~~4 months passed~~

~31^st October, X3988~

Ryusuke was five years old now, and Ayumi was nine months old. Ryusuke had middle-length black hairs, and his height was around 112 cm. His eyes were a deep red color similar to that of a ruby…

Ayumi’s hairs had started to grow. From the color, it was very similar to Tajima’s blonde hair. Ayumi’s eyes were deep ocean blue color like that of Tajima. She had even started to walk on her own feet now.

In these four months, Tajima had changed two more villages. Ryusuke was somewhat getting used to the routine now. They would spend around 2-3 months at the new village before moving on to another one.

Because of the reason that he had to change villages almost every two months, he didn’t have any friends. By the time he was friends with the kids his age, he would have to leave with Tajima.

For some reason, every time his father changed the village, the next village would be in the east direction. The distance was calculated by him and was only a day’s travel on a carriage.

Ryusuke didn’t understand why his father had simply not bought the carriage if they had to move around so much. Wouldn’t that be much better?

He now understood the value of the Purple Gold Coin. His father seemed to have plenty of those, so he didn’t understand just why he wouldn’t use it to buy the carriage.

He mostly used it on food, alcohol, house, and books. All the books were for Ryusuke, and he was given a single instruction, “Read it.”

The books contained political views, the military views, and other things which completely went over Ryusuke’s head. Ryusuke held no desire for reading those books, but since his father had told him to read them.

He went through the books once but forgot a lot of information about them.

Even though it was Ryusuke’s birthday, not even a smile could be seen on Tajima’s face. Ryusuke had forgotten when he had last seen his father laugh or even smile.

His mother’s face was extremely blurry. He remembered that he used to live a great life, but suddenly, he had appeared in that rural village with Tajima and Ayumi.

He had asked Tajima about his mother multiple times, but only the only answer he ever received was silence. After some time, he had stopped bugging Tajima, but he truly wanted to know what had happened to his mother.

Right now, Ryusuke and Tajima were standing in a clear field. The large field had a radius of 500 meters.

Tajima looked at him sternly, “You are five years old now. Happy birthday, son.” Even though he wished Ryusuke happy birthday, there was no smile, no happy expression. Just a stern look.

Ryusuke was used to this look from his father and returned a nod, “Thank you, father.” He looked around and expressed his curiosity, “Why are we here?”

“Today is the day your training will start.” Tajima gave him a look that said that he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Training? What sort of training?” He grimaced at the thought of hard training. He didn’t want to go through hard training. He just wanted to return back to the hut and play with Ayumi.

“Son, we humans are Warriors. We use special energy in our bodies to become stronger than ordinary people. Do you know about it?”

“Yes, father. The special power allows us to fight against strong beasts and other Warriors. I think it was called Ch-ch…umm.. What was it again?”

Tajima finished his sentence, “It is Chakra. Do you know what makes the Chakra so special?”

Ryusuke negatively shook his head. He was somewhat curious about this Chakra power.

“Chakra is a combination of Physical and Spiritual strength. The books you read about the Warriors use Chakra to strengthen their bodies.” He was very calm as he explained about Chakra to Ryusuke.

Ryusuke immediately raised his hand as he asked a question, “Wait… Wait… Wait… Those stories about warriors? Are you telling me those were real, father? The stories about warriors flying into the sky? Splitting mountain with a single punch?”

With a calm look, Tajima answered him, “Perhaps they were, perhaps they were not. But what I can tell you is that if you grow strong enough, even you will be able to do that.”

Sucking a breath of cold air, Ryusuke was shocked. He had always treated them as stories. Like, who would believe that a single man could split apart a mountain in one blow?

But his father had said that it was actually possible to reach this level! This certainly caught his attention.

Tajima then continued on with his explanation, “There are many Warriors in the world. Almost all the Warriors have a Bloodline. It could be a beast-type Bloodline or a Weapon Type Bloodline.”

“Beast-Type Bloodline made the Warrior’s spirit take on the shape of their Bloodline Beast. they would gain its’ strengths along with its’ weaknesses.”

“For an example, between a wolf-type bloodline and a Bear-Type Bloodline, its speed and agility are naturally better than the Bear-Type Bloodline, but its strength and endurance would never come close to the Bear-Type Bloodline.”

“There are also Warriors with Weapon Type Bloodline. The spirit would condense into a weapon, whether they be sword, spear, axe, or any other.”

“The ones whose bloodline spirit is of the Weapon type are generally inferior to the ones with the Beast Bloodlines. Only 1 out of 1000 has a chance to be someone with Weapon Type Bloodline.”

Hearing all this talk about the Bloodlines, Ryusuke got a little excited as he jumped up and down, “What is my Bloodline, father? Is it strong?”

“Settle down!” Tajima sternly said before he said, “You need not know about your Bloodline right now.”

“haaaaah? But I want to know!” His adorable pout would have made almost anyone give in to his desire, but unfortunately, Tajima’s expression never changed.

“No means no. I won’t tell you. You will know about it in the future.” In the end, Ryusuke could only give up.

Tajima then said to him with a grave voice, “From now onwards, you will start your training with me to increase your physical strength. You must become a Warrior, son.”

Not understanding why Tajima was talking in such a grave voice, Ryusuke nodded with a smiling face.

However, the smile vanished when he heard Tajima’s words, “Alright. Let’s not waste any time. Five laps around this clearing in half an hour.”

Ryusuke was stunned. He didn’t move from his position as if wondering ‘Is he really talking about me?’

The clearing was circular in shape with a radius of 500 meters. He had just turned 5-years-old. He doubted if he could even run that much. Let alone complete five laps in half an hour.

However, noticing the stern expression on his father’s face, he gulped a mouthful of saliva and forced his body to run.

Ryusuke fell down after one lap. He was resting on the ground when Tajima suddenly appeared behind him and used a wooden stick to hit his butt. He harshly said, “Who told you that you could stop! Run!”

Even though Ryusuke didn’t have any strength in his legs, he still forced himself to stand up. Tajima hit him once again because Ryusuke was being very slow. Ryusuke started to run…

He didn’t know, but he had just entered hell, and there was no chance of escaping it now.

~~

This training was naturally tough for Ryusuke, but he barely managed to do what was asked of him. His body had started to form barely noticeable muscles for his age.

It was his speed and stamina which had developed the most. He was already the fastest kid among his age. Even a teenager would find it hard to keep up with his full speed.

It has been more than one year since he had started training. He was 6-Year-Old now. His little sister, Ayumi, was one year and 11 months old. Her birthday was coming closer day by day.

Ryusuke was growing up like a handsome little kid. His black hairs were rather soft and silky. Meanwhile, his hands were rather rough because of the regular training.

His Little Sister, Ayumi, had learned to form words but wasn’t too fluent in talking. However, she could express her desire when she wanted to eat, play, or sleep.

Ayumi was rather affectionate of Ryusuke and would chase after him as soon as she caught sight of him.

In this past year, his father had slowly increased the strenuous training and Ryusuke wouldn’t be allowed to play with any other kids.

Only his time with Ayumi allowed him to play like the kid he was.

In the past year, the three of them had changed the village 5 times. They were still moving towards the East.

Ayumi was young right now so she didn’t care much about the fact that they had to change villages. She would easily new friends very quickly at the new village and forget about the old friends.

Ryusuke had gotten used to this routine so he didn’t care much about it. He just wanted to understand the reason behind it.

As for Tajima, nobody knew what he wanted. He would stay in the village, harshly train Ryusuke, drink alcohol, and sleep. The amount of food he ate seemed like bare-minimum required to survive.

Today, as Ryusuke was training in the empty grounds. A loud shout startled him, “It is an Emergency! All adults are ordered to assemble in front of the Village Chief’s house!”

All adults meant that even Tajima had to go. Ryusuke was curious about what was this Emergency and wanted to know more.

However, he controlled his curiosity and looked at his father. Tajima had a thoughtful look as if he was contemplating something.

He glanced at Ryusuke and ordered, “Continue your training. I will return back soon enough.”

With that, Ryusuke thought in his head ‘Phew… Father is such a demon when training me. He hasn’t even taught me chakra and keeps on focusing on training my physical strength. I can finally slack off now.’

He began to think ahead ‘What should I do now? Since I am slacking off now, I should return back. My dear sister must be missing me.’

He returned back to the cabin. In this village, the cabin was formed out of wood. It was very different and a lot spacious as compared to the first village in which they lived before.

“Big Brother~!” His mood soared high in the sky as he heard that adorable voice. This was naturally the voice of his cute little sister Ayumi.

He looked at her who was walking on her legs and walking towards him. Ryusuke moved forwards and picked her up in his arms.

Even though she wasn’t as light as before, Ryusuke could still carry her with no issue. He pinched her nose, “Didn’t I tell you not to get out of cabin before I returned?”

“B-but… big brother. Back. Hug. Big Brother.” Even though she couldn’t form complete sentence. Ryusuke had taken care of her for such a long time. How could he not understand what his little sister was saying.

He pinched her cheeks, “Next time, I will tickle you. And I won’t stop, hehe…”

Because her cheeks her being pulled. Ayumi wasn’t able to reply to Ryusuke. Though from her expression, it didn’t seem like she was going to heed Ryusuke’s words.

Releasing her round cheeks which seemed to be slightly red, he said, “You must be hungry, right? Let me feed you some food.”

“No! I. Eat. Alone.” Ayumi fiercely replied while pointing at herself.

“Today, you tried to eat alone during breakfast but didn’t you ruin all your clothes. They are still drying up. We don’t have another set of clothes for you. Be a good girl and comply with big brother.” Hearing Ryusuke’s words, Ayumi had rosy cheeks as she remembered what happened in the morning.

Ryusuke knew that he had managed to convince her and smile, “Now-now, let big brother spoil you more. You can try by yourself tomorrow.”

She certainly didn’t resist what Ryusuke said now and let him spoil her.