Seeing the nobles and wealthy merchants getting out of their manors right into the carriage to get to the centre of the town, Illyan also hurriedly prepared himself to set out.

  Although he was mostly uninterested in the power battle in the background, he was still curious about the headmaster.

  He didn’t know much about him.

  In fact, he wasn’t even aware that the institute even had some headmaster before.

  From the words of people around, he seemed as someone who travelled a lot and was often out of the town that was his birthplace. He was renowned in the kingdom and revered in the Winterfrost, but he didn’t seem to care as he disappeared all the time.

  Of course, many were criticizing him for disappearing without a word and even saying he was betraying the trust of people. However, he wasn’t the one to care about it as his actions spoke for themselves.

  He was known as a strict but fair man who used his immense knowledge to help people around but was also someone curious who went out to see the world as it was and not just depend on the books to gather knowledge.

  Illyan would lie if he said he wasn’t eager to see what kind of man he was.

  After all, from the tales, he was the man Illyan strived to be. Boundless wisdom, adventurous spirit that took him wherever, and heart unperturbed by words of people who badmouthed him.

  Of course, that was only if the rumors were truthful.

  With deep interest, Illyan took the new wooden hair sticks that he carved after losing the previous ones and tied his hair up while taking his black robe.

  He pondered whether to take the physician robe, but he didn’t want to get noticed by the man and wanted to just watch from afar, so he decided otherwise.

  With finished grooming, Illyan finally took a step outside of his manor after several days and followed the carriages that were trailing the main road to the center.

  ‘They are really lazy to take the carriage. It is not that far.’ Illyan shook his head in disapproval as he looked at the fat men’s arrogant gazes out of the carriage windows.

  But since it was none of his business, he turned his head away from these pretentious people and hurried up.

  ‘I need to blend with the crowd. The common folks would be the best.’

  With such thoughts, he made a turn, and instead of going straight to the center, he went to the place where most normal citizens were concentrated.

  Within a few minutes, his figure disappeared in the sea of people as he followed the flow…

  ……..

  The southern gate, which was usually desolate with its guards just noozing off, was now very busy.

  Guards received a notion that the Headmaster of the institution was finally returning home and were preparing for his return.

  Common people were forced away from the gates by the guards while the gate was preemptively opened.

  They also quickly cleaned up the special stables that were just for the headmaster's mount.

  If one looked at them, they would be surprised to realize it was quite a big stable. In fact, it was too big. For horses, that is.

  As the atmosphere in the town became heated, guards on the watchtowers finally saw a dust cloud from a distance.

  “They are here!” one of the guards yelled out as they took out a binocular and took a closer look.

  Once they saw the monstrous creature trotting towards them, instead of getting horrified, they became assured.

  “Open the gates!” Without another word, several of them started to turn the wheel as the chains forced the old but durable gates up.

  Meanwhile, noble carriages finally arrived as they came out of it with help of their servants.

  Even the mayor was already at site prepared to welcome the man who was coming.

  Not many people could cause such a reaction.

  The nobles, while minor and weak compared to the ones in the capital, were still arrogant and proud of their inheritance and were reluctant to come and wait for someone like this.

  They would not do this even for a mayor.

  But the Headmaster was different.

  It was not his position as Headmaster that made him so respected.

  It was him as an individual that aroused respect deep inside of them.

  And also fear.

  “He will be furious at what happened, won't he?” one of the wealthy merchants muttered.

  “And he has the right to be so! The institution he took care of for two decades became a nest of greedy bandits that would sacrifice innocent people for a few riches!”

  One of the others yelled indignantly, with others nodding in approval.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Tch, you know nothing.” The few who knew something was fishy clicked their tongues in disdain.

  Not everyone was a fool who could be manipulated.

  However, that wouldn’t change anything as they only needed a few people to stand up for most of them to turn their backs against the Headmaster.

  That was the herd mentality that most people had.

  Illyan, who watched their reactions with interest, was hidden from the eyes of others in shadow while making small talk with a few others.

  “Why is the headmaster so respected? Or at least was before all this fiasco,” Illyan asked with curiosity, as he saw many common people to be happy and even worried for him, as they believed he would bring the stability back to these chaotic times.

  The one who talked with him looked at him with a strange expression, as if he didn’t understand the question.

  “I actually don’t know much about him since I lived in an isolated village for a long time,” Illyan explained with a soft smile.

  “Aha!” the man nodded in understanding as he cleared his throat.

  “Headmaster Alfred Tauras Konnov, also known as Sage of Illiterates, Veteran Hero of the Karkov Battle, Pioneer of Zerhuins, and much more, is a man who was born in this town’s slums.”

  The man explained as he expressed himself with his hands because of his excitement.

  ‘So he is more than just an academic.’ Illyan nodded to himself as he listened to the man’s words.

  While he didn’t hear much about Headmaster Alfred, he read about the Karkov Battle, even though just superficially.

  It was a small-scale battle that had happened over fifty years ago, where several powers of the Arkravav Empire betrayed their allies and struck the empire in the back farther away from the front lines.

  Headmaster Alfred was just a young man who was forcibly conscripted back then. For the sake of the volume of soldiers, every vassal kingdom was forced to send twenty percent of their men between 15–60 to serve as soldiers for the five years.

  Most of them would not return.

  They either died or didn’t have a way to return afterward, since the empire would let them go but would not go as far as to help them return to their homes. It was an extremely cruel end for these poor men.

  Most of them were later on captured, only to become war slaves anyway. And that was one of the better results. Some became experimental subjects in magical research, while some became sacrifices in various evil rituals.

  Alfred was one of such men.

  He couldn’t refuse, he couldn’t run away.

  He could only obey as he was considered to be just a scum of society.

  In fact, if not for the fact that he was offered by the thugs of the town for a few pennies, he would probably be able to live in the slums without any worries.

  However, fate was cruel and he became one of the many who were sent to their death.

  For the weak Vanaras Kingdom, these men became a mandatory sacrifice for the sake of peace of their lands.

  However, in the last few decades, the need for the low-level soldiers was getting lower since the war showed signs of ending.

  For the Vanaras Kingdom’s people, it was a blessing. However, even then, their children were taken away for the sake of finding potential acolytes.

  But the situation was better than ever.

  And one of the reasons for this to happen were the battles like Battle of Karkov, where the traitors failed to make any substantial damage while the empire used their betrayal as an excuse to tear down their entire organizations to use their resources in the war.

  The city of Karkov was usually peaceful and was one of the trading nodes that let the various magical ingredients flow from north farther to the south.

  However, it was just a minor city with only a few Magisters presiding over.

  When these Magisters were ambushed by another group who betrayed the empire, very few managed to survive with heavy injuries and became imprisoned.

  It was a very dark day for the city.

  The entire place was ransacked and most acolytes living there were massacred.

  Since cities like this were usually exclusively inhabited by acolytes, it became a ghost city with no one being spared.

  However, because of the play of fate, a certain group that was supposed to pass through many days ago was delayed and just arrived.

  Magister was tasked to distribute over a thousand men of the Vanaras Kingdom to the individual places according to the needs after five years of their military service.

  In other words, they were being dumped across certain places where they could be useful and had a chance at survival.

  Karkov was one of such cities before the disaster.

  When the Magister realized something was off, his group was already ambushed.

  From thousand men polished by war, only a few hundred remained after a few spells of the magister caliber.

  Nobody mustered the thought to fight.

  It was useless to even think about it.

  The only thing they could do was to scatter and run at all costs.

  But one of the soldiers, who remained unremarkable throughout these five years, knew that running was out of question.

  Thus, he turned his attention towards his enemies.

  He didn’t have a chance of beating them, but they were distracted since the magister of the Arkravav Empire was stronger than them as an individual.

  With one arrow and heavy bow, the soldier hid from the eyes of the magisters and waited for the opportunity to sneak attack.

  Magisters were almost impossible to defeat for someone weaker than them because of their natural magic barrier, but the soldier waited patiently.

  As long as one of the magisters’ barriers was broken, he could use the gap in defense.

  And when the magisters’ fight finally reached a peak, he actually shot down one of them when his barrier cracked open!

  With one of the magisters dead, the pressure was much lighter for the lone magister as he stopped the magisters from turning their attention to the soldier.

  That soldier also didn’t waste his time as he rallied a few remaining soldiers that didn’t run away like headless chickens and fought head on against the enemy acolytes.

  Many died, but they heroically pressed on. At first, it looked as if they mindlessly fought their enemy without any plan, but once they found the hidden dungeon where few of the living magisters survived, the fate of this battle was sealed.

  All of this could be said to be an extreme case of luck, as the probability of this happening was very low.

  Mere Flow Master killing Magister? Or actually finding the war prisoners that were apprehended by the said Magisters?

  It was as if the entire world played in this little man’s cards.

  The magisters that just betrayed their empire were extremely carefree, as they just captured the entire city without any leaks and planned to stay for a few days to stabilize things.

  The prisoners, who were few living magisters, were also extremely rare subjects for experimenting, which made the men even more jubilated.

  The fact that the dungeon was breached by a bunch of Flow Masters showed how careless they were.

  But it happened.

  And thanks to that, the soldier became the hero of the day.

  ‘So that hero was actually Headmaster, huh?’ Illyan thought about the story that he thought was a mere fairytale and clicked his tongue in wonderment.

  ‘I wonder how much of that is truly true.’

  However, the thoughts about it were quickly drowned by new ones as the merchant beside him continued talking.

  The magister who, with the help of the Karkov City’s magisters, killed off his enemies, showed ‘gratitude’ to Alfred by giving him some basic books about magic and even gave him directions towards his home kingdom.

  In truth, he was just sending the remaining soldiers on their way as he had other matters to take care of since Karkov was in tatters.

  It was truly a reward of a cheap Magister, as he didn’t even bother to see off his savior.

  The only thing he asked for was his name before turning his back to the soldier.

  But Alfred didn’t resent the man since he already expected this. He did all of this to save himself and some of his fellow countrymen.

  Nothing more, nothing else.

  Now, since he succeeded, the only thing left was to guide them back home.

  Since that day, the adventures of this man have only gotten more interesting…