Faul: The Reincarnation

Chapter 19: Select And Terminate

It had been far too long since Leo and four of his companions had gone missing. Only a few people knew what they had set out to do before their disappearance, but the silence surrounding their fate was becoming unbearable for their families. Tensions were rising, and questions remained unanswered.

"Ragnik, your son knows the whereabouts of my son. Why isn’t he saying anything?" George’s voice was filled with frustration and growing anger.

Ragnik, sitting calmly across from him, studied George carefully. "George, calm down. My son is just a boy. He will surely tell me where he last saw your son."

But George’s eyes were filled with worry and suspicion as he turned his gaze toward Ragnik’s son, Harry, who sat nervously in the corner of the room, avoiding eye contact. George was not easily appeased. His son was missing, and something about the whole situation felt off.

"Harry, I am your father. Tell me what happened to Leo and the others," Ragnik asked, his tone calm but firm. His gaze was intent on his son, trying to extract the truth from him.

Harry hesitated, his eyes flickering with fear. He was trembling, struggling to find the words. "Dad, he... he... he went with them to hunt down a kid named Faul, who lives inside Alfred’s training camp. He called Shadow to help him deal with Faul after he humiliated him and the others the day he came to the camp."

Harry’s voice faltered as he spoke, the fear in his chest growing more intense. It was clear that something about Faul had terrified him.

"Oh, a boy?" Ragnik’s voice was laced with both surprise and intrigue. "A boy beat down the three most promising sons of the Hazu family? Interesting."

George stood up abruptly, his temper flaring. "What do you mean, ‘interesting’?" he demanded. "My son is missing, and you’re standing here acting as if this is some kind of game!"

Ragnik raised a hand to calm the room. "Does he use magic or Qi?" he asked, his voice growing more analytical.

Harry looked at his father, still trembling. "Dad, he used brute strength—no magic, no Qi. He was even faster than people using Qi that day."

Ragnik nodded, taking in the information. Qi was an internal energy that knights could harness to enhance their battle prowess. It was known to allow them to achieve incredible feats—cutting through even the hardest of metals with weapons infused with Qi. If this boy, Faul, had no Qi but still managed to defeat them, it raised questions.

"George, we just need to send people to search for them in the mountains near the camp," Ragnik suggested, his mind working through the possibilities. "Maybe they were attacked by wild beasts while tracking the boy, or maybe the boy killed them himself. But I doubt that’s the case. Shadow was with them, after all."

Ragnik stood up and left the meeting room, gesturing for George to follow him. "I’ll send out a team to search. Let’s see if we can find any clues."

---

Hours passed before a guard entered Ragnik’s living quarters to report on the search party’s progress.

"Sir, we have found the corpses of Leo and the others," the guard said, his voice grim.

Ragnik stood up at once, his eyes narrowing in concern. "Lead the way. I need to see it for myself."

He turned to George, who was still seething with anger and frustration. "Go and inform George right away," Ragnik ordered, his voice calm but authoritative.

George followed quickly behind Ragnik as the guard led them out of the chamber and toward the scene. As they walked, the guard continued speaking, his voice tinged with fear.

"Sir, it seems like they were attacked by something stronger than four of them combined. There was no sign of a fight, no struggle—just one clean sweep," the guard explained.

Ragnik exchanged a look with George as they reached the site where the bodies had been found.

The bodies of Leo and his companions lay sprawled out on the ground, their expressions frozen in shock, their bodies riddled with deep wounds. Ragnik examined the bodies carefully, his trained eye taking in every detail.

"Ragnik, get your son over here," George snapped, his frustration boiling over. "I need to know exactly what that boy is."

Ragnik remained calm, placing a hand on George’s shoulder. "Calm down, George. Just calm down. Don’t you see the fist-sized hole in their chests? Do you really think an eleven-year-old teenager could do that?"

His voice was steady, almost too calm for the situation, as he continued his examination of the bodies. "My guard told me that there was no fighting struggle before their death, which means it can’t possibly have been the boy."

George, however, was not ready to accept that explanation. His grief and anger clouded his judgment. "I need someone to take the fall for the death of my son," he said, his eyes filled with hatred. "And that boy, Faul, is the closest suspect. He needs to die for this."

"George, I understand your pain, but we can’t go making decisions based on emotion alone," Ragnik said calmly, trying to placate the furious man. "If not for the death of your son, Faul still deserves punishment for the insult he gave to our clan."

George’s fists clenched. "Then we’ll make him pay," he snarled. "We’ll use the scope of select and terminate. If anyone deserves to die, it’s him."

Ragnik nodded slowly, his expression thoughtful. "If you insist, then we will. But remember, George, we have to be careful. We can’t let our grief cloud our judgment. Faul may be young, but he’s not to be underestimated."

---

The talent selection was rapidly approaching, and it became clear that the fate of Faul would be determined soon. Would he be selected to showcase his power—or would he be terminated before he even had a chance to prove himself?

Faul had unknowingly become a pawn in a much larger game. As the forces around him continued to shift, he found himself standing at the crossroads of destiny, unaware of the storm brewing on the horizon.

George, still consumed by rage over the loss of his son, was determined to see Faul pay for what had happened, believing that the boy was responsible for the deaths of Leo and the others. But Ragnik, ever cautious, was not so sure. The truth of what had truly happened in those mountains was yet to be revealed, and Faul’s future was hanging in the balance.

As the day of the talent selection drew nearer, one question remained: Would Faul be selected—or would he be silenced before he had the chance to show the world who he really was?