Chapter 9 - Childhood Sweetheart (1)

Chapter 9: Childhood Sweetheart (1)

Translator: Ma Shaoyi and Pan Junqian

Proofread by Peter Gong

“I know,” Rowen nods.

“I may leave the Wolf manor in a few days. You should take care of yourself,” Patriarch

Brain’s voice softens unconsciously.

Rowen blinks and asks, “Patriarch, where are you going?”

“I’m going to visit an old friend,” Patriarch Brain says with a slight murmur.

“Well, Patriarch, be careful on your way, too,” Rowen whispers. The smart Rowen knows that patriarch Brian does not want to tell him the details, so he stops asking.

Patriarch Brian nods and pats Rowen on his shoulder, and then, without more words, he turns away.

When Patriarch Brain has completely disappeared, Rowen is reminded of the coming-of-age ceremony and he can’t help but remember some things.

The whole name of that girl is Caroline Tiger and her father Crewson Tiger now is the Patriarch of the Tiger Family. The Tiger Family is the richest family in the Mayor Town.

Of course, the Mayor Town is just a small town, and the richest family in the Mayor Town is nothing compared with the entire Red Fox Empire. Besides, Crewson is not a noble and the Tigers is only a family of plebs, as a result, he always seems to subordinate himself to the Wolfs, who are members of the aristocracy.

But in fact, the Tiger family now has far more power than the Wolfs. For the time being, although the Tiger family is still the plebs family, no nobility can make offence to the Tiger since the brother-in-law of Crewson is the Earl Perrucci, who is a man of real power in the imperial capital.

And there are quite a few talents in the Tiger family’s younger generation: Caroline’s sister Kellen, seventeen years old, is already a level-Ⅲ enchanter who is only one step away from being an intermediate enchanter. Caroline’s cousin Ibis, also 17, is a level-Ⅲ warrior. Their talents are the envy of the Wolf family.

Kellen and Ibis both study at the Royal Knight College, and it is foreseeable that even if without Earl Perruccii’s help, the Tiger family will soon become a real aristocratic one.

Once, the Wolf family was the owner of the town, but now, the Tiger family is the real owner of the town. And not content with that, the Tigers wants to drive the Wolfs out of the Mayor town for good. At this time, the Wolf family comes to realize that they have been aiming at the imperial capital to recast family glory, but fails to be aware that the most fundamental family business has been approaching destruction.

Naturally, the Wolfs will not give up their roots. So, these years the Wolfs and the Tigers have been combating each other openly or secretly in the Mayor town. Although the Tiger family is more powerful, the Wolfs are of aristocracy and Patriarch Brain is also a hereditary earl. Although the earl Brain has no real power, he still makes the Tiger family nervous. Therefore, the fight is not too fierce, but the Tiger family will always challenge the Wolf family from time to time.

But even though the Wolf and Tiger families are now at loggerheads, a dozen years ago, the two families were fairly good, even close. At that time, Rowen and Caroline served as a bond that brought the two families closer.

One winter night sixteen years ago, Rowen was born, and Caroline was born only minutes after Rowen. In such a small town, the chances of two people being born in the same month are not high, and the chances of two people being born on the same day are extremely rare,let alone almost the same time. So, Rowen and Caroline are always mentioned together.

And ever since she could walk, Caroline has become Rowen’s sidekick, going wherever he went. From the age of three, Ron took Caroline to play around in the town of Mayor, and many people made fun of them as a couple. Rowen and Caroline, of course, didn’t know what a couple meant, and what they knew is that being a couple can stay together all day. And Caroline likes to play with Rowen every day, so she said she would marry Rowen, and Rowen said he would marry her.

At that time, Caroline’s father, Crewson, seemed to be happy to see Rowen and Caroline together, and both families seemed to have agreed to their marriage by default, though without explicit consent.

It wasn’t until they were six years old that Rowen’s parents went to the imperial capital and never came back, and Perrucci, Crewson’s brother-in-law, was designated as an earl by the emperor and became an imperial power. At that time, things began to look quite different.

The relationship between the two families began to deteriorate gradually, even evolving into a hostile situation, and no one in the town of Mayor dares to say that Rowen and Caroline are a young couple openly.

The disappearance of Rowen’s parents makes him more sensible and thoughtful than other boys of the same age. From then on, he starts to deliberately keep at a distance from Caroline, and Crewson also warns his daughter not to play with Rowen anymore.

However, Caroline comes here to see Rowen now and then as usual, and no matter how indifferent Rowen is to her, she doesn’t care about it at all.

Caroline and Rowen have got along with each other and maintained such a rather strange relationship in the past ten years. Although Rowen feels irritated every time Caroline appears in his presence, he would feel empty again if Caroline doesn’t come to him for a long time.

A moment later, Rowen goes back to the reality from his memory. He looks at the ruins laying before him, and a bitter smile climbs up on his face. He thinks it’s time to clean this place.

It takes Rowen half a day to clean and tidy up the house. As for the fallen part, Patriarch Brain intends to ask someone to build a new one for him at first, but Rowen decides not to waste their time. Instead, he would like them to help him repair the remaining part and have the bricks and dust cleaned. So finally, the house is smaller than before with only little differences in other aspects.

The next morning, Rowen gets up very early. After the breakfast, he leaves the Wolf Manor and walks out of the Town.

After walking about a kilometer away from the Town, Rowen arrives at the foot of a mountain. He walks around to the other side of it and begins looking for something carefully.

“I got it!” A moment later, Rowen’s face brightens up. He pushes aside some withered leaves and branches and some frozen snow, and a narrow cranny in a stone appears that is big enough for only one person to pass through. Even though Rowen is thin, he could only crawl in against its wall.

After walking 100 meters, the cranny in the stone gradually widens. Rowen quickens his pace towards the end of the cranny. His horizon suddenly becomes wider and open.

This is a broad and beautiful valley. Thought it is winter day, there are still many light green trees growing in this valley. Surrounded by mountains, the stone cranny is the only way for people to get in, and there is a very open field at the center and a pool at the corner of the valley. The pool is steaming. Rowen puts his hand in it, and the water is still as warm as ten years ago.

Caroline and he found the valley in his childhood, and if Caroline hasn’t told anyone about it, they are still the only two people who know this place. In the past ten years, Rowen never comes here and now he is here again, but he doesn’t come here for Caroline. He just wants to find a suitable place to text the ability of his summoning beast, and he doesn’t want the summoning beast to ruin his house again.

At a flick of the button on the bracelet, Rowen immediately finds himself sitting inside the iron armored beast. With his previous experience, he knows what to do first this time.

He sits down on the chair and waits for the metal belt to tie his waist. Then, he presses the start button on the console.

The machine roars softly and Rowen stretches his hands and reaches for the control rod. He knows that pushing this rod could get the beast moving, but once the beast moves, it is not so easy to control it. He hopes to gradually master the method of controlling the iron armored beast through repeated trainings.

In fact, he hopes the iron armored beast can tell him the way to control itself, but he finds that the iron armored beast sometimes can answer his question but sometimes cannot. It seems that it can answer his questions only under a certain mode. However, the question is that he doesn’t know under which mode the iron armored beast can give him the answer. He thinks that he would explore the method on his own rather than be told by the beast.

Rowen takes a breath and tightens himself slightly, then he pushes forward the control rod and the iron armored beast rushes forward in a sudden. Slower than it has been, it is still faster than he has expected.