33 The reason for rage

After breakfast, Shalmoon stepped over the sleeping Rogun. He excused himself saying he had a few morning meetings to attend to and left.

This left Sheina and Harrison alone in the dining room if you don't count the snoring Rogun. She relaxed and started asking him questions.

"Where did you go last night?"

"I went to the cave where we met to get some stuff I left behind."

He was embarrassed to say he went to the woods to get some relief, so he made up a lie.

"We were worried about you. Please tell us next time you leave." Sheina said as she looked at him, expecting any signs of remorse.

Harrison didn't know how much the girl cried after he left, so he just nodded.

"Anyway, are we doing language lessons today?" Harrison asked.

"Sure. Meet me in the library in a while. I will go get my books." Sheina replied before leaving.

Harrison went to the kitchen ignoring the snoring Rogun and talked to Gordo about lunch. He wanted to cook, to raise it to at least level five, but had no time.

Gordo told him they will make ormash stew for lunch today, and they will barbecue a leg for dinner. After that talk, Harrison went to the library, where Sheina was already sitting at a desk.

Harrison spent the whole morning asking her words he still didn't have in his vocabulary, using the translation sphere when needed.

Harrison tried multitasking learning the language together with meditation. He was somewhat successful, but it was far from the speed of energy recovery when he was doing it as a sole task or when walking. The interruptions were too frequent, as he needed to divide his attention to Sheina's lesson.

When it was almost lunchtime a stumbling figure of Rogun who just woke up after his nap in the dining room interrupted them.

"Boy, are you even human?" Rogun said as he saw Sheina and Harrison sitting at a desk in the library.

Sheina laughed while saying, "Are you alright uncle Rogun?"

"I have a headache and my pride is hurt, that's all. I still can't believe he drank me under the table. Look at him. He is scrawnier than you are." Rogun said while pointing at Harrison.

"When do we start our lessons?" Harrison said as he tried to divert the topic.

"After lunch? What do you want to learn next?" Rogun asked.

"Do you have any more advanced spear manuals? The one you gave me feels like a basic introduction?" Harrison asked after he thought about it.

"You are right. That one is just an introduction and preparation for the main course. There are four books for this spear art. You can learn two of them now. For the third one you would need to have internal energy and learn how to imbue it into the spear. And for the last one."

Rogun thought for a while before saying, "Even my friend who left those books to me could not get this to work. Since the key requirement is to manifest your internal force on the outside of your body, you need high spiritual energy control."

"What is internal force?" Harrison asked, although by now he had some idea what it could be.

Rogun held his head as he had a throbbing headache before replying.

"It's just a way to implement spiritual energy into your body strengthening it. Someone who can use internal force can strengthen their body to unimaginable heights." He grumbled while waving his hands like it was something too far off into the future for Harrison.

"What about manifesting the internal force outside?" Harrison asked.

"When you reach such levels of control that you can push the spiritual energy to the outside of your body you can form it there as an external object. You would become unbeatable by those who can't. Only mages can fight you then, and people with the same amount of control." The pale Rogun replied.

"Mages?" Harrison asked. Sheina was also intently listening to their conversation. This topic was hardly ever mentioned in her school, so she was particularly interested.

Rogun sighed as he opened this can of worms. "Mages use their internal force in a different way than warriors. They use it to attract and gather elemental particles for their spells. I don't know how they do it so don't ask. All I know you need to have a good elemental affinity with the particles you want to use."

"You don't seem to like mages?" Sheina asked.

"I never met one that was likeable. They are all a bunch of cocky bastards that don't care about normals. That is how they call people without an elemental affinity. They are selfish pricks with no regard to people's lives." Rogun got really upset talking about mages.

"Why do you hate them so much?" Harrison asked and immediately regretted it. He saw Rogun's eyes shimmer for a second and then his expression became filled with rage.

"Those bastards killed my son, daughter-in-law and countless others. Fighting in the middle of Gormund for a piece of rock. My grandson at the time only survived because his mother shielded him with her back. A fireball hit her that went through my son first before hitting her. Tell me, do I have the right to hate them?" Rogun yelled at Harrison by the time he finished.

Then, like nothing happened, he came to his senses.

"I am sorry. I became emotional thinking of that time. This has nothing to do with you two. I should not have yelled at you." He said in an indistinct voice before leaving the library.

"Did you know about that?" Harrison asked Sheina, who was still looking at the leaving Rogun.

"I knew his son- and daughter-in-law died but they always mentioned it like it was an accident. To think Jorgun's parents met such an end." She sighed as she reminisced.

"You knew Jorgun?" Harrison by now knew he was Rogun's grandson.

"He was just four years older than I was, and we spent a lot of time together as Rogun could not take him to the fortress. He was like a big brother to me. He died protecting my mother. You would have liked him." Sheina said with tears in her eyes.

"Let's eat lunch!" She said as she tried to wipe off her tears in secret and packed up her books.

"Sure. I will meet you in the dining room." Harrison replied before she rushed off.

Looking at the books that surrounded him, he was tempted to select one, but as he checked his energy, he made a sad face.

He only had 5 energy out of 115, and he decided to save it in case of emergency.

'I will go hunt after lunch. I can meditate as I walk and regain energy after I kill the beasts. Also, after I cross over, I will regain plenty.' Harrison made a plan in his head before going to the dining room.

Lunch came and went. Shalmoon and Rogun didn't show up for lunch. After crying over remembering Jorgun's death, Sheina was not in the mood for small talk. Harrison also ate quietly. They just mechanically ate the stew and something comparable to bread.

Before the lunch finished, she mentioned she has to meet a friend in the afternoon. She had asked Harrison to join her, which he politely declined. The major reason being her mood at the table before. So he decided to give her some space.

They left the dining room together. She went back to her room as Harrison made his way through the kitchen into the backyard.

He unfastened the reins of the horse from the pole and made his way back to the stable. Once he was sure he was alone Harrison got a silver coin from the inventory. He materialized it in a pocket and left through the enormous door in front.

The guard at this time was a lot more friendly and opened up the door for him with a smile.

"Thank you for sharing the marakash with us." He yelled after Harrison as he was leaving.

"You're welcome. There will be more if I can get them." Harrison yelled back as he made his way towards the stable.

'Hm. The cooks seem to be honest, hard-working people. They didn't keep it all to themselves as I thought they would.' Harrison thought as he smiled in satisfaction.

He didn't know why, but this small thing filled his heart with warmth. It was as if a ray of sunshine shined upon a frozen desert. Since he didn't remember his past, he didn't know what experiences he had to make him feel that way.

At the stable he exchanged the one handed sword for a silver coin. He also made arrangements to pick up the cart again if his hunt was successful. If he could ensure the safety of the cart, he would not have returned it so fast. The forest was too thick for the cart and leaving it on the road seemed too reckless.

Going out of the town, he didn't notice a man was following him from the stable. He was like a shadow creeping behind him. Looking at his prey from the corners of the buildings he passed.

What attracted the man was Harrison's attire, which were the clothes Sheina's cousins left in the manor. He was sure the young man had a fat coin purse on him from the clothes he wore. With the lack of guards surrounding the youth, he looked like an easy target. He was already counting the money he would steal from him.