Wearing the expensive tunic inside his patterned haori, Akki hopped on the gifted black horse with his two chisa katanas tied to his waist. A week ago, one of the katanas was taken when he was unconscious, and the other was taken when he lost it during the heist of the account books. Now, both were sharpened by the best blacksmith in Bagen and contained in new white scabbards with red horizontal stripe patterns.
Roal Ranith, who had well-recovered, didn't get such service due to the fact that no blacksmith on the ground could even begin to understand how his revolver worked. The cowboy only got his suit washed and a brand-new purple cloak with the emblem of Bagen on the hood. The emblem had a yellow shield and a purple silhouette of a hammer and a quill pen hollow on its cheek. With the bag of fifty Woms, gold coins used as a currency in FASOTO, in the tag bag, Roal had the horse moving. The two were leaving the town together.
Bagen, located in the western region of Noragen, was the second richest state in the entire nation due to the three exploitable monster cores surrounding it. The official currency in the Noragen was the pale coins, Bom. Unlike most other countries in FASOTO, Noragen never developed its own currency because Noragen had never developed a sense of nationalism strong enough to enforce its own money, not even its own language. The fact that ninety percent of Noragen's population was made of Letterans from all around FASOTO made the situation worse. The country didn't even have its own military. Local Letteran lords, including the Lord of Bagen, all had their own armies. Although the King of Noragen was the head of the judicial authority of the country, his power was completely dependent on the collective support of the local lords. Despite the fact that the system could be conveniently overthrown if the lords decided to form opposing factions, the lack of common identity also kept local states from cooperating. There were roads paved between different states, yet Sacom, the one Roal and Akki were heading, had no diplomatic relation or any other interaction with Bagen and most other states in the country.
This non-existing relationship had made the twos' journey harder than it should've been. They had only been riding in the forest for about 6 hours, following the dirt road made from other travelers' footsteps, and had already met two rivers, four streams, and an entire misted swamp. As the eight hooves continuously stamped into the drenched mud of the swamp, Akki let go of the rein and started examining his katanas.
"It was worse than I imagined," Roal commented as he sniffed in itchiness while constantly checking the map and compass in his hands. They would be going in circles forever if they didn't have a compass to guide them through the fog and sparse trees that could not be used to identify directions.
"Yeah," the ronin casually swung his blades and cut off a branch from the tree he had just passed by, "I couldn't believe that I've already grown used to the stink."
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"Worse than your own shit?"
"Worse than those watery diarrhea ones," Akki, chuckling, replied while another two branches fell behind his horse.
"Nuh, worse than a pit of watery diarrhea ones from different people." He joined the laughter after adding. Many who didn't know Ranith would assume him to be a man of manners just by his age and clothing. However, he had never respected any rules or manners when he was young. He had flirted with five girls at once while his girlfriend was waiting for him. He had stolen documents from the police countless times. He had helped a suspect to escape right in the courtroom. The first time he faced a serious consequence was when he got banished. Although he then began to respect authorities, he was still the detective who could put five different profanities in ten sentences.
"My six-year-old sister had more courtesy than us combined," Akki subconsciously mentioned his sister without himself realizing.
"Oh! Certainly. We are the worst." The foolish chat went on in the forest, giving the desperate swamp a tiny breeze of amusement better than the odor and sick, moist mist. Along the way, they changed topics several times and bumped into the same kind of jokes a few times. No bird was flying above them, and the same view of levitating water vapor remained unchanged. They could only hear their laughter and the steps of their mounts until one of the bandits forcefully clapped.
Both men heard the loud clap, yet only Akki was capable of reacting to it. He deftly leaned to his right and dropped off the horse in no more than a second. Two pieces of stones flew above him as he fell onto the wet ground. A few arrows also flitted toward them, hitting Roal right in the shoulder and piercing into the flesh of the horses.
As the horses bolted in horror, a two-meter-thick stripe of fire was launched into the air from a spot outside Akki's sight. He instantly recognized the hex, Burning Sand. The stripe was not made of fire but a large amount of transparent particles that didn't stop burning until the supply of magic was cut off. Even a lake of water could only merely suppress the burning to some degree.
As the cloudburst of flame plummeted from the sky, Akki shouted out his speed hex and dashed toward the source of the fire. He broke through the mist and saw the hex-casting bandit behind two other bandits with their spears crossed before them, pointing at Akki. Unable to stop himself from crushing into the speartips, the ronin threw out his katana as the spears and his own momentum pierced into his stomach. Although all four of them could hear multiple gunshots in the background, none of them had any redundant heed to waste. The katana penetrated the throat of that hex caster, canceling Burning Sand, which had already fallen on the ground. Meanwhile, the two bandits pulled their spears back and attempted to jab Akki in the face.
As Twirl faded away from his body, the ronin limped backward and parried the next pair of strikes and the pair after it. One of the bandits changed his target to the thigh while the other kept focusing on the face. Their strategy worked straight away. The ronin's left thigh was stabbed in, causing him to slip on his back. The back of his head landed on the soft sludge, which sent a concussion much lighter than Akki's expectation. Still, the slipping created a big gap in his defense that he could not parry the next blow but slightly shifted his head leftward to dodge it. The spear that was aimed at his head was stuck in the ground, yet the other one penetrated Akki's chest.