Walking down the muddy path, with the smoke of a huge fire burning filling the sky behind him, Adui had a lot of thoughts going through his head. He was having a hard time deciding what he should pick up first.

So let me get this straight. There are these 7 feet tall monsters who work for the church of Itab, and they hunt down heretics. As far as the albino woman was concerned, she was something called the dark mage. And she was a bad guy, who wanted me to find a house whose insignia was a Rose.

The whole scenario seemed to him something out of a novel or something. Everything just went by, so fast, that he didnt even have time to understand what transpired. How he got out of this messy situation was beyond him as well. He had been very lucky that he was an emotionless human puppet because any other human in his stead would have cracked under the intense gaze of the old inquisitor.

Those guys called me a mortal. Does that mean that they are immortals?

He was having a hard time that there could be something or someone immortal. It is just against the laws of nature. But considering that he was in the world of magic, he was able to digest the information somehow as well…

As he didnt have a horse, he had to keep walking down the muddy path until nightfall, when finally he was able to reach another small village. The night had already fallen, and he did not want to be looked down on once again by some innkeeper, so he decided that it would be for the best that he just kept moving. He stole a cart and a pony from a farm, left two gold coins as compensation, and started his journey once again.

Although the cart was more comfortable than the back of the horse, it was way slower than a horse. Especially the pony of his, that little thing had so little stamina that in his overnight journey he had to stop three times to give relief to the pony. When the sun did rise, he stopped by a river to take a bath.

While his pony ate the wild grass around the river bank, he took a long bath scrubbing every part of his body with his hands. After he was done, he washed his clothes, they were also dirty as fuck. The lack of any sort of soap made it difficult for him to clean his clothes thoroughly, but he managed somehow.

He sat under the shade of an old tree, finally free of his chores. He then opened his bag and took out the satchel of the albino mage.

This belonged to her. Considering how strong she was, this thing should contain some good stuff, right? He thought.

He was just a low-level mana wielder, he was carrying a bunch of gold and mana stones with him. So there was a high chance that his satchel might contain more valuable things.

As he flipped open the flap of the satchel, he was greeted with the glowing symbols, etched in the seam of the opening. They look familiar. Similar symbols are in the wooden box of mana stones.

He flipped the bag, and slowly the contents of the box started falling off the bag. As if performing Earth-style street magic, things just kept falling from the bag as if the bag were a bottomless pit. When the piles of things had increased to a certain length, only then did he flip the bag back. There was still some stuff in the bag, that he didnt dare to take out.

Well, clearly this is like a magical bag or something. I cannot go through its content here, He thought.

And it is then, a weird thought came to his mind. There were similarities between the symbols of the mana stone box and this satchel, which meant that there was a high chance that they shared similar magic. Does it mean that the number of mana stones that he had, might be greater than what he had previously perceived?

“Aw, what a cute pony!” someone yelled. He peeked from the tree to see a little girl caressing his pony. He would have not batted an eye on the girl if it weren't for her clean appearance. She was clearly wearing a frock made of expensive silks, similar to his eldest brother and sister. And she didnt look like the girl that belonged there.

There is a high chance someone might come looking for the girl.

He moved quickly and started shoving the stuff back to the satchel. The girl was busy with his pony, so he had all the time he needed. It is only after he had shoved all the stuff back to the satchel, he pushed himself up.

The girl was still playing with the pony when she spotted him. She looked a little fearful when she saw him coming out of nowhere, faking confidence she asked, “Does this pony belong to you, kind sir?”

He simply nodded, so she asked, “How much do you want for it?”

With a cold face, he replied, “The pony is not for sale. And you should go back little girl, this place is not safe.”

“I am not afraid,”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

He sighed inwardly, “Go back. There should be people looking for you,”

“You should mind your own business mister,” She said angrily, “Now tell me how much for the pony. I can give you enough, that you enough gold that you might be able to a dozen land or so,”

Buy a dozen land? This little brat must be a rather high-class noble, only they could be so out of touch with reality.

“Lady I am asking you last time. Get the hell out of here,”

“I am not leaving without my pony,”

Seeing no real words getting through her, he decided to just scare her. He started making growling noises, shocking the girl. He then raised his hand and started frantically running at her. The girl screamed and started running back. He followed her for some distance but then stopped. The girl then ran away screaming about a monster…

After half an hour of struggle, Adui was finally able to catch a fish. Using the cleaver, he cleaned it and finally started a fire. As he had the fish cook slowly with the fire, he kept thinking about the symbols and how they worked.

If those symbols are somehow able to bend the space itself, that would be revolutionary. He then kept thinking about what he would be able to do with them.

It is then, that he felt weird. The air around him changed as if they were warning him. And then he heard a whistling sound, he looked up to see an arrow flying towards his head. He was not able to react, and the arrow went by his head making a cut on his cheeks. The arrow then struck the tree behind him.

Curious, he looked in the direction where the arrow came from only to see where it came from. He then saw a group of men making his way towards him, and the leader was the one who fired the arrow. He stood up.

Those men were wearing armor, with what looked like a thorny stem etched on the upper right side of their chest.

“I missed,” the leader yelled loudly so that he could hear it. The rest of the men laughed at the cue, making this look like a well-rehearsed skit.

Walking over to them, Adui stopped in front of the leader of the group.

“Wanna die?” he simply asked.

Seeing his serious face, all the men started laughing. “Wanna die.” The leader imitated him. “I can fuck you up scrawny horse dick,”

Scrawny horse dick? What kind of insult is that? He thought.

Brushing his thoughts aside, he kicked the leader in the nuts. Clutching his balls, the leader went down. Using this opportunity, slammed his cleaver into the head of the leader, opening the head like a cantaloupe. All the men behind got stunned and shell-shocked.

As Adui took out the cleaver, he saw that a huge part of the cleaver had been chipped off, “Strongest cleaver my ass,” he simply said, remembering what the blacksmith told him when he confiscated the cleaver from the old man.

“AHH!” one of the men yelled, getting out of the stupor, and charged towards him, making Adui smile with amusement…

***

Man, I need new clothes. He thought as he looked at the condition of the clothes that he was wearing. In the scuffle before his clothes were torn, and were now tattered now. He was bruised but his body was fine. Which was a good thing. But there was one thing for sure, he was in a good mood right now.

He took the bite of the fish that he left to cook before, it had burned a little bit. But was edible in some parts, and as he was hungry, he started digging in. And on an empty stomach, even that burned fish tasted like heaven.

It is then he spotted a tall and brawny man wear wearing a full armor set of knights making his way towards him, accompanied by bruised soldiers that he beat up. He knew that someone like that would come, as he had surely beaten up soldiers of some noble house or something. He just thought that he would have some time in his hands before someone would come.

He immediately pushed himself up and removed his shirt as he didnt want that to get in worse condition than it was already. He picked up an axe that he stole from the soldiers from earlier, and started walking towards the knight while chewing his fish.

Both he and the knight came to a stop, a few steps away from each other. “You are the one who beat and killed one of my men?”

He stared at the man with a nonchalant face, eating his face he simply nodded. Seeing this knight passed him an angry smile, “You have a lot of guts…”

Before the knight could continue, he cut him off, “Oh stop it with the monologue. Out with it, what the hell do you want? Do you want to take revenge, then we can start to fight. If you are looking for an apology, you are not getting one. So what the fuck do you want? Out with it,”

“You are a very impatient boy,” Adui heard a voice from his side, making him surprised. There stood an old man, wearing a black white old-style butler suit. The wrinkled face of the old man was looking at him as if scanning him.

Definitely a mana wielder, otherwise there was no way that I didnt see or hear him. He thought.

“Who are you?” he asked the old man calmly.

“I am the one who is responsible for monologuing knight,” the old man said and went to Adui’s back and started touching his back. Though that old pervert’s touch was making him uncomfortable, he didnt stop the old man. More like, he suspected he might not even be able to stop the old man.

“You got beat up by him?” the old man asked one of the bruised soldiers who was following the knight.

“Yes sir,” the soldier yelled as if answering the drill instructor.

“You got beat up by a boy who has not even grown his pubes yet?” the old man said with amusement.

“Him, a boy?” the knight asked.

The old man came forward and nodded, “A boy. How old are you boy?” the old man asked.

Is there a relation between the number of spinal columns and age that I dont know about? Adui thought.

As it was not a very big secret, he simply replied, “I will be 13 years old in a few months.”

The old man passed him a smile, “Now, what do you want to do with him,” he asked the knight, who kept staring at the Adui as if he was a monster…