"I see…" Thirteen muttered as he sat on the window hook in his room.
The hooting of an owl sounded in the distance as Vassago continued to inform his Master of everything that he learned from Taiga about his stepbrother Anwir.
Several minutes later, the hooting stopped, which concluded Vassago's report.
Thirteen then started to chirp, thanking Vassago for his report.
"Stay for a few days. There are a few things I need you to do for me, Vassago."
"Understood. Master."
After that brief exchange, Thirteen got up and closed the window of his room before lying down on his bed.
As a system, these kinds of events weren't new to him.
The Pocopoco's report only confirmed his hunch, which gave him the signal to proceed to the next step of his plans.
He had been staying in the General's residence for five days, and during that time, he had learned quite a bit about the Evander Family.
Briella, who would often introduce him to others as her adopted son, treated Anwir coldly.
According to Rafiki, this wasn't the case in the past because she truly cared for him like her own son.
The change in her attitude toward Anwir all happened when Percival was captured by the Barbarian Raiding party. Ever since that day, she wouldn't even talk to Anwir unless absolutely necessary.
Cleo, who was Percival's older sister, would often look at him from a distance. However, she never took the initiative to approach him.
She even looked at Thirteen with a fearful gaze as if she was looking at something very scary.
General Stark, on the other hand, tolerated his existence, but the former never talked to him even once.
The only ones who always talked to him were Briella, Rafiki, and Alina, whom the General had ordered to serve as Thirteen's guard.
Of course, they couldn't allow him to freely wander everywhere or leave the residence as he wished. That was why they had assigned him a protector, but Alina's true purpose was to ensure that he didn't try to escape the residence and return to the Barbarian Lands.
After nearly ten minutes of silence, Thirteen opened his eyes and a faint smile appeared on his face.
'Seriously, this family is the best,' Thirteen thought. 'Not only did they produce a Hero, they even adopted a Second-Rate Villain. Kukuku! What a stroke of luck!'
Aside from raising a Hero, Thirteen was planning to raise a Villain as well.
But the problem is that finding a True Villain was just as hard as finding a Hero.
Fortunately, he found Percival when he was still young, allowing him to bring the TIgerkin under his wing.
Truth be told, the growth paths of Heroes and Villains were very identical.
Almost all of them would suffer a tragedy, which would become a turning point in their life.
This turning point would force them to make a choice. They would either choose to take the Righteous Path and become a Hero or take the Thorny Path of revenge and become a Villain.
'Right now, Anwir is just a Second-Rate, or maybe even a Third-Rate Villain,' Thirteen mused. 'But this is normal since he has just started to take the Villain Route. The fastest way to make a villain grow is through desperation. Fortunately, it is very easy to make him fall into despair.'
The smile on the boy's face widened because he could already envision the outcome in his mind.
'I've already stayed long enough in this place. I think I need to start the next phase of the plan.'
After confirming the things he needed to do in the last few days, Thirteen closed his eyes to rest.
A few minutes later, he had a dream where Percival and his stepbrother, Anwir, were pulling his carriage together as he took a nap on Giga Chad's back.
Somewhere in the Evander Residence…
"Mother, I saw that dream again," Cleo said while her body shuddered uncontrollably. "Zion was standing on a hill while everything around him burned in flames. Countless meteors fell from the heavens, dyeing the ground red with the blood of our people and Barbarians alike.
"Mother, I'm scared. Is he perhaps a demon in disguise? Maybe we should ask Father to imprison him. That way, that dream of mine will not come to pass."
Briella hugged her daughter tightly and patted her head.
"Our visions are not absolute, but there is a high chance that they will come to pass," Briella replied. "Did you have a clear look on his face in your dream? What kind of face is he making?"
"His face looked calm." Cleo shuddered. "It was as if he had already expected that something like that was going to happen. He had his subordinates behind him, and they were the only ones who were safe from the meteor strikes. Mother, I'm scared."
The young lady started to tear up because the scene she saw was truly horrifying. Although it was just a dream, as a seer, it felt very real to her.
She could even smell the burning flesh on the battlefield, making her stomach churn.
"Mother, have you gotten visions about him?" Cleo asked. "You should have, right? Is that the reason why you are calling him as your adopted son?"
"If I tell you the truth, do you promise not to tell your Father about it?" Briella asked back.
"I won't tell father. I promise."
"Good. Just like you, I also saw visions of him. But it is very different from the visions of destruction that you saw."
"What did you see, Mother?" Cleo inquired out of curiosity.
Briella paused for a bit as she carefully chose the words that she was going to say to her daughter.
"As long as we don't harm him, Zion will not actively target our family," Briella replied. "Also, he has an important role to play, so we must not allow him to come to any harm while he is in our residence."
"An important role to play?"
"Yes. A very important one."
"What is it, Mother?"
Briella shook her head and pressed her finger over her lips.
"I can't tell you. If I say it, it might not come to pass," Briella stated. "As I told you earlier, our visions are not absolute. They are not set in stone. I don't want to do anything that might jinx the vision I saw before Zion appeared in our home."
"… You were already expecting his arrival, Mother?"
"Mmm. I've been waiting for him to arrive for a long time now."
Cleo inherited the bloodline of Seers from her mother, Briella.
Although the two of them had never seen the same vision, the visions they did see would usually come to pass.
There was a time when Cleo tried to stop a vision from happening, only to find out that her attempt to stop it was actually the trigger that made her vision happen.
Because of this, she felt that regardless of what she did, her vision would come to pass.
Originally, she wanted to ask her Father to imprison Zion so that what she saw would not become a reality.
However, after thinking it through, she realized that imprisoning Zion might make him become their family's enemy, and he might be the one to instigate the meteor attack, killing countless Tigerkins in the process.
In the end, she decided to just close her eyes and bury her head in her mother's embrace.
If doing nothing would prevent that horrifying future from happening, then Cleo was willing to turn a blind eye towards the seven-year-old, who was currently sleeping soundly inside his room at this very moment.
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(A/N: Congratulations! You have met this week's quota. will be posted on Saturday and Sunday!
Special thanks to everyone that gave me a gift. I'll see you all in the s!)
