Just as Chad was about to rub salt into the wounds of his prey, a large stone pillar suddenly surged out of the ground that Gust and Wesley had been standing on, raising them higher than those that still surrounded them.

“Hmph.” Chad wasn’t impressed. “I’ll just smash your little pillar to bit, and then what will you do?”

“Well,” said Gust, “Something like this.”

He threw the chaos gem in his hand down toward Chad, then quickly reached into his bag, and pulled out a large crate, far larger than his bag itself.

The top of the crate had been removed, and inside, were hundreds of chaos gems. Grinning, Gust grabbed fistfuls of the gems and threw them towards the unfortunate victims below.

Chad had been knocked off his horse by the force of the first chaos gem’s explosion, and was struggling to stand back up, trapped under the weight of his horse.

Before he could push the horse off of himself, Gust had already thrown the second batch of chaos gems. Multicolored explosions erupted all around the stone pillar, coupled with the dying screams of a few unfortunate souls.

After a bit, Gust stopped throwing anymore chaos gems - he only had a few thousand, after all. Besides, it didn’t seem like any of their enemies were still moving.

“Hey Wesley, lower us a bit?”

“Okay.”

A while later, the stone pillar shrank back into the ground, allowing Gust to safely slide down.

As soon as he landed, Gust quickly ran to each body, and stabbed it a few times with his kukris. After confirming that everyone was dead, he looked up at Wesley. “Hey little man, help me clean this place up, okay? After all, we’re respectable men of society, we can’t leave the road looking like this.”

“Mhmm, you’re right.” Wesley began writing spells to return the road to its former shape.

Then, he walked back to Chad and Fevi’s bodies, and sat down. For the next few minutes, he painstakingly dragged the broken, dented armor off of their corpses.

The steel would sell for a decent price.

Having finished his work, Gust stood over Chad’s body, then kicked his head. “Fucking idiot, this is all you bring to deal with this godly warrior? Huh? Huh? Next time, take your damn armor off yourself!”

He kicked Chad’s head a few more times, then moved on and scavenged the armor off of the several mercenaries as well. After doing so, he packed it all into his bag, along with the crate of chaos gems.

“Ah…” Gust craned his head toward the sky, and stretched his arms out. “We’re going to have meat to eat for the next few days!”

Of course, Gust wasn’t a cannibal - he was referring to the meat of the unfortunate horses that had died in the incident.

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A while later, Gust and Wesley resumed their trek, and all that was left of the incident were a few bloodstains on the road. If one investigated further, a pile of bodies, casually pushed behind some trees along the side of the road, could be found as well.

…

A few weeks later, Wesley and Gust found themselves at the entrance of the last bastion of civilized humanity before the Alaki Mountain Range, aptly named as Border Town. The two strolled into town, looking left and right for a stadium to compete at.

After all, not only would this be their last stop before the Alaki Mountain Range, it would be the last chance for them to test their mettle in the Larwin Kingdom. Of course, the additional money wouldn’t hurt either.

Of course, this was under the assumption that they could win their battles. As Border Town was far larger than the village they’d previously visited, and was right along the edge of the Larwin Kingdom, next to the Alaki Mountain Range, the town was filled with seasoned fighters, and more than just a few mages.

With that, however, Border Town’s payouts were similarly far higher. Gust and Wesley were both hopeful - Gust could feel himself getting back in shape, his joints no longer struggling with some of his more acrobatic moves, while Wesley had been learning from Thomas in his dreams on a consistent basis - he was now very confident in his abilities.

Furthermore, as of recent, he found that he was no longer completely blind. Although he couldn’t identify anything even when he waved his hands mere centimeters from his face, he could perceive blotches of colors.

His world was no longer dark and hopeless.

“Hey Gust, where are we going to sleep tonight? I want a soft bed to sleep in.”

“Little man, we don’t have that much money left.”

“So? We’ll have money after we win tomorrow, and then we can worry about the rest afterwards.”

“Tch, fine. In return though, we have some errands we’ll need to run first. Before we go to the hostel, we’ll need to visit the town stadium, a dark alleyway, and a blacksmith.”

“Huh, why do we need to visit a dark alleyway?”

“Because it’s important.”

“...”

The two quickly found the town’s stadium, and registered for fights. Gust would be fighting a similarly equipped “light-armored fighter”, whereas Wesley had been paired against a fellow mage initiate, but had requested to be paired against a Rank 3 Elementary Mage instead.

After they left the stadium, the two scouted the town for a blacksmith shop. When they finally found one, they scouted around it, and found a dark alleyway to hide in.

While Gust rummaged through his bag in the alleyway , Wesley symbolically stood guard at the entrance. After a few minutes, Gust tapped Wesley on the shoulder, and they left the alleyway and walked to the front of the blacksmith shop.

Although they were still standing outside, the two were assaulted by a wave of heat emanating from within the shop, threatening to burn their faces to a crisp.

As if the heat weren’t enough, numerous loud metallic bangs rang from the shop’s backroom.

“Hey, anyone here?”, yelled Gust.

The metallic banging continued.

“HEY, ANYONE HERE?”

The metallic banging continued, but this time, a young man covered in soot stumbled out of the backroom.

“Hey there, my name’s Allen. What can I do for you?”

“Hey Allen, I got a bunch of dented and broken armor pieces, as well as a dozen or so weapons that need repairs. I’d like to sell them all, you see, my little brother here is blind, and we’re trying to scrape together some money to look for something to help him.”

“Ah, I see…” Allen glanced at Wesley, pity in his eyes. “Well, let me see what we can do for you.”

Gust smiled back with shining eyes. “Thank you so much!”