Fred POV

(WARNING! THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING:

-  Violence

-  Cursing)

OH… MY… GODDDDDD! My sensei was always saying that the village was beautiful, incredible and always describing it as a beauty. I thought he was exaggerating. But when I saw the village with my own eyes… It just reminds me of the villages that you can read in the poems. You know, the beautiful villages with tons of flowers and decorations. Well, that’s how it looked. I was walking by each dirt road of the village. It seemed to be only a gigantic garden. There weren't any other temples or even other buildings. The village was closed and inaccessible for the rest of the population compared to other villages simply by how isolated and hidden it was. That’s why my sensei didn’t let me explore the village until my 16th birthday. I need to be extremely careful to not destroy or to not show the village to others. Yeah… It’s pretty tough to live in the same temple for 16 years without seeing anyone other than my sensei. But while I was searching for the main plaza, I realized that… The sakuras surrounding the road were beautiful! But there was something wrong… Is it just me or… there is no one living in this village? This “magnificent place where the style of building was beautiful and impressive”… Where is it? Like, I don’t see any buildings. Now I know why my sensei told me that it wasn’t going to be a piece of cake to find it… My god, if it continues like that, it’s going to take hours to find! 

It’s only a few minutes later, when I was observing the beauty of one of the trees with pink flowers that something happened. Behind this tree, the slabs of the road cracked when I walked on it. I was really curious. Why was the slab cracking? Normally, it shouldn’t crack simply when someone walks on it. 

“What the…” I was trying to say until something unexpected happened.

Suddenly, not only the slab broke, but under that slab was an underground tunnel. I fell inside of it.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAA!” I screamed.

It’s at this moment that my first adventure in this weird type of tunnel, going everywhere and somewhere I didn’t know, happened. It took like thirty seconds before I finally arrived at the end of the tunnel. Thirty seconds of hard pain because the rocks were hardly scratching my back. Even if the thirty seconds were horrible, I will never regret it. I don’t know what I should be surprised of… The fact that the village is so beautiful and so well hidden or that the description of this village by my sensei was perfect… The purple stalactites that were illuminating the place felt like there was magic inside of it, the crowded roads in the village with a lot of shops or stands of food or drink… Even if this village was underground, the air conditioning was better than the actual air outside. Everything seemed perfect… Until people started to look at me. I heard them talk about me. 

“Who is this boy? I never saw him in the village before. How did he find us!” Said a random woman.

Everybody started looking at my neck, where my demon mark was.

“OH MY… A DEMON! RUNNNN!!” Said a man.

Everyone started to scream and run. I didn’t know how the other humans were. I thought that everyone would come cheering at me saying that I was the student of the Grand Master and everyone would run towards me to hug me or to cheer me for my first time arriving in this village.  Aha… I forgot something really important that my sensei tried to say to me before I would leave:

“Remember Fred… Humans are cruel, and you will see it here”

I didn’t really understand what he wanted to say, but now I know what his message means now.. Instead of people smiling at me and welcoming me, all I was able to see was anger, disgusted and horrified people. All the little stands of food and attraction suddenly closed, everyone runned away from me and they eventually all went inside their houses and closed their doors. Ooch… Am I so different?. Am I so scary? I went knock at a random door. 

“Hello? Is there someone in there?” I said.

I heard some noise but nobody responded.

The door was locked. I suddenly punched the door and broke it. I wanted some explanations of why everyone is scared of me. When I entered the house, I saw nobody. I then went to see in each room if someone was there. Then, a man went out of one of the rooms and hit me with a shovel. 

“GET OUT OF OUR HOUSE, DEMON!” He said.

I didn’t understand why he said our house, until I could see his wife shaking behind him. 

“What?! I'm just here to talk and to get some explanations!” I added.

“We don’t talk to demons. DEMONS ARE ONLY KILLERS! He replied.

That was frustrating. This man just hit me with a shovel, and he is now saying that I am the bad guy? I didn’t even do anything bad! Well, I broke his door with a punch but I guess that's not a reason to hit me. Ok, maybe it should be a reason, but anyways…

“I’m sorry for your door. It was locked.” I said.

“That’s not a good reason! Don’t break doors like this!” He added.

I didn’t know that it was bad. I didn’t know how human lives are. My sensei never told me how others were living. He didn’t tell me that it was bad to enter someone’s house without permission. But suddenly, while I was thinking, the old man in front of me started to realize who I really was, without even knowing my name or anything. He suddenly started to look at me closely for an entire minute. 

“Wait… is that you, Fred?” He said.

“How do you know my name?!” I added.

“Simply because I know your sensei, little kid. Sorry for calling you a demon with no heart, I didn’t know it was you…”

“You’re lying. My sensei told me that humans are horrible. He told me not to believe what they are saying.”

“Kiddo, it’s because he didn’t want me to tell you the truth. In reality, everyone knows you! Yeah, after all, we are just scared of your arrival because your sensei didn’t tell us that you were coming. And he also didn’t tell us that you had that mark…”

“Well, if what you are saying is true, then why didn’t he tell you the truth?”

“Because everyone here is scared of the demons. Our village was once attacked by a group of demons. 32 people died during this assault.”

“Oh…” I simply said in sadness. 

“Don’t try to excuse yourself. You are for nothing.” He said.

“Anyways, you told me that I had “that mark”... what do you mean by that?” I simply asked. 

“Wait! Your sensei didn’t tell you what mark this is!?” He said, surprised. 

“SO HE WAS HIDING SOMETHING TO ME!” 

“I don’t know what he told you about this mark, but this mark is the demon mark from the ro…”

Suddenly, we both heard a woman screaming. 

“Oh no! Not them again!!! Shit, shit!” He screamed

“What, someone is attacking this village multiple times?”

“It’s been a month that… ACTUALLY, WE DON’T CARE ABOUT THE TALKING, WE NEED TO SAVE THE PERSON OR THE PERSONS IN DANGER!”

“Yeah, let’s go!” I simply said before rushing towards the voice screaming. 

It took at least 20 seconds before I was able to see the guy attacking a woman. She was already injured a lot with the wounds on her arms and her legs. I was really scared for her, because if she would have been attacked again, she would be done for. Anyways, before this masked man made the final strike at her, I was able to go right in front of him and punch him really hard in the stomach. He went flying to someone’s window and, because the punch was really strong, the window broke and he disappeared inside the house. Damn… Was he already dead? My mark didn’t activate and I was still able to make a lot of damage. I don’t complain if it’s the case… Anyways, I need to see if the woman is o…

“HEY YOU! YOU ARE GOING TO PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID AT ONE OF OUR MAN!” 

God… I guess he wasn’t alone after all… I looked behind me and 10 other masked men were standing on the roof of someone’s house. I said 10 masked men, but in reality, one of them didn’t have a mask, but instead, he had two… Oh no… Don’t tell me he’s a…