Matthew and Vaida finally arrived in Kingdom of Bern. A few soldiers were seen greeting and saluting at the General, and they could not help but wonder who the guy walking with the General. The soldiers thought that he was an important person from a neighboring country, but they had no idea exactly who he was. As the two of them walked passing by another group of soldiers, Heath showed up to greet Matthew and Vaida. After a short exchange of greetings between Heath and Matthew, the three of them walked into the empty training ground of the Wyvern Knights that only had the wyverns at that time.
Heath said, "Pick your wyvern, Matthew. There are five wyverns without knights right now. So you can choose one out of them. I'd suggest you to pick the blue one, that'd be the easiest to handle for beginners like you."
Vaida disagree with the idea, "Nonsense. He must take the red one because we're going to introduce him as an expert on riding wild wyverns who used to live in the mountains. So he must ride the red wyvern."
"Uhmm ..." With Heath and Vaida's attention totally set on Matthew, he simply couldn't decide which one he wanted to choose. After a while, he thought that it would be wise to follow Heath's suggestion. It'd be better to ride the easy wyvern rather than making a fool out of himself by riding the red wyvern.
Matthew turned his head to face the two Wyvern Knights and said, "I think you're right Hea-"
Vaida, thinking that Matthew was referring to her, immediately said, "I knew it that you would agree with me. Red wyvern it is, the name of the wyvern is Droz. He's Umbriel's father, so he's quite old and very hotheaded. I think the usual rider broke his hip a few weeks ago and had to stay in treatment for a few more months before recovering. But I'm sure you'll be fine, Matthew."
oO ... Oo ... OO!
Before he could've expressed his objection, he was already dragged by Vaida and being lectured on how to ride a wyvern. Heath was left with nothing to say. He simply wondered which one would've occurred first, Matthew's disguise being exposed or Matthew getting injured from an accident from riding Droz. As sad as it might sound, he preferred the latter to happen than the former. The stake was simply too high that they just couldn't afford the plan to fail.
At the very same time, Legault and Jaffar were doing their own duties. Legault, being the messenger, didn't have much to do other than to keep fit, avoid unnecessary attention from the local people, and to be available whenever Jaffar felt the need to pass on any crucial information. With not much to do, he filled his time mostly to hunt for food. Not many people knew that Legault was actually quite a good cook. Matthew and Jaffar were extremely surprised to learn this skill of the Hurricane during their travel together. Now with no one to impress, Legault felt a bit bored by his normal cooking. Not that he had much choice anyway, he had no spices at all other than salt that he bought a few days ago. Same ol boring salted rabbit or boar, depending on which he caught.
On the other hand, Jaffar was very busy with his observation. He tried to follow Levan as close as possible whenever he could. Whenever Levan went outdoor, Jaffar would be not too far away watching and observing every single move that the target's made. But it was not easy at all, Levan turned out to be quite a careful man. Called it intuition or paranoia if you want, Levan simply kept on watching his back even when he was just out on a stroll to the garden. Though it was quite hard to keep an eye on him, Jaffar was an experienced spy none the less. Being unseen was not something foreign to him at all, so he felt that he had managed to be unseen by Levan up to this afternoon.
The next day was the first day that Matthew was introduced the squad of the Wyvern Knights of Bern. General Vaida introduced Matthew as the wild wyvern rider that she met during her recent travel. Interested by the talent shown by the stranger, Vaida managed to convince him to join the Wyvern Knights of Bern, with the high expectation of him as a possible successor as the General of the Wyvern Knights.
Vaida then ended the introduction by saying, "I'm sure you're all so excited to see this guy, so here he is ... Matthias, the wild wyvern rider."
Matthew slowly showed himself to the whole Wyvern Knight unit, not knowing what he had done to get involved in such a mess like this. He was so embarrassed by the whole made up information that Vaida said beforehand that he simply could not bear to lift his head, he ended up looking down the whole briefing on the training session for that day. The first thing was a 30 minute hand to hand combat. Followed by a 15 minute break, and a 60 minute flying session. They would have an hour break for lunch, and after that, there would be a one-on-one duel on wyverns for the whole unit. There would be no time limit on the last session. They would finish by the time the last pair had finished their duel.
The Wyvern Knights were so curious of Matthew's ability. While they showed serious and concentrating faces whenever General Vaida approached them, they could be seen whispering to each other whenever she was not in sight. Heath could not really hear the whispering, but he could certainly hear the name "Matthias" being said over and over again.
"This doesn't look too good," thought Heath.
Matthew also heard the murmuring of the other Wyvern Knights, "O boy, I think I'm going to faint ... damn Vaida"
Vaida, totally oblivious of the whispering, thought, "Hmmm ... everything looks good so far. I'm such a genius. The knights must've bought all the story that I told just now. Ha ha ha ha ..."
As the hand to hand combat training and the 15 minute break finished, it was the moment of truth that the Wyvern Knights had been waiting for. They wanted to see how well this new guy could fly with the wyvern, and they were even more surprised when the found out that the new guy named Matthias had chosen to ride Droz, arguably the hardest wyvern to ride on. One by one the Wyvern Knights flew with their wyverns until there were only Vaida, Heath, and Matthew left on the ground.
"Come on, you can do it," said Heath, trying to encourage Matthew to not worry.
Matthew finally had the guts to try flying on Droz. But Droz had other ideas, he flew so quick that Matthew was left to fall back down to the ground. The Wyvern Knights looked at him with a confused look. One knight told the other that General Vaida might have lost her edge, that was obviously not something that an expert would have done when flying.
"I'm okay," said Matthew as he held his head. "Let's try again, I wasn't ready before."
The second attempt was a little bit better. He managed to stay on Droz for an extra second before his face met the ground once again. This time, the Wyvern Knights could not help but laughed at him. The laughter immediatedly died down when they saw the killer look of the General.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," said Matthew as he nurtured his face that now was bleeding a bit.
The third attempt was proven to be the lucky one. Matthew managed to hang on to Droz, and after a few minutes, it was quite apparent that he managed to ride on Droz very well. The other Wyvern Knights were amazed by Matthew's flying ability, while Heath and Vaida's faces were filled with smile, a very relieved wide smile.
During the lunch break, the lunch hall only had one topic of the day's story, the new guy by the name of Matthias. Matthew became an instant popular guy there with many knights wanting to sit and have lunch with him. Unfortunately for him, he had yet to realize that his popularity could be more of a trouble than a good thing.
Not too far away from his table, Levan was seen enjoying his lunch while paying full attention toward the new guy, Matthias.
