Even though it still wasn’t cold enough to light up the fireplaces during daylight, I could already see smoke coming out from the majority of the chimneys in the village.

Joyous loud voices could be heard from within the open windows and doors of them. Families were walking, hand in hand, from one place to another, while usually carrying baskets full of gifts towards their destination.

The faces of the people all around me were shinning bright as mirth danced within their eyes. It truly was as if there was a festival going on in the village right now.

In less than ten days, so many things have changed. I looked at the small crowd at the village square. Two of our hunters were talking to a big, burly, man that was dressed in fine leather armor and had his almond colored cape proudly rippling with the wind behind him, a bright red sun encircling an equally crimson fist painted visibly on the center of it. The big man was trying to guide them through a stance with an imaginary bow in hand.

Just a few steps away, two more, almost identically geared, humans were playing with a bunch of kids that were running around them while trying to get a hold of the various protruding pieces of equipment that were strapped on the mercenaries.

In the edge of the square, right outside of our small tavern, an elven mercenary was leaning on the wall, with the characteristic aloofness that surrounded their kind, while two of our somewhat older girls were flocking around him dressed in their finest clothes as they tried to grab his attention with their fluttering eyes and bashful smiles.

A loud noise from the direction of the kids drew my eyes back to them. One of the mercenaries had pulled out his blade, and it was now enshrouded in blazing flames. He was waving the long broadsword around, leaving an elaborate trail of fire in the air while the children cheered and tried to follow the dancing flames.

It was truly like a weekend long festival was going on, a thing that me and my friends would surely have spent every breath attending, playing along the trained professionals and admiring their enchanted and engraved weapons. But not a single one of my peers was visible, only the younger and the older ones. All of my friends were either celebrating at home, or attending visitors, or having farewells with their families.

The Red Sun. Even in our backwater village we have heard stories about them; a mercenary group that traveling bards sang their exploits. Even if those were just one of their rookie teams, traveling on a training expedition, each and every one of the trainees was at least on his third job. The identical, mass produced, gear of each one of them was worth a small fortune.

Leather armor alchemically imbued to be as sturdy as steel, swords enchanted to ignite when they came in contact with air, bows inscribed to transform the mana channeled into them into bolts made of energy, and their signature fireproof cloaks that shifted to match the surrounding colors on command. And all those were in addition to whatever treasure each one of them had before joining.

But the real monsters were inside the tavern, the two captains that were happily drinking alongside the rest of the group. The leader of this team and this expedition, a Sword Commander, someone not only as capable as a small army by himself, but also able to fortify and enhance everyone under his direct command, and the old fellow that accompanied them, who everyone simply addressed as Archmage.

It was unthinkable that our lord would have spent what should surely amount to a small fortune to hire those guys to wipe out just a few goblins, but here they were. And it was, from what our elder told us, simply because of the one called Archmage. The group was just returning to their headquarters back in the capital when they caught wiff about the goblin threat. That resonated a bit with the Archmage, someone who around two hundred years ago, before our village was even founded, was born as the son of a farmer who happened to be trying to expand in some cheap, fertile, land. That land that now our whole village was built around.

It was just a familial responsibility towards the land that he was born and played as a kid himself, and the captain rank that allowed him to make such decisions, that forced the mercenaries to pick up this job at almost zero costs for the lord. And one would be a fool to turn down such an offer.

It took the group just two days to comb through the whole forest and not only eradicated every goblin there, not only did they seal their den and every cave big enough to house populations of such monsters, but actually hunted down every other beast that could potentially be a threat to the surrounding villages.

If that was all, the village would be joyous, but not really impacted by them being the Red Sun and not any other ordinary mercenary company from within the city. What really made a difference was the third day, when they returned, that Archmage offered to the village a boon never seen before.

Readings are extremely expensive, a single one of them costing at the temple around what my father could earn in three years or so. And the reason for that is not only the rarity and complexity of doing such a spell, but that it costs so much mana for the caster that even a high priest would need around a week to recover all of it. And yet, this Archmage fellow went and did a reading to all nine children aged five to ten, as a gift, in one go, without a pause from one to another.

All of them now were with their families celebrating, receiving visitors, and visiting themselves others to congratulate them. The village, as a whole, was celebrating in behalf of them. Even if they still would need to wait for a few years before they go to the temple to be baptized, all the guesswork was done for them. Now they could focus on what they were best at, and when they would get baptized they would already have a massive headstart in life.

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And that was without thinking about the exceptions. Both siblings, Greg and Ella, were offered to be taken by the Red Sun directly to be trained because of their respective massive talent in their field, Greg blessed with both aptitude in axes and strength, as well as being moderately good in speed, and Ella blessed with both speed and strength. To everyone’s surprise, it was Greg who actually refused the offer, saying that he didn’t want both of them to leave their parents, and that someone should stay back to protect the village.

But the real surprise was, as I expected, Lugan. Even the normally expressionless Archmage audibly laughed when he did his reading. An outstanding talent as a mage and a great aptitude as a priest simultaneously. According to the old man, if nurtured correctly, he had a real shot as being baptized as a dual path mage and cleric, something that would lead to a sage eventually. A once in a decade seen genius that could easily be someone who people would name a hero in the future.

Needless to say, he was almost immediately snatched by the Red Sun as a prospective recruit, offering not only a handsome reward to the family, but also giving, for free, to the young boy an opportunity to train under some of the most brilliant minds of the capital, all for that shot in awakening as something extraordinary. For the mercenaries, even if they didn’t manage to mold him in time to a sage, the magic talent alone was so vast that it was worth investing into either way.

As far as I was concerned, there was no need to be given a second reading since I was already baptized, and the only thing I got was a hasty goodbye with the friends that would be leaving tomorrow. After all, due to the circumstances, the mercenaries being here, the readings, the goodbyes, and all, Neven had already extended the time that I had with my family before becoming officially her apprentice to ten days, and those ended today. My father had already carried over there the small chest that contained all my good clothes and some of my miscellaneous stuff, and my mother had already went and argued with the old herbalist twice about cleaning and arranging the small room that I would be spending the following years. The last thing that remained was for me to walk the small distance towards the edge of the village that Neven’s house was and start my new life.

-

The three men looked out in the darkness of the night sky from their window in the second floor of the tavern. These couple last days have been chaotic, but they were bound to leave tomorrow with the first dawn towards the long journey to the capital. This time they were carrying quite a few extra people with them.

The small boy’s insistence on staying with his family threw a tiny wrench in their plans, especially when it swayed his sister to join him in that decision, but eventually they did manage to convince both of them when they offered to accompany their family towards a village that would be nearby the capital, to start a new life close enough to their children that they could eventually visit a few times each year.

The biggest of the three took a swig out of the wineskin and turned towards the other two.

“So… anyone’s going to tell me what this farce was all about?”

The old mage passed his hand through his hair, combing them backwards as he did so, before he answered.

“I don’t see a potential sage as something funny. The boy has more talent than I had when I was at his age. It will take some rigorous training, and I may have to delay his actual baptism a few years more than normal to ensure it, but having a third sage in our company would be great…”

The third man in the table, a young brown haired boy still dressed in his trainee armor interrupted the mage.

“Plus, the other two are good sprouts. Nothing exceptional, but they are on par with our usual recruits. Competition is getting fierce in nabbing grown up talents, so maybe we should indeed focus on getting them young as a general practice.”

The gruff Sword Commander looked both of them in the eyes before shifting his body towards the younger one out of the two.

“I don’t think we will ever be lacking recruits. And while the young sage is indeed a catch, Accerinus alone could have come and picked him up without all the bells and whistles. Or are you telling me, vice company leader, that you came personally here for the two sprouts?”

The young man laughed and nodded.

“If only I was so free! You guys don’t have a clue how much work it takes to run a two hundred people mercenary guild. You keep complaining when we throw you even just two or three squads under your command.

The exact reasons, you will be told alongside the other captains back in the headquarters by Farren himself. But the short version is that someone notified us about the existence of the kid and told us to come get him. But according to Farren, this was just the bait, the reward for cooperating so to speak. In exchange, we were asked to pick up as many of the kids as we could without raising suspicion and take them away from here. Hence the whole mass-reading facade that we are going to hear an earful about from the temple.

I don’t know who the informant was, Farren didn’t disclose that even to me but, naturally, we are curious why someone wants the children to leave from here. So I was sent to be stationed here a bit to monitor this place. Farren suspects that something may be afoot, and whoever was the informant, had him riled up enough to send me personally instead of one of our other spies.”

The mage raised his eyebrows as he as well turned towards the young man.

“So… you aren’t leaving with us tomorrow? When did you plan on telling us that?”

From behind the three men suddenly someone chuckled. The mage and the commander instantly turned towards the noise while the young man just smiled.

What they saw was an identical copy of the man they were speaking to all this time resting against the wall while flashing them a brilliant smile that sent shivers down the spines of the battle hardened veterans.

“Oh… a rookie mercenary would be leaving alongside you, similar to how he came with you, no questions there. Now, if this will be me or my magic, that’s a question that if just the two of you can answer I should reevaluate my actual worth and capabilities.”