Chapter 6: Fake backstory

"Calm down. There is no need to be so hasty with the food. We won't take it away from you."

Sitting on the edge of one of the many carriages present in the entire caravan, Fen was rapidly tearing the pieces of some kind of meat apart, before swallowing the entire pieces of this nutritious meal. Yet, as easy as it was for someone actually well-fed to speak this advisory bullshit, the situation looked entirely different for the young man.

'He won't take the food back? I would like to see him try!'

With the sudden bout of enormous wrath appearing in Fen's eyes, his palm currently holding another piece of meat suddenly shone with a strange light. It indicated that his fires were raging just as much as his emotions did.

For someone who could know the young man's mind, along with the situation around him, his thoughts might appear to be the epitome of idiocy. After all, how could one be as daring as to be prepared to fight off someone who just saved you? Not to speak about the entire caravan, at least a hundred men strong lagging behind the front guard?

But with every bite, Fen could feel the energy returning to his body. After swallowing the fourth piece of meat, he finally calmed down to the point where he would actually lick up the few drops of the juice that would appear on his lips with every bite.

"Can you talk now?"

As if seeing through the changes in Fen's appearance, the man called Mark sat down beside him on the carriage. With how the young man couldn't see even a hint of hostility in his face or aura, all the thoughts about the possible execution were pushed to the back of Fen's head. With his life now saved, outside of keeping himself on guard to not betray his… strange circumstances, he decided to go with the flow. After all, there had to be some reason why this clearly influential man bothered to save his life in the first place!

"I… I-I can."

This stutter wasn't an act. No matter how good Fen felt after filling his belly to a reasonable degree, no matter how much relief was filing his mind after escaping the certain death by starvation, talking with someone who was several levels above him on the social ladder still made the young man quite anxious.

"It's okay. Take your time to answer my questions. Keep in mind, I do not wish you any harm. I just want to understand what could put you in such dire straits."

Ring.

That would be the sound of the alarms going off in Fen's head if he ever had the chance to experience its noise in the first place. As this kind of contraption still remained only in the domain of the rich and influential, his mind was silent. Just like when he would prepare to fight with the approaching predator in the forest.

"I… I don't really know… We were travelling through a forest… I mean, I was travelling through the forest with some other people from my village and a strange, rich man…"

Taking a break to inhale some air into his lungs, Fen's mind frantically analyzed all the rumours and talks he heard about the entire initiation thing. Since he wasn't either arrested or executed on the spot, he could pretend to be someone who actually went through the initiation rite!

But how to do so without raising any alarms in that middle-aged man's mind?

"Don't worry. Take your time."

With Mark's encouraging smile giving even more time for Fen to prepare his story, the young man finally exhaled his air and picked up where he left.

"We were going somewhere, from my village. I remember that we were moving through a forest… Then something happened. I think… I saw some men… They had swords! They…"

Stopping for a moment to make his story a bit more believable, Fen made the face of someone thinking really hard in order to remember even the minute details of what happened. All the while he was actually putting the events in the exact order he had to describe them to make his story realistic!

"So you went through the rite, and then you were attacked…"

"No, I did not."

Fully focused on the perfect order in which he would tell the story, Fen actually managed to interrupt Mark's suggestion. Only when the young man's words reached his own ears, did he realised what he actually did!

If one could say that previously his mind was operating on its full speed, then right now it went into overdrive!

"So you didn't go through the rite?!"

Seeing how agitated Mark became, Fen realised that he burned his chance. Now, the execution would happen again. He would once again be called a heretic, tied to a stake and burned down for the glory of the great dragon… Or would he?

In this moment of desperation, a single sight came to his mind. A single memory of when one of the oldest orphanage brothers he could remember, actually went through the rite himself.

With nothing to lose, Fen once again opened his eyes wide, as if recalling something so drastic and brutal, that even reminiscing it was enough to put him into a shock.

"I did not… Blood… In the commotion, someone or something cut my arm… They killed him! They killed him! They killed him!"

Repeating this simple sentence three times, every time he did so, Fen made sure to say that even louder. While he didn't dare to raise his eyes towards Mark's face as if doing so would betray how full of lies his story was, by pricking his ears, he could hear the middle-aged man rustling where he was sitting, clearly anxious to hear the rest of his fake recounts.

"Calm down, kid. You are safe now. Could you tell me what happened in that last moment? How did you manage to reach the road, if they killed your rite arcanist?"

With this single word serving as the trigger, a whole lot of memories suddenly overwhelmed Fen's mind. Now, he didn't need to fake being stunned anymore.

"I… My arm was cut deeply… I remember thinking that I will have to cut it in order to live. But when a man appeared and raised his sword to kill me, I felt something splattering all over me. Someone else killed the man…"

Arcanists. That single word was worth the world right now. It was the arcanists that were supposed to carry on the initiation rite for the village. It was the arcanists that brought a bit of joy and hope to the simple folk like him. It was the arcanists that could discover one innate talent and pull him from the miserable life of village folk into the comfortable life of civil servants!

"Don't tell me… Did his blood splattered on your wound?!"

Initially willing to explain how a strange pouch was destroyed in the killing hit, splashing its content all over his body, hearing Mark's sudden and unexpected inquiry, the young man's instinct sensed the opportunity. Even his master once said that if someone asks a question in this way, then the proper answer is already revealed!

"I think so?"

Even though providing the reply that Mark sought was the easiest way out, doing so in a too obvious way could only attract trouble. By adding a bit of uncertainty, Fen could surprisingly make his story only more believable!

"Oh Dragon Allmighty… Initiated only partially, went through a traumatic experience, nearly died from exhaustion… If you could still produce such pure flames with all that baggage, them your existence alone will be enough to shake the foundations of the entire empire!"