My Taming System Makes Me Overpowered

The autumn rain in Malgrath never felt clean. It fell heavy and cold, washing the dark soot from the ironworks into the cobblestone streets, pooling in the alleyways like diluted ink.

Vesper walked with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his dark coat, his hood drawn low over his brow. He was nineteen now. His reputation as the Ashen Shadow was firmly established, his name spoken in hushed, nervous tones by the city’s underground guildmasters. He had just finished securing a heavy purse of gold from a low-ranking noble’s steward for a quiet contract, yet his boots dragged against the wet stone.

The gold meant nothing. The contract had meant nothing. It was just more blood on his hands to buy more silence in an empty room.

As he rounded the corner into a narrow alley near the Lower District docks, the sharp, unmistakable scent of fresh copper cut through the smell of wet earth and rain.

Vesper stopped. His sharp red eyes flicked into the darkness.

Lying half-buried under a pile of rotting wooden crates was a boy. He couldn’t have been older than fifteen, but his frame was broad—thick-boned and built for labor. He was wearing the torn, mud-caked leather brigandine of the Iron Hound Mercenaries, a ruthless low-tier warband known for taking suicide contracts along the duchy borders.

The boy wasn’t moving, save for the shallow, ragged rising and falling of his heavy chest. A broken spear shaft jutted from the left side of his ribs, the wood split and bloody. Fresh crimson pool beneath him, turning the muddy rainwater bright red.

Vesper approached silently, his boots making no sound against the wet cobbles. He stopped a few feet away, looking down at the dying boy.

"If you’re here to finish it... just do it," a raspy, gravelly voice muttered from beneath the boy’s matted brown hair.

The boy slowly raised his head. His face was bruised, caked in dirt and dried blood, but his dark brown eyes held no fear. Only a deep, bitter exhaustion.

Vesper tilted his head slightly. "You’re bleeding out kid. Another ten minutes and the cold will do it for you."

"Then save your steel," the boy grunted, his teeth stained crimson as he spat a mouthful of blood onto the stones. "The captain said... bait draws the target. Guess I was good bait... until the very end."

Vesper’s red eyes narrowed. He had seen it a hundred times in the pits and on the streets. Small mercenary warbands liked to take heavy, low-ranking recruits, send them into the frontline of a ambush to draw out enemy archers or heavy spells, and then sweep in to take the reward once the bait was slaughtered.

They had used him. Crushed his chest with a spear, taken the contract pay, and tossed him into the rain like a broken tool.

Vesper looked at the boy’s hands. Even caked in mud, his fingers were broad, his wrists thick, his knuckles scarred from raw physical labor. He had the frame of a mountain, but the eyes of a stray dog that had been beaten one too many times.

He’s been abandoned by society just Like me, Vesper thought.

Without a word, Vesper reached inside his long coat. He pulled out a small, stoppered glass vial filled with a thick, golden ointment—a high-grade alchemical salve he had purchased from a black-market merchant to seal his own blade wounds. Beside it, he pulled out a heavy leather pouch, tossing both items onto the wet chest of the dying boy.

The heavy pouch clinked loudly. Gold.

The boy blinked, staring down at the pouch and the vial in utter confusion. "What... what is this?"

"The salve will help to stop the internal bleeding if you smear it directly into the wound," Vesper said, his voice flat, devoid of pity. "The gold should buy you a warm bed, a hot meal, and a ticket out of Malgrath."

The boy tried to push himself up, a sharp gasp of pain tearing from his throat as the broken spear shaft shifted in his ribs. He looked up at Vesper, his jaw set in a stubborn, unyielding line.

"I don’t take charity," the boy growled, his voice trembling with sheer physical strain. "And I don’t run. Thanks for the help but if you truly want to help, put me out of my misery."

"It’s not charity," Vesper replied, stepping closer, his shadow falling completely over the boy. "It’s an option. You can sit here, prideful and bloody, and let the worms eat you by midnight. Or you can patch yourself up, grab a club, and stop letting weak men use you as a shield."

The boy stared at Vesper for a long, heavy moment. The rain pelted down on them, splashing off Vesper’s leather coat and the boy’s bloodied armor. Slowly, the stubborn anger in the boy’s eyes crystallized into something hard, cold, and dark.

Revenge? Hate?...I thought i was serving my purpose but now I want to see them suffer

He reached out his trembling, muddy hand, gripping the glass vial.

"What’s your name, kid?" Vesper asked softly.

The boy grabbed the wooden shaft of the broken spear in his chest. With a guttural, agonizing roar that echoed off the alley walls, he yanked the jagged wood clean out of his ribcage, blood spurting into the rain before he slammed his palm over the open wound, uncorking the salve with his teeth.

"Brian," the boy rasped, his eyes burning through the pain. "My name is Brian."

Vesper let a faint, cold smirk touch his lips under the shadow of his hood.

"Get up then, Brian," Vesper said, turning his back on the boy and glancing down the dark alleyway toward the ironworks district where the Iron Hound Mercenaries kept their tavern base. "C’mon Let’s go collect your severance pay..."

"You didn’t tell me your name" Brian said standing up and walking towards vesper

"The name’s Vesper..." Vesper said looking at the horizon