Ning was woken up in the middle of the night by someone. He saw the guards uniform on the man's clothes and yawned for a moment. "What is it?" he asked while looking around to figure out what he was doing.
'Oh right, I was waiting for the beast to fall asleep and fell asleep,' he remembered.
"The beast is asleep, please come to retrieve your sword," someone told him.
"Oh, great," Ning said as he stretched. "Finally."
He walked with the person over to the place where the beast was kept at. Even before getting close, he could hear the deep breaths of the beast. That thing was definitely sleeping.
'Try not to make any sound,' the guard told him.
'I won't,' Ning said as she slowly walked toward the beast. The door had stayed open for him, so he went into the room slowly and picked up his sword.
Getting the sword wasn't the hardest part at all. What was harder was making sure the sword's scent didn't alert the beast as it left the room.
He stepped back one step at a time while making the least amount of noise. After a while, he finally managed to get out of the room, at which moment the doors were shut immediately.
"Thank you," Ning whispered as he put the sword into his sheath before getting out of the mansion. He left through the front gate, without caring about what time it was.
The two moons were out in the sky on either side and there was enough light for his walk around the fortress.
He was high enough that he could see most of the city from up here. "Wow, the city is asleep," he thought. "What time is it exactly?"
He didn't even know where to look to find the time at all. With no answer, he shook his head and walked down the road that led to the mansion.
As he did, he heard some movements from close by. He paused for a second and looked in the direction of the sound. "Who's there?" he asked. He wondered for a second if the young lord had put someone up to kill him so they could take the sword.
However, before he could understand, a man came out from the shadows.
"What were you doing in there?" he asked.
Ning frowned a bit before realizing he had seen him before. "You're Erman's man?" he asked.
The man nodded. "Now, please answer my question," the man said.
"I was doing nothing," Ning said. "They threw my sword to the beast, so I had to wait until I could retrieve it."
The man looked at Ning for a moment before turning around. "Follow me," he said. "I'll take you to the safe house."
"Ugh, finally," Ning thought and followed him.
After walking through the various interconnecting pathways, they arrived in front of a small house and went in. However, after walking in, he realized that the house wasn't actually that small at all.
Since this location was below the plateau, the house was actually built onto the walls of the mountain itself. It was dug all the way in and as such it could hold a lot more people than it originally seemed to be able to.
"Thanks for bringing me here," Ning said to the man. "I'll go get some rest."
He left for the room he was assigned and immediately fell asleep. He was still tired, despite already sleeping fo a while, so he couldn't help but fall asleep.
He was woken up by the door swinging open rather loudly.
"Urgh, what time is it?" he asked as he got up from the bed.
"It's early morning," Sophie's voice said. "I'm glad you're back already. Nothing happened to you, right?"
"No, I'm fine," Ning said. "Were you worried?"
"A little," the girl said. "The lord of this place isn't known for his best."
"Oh, is he that bad?" Ning asked.
"He's an insecure brat from what I hear," Sophie said. "His father was the previous lord and was a good one at that. However, he died due to some health complications."
"The royal family did not bother with deciding on who was going to become the next lord and simply gave a decree that the late lord's son would be the new lord. The new young lord was inexperienced and immature, but he still realized what sort of opportunity he had in his hand."
"So, he's trying his best to keep it to himself," Sophie said. "He's worried about a lot of things, the most important one being that he believes that if he doesn't appear strong or if the royal family finds out that he's useless, he will be replaced."
"That's why he goes on his little walk with his beast all the time, to remind people that while he may not be the strongest, he had someone else to rely on," Sophie said.
"How did he manage to tame such a strong beast?" Ning asked.
"He didn't," Sophie said. "If I'm not mistaken, it was the late lord's beast."
"I see," Ning said as he thought about what he experienced yesterday. "Everyone must already know that he's useless, but they still let him lead, huh?"
"Well, he was made the lord by the Royal family themselves, so there's nothing the people can really do," Sophie said. "Still, the idiot fears being replaced so much that he messed up the normal stuff. He should just try to learn and become a better person instead."
"Well, at least he has his sister," Ning said. "She seems mature and talented."
"Yeah, but what can she do? She doesn't have as much authority as her brother. She somehow managed to get herself to become the leader of the guards though, so that's something."
"I see," Ning said. "Well, I hope the two siblings have good luck, but there's nothing for us to do. Right now, I'm just very hungry and would like to eat something."
"Ah, sure," Sophie said. "Let's go have some breakfast."
