Anton thought of the fact that his father was a mercenary before and only stopped due to a back injury. That meant that Anders was experienced and shouldn’t doubt some of the decisions his father made. He was painfully aware that he, his father, and Anna didn’t know how to behave in front of kings and nobles which was understandable since they were a farming family but for some things, they should be left with Anders since Anton himself was a foreigner of this world.

“Isn’t it a bit cowardly, running while your country fell to the hands of the Undead Coalition?!” The nobleman who shouted at Anton to be respectful said with contempt in his voice.

Anton frostily looked at the man and even Anna glared while Anders remained calm.

“We live in a farming village outside Mendi. Before Anton’s master arrived, we lived our lives simply. We plant our crops, harvest them, pay our taxes and if a monster attacks our village, we form our militia to defend ourselves since we’re far away from the city and Mendi didn’t garrison any soldiers since they said that our village wasn’t worth it. We pay our taxes but we will not pay with our lives to defend a doomed country. Before we left, we heard that Vondi fell in three days and Vondi is a lot stronger than Mendi so when everyone heard that, we all ran. We encountered groups of undead including vampires and liches and if not for Anton’s power we would be dead or enslaved right now. I’m guessing my neighbors encountered the same fate but since they didn’t have someone like Anton with them they’re probably vampire food now or part of the undead army as zombies.”

“I understand your situation. I just hope that Anton would stay to help fight the Undead Coalition.”

“No. That’s our final decision and we don’t want his master looking for us and have to explain that we allowed Anton, whom he considers as his precious student to die. You know the anger of an archmage. Did we forget to tell you that Anton’s master is an archmage? Only an archmage can teach Anton so much that’s why my son is as powerful as he is even though he is very young.

The nobleman who accused them of being cowardly paled again and Anna just snorted.

“If we can’t change your decision so be it. Good luck with your journey then. You can stay in the party as long as you like.”

Everyone heard the king’s dismissal so Anton and his family left. Anders decided to leave the party as soon as they stepped outside the king’s office so they asked the steward to guide them outside the castle.

Inside the carriage, Anna sighed.

“I wish we could have stayed longer. I would have liked to show off my beautiful dress.”

“It wouldn’t matter how pretty your dress is. The only thing that they will remember is you almost fell flat on your face while walking downstairs.” Anton told his sister and laughed and even Anders laughed as well.

Anna blushed and ignored her brother.

“Father I was really impressed at your ability to lie to a king!” Anton told his father.

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“As a mercenary, you will learn early that you will need to lie to your clients to earn your coins,” Anders said.

“Are we going to encounter retaliation from the king or that hateful noble?”

“I’m guessing no since we’re leaving in three days. If we’re only merchants yes but since you’re a wizard and your “master” is an archmage, they would probably leave us alone but still, we need to move fast so tomorrow we will be busy trying to buy more carriages and hire more people. We will also be busy buying items from the merchants here.”

When they arrived at the inn, Anton saw that the common room was still full of people and he was guessing that the inn was now famous because of his presence. The fact that he wasn’t malicious and didn’t hurt anyone was a contributing factor.

They arrived at their suite and were hungry so Anton asked somebody to ask the inn’s attendant to deliver some food.

“Why are you hungry? Didn’t you eat there at the king’s party?” Nemina asked.

“We only stayed less than an hour,” Anna complained.

Anders gave everyone the details of what happened at the party so he could ask their opinion on what would happen soon after.

“I think that what you say is true. The king and his noblemen would not retaliate since we’ll be leaving in two or three days,” Lucas said.

Anton then told everyone how Anna almost fell on her face and that made Nemina and Lunelle laugh and made Anna’s face red as a tomato.

“You didn’t have to tell that!” Anna shouted at her brother.

“What! It’s funny. Father, I will go ahead and look for a wizard tomorrow is that fine?”

“Sure, but you will have to bring Devon with you.”

“Can I go with Anton tomorrow, Father?” Anna asked.

“Fine with me but you will have to bring Lunelle and Budolf with you.”

The next day, Fenix arrived early and joined them for breakfast. After breakfast, Anders and the rest went outside the inn to begin conducting their business of forming a merchant caravan. Lunelle then told Anton that the inn prepared several barrels of cooked food as per instructions that he had to store to avoid spoilage so Anton went to the kitchen and stored the barrels of food in his private stash. He openly stored everything and the disappearing barrels made the kitchen workers wide-eyed and someone even clapped as if it was a show.

“Where did you put the food?” Fenix asked Anton, who followed him and Lunelle to the kitchen.

“I put them in a separate dimension where they would remain fresh and hot as the day I stored them and can be retrieved anytime.”

Fenix looked at Anton with awe when the boy heard that he had his separate dimension.

“Oh Lunelle, I forgot to ask. Can you and Devon ask someone to build us more toilet cum buckets so we can have more especially if there’s going to be more of us. You know what never mind. I think I need to speak to your father or mother first to learn how to handle our toilet situation. Just order more food but more variety if they could please. Thanks.”

Lunelle just nodded and then she talked to the cook. After that, they all went outside the inn where the others were waiting.

“Where’s Budolf?” Anton asked Devon.

“He went and hired a carriage for us since Sir Anders is using your carriage and the adventurer’s guild is pretty far away from here.”

After a few minutes of waiting, a carriage stopped in front of them and Budolf jumped down from the driver’s seat. Anton, Anna, Lunell, and Fenix went inside the carriage while Devon and Budolf followed riding their horses. According to Budolf, it would take thirty minutes for the carriage to arrive in the adventurer’s guild.

“I was hoping to just walk there so we can check out the scenery in the city,” Anton commented.

“It would be tiring to just walk there and you can check out the scenery through the window,” Fenix said.

While the carriage was driving to their destination, Anton and the rest checked out the city through the carriage window. They passed through a market and Anton wanted to check it out but the smell deterred him. Fenix said that it was a wet market that sold livestock, pork, chicken, beef, fish, and some vegetables that was why it stinks.