Chapter 53 - Rush

"Home, sweet home," said Jun as he finally made it to the mountain top where his home was. After both Jun and Julius got up from the jade dragon's body, Jun sent his pet off to sleep on top of a nearby mountain top which was flat just like the one where Jun's house was at.

"Oh man, I can't wait to get some sleep," said Julius as he opened the doors of Jun's house expecting there to be his futon which he slept in.

…

"What's wrong, get in already," said Jun as he himself stepped in front on Julius to get inside however, what he saw left him speechless.

His entire house had been robbed and vandalized. Who ever would have done such a thing was either arrogant or stupid as Jun despite his old age was one of the strongest humans in the world only matched by the 9 kings and queens.

Jun quickly rushed towards a walls which when he pressed opened up a secret compartment where he stored all his scrolls, including the shadow monster scrolls. However, once he looked inside, Jun was disappointed to find nothing in there. Whoever had robbed Jun's house was looking to start a war.

As Jun looked around and analyzed the room, he saw an emblem which he recognized.

"Steward… you'll pay for this," said Jun as he grit his teeth.

While Jun was having his own inner monologue, Julius continued to stand at the door while standing completely frozen in place. It even looked like he was about to cry.

"What's wrong with you? Can't you see that they took the most valuable things I have," Jun said to Julius which made the prince begin to cry which just brought more confusion to Jun.

"T-T-They took my comfy white futon," Julius said as tears began to flow out of his eyes in both anger and sadness. For some odd reason, Julius tended to build the strongest bonds with some of the most insignificant things such as his dead rabbit and now, his futon.

<<Secret Art: Julius' Judgment>>

<<Silent Dea->>

"HOLD ON THERE! THEY AREN'T HERE!" Jun stopped his student from activating the deadly secret art.

"Don't go killing me for no reason. Plus, I think I know who stole your precious futon," said Jun as he tries to make Julius calm down so that his student doesn't accidentally erase all of humanity.

"Who was it?!" Julius demanded.

"Do you see that emblem over there?" Jun asked as he pointed to a red sickle symbol on top of one of the walls in Jun's house.

"King Steward?" Julius asked as he gasped.

"But why?" Julius asked once more.

"Isn't it clear? He's trying to provoke us. That's why he stole the scrolls and left his emblem. If he was truly after just the scrolls, he would've left no trace of himself here but instead, he took the scrolls so we couldn't ignore him and also placed his emblem so we would know who to look for. Julius, I think he's after you," Jun explained.

"So why don't you just go and take our stuff back. Since he's after me only, if you go, you'll be fine," said Julius.

"It's not as simple as that. First of all, I don't even know if I can defeat him, secondly, what if while I'm gone, someone comes after you. That way, I lose my scrolls and I also lose you," Jun replied as he tried to think about a plan.

"Okay then, what if I call my 5 subjects? You said that one of them could take on about 2 rulers so even if all 9 of them come, my 5 subjects would be able to beat them," Julius replied.

"That wouldn't work either. Even if you defeat the 9 rulers, you still would have to deal with their armies which include the royal guards and the civilians from their respective kingdom which have a large influence in the world. To add on, their job should only be to rebuild your continent for now. Nothing should distract them from that. For now, just think of it as if they don't exist," Jun also shutdown another one of Julius' ideas before finally coming up with one of his own.

"There's only one way to deal with this problem. That being that we have to storm the place ourselves," said Jun.

"Wait what? We're clearly weaker than my 5 subjects so how does is going there by ourselves have a higher likely of success than us going with my subjects," Julius asked in utter confusion.

"You see, I'd you brought you 'subjects', the other rulers would join in as they pose a threat to all of the kingdoms but if we go alone, it would just be seen as just going to get revenge on those who caused us harm so we would only have to deal with 1 kingdom," Jun explained.

"Wait.. are you proposing that to alone wake war upon a whole kingdom?" Julius asked with a fake face of concern when instead he couldn't me more excited to take revenge upon those who would dare to steal his futon.

"Well it's not technically war-" Jun began to say before getting cut off by Julius.

"Yes! Let's wage war on them!" Julius quickly said as he got rid of the fake act and decided to act as he truly felt.

"You do realize that we'll have to train you before we can go there right?…" Jun said which sucked all the joy out of Julius' face.

"Do I have to?" Julius asked as he began to complain.

"Yes! How else are you supposed to even stand a chance against all those guards, let alone Steward himself," Jun scolded Julius.

"Okay fine! But let's start quickly, I don't want to waste anymore time," Julius demanded.

"Well you can start by sleeping," said Jun as they realized that it had began to get dark.

"Okay then, first thing in the morning we do is train," said Julius as he went to sleep on the hard floor as he complained that his futon wasn't there.