The teen kid awoke right toward the end of our dinner, his eyes panicked as he hurried down the stairs. His travel bag was in hand.
“Look who’s finally awake,” I said. “Uh…” I stood up, deciding to introduce myself, hand already out for a shake when the boy spoke first.
“Please help. My village—it was taken over by bandits.” His eyes hardened, but I already saw the tear escape. Then he poured it out. “They have a rogue magician for a boss.” The remaining festivity of the party faded as our own expressions grew serious. “He found out I had the spark and that I’m a half-dwarf, announced loudly that they followed it all the way to the village, emp… emphasizing that it was my fault they were being chained up.” He balled his fists, sucking in a breath as if enduring a giant needle. “They just watched me get gagged and roped and beaten without resisting the bandits. I know there was a magician, a strong one, but…” He shook his head again. “That’s not important. They were chatting about selling me to a demonic sect. I only escaped because the only person who still trusted me snuck to my cage, gave me these.” He held up the bag. “She urged me to leave.”
“Your parent, I assume,” I said.
“You could call her that. She’s the one that took care of me,” he said. “She’s just our village’s blacksmith.”
“A lady blacksmith, now that’s rare,” Milia said as she stood, Harmony too. “So you’ve been on the run for a few days, yes?”
“If they tracked you to your village with grand plans to sell you off to some sect…” My voice trailed off.
“They certainly followed him,” Harmony said. “Or sent a search party.”
Wolverine sniffed the air, then looked at me, his willingness to look for them clear. However, if he wasn’t growling or running out, they weren’t in the grassland. I glanced outside at the dark. And that was when an idea came to mind.
First, I examined the details of the night vision potions I made.
[Supreme Magical Night Vision Potion: Capable of lasting up to 20 hours, timing that’s normally impossible. The solution automatically deactivates or adjusts itself to keep the user’s vision normal throughout the duration of the potion.]
“I’m almost certain they’ve made camp at least some ways off from here,” I said. “I have night vision potions that can last for a good moment, but let me bring up the flipside. First, I’m not a charity and I’m certainly not one to go dashing out into unknown danger just because someone cries for help. Excuse me if I sound like I’m no fan of just running into a trap, getting myself and anyone with me killed, and all for what?”
“But…” The kid’s voice trailed off.
“Of course, Wolverine here can smell a lie from a mile away,” I said. “If you were bullshitting, I would’ve turned you into the town guard and we’d return to our celebration.” I turned back to Milia and Harmony. “How… capable are the guards when it comes to bandits?”
“We’ve dealt with some before,” Harmony replied. “But if you’re talking bandits with a magician leader, well, I don’t know. And if this turns out to be a mercenary band, we’re in trouble.”
“A mercenary band?” I said. “Shit.” Thinking for a moment, I shook my head. “I think this is too sloppy for mercenaries, right? Wouldn’t they be more professional?”
“But they’re trying to sell someone into slavery,” Milia said. “Either the magician in charge has connections, knows a noble who does, or is a part of that sect himself, turning in a bounty for easy coin.”
“What’s your name, kid?” I asked. Even I could tell he was quite tall for having dwarven blood.
“Lucas,” he replied.
I tuned back to Milia and Harmony. “Hypothetically, let’s say we sneak into the camp with surprise on our side. What should we do with them?”
“Tie them up and contact the kingdom authorities,” Harmony said. “But, that in itself is difficult, especially with the magician.”
“I…”
We turned to Lucas. He wiped his eyes.
“They killed a person, for fighting back,” he said. “And I’m sure more people, bandits are always cruel to the girls. I… don’t know.”
I stared at the kid, keeping my expression neutral, but knowing this harsh world to be the only thing he knew, I couldn’t exactly judge him. The bandits deserved death. But I’d never killed anyone in my life and didn’t want the blood on my hands. This wasn’t something I could compare to hunting.
But that brought me to another predicament. I loved the town, wanted to grow things, but also was clearly aware of the fucked-up nature of this era. If Kyushu was suddenly attacked by bandits, would I defend it? What if I started a family here?
The answer was clear. I wasn’t raised to be a little bitch and watch loved ones die. But… I also wasn’t raised to go be a hero, run across the world to fight off every bandit. Yeah, the old world had its problems, but you wouldn’t see me hopping into the car to fight crime like Batman. I had no intention of doing that here either.
“Nate,” Milia said.
I nodded as I made up my mind. “Let’s notify the town guard first. They’re professionals, right? Warn them of the magician too,” I said. “Make sure they’re ready to patrol out behind us.”
Harmony met my gaze, then nodded. “You’re my master now. It shall be done.”
“Master sounds… Eh, just use employer or boss, please,” I said.
Without acknowledging my demand, Harmony hurried out the door.
I turned to address Milia and Lucas. “I’ll be frank, the only thing I know is street fighting,” I said. “That’s using my fists.” I decided not to mention that I practiced mixed martial arts way back in the day. I wouldn’t trust myself to remember much anyway. “Not that it matters. We’re going there to scout first, before deciding anything.”
“What Nate is trying to say is that he’s never killed,” Milia said. “He and I are that much alike in that regard.”
I looked at Milia. “With your sword skills…”
“Fighting monsters, defending the forest from demonic beasts, that’s normal for guardians,” Milia explained. “However, I’ve never been in direct conflict with a human. It’s probably thanks to what’s in the forest. But…” Her eyes hardened. “When it comes to you, the town, and everything we’re building here, I’ll switch to the reaper’s blade in a heartbeat.”
“I don’t think I’ve earned that kind of trust so soon,” I said with a chuckle.
“That is because you cannot see what you’ve accomplished,” Milia said. “A good thing. Great power can cloud someone’s vision, bring them to the realm of arrogance. Someone as far from it as you deserves the title of Master. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” She sat. “Perhaps one day, I can hope to see your homeland, one in which magicians haven’t driven the people to fear.”
I sat back down, and we waited for Harmony’s return. In the meantime, Lucas stared at me. After a good while, I couldn’t take it anymore. Grow some balls, man!
“If you got something to say, kid, say it,” I said. I chuckled. “Holding it in will only bring you wrinkles.”
“Are you… some kind of magician? Or soldier?”
“Do I look like either of those things?” I asked, being a little smart ass, but my smile couldn’t stay away. “I’m just a potion maker, nothing more, nothing less. And no, I’m not just telling myself that.”
Harmony returned minutes later to convey the news of sounding the alarm. We could see the guards arming themselves, alerted and ready.
“Here’s the plan,” I said. “Normally, I’d say something like Harmony, Lucas stay back, but you haven’t earned my trust, kid. For all we know, this could be some elaborate trap.”
“It’s not a trap!” Lucas snapped, eyes wild. Tears poured as he broke down. “I… I lost everything. Betrayed by all that I know and have nowhere to return. My master insisted that I go this way, that I’d be more likely to find someone to take me in than the city, where the guard and nobles will laugh in my face, then arrest me on some kind of suspicion.”
I wasn’t one to be shaken by tears, but in that moment, I finally was able to see more than an unknown young boy.
“Stand up, wipe the tears,” I said. “We’ll go see what we’re dealing with. But this will not be a charity.”
Lucas looked at me and I hardened my gaze, allowed just a bit of my aura to slip. He froze, trembling. “For the blood I’m about to get on my hands, you’ll owe me a debt. Starting now and it is nonnegotiable. A little work at the shop and you’ll pay it down. Do you understand?”
Lucas nodded. Despite trying to make it sound like a terrible idea, it still restored the boy’s spirits.
“On the bright side, if I don’t end up killing anyone, you can settle with telling your master about this shop,” I said cheerfully.
I knew those words wouldn’t fully set him at ease, given what he felt from me, the magician’s strength. Hell, I still didn’t understand what was going on with my body.
“Let’s go,” I said. “Lucas, lead the way to the camp. Wolverine will let us know when we get close.”
The sunlight wolf cub barked once in reply. I gave him a good pat. He was growing a bit, physically and magically.
Axel sneered at the pathetic villagers before kicking his feet up on the back of a lady footrest. Regardless of the hatred in her gaze, the chains would do their jobs, holding the prisoner in place. The magician chuckled, took a gulp of his ale, and then poured the rest into the young girl’s face.
“Just so you know, once again, you mortals brought this upon yourself,” he said. “I only asked for one thing. Bring me the boy, my profit device, and you’d go back to living a peaceful life. It’s not like you cared about him, anyway. You froze, averted your gazes when you learned that he himself had the spark. Now look at you. Chained, lined up, beaten, and preparing for more. But my patience is wearing out. I’m feeling the need to do what needs to be done.” He looked at the caged children. “Four days wasted in this dump. Be grateful I’m even allowing you to look at me. Now… shall I feed the little ones to the wolves or gut them? I don’t want to hear any more lies, claiming you don’t know. Who is the boy’s guardian? Stop protecting them!”
He kicked the table girl and stood, the burning sense of humiliation energizing his blood. He boasted about his small gang’s potential, yet they let their chance at profit escape so easily. The demonic sects would love to turn someone like that into a killing machine.
The villagers continued to defy him, their eyes full of shame, but they believed that one last favor could be done for the boy who served the village with everything he had and with a smile. No matter how much an immortal threatened them, they would not tell him anything. The magician was going to kill them anyway, he said that much. He’d take the women, sell them into magician-run brothels, and the men who survived, to slave ships or worse: the mines.
Axel was beginning to lose his patience and allowed the pressure of his aura to terrorize the mortals, when a surprising report came through to him via wind whispering. His eyes widened.
Ah yes, the story of the group behind some large bushes and trees.
Wolverine’s soft growl was the first thing that let us know we’d found our targets. Aside from the obvious campfire. They were even roasting a boar on top of it, the greedy bastards!
I scanned the bandits. Roughly a dozen or so normal people, though one of them carried a weird green rock. His eyes darted left to right in paranoia, potentially due to a wild animal attack. I glanced at my party.
Despite trying to get Harmony to wait in a heavily secured place with Lucas, the blue-haired girl insisted on going, refusing to listen to logic or reason. If the mayor found out about this, well, getting kicked out the town would be the least of my worries. However, time wasn’t on our side, so I couldn’t hold things up for a stubborn brat.
“Let’s just deal with them,” I said. “We can tie them up and leave them for the guard.” I glanced at Harmony. “How long do you think it’d take for them to get here?”
“They will likely send a party out just before the crack of dawn,” Harmony replied.
“In that case, let’s do this the easy way,” I said.
“Are you…?” Lucas’s voice trailed off.
“You’re an angsty one, aren’t you?” I said. “Listen, I don’t care how this world works, I’m not looking to get blood on my hands. Especially for some random kid. I’m sorry your village went through this and believe me, we’ll do our best, but if you look, the only fighters are me, Milia, and Wolverine.” I glared at Harmony, daring her to protest, but she averted her gaze, knowing damn well that she was currently a liability. I gave her a break this once. Yes people, I now realized I would have to teach her after all. I might be a thirty-three-year-old laborer, but even I had hard lessons when it came to the kind of trouble invited by being naïve. “I’m going to blast my aura, shock them a bit. Milia and Wolverine will strike first, knock out as many as possible. I’ll jump in and hope I don’t accidentally punch off their heads.”
Lucas paled. It really did feel weird to be the Superman of the group.
“On the count of three,” I said. “One… Two… Three!”
I blasted my aura to the point where I probably looked like a Dragonball character. However, I wasn’t the only one. Wolverine surprised me with an aura that resembled a demonic beast’s red, perhaps darker in color. I glanced at Milia questioningly.
“It’s killing intent,” she said. “Take your aura, invent a desire to kill or express your true feelings, and project it, and your target will feel it. It’s not something that’s normally visible.”
She launched into the fray, attacking and disarming two of the surprised bandits. Not that they were actually that armed. Some half-drunk, with maybe one or two on guard. It was the green rock guy that sounded the alarm.
“We’re under attack! The boss is warned!” He tossed the green rock into the air. It shimmered once before landing on the ground. I’d pick it up in a bit. “Whispering wind!”
The bandits tried and failed to put up a fight. Including the green rock guy, we knocked them all out. Milia secured them by vine. Honestly, many of them struggled to see, especially when Wolverine kicked out the fire. The night vision potions were absolutely badass! Everything looked like daytime to us. Talk about wielding the power of cheating, am I right?
“Okay, that went well,” I said. “I hope the guards will bring more than one wagon.”
I turned back to Lucas, whose eyes were wide, tears falling and hands trembling. Such a reaction, goddamn. The magicians fucked this world up.
“Take a deep breath, let it out,” I said. “Focus on the need to save your master, okay?”
Lucas wiped his eyes while doing as I instructed. I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for him but going soft right now would do more harm than good. He needed a strong voice to guide his resolve. “Anyway, we’re not about to walk for several days, we’ll be too late,” I said. “Milia, Wolverine, and I will take it from here. Otherwise, it’s horseback for two days, right? We’ve—”
Interrupting me was a loud squeal of… something. A bird? Thanks to night vision, we easily spotted something the size of a fucking house in the sky. It had the head of a bird, an eagle, but the body of a goddamn giant lion.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I said. “Those are real too?”
As if things couldn’t get any better, I felt a presence on top of the bird. It didn’t fly right past us either. No, it circled the night sky above, as if preparing to land. Then it hit me.
“That fucking green rock,” I said. “It’s tracking it.”
I had it in my pocket. With all of my strength, I chucked that son-of-a-bitch as hard as I could. The rider of the griffin clearly couldn’t see in the dark and without the campfire, couldn’t detect us, right?
As if I’d believe things would be that easy. I knew he could, at the very least, sense me. Seeing wasn’t everything. Rather than let him pretend the griffin fell for my trick by driving it away only to return with a high-speed attack, I aimed a hand at him. It took less than a breath for mana to fill my palm.
The Supreme Magic Bolt blazed a bright blue as it launched from my hand, its bulk the size of a football.
It hit the griffin, but wow that bastard was tough. It didn’t explode into pieces, not that I tried for that, it instead made an emergency landing and threw off its rider.
I laughed at the magician.
“Milia, Wolverine, protect Harmony and the kid,” I said. “When I subdue him, he gets the wrap treatment.” I turned to Milia. “Do you think you can convince the griffin to give us a ride?”
Milia laughed. “Sure can. He’ll be more than happy to.”
“Perfect,” I said, then strolled toward the magician righting himself after being tossed around like a used sack of socks. “I seriously didn’t expect the man of the hour to personally pay us a visit.”
I gave him my best smile. Perhaps even a merchant’s smile.
“That spell,” he said. “Don’t get cocky just because you caught us off guard. Who are you? What sect are you from so I can judge this insu… insu…” His voice died in his throat, eyes widening as I allowed my aura to show and my killing intent to swallow his soul.
I could feel the gazes of Milia, Harmony, Wolverine, and Lucas pressing into my back, waiting to see me in action.
My smile was gone, of course. I did not appreciate being forced into violence. I was fucking pissed that this asshole had the audacity to look at me as if he was superior to the world. You know, after getting knocked off his ride by my attack.
I coldly analyzed my opponent.
