Book 2: Chapter 2

Mahoj Zen was a nasty little 13 year old boy. What he didn’t have in size he made up with his big nasty attitude. Mahoj was a low-grade elemental water mage and although a water mage was near the bottom of the kingdom’s elemental ranking, a mage was still a mage. With his ego inflated by the fact that he was the only mage to ever have come from their town of 15,000, Mahoj felt superior to everyone else in his town. In his eyes, even his parents were no exception to this rule. They were trash that had only done a great service by giving birth to him.

Mahoj did not usually appear in his town and would usually be found in Noxiams Academy, a place where young water mages were gathered to be taught and nurtured until they reached rank 3 as a mage. Noxiams Academy greatly paled in comparison to the other countless academies in Nakrul and was definitely not the best academy in the kingdom because they solely nurtured water mages. Nonetheless, Noxiams was still an academy and Mahoj was lucky to have gained admittance.

When Mahoj was born, his parents had no clue he had an elemental body. They were both the most ordinary of people, hard working and lower class, living on the edge of town. To them, mages were like mythical creatures that could only be seen once in a blue moon. Thus, it wasn’t until Mahoj was six years of age when his elemental body was finally discovered by a traveling mage.

That mage had been keeping a low-profile and had wanted to rest for a few days in the town when he noticed Mahoj tugging at his mother’s hem. Mahoj’s mother was a waitress in the inn and it was almost time for her to get off work but Mahoj couldn’t wait and had come to tell his mother to hurry.

The traveling mage instantly grew intrigued and struck up a conversation with Mahoj’s mother, who later invited the woman mage to her house for further talks. As Mahoj’s father joined in on the conversation, the three concluded that Mahoj would be taken to Noxiams Academy to be trained as a mage.

From then on, Mahoj would come back once a year to visit his parents. On the first year of his return, Mahoj’s mood was noticeably more gloomy and he did not talk much. On the second year of his return, Mahoj no longer called his parents by their name or addressed them as he should have; instead, he called them ‘you’ or ‘old lady’ and such. On the third, fourth, and fifth year Mahoj did not return home at all and spent those years at Noxiams Academy. On the sixth year, Mahoj returned to his town and elected to live lavishly at inn instead of returning to his house. In fact, he didn’t even consider his home a house anymore, but instead thought of it as a garbage dumpster.

When Mahoj’s mother saw him seated in the inn, she was shocked at Mahoj’s change. He looked like a different person, but she would never forget her child’s face. She hadn’t seen him in so long nor had she heard anything from him so she missed him dearly. She quickly ran up to hug him but Mahoj slapped her across the face and told her not to contaminate him with her filth. The blow was hard and nothing was held back. Mahoj’s mother was knocked unconscious right away and had to be taken away by another waitress. No one intervened, not even the innkeeper.

Later that night as Mahoj’s father heard of this from the customers at the inn who had witnessed the event, he went to the inn to confronted Mahoj about this. No one clearly knew what happened that night but Mahoj’s father could not make it to work for the next two weeks. This news shocked everyone in the town and their opinion of Mahoj plummeted drastically, though no one would openly admit that to him. Besides, for some reason he now had small fortune to spend and a 12 year old could really spend.

Now, on the seventh year, Mahoj returned once more and he had been spending money as if it were water. He had not left a great impression the year before and his return this year did not start off well, too. Although people pretended to be polite to him in order to milk him for his money, everyone was on guard against him; some even went out of their way to avoid him, afraid that they would become his next victim.

Mahoj had used his identity as a mage to force people into difficult situations and even threatened to kill some of them for offences such as breathing too loud or looking too ugly. It was as if each time he returned to the town he brought back more trouble and more bitterness. His mother and father knew to stay out of Mahoj’s way and they were too insignificant for him to even care. Mahoj treated everyone in the town as his plaything. He even had the town mayor’s 17 year old daughter to himself seven nights ago. Mahoj just couldn’t resist the temptation and had been eyeing her for a long while now. Though he was only 13, he had already had intercourse several times already.

But of course, the mayor’s daughter was only an appetizer, as he had set his eyes on the blacksmith’s daughter, who was 16. She was a little beauty that was purposely hidden beneath the black coal stains on her face and messy hair. If not for his keen eyes then he would have never guessed she was such a beauty! She looked even better than some of the female water mages at Noxiam Academy.

...And Mahoj got his way with the blacksmith’s daughter two nights after his ‘encounter’ with the mayor’s daughter. He simply cornered her, and after she rejected his generous offering of money and advances, Mahoj simply used force. When blacksmith Ekraq found out what had happened to his daughter he did not go berserk as many would expect but was surprisingly calm. Mahoj didn’t notice this nor did he care. The Mayor hadn’t done anything to him so what could a lowly blacksmith do.

After having his way with the blacksmith’s daughter Mahoj felt satisfied and was preparing to return to Noxiams Academy tomorrow morning because the new term was going to begin soon. As the thought of returning to Noxiams entered his head, Mahoj began to frown and his legs grew weak. He thought back to all his memories at the academy and since his first day there, he had been bullied. At first he just thought it was something everyone did to someone new but as it continued, he knew he was being specifically chosen because of his poor background. Mahoj had not made any friends at all during his stay at Naxiams Academy and the only thing keeping him there was a deep seeded hatred and drive for revenge.

He promised that all the girls who bullied him would ‘pay the price’ and that all the guys who bullied him would be crushed into mince meat. Mahoj had all these thoughts bottled up inside his devious little mind and his courage would only let them escape when he was back in his town.

As Mahoj called it a night and began to return to the inn, his eyes feasted upon the full bosom of a mature woman. She was around her twenties and although her face wasn’t devastating, her looks were above average. What really drew Mahoj in was the ripe body of the woman and as he swallowed his saliva and thought to approach her, the woman sauntered over to him on her own accord.

As the woman got closer, her perfume struck Mahoj’s nostril, making him lick his lips.

The woman introduced herself as Lagume and began chatting with Mahoj, who quickly managed to get the woman to follow him back to his inn.

On their way back, Lagume whispered in Mahoj’s ears: “I can’t wait anymore.”

When Mahoj heard this, his smile widened and his lower body part stood up.

Lagume saw the response and she lightly brushed her thigh against that body part. Afterwards, she dragged Mahoj into one of the dark alleyways between two tall buildings.They went deeper in and it grew darker.

“Here is good,” Mahoj glanced about and noticed no one was around. He was impatient and his wandering hands had already found something bouncy to play with.

“A little further,” Lagume moaned. “Someone might come through and see us.”

“Then they’d best mind their own business otherwise.” Mahoj had already unbuttoned his shirt and was beginning to take off his coarse leather pants.

As Mahoj was taking off his pants, he noticed Lagume dart backwards away from him.

“What’s wrong?” Mahoj asked, thinking the woman was really afraid of people seeing and was moving deeper into the darkness.

It was at that moment that multiple swooshes could be heard along with their accompanying ‘thrums’.

Swoosh

Swoosh

Swoosh

…

10 crossbolts flew out in tandem. A total of 7 crossbolts, each a foot and a half in length and coated with poison, struck Mahoj’s body in varying places: four on his chest, with one having almost pierced his lungs, one on his arm and two on his right thigh.

Immediately, Mahoj grunted and coughed up blood. He did not lose consciousness right away and tried to cast his innate spell Water Sphere but another crossbolt, the eleventh one, sliced right through his heart and embedded itself in the stone wall.

Mahoj’s spell was interrupted and he touched the little round hole where blood was gushing out from. He stared blankly at the blood plastered on his fingers and then dropped to the ground with blood foaming from his mouth. He thrashed about and an awful stench arose from Mahoj’s half-pulled down leather pants.

Ekraq the blacksmith strode out of the shadows with a crossbow he had personally forged in his right hand. His other hand held a large brown woven sack.

“It is done,” Ekraq whispered. “This scum bag has died, my little Arina. I am so sorry about what happened to you. This is the best I can do... Please forgive your useless father.” Tears began dripping from Ekraq’s cold face, as he apologized to his Arina who had been too innocent for the cruelty of Nakrul.