

  Zaos had no idea what Derenus meant by that, but he decided to help him. The interior of the hut got a little cramped, but it couldn't be helped. After finishing that, Derenus began to skin the bear, and Zaos began to meditate. He didn't use much mana against those guys, but he suffered some damage on the second wave of attacks. Now, even he could tell that they grew stronger compared to two months ago… at that rate, the balance of power would really break, and they would start a war.

"Why do I care if a war happens or not? Ah, that is right… Tyra's family will be involved since she lives so close by…" Zaos thought.

  In the end, it seemed that stop being a soldier wasn't something that Zaos could do all of a sudden. It was normal since he had been trained to be one since he was only four. The process of becoming more worried about his own being and interests would take a while. Still, Zaos was looking forward to doing that. While he endured the harshness and the policy in the army, he always felt that he needed to be more accessible. Since he became a Captain, he didn't have to follow the orders of many people, but now he had to follow the orders of the biggest assholes of the kingdom.

"I guess I will have to desert… there is no way someone like my father and the king will let someone like me leave retire," Zaos thought.

  Much sooner than Zaos thought, the bear soup was finished, and the nice smell filled the hut. Zaos noticed that the scent slowly was making the kids wake up, so he hurried to eat and fill his belly as much as possible. He didn't mind sharing his food, but he needed all the energy he could get right now.

"You don't have to worry about it, I can give them part of my share," Derenus said. "You are quite weird considering that you are supposed to be what they call a highborn."

"I don't choose my actions based on what others think of me," Zaos said.

"It seems you are much freer than I thought nobles were supposed to be… at least when it comes to certain aspects," Derenus said.

One by one, the kids began to wake up and looked around without knowing what had happened. Only after they saw Zaos stuffing his mouth with soup that they recalled everything. They prepared themselves to fight again, but Derenus stopped them.

"Give up, you can't defeat him," Derenus said. "Considering his current condition, you might be able to defeat him in four or five months, if our magic keep growing at this same pace, but I find hard to believe that he can only do this much."

"Sir, why did you help someone like him?" The light-brown-haired man said.

"I didn't, I wanted his short sword, but I couldn't take it from his body," Derenus replied. "I suppose I cleaned his wounds and gave him some food since it would be unpleasant to see someone rooting in my home."