-Break-
Φ Looking outside the carriage, I see the rain pouring down on all of our surroundings with it's dreary pitter pattering destroying my excitement and energy of the day.
Feeling the cold release from the rainfall brush against my face, I let out a sneeze into the wool gloves my parents had freshly bought me. "Achoo!"
With an annoyed look, my mother says, "Cole, you know what I told you about sneezing into your hands?"
"I know, I know, it's just that I forgot when the tingling was happening."
"Not good enough. The only way to learn from your mistakes is to admit them without complaint."
Under my breath, I say, "Yes, teacher."
My father laughs a bit, and my mother glares at him. With the look of a man with has a sword to his throat, my father says, "Listen to your mother. I have been without abundance before and I can tell you understanding how that feels is one of the greatest lessons you can learn. You also never know when you might have to be a role model."
"A role model?" What are you talking about?"
Holding her hand against her belly, my mother says, "I am pregnant."
Running up to my mother, I say, "Really, I am going to be a big brother!"
"Yeah, a little brother or sister will be coming in a few months."
"To be honest, I thought you'd be able to tell alread,y Cole."
Turning to look at Dad, Mom says, "What does that mean?"
My father smiles, pulls out his tongue and then bites down on it, causing my mom to say, "Good."
As I put my face against her belly, Mom says, "So you need to be a good boy, Cole."
"I promise I will."
My parents both laugh, and then my dad says, "Good to know because we lied."
"Huh?"
Mom says, "We're thinking of having another one eventually, but we didn't know how you'd react, since you're rather needy."
Dad says, "But it is good to know you're alright with it."
"YOU BASTAR-." Before my words could leave my mouth, the carriage we are inside flips on its side, and soon, giant amounts of shouting take place outside.
I hear the sounds of swords being drawn, and they clash against one another; cling, clang, cling, but those noises fade, and soon all I can hear is the rain falling alongside other loud thuds on the ground.
Our carriage is soon ripped open, and men in black clothes, with black masks, quickly pull me and my family out of the carriage.
They toss me on the floor, and hold my mother and father by the faces and hold up a note. They look at the note and mouth some words before saying, "This is them."
My father looks at both me and my mother, then says, "If it is money you want, you can have it, but I need both my wife and son untouched."
The man doesn't respond and starts checking my mother's and father's bodies for any of their belongings, and as he takes the wedding ring from my father's finger, my father moves his hand out of the grip of the man holding him, and smashes the face of the thief holding him.
But the other bandits start to punch and kick my father to the ground, and my mother, seeing this, says, "STOP!"
Though her words only anger them more, as one of the men punches her in the face, and she falls to the ground in pain. Letting out a scream that not even a dying animal can give.
What's going on? Why is this happening? I need to do something to stop this!
Seeing a dagger at the man's side, I run forward from the floor, grab it, and then quickly plunge it into his back, but I am quickly smashed in the face with a fist that sends me flying face first into he mud.
Pulling my body up, I look downwards and as I do, my teeth start falling to the ground.
"COLE!" My parents' voices shout at me.
It hurts, it hurts really bad. I feel like I am about to die any moment.
"We've identified them and taken what they had. Cut their heads off now."
I hear all of the men slowly draw their swords, and my eyes turn to the dead guard we had brought to be taken with us.
I am going to die! I am going to die! I am going to die! I am going to die! God, anybody, PLEASE SAVE!!!!
Those next few moments went by in a flash as they appeared, with white hair, red eyes, he cut down each of everyone one of those bandits, and then said, "Whoa, that was dangerous?"
Turning to me, the man who seems slightly older than my father looks at me and says, "Everything is fine now."
The man who never gave us his name quickly bandaged our wounds, picked us up, and led us to the nearest city, and as he left, my dad asked, "Please wait. Let us repay you for your kindness."
But the man said in response, "Heroic big brothers like me don't do things expecting to be paid back, I did it because I believed it was the right thing to do, so that I will be on my way," and with that, the man left without a trace.
The words he said that heroes do good things for the sake of doing them shook my core. I never told anyone, but on that day, I promised myself that I would be a righteous person like that man who saved me.
-Break-
After we returned home from that trip, I studied extremely hard, so I could one day inherit our family business. I wanted to become a respectable person like my parents, and I wanted enough power to help people like that hero. Studying all the time shocked everyone around me, as I had never been one to research anything for any reason. But with my newfound determination, I couldn't stop, especially when my younger brother Lionheart was born.
As I looked into his face after he was born, I realised how a hero inspired me, so I had to be a hero for him. This pushed me to work and study even more. As time passed, I grew up to become a strong, brilliant man. The event that happened on that faithful day when I was so young has shaped so much of my life, but the event on that day also shaped my parents' lives but not in the same fashion.
As I grew older, I became more involved in my parents' business. At first, my family has been artisan weavers for generations and has countless eternal spiders. Still, my grandfather's generation expanded our business by using all the money we had generated to become merchants who dealt with lots of goods. Still, it was tough for my grandfather to diversify our business.
But my father didn't struggle as hard as my grandfather. He turned our company into the biggest in the country and made us go worldwide in multiple industries. Our business's growth rate was ridiculous, and my father made that happen. I looked up to him so much, and as our business grew ever larger and larger, I started to help out without him knowing.
As I was helping around, I noticed some odd things. Some things were recorded wrong, and some stock was missing. We had lots of people on our payroll whom I couldn't trace precisely what their job was. Not knowing what was happening, I investigated it without rest, and I eventually came to the answer of what was happening. I then went to confront the culprit of everything.
"Father, may I please have a moment of your time?"
"I am attending to some documents, but talk to me as I work. Come and sit down."
As I go and sit down in front of my father, I say, "Hey, Dad, have you heard what happened to Godeney?"
"Yes, what happened to him was unfortunate. He was a close friend of mine. I would never have thought he had a crippling addiction to utopias venom. He even bankrupted his business just to feed his addiction.
I was thinking of providing some support to his family, and we are understaffed due to our recent expansion, so we could probably take in all his staff members who lost their jobs."
"Utopia's venom is a horrible drug circulating through this city and others. I know some of my friends who it has even reached."
"It truly is a pity when people start drugs. It is tough to quit. This might be unfair, but it makes me very happy knowing you're not foolish enough to try such things."
"Utopia's venom, orange destiny, astral key, all drugs that have been circulating in all the cities we have business in."
Looking up from his work, my father says, "Cole, what is it you're trying to say to me?"
Getting up from my seat, I say to my dad, "I have been investigating this company, and I found out what you have been partaking in off the books: drug trafficking, human trafficking, weapon dealing, paying off nobles and politicians, and the worst thing I found was what you were doing to the eternal spiders.
Few spiders can produce the highest quality silk, which goes for millions, so to get more of that, you have been using drugs to force a spider to make it. But that shortens their life spans and damages their reproductive organs, making it so that fewer and fewer can be born."
"What of it, Cole? I don't see how this is any of my business."
"Of course, it is your business, Dad. Your actions are destroying this nation and lives across the world. We own sixty per cent of the spiders in this nation, and most of its income comes from the spiders. If we damage them, it will affect this country for generations beyond our lifespan. It will affect even your descendants."
"No, it won't, Cole. We have diversified our business so much that even if all the spiders were to go extinct tomorrow, we would still be able to enjoy our comfortable lifestyle. Our family has broken free from the chains that bind us to this country, and if we are smart, it will be like this for generations to come."
"What about the people outside of our family and their lives? The things you have done, drugs and human trafficking, using your influence to get your way in this country, they can be called nothing more than evil?"
"These things will exist whether or not I have a hand in them, so it's better for me to be the one in control, and thanks to what you call evil, I was able to fulfil my duty as a father, which is to protect my family above all else, I don't care about anyone else who exists now or their decedents, they are of no concern to me."
As my father said this, I punched him in his face as I got on top and started beating him. While I do this, I hear a voice shout, "STOP THIS COLE!"
"Mother."
As she runs over and pulls me off my father, she says to my father, "Are you ok?"
"Mother, get away from him. That monster isn't the man you married."
"Cole found out about all the other businesses, Elizabeth."
"So, he knows Richard."
"Mom, you know about all this too, and you're ok with it?"
"We planned to tell you when you were a bit older. I am sorry you had to find out this way."
"Why are you so passive about this? Do you know how much evil your actions have caused?"
My mother walks closer to me and says, "Cole, your need for justice and your kindness are things I love about you from the bottom of my heart, but when it comes down to it all, people can only care about their families and their happiness, anyone who tries to care for everyone in life equally won't be able to protect what they love the most when the time comes, so we will step on anyone necessary to protect you and lionheart, nothing will change our minds."
Hearing such cold words from my loving mother was too much to bear, so I ran out of that room as fast as possible. I wouldn't talk to anyone for days, until my personal butler Ed came to speak to me. He has been with me since I was born and was the person I trusted the most, so as he came to check on me, I told him all that was bothering me, and in response, I asked him.
"What should I do?"
"Young master, I think you should keep this all a secret and live on with it."
"So, Ed, you also agree with my parents."
"No, I don't, but your parents run a business that keeps millions of families afloat. It would all come crashing down if you were to expose the truth about your family."
"Cole, do you not think me capable of taking over the company if my parents were to be imprisoned?"
"Young master, you don't truly understand how horrible the grown-up world is. Hundreds of vultures will use the opportunity to destroy this company if they sense any form of weakness, so I believe in this situation, the right thing to do would be to keep quiet."
"You're right, Ed."
After my conversation with Ed, I left my room and continued with my life as usual, but it wasn't the same. The food I ate felt stale, I had lost all my motivation, It was like my time had stopped, and it continued until my brother came home with bruises.
"What happened, Lionheart?"
"I got into a fight."
Hitting him on the head, I say, "Why would you do that, moron."
As he starts crying while holding his head, he says, "I saw some kids picking on a girl, and I had to stop them because, as you always say, it was the right thing to do."
Seeing my brother's crying face, I hug him and tell him, "You're a real hero, Lionheart."
"Thanks, brother."
The next day, I went to report everything my parents had been doing, and the longest 24 hours of my life began. I thought I would have the skill to keep the business going, but I was unprepared for the consequences. Employees quit, company stock went missing, and families we wronged kept coming to our doorstep with all our guards leaving. Our only option was to pay people to appease them.
I tried to ask family and friends for help, but they all added fuel to the fire against my family. They made countless news articles that painted not only my parents but my family as evil. They made us all out to be demons, which caused more and more people to despise us.
Then, at the end of the day, I heard my parents were executed. Countless people who witnessed it couldn't help but come to me and tell me their last words. My mother wept profusely for her children, while the last thing my father said was, "Please stop. My boys are in danger. I beg of you." They all laughed as they told me my high-and-mighty parents' last words.
As Ed left us as well, I had nothing left except Lionheart and the remnants of our company, and as we returned to our house as I tried to figure out something to do, but then my brother told me there was a knock on the door. As I went to see who it was, I found three men. The man in front said, "My god, I have never seen a big mansion without a single servant in sight."
"What do you people want with us?"
"Oh, nothing like that. We have just come to claim what you owe us, but let's talk in another room." After he says this, the man walks into another room, thoroughly familiar with the layout of our house. Who is this guy? I have never seen him before, but I need to deal with this quickly.
"Lionheart, I will just be one second, so go to your room, ok?" As Lionheart goes away, I follow the men into the room.
-Break-
"Can you please say that number again?" I ask the man in front.
"About three hundred million lupas is how much your family owes us. I have the contract here. As you can see, it was signed using your parents' spirit energy, so this is no fabrication."
"Why would my parents owe you so much?"
"Do you think they could have accomplished all this expansion with their money alone? They took a large loan from us, which was no problem in reality since they would have paid it back within three years at the rate they were going, but you see, they just so happened to be executed, and their business Is haemorrhaging money, so we need to collect what you owe us now."
"I am sorry, I don't have that much right now."
"Well, I knew that, but you have a way to pay off about seventy-five per cent of it."
"How would I be able to do that?"
"Sell me all your assets right now, your house, your properties, all your stock."
"I can't do that."
"Oh yes, you can, every day your business value drops, people have lost all trust in you, and everyone who wants to protect their reputation won't come anywhere near you. There is currently no hope for your business to recoup from this loss, and by tomorrow as the news spreads to more nations, your assets won't even be enough to pay off forty per cent of the loan, that's how much shit you are in, so you can either sell me them now or have a useless company and be three hundred million lupuas in debt."
"You guys are from no official bank that I know of. If you were, I would have seen the debt while I checked the books, but I didn't. Contracts don't hold for illegal activities. I don't have to pay you guys back a cent."
"But you see, that would make my boss quite angry. He hates to lose money for any reason, so he will recoup that loss somehow. With how hectic things have been in this country, I doubt many will miss the boys of the devils who almost brought ruin to the land. I have also heard that all the employees in your company have been getting attacked. I am sure people would be delighted if they also went missing.
We can make all of your bodies work until we get back every cent. I am sure there are a bunch of people who would love to buy you as revenge; I know some wealthy people who like to purchase the children of fallen houses.
So, to put this simply, you will be giving us back this money either with the lives of you and your former employees or with everyone you own, pick one, but knowing you're a hero of justice, I am pretty sure of the option you will pick."
Walking up to me and squeezing my arm, the man says, "So that you know if you try to do anything like fleeing to the holy nation of Gevurah, all compassion will fade, and your lives will be forfeit, you understand."
"Crystal clear."
As we continue with our business, I sign every single asset of our company over to this man, and he tells me. "Good, now you have to make up some way to get the remaining seventy-five million to us in the next ten years."
"But isn't that too much for the period you set?"
He then gets close to my face and says, "Our boss is being quite generous to you for all the easy money your parents have brought him. He would usually take your lives and use that as his method of retrieving the cash, so don't push your luck."
As he started walking away from me, all I could do was sit there in anger at all the people who betrayed and stabbed us in the back, especially those in front of me who had robbed us of hope.
"Instead of clenching your fist in anger against me, you should be angry at the person who snitched on your parents and got your family into this situation. Oh yeah, that was you, wasn't it? Bye."
I exposed evil; what I did was nothing but justice, so tell me, why is this happening to me? I don't understand. What I did was right.
The next day, men came to claim all we owned early in the morning, kicking us out of the house. As I brought my brother outside, he asked me.
"Cole, why is this happening? What is going on?"
As I hug him, I say to him, "Lionheart, the next few years will be rough, but I know we're going to get through them. Please trust me."
As he tries to hold back his tears, Lionheart says, "I trust you, brother."
This is the price to pay for being just. This is a trial I must face because I know there is happiness at the end of it all. After all, being a righteous person can never be wrong.