Two blades clashed in a crossroad in the middle of a sea of coniferous trees. One was a pudgy man wearing expensive clothing of varying fabrics and adorned with a golden knecklace with a red ruby inlaid in the middle. Although it could contain fire magic making it a very valuable asset for the man, it was clearly depleted, putting him at a severe disadvantage. The other was a young man outfitted with a sleeveless leather chestpiece with clear signs of its use, hence the small slashes and worn patches of leather that adorned him. He wore fabric trousers coupled with the typical travelling leather boots which didnt provide much protection, but helped him move quickly in addition to keeping his feet dry from the small puddles that formed in the dirt street from the recent rain.
He too held a sword, yet it was clear he held it in a much more professional way as pointed out by the current stance he was in. He held his weapon high above his head and his right arm outstretched, sword pointing to his opponents chest while the other was pointed to the ground, blood dripping from the hilt. The young man had waited for the trader to deplete his fire stones mana reserves where he let down his guard, the perfect chance to go for a plunge to the heart. Unfortunately he had estimated incorrectly and the Tier-1 Mage had enough mana for one spell left, a fireball which he hurled towards the young man. He evaded the fireball quickly, his chance to go for the one shot kill gone yet still possible to injure him. He ran towards him and clashed with his sword to keep it occupied, only to then take out his dagger and slash it across the forearm of his enemy. The blood flowed quickly, making the old man wheeze and feel dizzy, slowing his reaction time. After the slash he quickly moved to safer ground, anticipating another magic attack.
Thankfully it seemed the stone had finally ran out of mana and being a Tier-1 Mage, he couldnt tap into his own mana reserves due to his lack of control. Of course the young man and his fellow mercenary band had planned for this, knowing that the trader was a Tier-1 Mage made it much easier for them as they could work around depleting his mana before he could inflict any severe damage. Unfortunately one of the new mercenary recruits got too confident and attacked the mage when he feinted Mana drain, until he was surprised with a Fire Lance to his left bicep. The recruit was strong, but not strong enough to survive the onslaught of magic that came after. At least his sacrifice wasnt wasted, as the man had carelessly used too much mana on his spells, clear signs that this trader had only recently awakened his magical potential. Now it was up to the young man to finish the job.
Taking out one of the few daggers attached to his belt, he flung one of them at the old man, catching him off guard and hitting his right shoulder. He threw another one, only to be barely avoided by the old man as he stumbled from the evasion. This was his chance, so without any hesitation he rushed forward, sword held in his left hand over his head, ready to unleash a powerful swing. Right before he collided with the old man he stopped, releasing his overhand swing which drove towards his enemys shoulder, piercing through bone and meat until it reached just below the collarbone. The trader screamed in pain, tears gushing out of his eyes as he knelt down with difficulty, sword still stuck.
"Spare me young Mercenary, i am only a poor soul who does his masters bidding. I could give you anything, anything you wanted. Whatever you want i shall give. Is it money, fame, women, or even power? I am not aware whether you have magical potential, but i can assure you you will be trained by th-" he was abruptly cut off by the young man who removed the sword with a tug and stabbed it through the traders knee, eliciting even more screams from the man.
"I want one thing. Can you bring back my parents?" he replied with an angry scowl.
"Young Mercenary it is impossible to resurrect the dead. Surely you want someth-" before he could finish the young man brought his sword down on the traders skull, almost splitting it in half. "As expected." He removed his sword with an even harder tug and whipped his sword to the ground to remove the blood. That was when a woman that looked to be in her early thirties appeared holding a bag of what looked to be looted coins. "Yo Midas, were done on our side, you done?" she asked him. He wasnt much for words, so he motioned towards the body with his sword. "Right. Anyways, bring the traders body to the wagon so we can search him." She looked at the charred recruits body. "Bury him aswell, i dont care where, just hurry up. Were kind of in a hurry."
Midas nodded in confirmation then went to search the recruits body incase anything survived. Once he was done he found a small pouch which seemed to be reinforced with anti-flammable leather. Hmm, why would a mercenary have such an expensive and useless item? He opened the pouch to find a small box with a small miniature painting of what looked to be a young noble lady with a note tucked behind it. He opened it up and read it. "I will always love you my beloved, for you are the only one. Dianne". So it was his lover, a noble one at that. Perhaps it was another noble son who ran away from his household to escape the clutches of his noble life that was his prison, after all it was a common occurence around the city of Ferlin.
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After checking for anything left and finding nothing he moved the corpse to the small hill of bodies and took out his flint and stone, lit the dry wood that surrounded the bodies and went back to collect the traders body. Without putting much thought into preserving the quality of the body he dragged the limp trader through the dirt until he arrived at the small fire his mercenary group had made near the wagon, promptly dropping the body with a thud.
"Sheesh, would you be careful with the body? It already looks roughed up as, I'm afraid to touch it in fear of it falling apart." A short wiry man who went by the name Eli, one of many huddled around the fire said. "Why'd you hit him more than once anyway?" he questioned the young man. The man replied with a grunt then moved into the wagon to clean his weapons.
"What's wrong with Midas? He doesn't usually do that with the people he kills." said Bjorn, the only man around the fire who was equipped with a steel chestplate of below average quality. "He doesn't like fire mages because of something that happened when he was young. It's been 8 years since he joined our group and I still haven't managed to get it out of him. Only the boss knows why he hates them so much." replied Vanessa, the woman from earlier on who had told Midas to clean up the recruits body. " Although I think I have an idea of what happened. Only nobles with the exception of a few commoners have the power to harness mana, so he probably had an unfortunate encounter with a fire mage when he was younger." she continued while she knelt down next to the trader and began rummaging through his clothes for any coin.
While the group debated the young man's past he had just finished sharpening his short sword with a whetstone when an aged man hopped into the wagon and sat on the opposite bench, holding a letter which he recognised had a familiar noble seal on it. The man looked to be in his late forties, average height with more scars on his face than Midas had with a scruffy beard which showed signs of early ageing as evident by the few white hairs randomly dotted around. It was the leader of the mercenary group known as the Ravens company, once a noble that went by the name of Byt Tenebris but was only known by the mercenary group as "boss".
"Did you burn all the bodies?" he asked.
"Yes sir, including the new recruit." replied Midas. Byt pondered on the death of his newest recruit for a while, something he was now used to doing, then shook the thought away. "Did he at least have anything on him?" he asked, hoping that he had at least something with which he could be remembered by, perhaps he could even send something back to his family. Midas took out the box from his pouch and handed it over to his boss. "Considering your past, I thought you'd might know a thing or two about him." he finished after the company leader took the box out of his hand. He opened it and skimmed through the note and the picture. "Ah yes, the D'elier family. Last I heard they were in rapid decline because the house lord was I'll and didn't have any suitable heir to take over after his eldest sons died in the recent war with the neighbouring kingdom." He looked over the note once again, then out it back in the container. "Poor boy must have had so much pressure put on his shoulders being the only lad in his family, probably ran away from it. I wouldn't blame him, I did the same thing." He said, distant memories of his past life flashing in his memory.
"Anyways, your sister sent you a letter that came in this morning, you should probably read it. Don't put off family, they're important." He handed the letter to Midas and then left the wagon, leaving the young man by himself. He opened the seal and took out the letter, noticing the handwriting of his elder sister. It read:
"Dear brother,
Are you alright? I haven't seen you in ages! It's been almost a year since you last sent me a letter and I was starting to get worried that you had died on one of those missions of yours, I hope this reaches you. I wanted to tell you that I've just had a baby, it's another girl! I know youre busy, but you can't not be there for any of my children, they need to see their only uncle after all. Please come visit me as soon as possible, i want you to see your nieces and nephews at least once.
Sincerely, your dearest elder sister, Eli's Caster."
Another letter from his sister asking him to come visit her. Every time she sent him a letter she would ask him to come and he would always come up with the excuse of being busy. True he was busy, but his boss would allow him to visit his family, he even encouraged knowing how much of a recluse Midas was. The reason he abstained from visiting was because of her husband and her children. His sister had a very high affinity to the water element, making her a very influential mage despite her commoner background, so she had no shortage of people asking for her hand in marriage. It was when Midas was 15 when he heard that his sister had married a noble at the age of 21, she had even had a child with him. Ever since the incident with his parents Midas despised all nobles, especially the ones that were mages. He believed that the noble married her for the sole reason of developing a strong line of budding mages, not from love, so he held back on visiting. He also didn't want to meet his nephews and nieces assuming that they would have developed the typical rotten behaviour of a noble.
He had held out too long however, 12 years to be exact, it was time to visit his sister.