Light passed through the window of the room that Azzard was sleeping in. A moment later, Azzard woke up and rose from the bed. His mind was quite refreshed for having slept quite well throughout the night. There were no disturbances to his sleep except for the voice he had heard the moment sleep overtook him.

‘Azzard you’ve finally returned. I’ll come for you and kill you.” The voice was very ominous to the point that even a grown man would be scared to death by just hearing it. The words had troubled Azzard quite a bit; he had no memory of anything but there was already someone out there to kill him. Azzard could’ve chosen not to pay any mind to the voice but something was telling him that if he didn’t do so, he would surely suffer in the future. So he called out to Gerard to materialize inside the room.

“Master Azzard.” Gerard bowed slightly to Azzard but since he was already used to it, Azzard didn’t seem to find it as uncomfortable as before.

“Gerard, just before I slept I heard an ominous voice speak in my mind. It said that I’ve finally returned and that it wants to find me and kill me as well.”, Azzard told Gerard.

“....” Gerard remained silent as if he was thinking over something.

“What is it Gerad? Does those words seem familiar to you?”, Azzard interrogated Gerard but once again he wasn’t given a reply.

After a few moments, it seemed that Gerard had finally come back from his thoughts and spoke, “It seems that we must be careful Master Azzard. We must heed those words since they could be the truth.”

“So someone is out to kill me? Who could it be? Is it Draknair or the black figure that controlled Draknair?”

“No it is not Draknair, Master Azzard. I am certain that Draknair had already perished after the attack that was launched to the palace. It is possible that it is the black figure but 1000 years had passed, only a few beings can live that long and still be alive.” Gerard informed and continued to speak. “Now, that we’ve been given a warning. We must immediately start your training so that you can gain your previous power back so that you may be prepared to face what’s coming in the future.”

Gerard had advised Azzard to commence his training and Azzard agreed that it was a good proposition. Ever since he woke up, he felt weak for not being able to protect those around him so his desire was to get stronger and more powerful. For Azzard, that dream was extremely likely to happen. He was the reincarnation of a powerful person of 1000 years ago and he also had the guidance of Gerard, the most powerful weapon of 1000 years ago.

“I agree. We’ll start my training after I leave this village.”

Breakfast was also good since the sisters were both great cooks. The three of them enjoyed the meal and once again Azzard said his thanks to which Viashna replied that it was the least they could do for their savior. Azzard told the sisters that he needed to leave because he still had something to do. He did not say anything specific. Darshee was still curious about Azzard so she wanted to ask what he was going to do but she was stopped by Viashna.

Azzard planned on leaving the next day. He decided that he should explore the town a bit since he was curious about the villagers. After breakfast, he went out of the house. Darshee accompanied him and as for Viashna she stayed behind to clean the house and prepare the next meal. Darshee was sticking rather closely to Azzard. She had locked both her arms around Azzard’s and she held it tightly.

They first visited the market. It was more lively than what he expected it to be since he saw no one yesterday. The merchants were busy selling items from food to jewellery. Kids were running around and their parents were busy catching up to them. After a few minutes in the market that he was able to deduce that there were no humans living in the village. He noticed that many were staring at him and they were all non-human beings. Most of the population was comprised of beastmen, then came the humanoids, then the dwarves and finally the elves. All there were some elves, Azzard could tell that they weren’t many.

To test his hypothesis, he asked Darshee. “Are their any humans here? Why is it that everyone is staring at me?” Darshee chuckled at his questions and responded. “Well you are the first human here to stay at the village. It is rare for humans to go to our village except for the soldiers who collect the taxes from the mayor.”

“That explains why she is so curious about me.”, Azzard thought.

“And why am I the only human to visit this village?”

“Well, as you can see. Our village is not doing well at the moment. Every year more crops die and even livestock. The village is poor and the taxes makes everything worse. We barely have enough money to buy food.”

“I see but that doesn’t answer my question. Why is that there aren’t humans living here?”

Darshee was silent for a moment. She looked to be deep in thought. She was hesitating whether to answer my question or not. After a few seconds, she shook her head and slap both her cheeks with her hands.

“Well, humans don’t like other beings. It’s not that there hostile towards us or that they discriminate us but it’s more of that they’re wary of us. The reason for their actions is that they believe that we are violent.”

“What do you mean by violent?”, asked Azzard.

“It’s a long story but I’ll cut straight to the point. It happened a few years back.” Darshee started to tell the story. “The village was flourishing then and we had quite a few humans residing in our village. Everything was good but it all changed one day.”

“The human children started to get sick every single one of them. It was only the human children who contracted the illness so the villagers started becoming scared of us. They had thought that it was our responsibility because none of the children of our races became sick. The only healers present were the elves and the humans didn’t trust them so they requested a human healer to be sent to the village to cure the children.”

“The human healer arrived and started checking the conditions of the children. He did not know what the illness was nor its origin. However, he did say that it was not a life threatening illness so the parents were relieved to hear that.”

“Were the children cured of their illness?”, Azzard asked.

“To say that it was cured would be far from it. The illness disappeared after a few days the healer came to the village. It was like nothing happened and every child was able to fully recover.”

“An illness that comes and goes. That’s interesting.” Azzard added, “If they were cured, everything should be fine afterwards, right?”

“That’s what we were hoping for but sadly it didn’t happen that way.”, Darshee said in a low voice.

“Rumors started to circulate among the humans. As the rumor goes, we were responsible for the illness of their children. It also said that once the human healer came to the village, the one responsible for the spreading the sickness was afraid of being caught so he cured all of the children. Or so it goes.”

“After that, the humans started to leave the village. And apparently the rumor had spread to other places. So every human is wary of this place saying that the people living here will make human children sick. They stopped coming after that except for the soldiers who collect tax.”

“Business has also been poor among other towns where most are human merchants. No one wants to buy the crops we sell. They say that it’s contaminated. Adding to that, they sell us the poorest quality of items. All of our farming equipment is of poor grade which is the reason why our crops have died and we haven’t been able to harvest much.”

Azzard felt sympathy for the village. They were blamed for something that they didn’t do. He took the side of the other races since there was no evidence that the other races were responsible for making the children sick.

“I wish I could help but the current me has no capability of doing so. I just hope that this village can find a way to solve your problem.” Azzard said those words not for comfort but for the purpose of motivating Darshee. He intended to bring up Darshee’s desire to solve the problem that was in front of them. He believed that Darshee and Viashna were capable of solving the problem because they were former elven princesses. They must have some knowledge in politics which could help them in negotiating with human merchants for better prices and equipment.

Once again, Azzard felt helpless for being incapable of helping. The first time he tried to help someone almost lead to his death. Luckily for him, he was healed immediately before the world took his life away to another place. The second time was when he faced the slave traders. He wasn’t able to do anything but watch as the slave traders ran from Gerard. And this was the third time. He was supposed to be a reincarnation of the hero of 1000 years ago but to think that he was truly worthless now made his heart ache a bit. However, he didn’t let this feeling bring him down; instead he made it his motivation. The motivation needed to become someone who was worthy of his past self: a person who was skilled in leadership and a person who was dependable.

Gathering all his thoughts, he now knew what he had to do. Before he would train, he would help this village.