At the outskirts of the capital of Rodfox region, Calmitira, was a settlement. It was a place mainly occupied by mercenaries. Originally they lived within the compounds of capital, but were forced out. The reason was simply because of their aggressive behaviour with common people.
On a particular day, early in the morning, the settlement was surrounded by more than a hundred people. They were drinking from bottles and swaying drunkenly. Many of them were strongly built, but had unhappy faces as they watched some people.
There were some people sprouting bruises which were slowly being healed by a magician. The magician was wearing a black cloak that covered his body and face. He was healing around ten men with wounds.
“It’s painful,” one of them complained feebly as they winced.
“Take it easy and it won’t hurt,” the magician said sternly.
“Hurry up...!”
Someone, from the settle, suddenly yelled “Dammit!!”
Then there was a loud crash of glass. Everyone turned and saw broken glass with liquid flowing spreading on the ground. Apparently the man that yelled smashed the bottle on the ground in his anger.
Now he stood and glared at the ground angrily. Then he straightened up and shouted “Dammit it all! Damn them!!”
His friends quickly moved to him and tried to calm him down. They were able to get him to sit down, but he continued to look extremely angry.
“Calm down, will you? Getting angry and smashing alcohol won’t stop the pain!”
“Argh!” the man shouted and he pushed his friends away. He jumped to his feet and, as he looked around at them, he shouted “How can I calm down when we’re always getting beaten and punched around!”
Followed by him, more people joined in and started releasing their anger in the form of words.
“Yeah! Last week I got beaten up by people I used to bully with!”
“Same thing with me, but I got ganged up by more than ten! Those bastards...!”
“Getting beaten for bullying? Ha! I wasn’t even allowed to go inside the capital to get stuff. When I tried to force my way inside that Sword King came and beat us up like anything!”
“Dammit! That Sword King was a pain whenever he intervened in any of our activities! Always preaching about peace and harmony and makes us the target of all the people’s hate!”
“The Sword King was a pain, but it just doubled when the Monkey King settled here! It’s like a joint partnership between those two!”
While they continued to speak out loud all their complaints, there was one that sat aside from the rest. He was not drinking nor was he paying attention to what his people were saying. Instead, he was staring at the ground with a clouded expression on his face.
A few seconds later, he lifted his head and looked at his people and shouted “Shut it!”
Everyone became startled and fell silent. They turned to look at him with surprised expressions on his face. Only then did his face suddenly fill up with an angry expression.
“I forced my way in and wanted to take my anger out on that Monkey King after hitting my friends! Instead, this stupid monkey got in my way. I got frustrated and took my anger out on it only for that monkey to transform into the man himself!”
“You mean when he switched from Saver Mode to Normal Mode?” one of them asked.
He glared at him and shouted “I don’t care! I still got beaten up without even lifting a finger! Then the rest of my gang got trashed by that monkey man!”
When he finished, they all started to drunkenly shout at him angrily. They were extremely furious with the Sword King and the Monkey King. To them, their lives were better before those two came to the capital and began living there.
At that moment, there was a suddenly burst of lightning around the area. Everyone panicked and reflexively dropped their drinking bottles on the ground. As they were smashed, the men were jumping around as fear caused them to panic crazily.
When the lightning flashes disappeared, they sat back down and breathed heavily. Then the magician began to speak to them after completing his task of healing his people.
“Complaining, complaining, complaining! Stop it already! None of you idiots are achieving anything by constantly complaining and releasing your anger all over the place!”
“But boss! Those city people are taking advantage of those two and eagerly cause trouble for the rest of us! How can you expect us to not get angry at that?!”
The rest of the gang began agreeing in unison with those words.
The magician looked at everyone and slowly nodded as he said “It seems we need to show the people of the capital that we’re not just some pushover! We need to fight together and show the Sword King and Monkey King the true power of the mercenaries!”
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Then he turned his attention at the leader who had had spoken earlier about getting beaten up by the Monkey King.
The magician looked at him and said “You said you went with only ten. This time... Let’s all go. Let us unite and strike!”
Then he turned back and addressed everyone. Every single person, within the settlement, was intently paying attention to everything the magician was saying and doing.
“We all have come back from our missions with great success and earned plenty of money. Now our next mission is to show the people of the capital the true might of our strength. We can’t just sit back and let them boss us around as if they are superior!”
As he finished, one of the injured jumped to his feet and shouted “It’s like he said! If we don’t do it now, when will we ever do it?!”
At his words, there was a tidal wave of roaring and many were stomping the ground with their weapons. In their drunken state, they did not think nor reason about their actions. Only one thing was in their minds and that was to cause the people to panic and create as much trouble as possible.
An hour later, they were as ready as they can be. The drunken state they were in was extremely dangerous, but they did not care. They wanted to cause trouble and they were going to set out to do just that.
Up in front was the magician as he addressed his men one final time.
“When we reach the capital, I will quickly paralyse the guards. The rest of you immediately smash through the gates and take control.”
“What do we do if they try to stop us and start attacking us?” someone asked.
“Then, make sure to try and draw their attention while protecting me. Get as many guards into fighting with you. If possible, try to get the Sword King and the Magic King. Then I will paralyse them with my magic and then you can play around with them and pay back as much as you like!”
The men roared in agreement with his plan. The magician nodded at them as he looked around at the mass of heads. They were strong and were ready to face this fierce battle.
Just then he chuckled to himself when he realised it might not be so fierce once the enemies are all paralysed. Once they are out of the picture, there will not be anyone strong enough to challenge his authority. The only step then was to take down the king and queen and establish himself as the supreme ruler of the Rodfox region.
He smiled to himself at the thoughts of conquest running through his mind. Just then, he heard someone speaking and hastened to listen to them.
“Couldn’t you just make us invisible and then attack? Wouldn’t that make it easier for us to take them by surprise? Isn’t that right? We’re going to show them our power so we might as well show them how dangerous we can be when angered, right?”
A few began agreeing to that proposal, but most remained silent. They were uncertain whether to agree to such an idea. The magician remained silent as they muttered amongst themselves. Then they realised he was waiting for them to be quiet and fell silent.
“What are we?” the magician asked loudly.
For a moment, there was silence. Then a man shouted “Humans!”
At that, they laughed. Then they felt silent when the magician began tapping the ground with his staff.
“Yes, humans, but we’re more than that. We’re warriors and we fight with pride! Even as mercenaries, we are still warriors and we do as our pride demands! If we sneak in and attack them, that’s cowardly. However, if we charge in like men, we’re true warriors with guts and can be proud about it!”
The men did not quite understand his words due to the alcohol running through their bodies. They did feel his strength and sense from the power of his voice what he said was something amazing. So they loudly cheered and clapped for him.
Then a ray of light began appearing in the horizon. The magician looked towards it which was also the direction where the capital was. He raised his staff into the air and they raised their weapons into the air.
“I pray the God of War guides us to victory in our mission to teach the people of the capital that messing with us was a bad idea!”
With a roar, the magician began walking in front and the large group of fighters following in his lead. They were a few hours away from reaching from the capital where the people will get a nasty surprise first thing in the morning.
“Time to show you the full force of the mercenaries!” the magician muttered and an evil grin appeared which the cloak could not cover.