In exactly three days, after the sun went down, she was standing behind the Hunter's Guild and watched as twilight fell upon the small town of Talim.

“I wonder if he will show up,” she thought. “Maybe this was just some kind of joke. I sure hope it wasn't. I want to see him in action!”

Velvet wasn't at all interested in the money the man offered her as a reward. The only reason she accepted his proposal was because she wanted to see his magic and what it can do. The only other person who she really saw using darkness magic was her headmaster, but he was old and she always felt like he wasn't really showing her everything. This man seemed like he knew what he was doing, though. The way he just vanished in a flash fascinated her and she wanted to see more. What more could darkness magic really do? Little did she know, she was about to find out more than what she had hoped for.

“Good evening,” the familiar cold and calm voice said, the man stepping from the shadows.

“You're here!” she whispered excitedly, reminding herself not to shout this time around.

“Of course I'm here. That was the deal, wasn't it? I'm more surprised you decided to show up.”

“So…what are we doing now?” she immediately cut to the chase. “Where is this caravan?”

“You sure are eager,” he said in his signature playfully derisive tone. “I like that.”

Velvet took a better look at him now that he was standing in front of her in the dim lit alley. He wore a long dark trench coat that went almost down to his knees, black trousers and shoes. His hood was still covering his face and there also seemed to be a mask over it. Probably just in case someone decided to take a peek under the hood, she guessed. This man really didn't want to have his identity revealed. Around his neck, a purple scarf hung, going twice around his neck and falling back over his left shoulder. The scarf was the only thing that wasn't pitch-black on him, apart from his grey tail with a bit of a lighter tip.

“I see you really love black,” Velvet chuckled. “I guess that's fitting for someone who likes to hide in the shadows. Can you manipulate them too? I read about that in a book about darkness magic. There are many spells that allow you to do that, apparently.”

“I see you're very knowledgeable about magic,” he smiled back at her. The only reason why Velvet knew he in fact smiled was because his sharp, white teeth gave it away once more.

“I've read every book in Everdale Academy library,” she proudly stated.

“Interesting. Unfortunately, we don't have much time for idle chit-chat and getting to know each other better. Look.” He pointed at the main street where several carts covered in brown cloth were moving in a procession, accompanied by armed dwarves and elves on horses.

“Dwarves? Elves? But I thought the borders can only be crossed with a permit?”

“Unless you go through the Kamatayan forest,” he explained. “You have no idea what despicable things are going on in the background of our so called “just” society.”

“I know people are sold as slaves occasionally,” Velvet replied, a bit shocked. “When I was a little girl, two bandits kidnapped my mates from school and were talking about selling them. But I thought that only rarely happened nowadays.”

“Rarely?” the man scoffed. “You don't know the half of it. I see you've been very sheltered from the horrors of this world. What you read in your books is no good. Because things like this are not written about. This is the dark side of Rumerra. The side nobody wants to see. Even kings and nobles turn their faces away from this——they have to. It is in their best interest to keep this going, even though they will openly shun it and deny knowing about it. Trust me, they do know. How do you think they get their maids and servants? Their sex slaves…”

“Sex slaves?” Velvet never heard of this term before. “What's a…sex slave?”

“Oh my goodness, you are so innocent…” he hid his face in his palms. “You really have no idea do you? That they steal young girls from their villages? Auction them off to nobles and other scum who play with them and abuse them for their own disgusting pleasure…fucking assholes!” He clenched his fist, getting visibly enraged by this. “I'll kill them all one day...”

“Play with them?” she asked, even more confused. “That doesn't sound so bad.”

“Not that kind of play!” he growled in frustration, quickly covering his mouth afterwards. This girl almost made him lose his composure with her obliviousness.

After taking a few deep breaths and calming himself down a bit, he continued. “Either way, children are kidnapped and sold off into slavery all the time right under our noses. What do you think these carts are filled with? Under these brown cloths are cages full of slaves, ready to be sold to their new owners here in Ardor. Dwarves, elves, dracons, jakkals…you name it.

People have all sorts of sick preferences and fantasies. Some want a young elf girl to raise into a servant. Others want a jakkal because we are fast and agile and train them to become assassins that they send after their political enemies. A handful of sickos prefer dracons because they are tough so they can beat them a lot more without actually killing them.

It is a sick, twisted, perverted world we live in. And I've taken it upon myself to put a stop to this. Slave by slave. Caravan by caravan. I sentence the ones responsible for this and free the innocent. I am, the Night Crawler.”

“The Night Crawler,” Velvet repeated. “That's an awesome name!”

The man sighed. “I tell you all of this and your takeaway is that I have an awesome name?!”

“No, I get it,” she said. “There are bad people and they do bad things. And slavery is a lot more common nowadays than one might think. That's what you are trying to tell me, right?”

“Good,” he nodded, seemingly satisfied. “So you at least understand that. That should be enough for now. I don't have time to explain the details of it to you.” He turned to the main street where the last cart was passing them by. “Look, they are nearly out of town. That is when we strike! Follow me now and do exactly as I say. If you don't follow my instructions to the word, you might get yourself killed. And I'm not burying your body, just saying.”

She nodded and they moved out. Darting between the alleys and avoiding the main street, they made it to the edge of town, where they sat waiting in a bush while the caravan was passing them by.

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“Here's what we will do now,” the man said, turning to her. “You see those guards on horses and on foot walking along the caravan? We need to take them all out. To the very last one.”

“Sounds, simple enough,” Velvet smiled. “I'll take the right side and you take the left!” After saying this, she cast her Light Veil spell and disappeared from his view.

“No, wait!” he hissed through clenched teeth, not wanting to alert the guards of their presence. “This isn't all I was going to tell you! Get back here!”

But it was too late; the first Light Nova already went off and a guard fell off his horse, burned to a crisp, and knocked unconscious. The bright flash alerted everyone else, though.

“AMBUSH!!” one of the dwarven guards yelled out and they all drew their swords, staves and bows. “Show yourself, coward! We have you outnumbered!”

The Night Crawler was facepalming in the bush. “This girl. This stupid, crazy girl! She's going to get us both killed! Or worse, captured!”

With no other choice left, he sunk into the shadows and began his assault. Their element of surprise was gone thanks to Velvet, so he might just as well attack now.

“Darkness Descend!” his voice echoed across the still of the night and the little bit of light that still lit up the sky from their torches and the light witch's spells vanished, plunging the entire area into complete darkness. Then he started picking them off one by one, jumping in and out of shadows and slicing their throats swiftly and cleanly.

Velvet used binding, blinding, and destructive spells to disable the dwarves and elves guarding the convoy. Warriors and archers were no problem because they fell before even realizing what hit them. But there were two or three sorcerers among them and they were not such easy targets. Velvet took on one of them while her accomplice took on the other two.

The girl tried hard to bring the sorcerer down, but he was pretty good at blocking and evading the incoming spells while throwing flames back at her.

“Fire magic,” she thought. Immediately her brain recalled all the books and facts she read about this type of magic. “Fire magic is the most destructive of all six magic types. It is strong against air magic because it augments it, while its polar opposite is water. Light magic is neutral against it. I don't have water magic that counters it and air is weak. So I will only use light magic to fight this person and count on my magic being more advanced than theirs.”

Coming to this conclusion, she switched to light magic only and fought the man to a standstill, before he finally made a mistake and she capitalized on it, knocking him out.

“I did it!” she exclaimed when he fell limp to the floor, his clothes steaming. “I beat him!”

“What took you so long,” her partner grunted. She looked over to see the ground littered with corpses, the bodies of the two mages that stood against him among them. “This isn't a game!”

“You took out…so many?” her brain couldn't decide whether to be amazed at how effectively this man beat his opponents or terrified because he actually slaughtered them. “Are they…?”

“Dead,” he stated firmly. “As should be yours. You did kill them, right?”

“Kill? But I thought we were just taking them out…”

The sorcerer Velvet fought grunted, trying to get back to his feet. A knife stabbed itself into his neck and he coughed up blood, before falling down and not moving anymore. The man she worked with casually walked over to him and pulled it out, wiping the blood off of it.

“I didn't…know we were going to…kill them,” she said meekly. Many beasts fell under the weight of her spells already but never has she killed an actual person. In her mind, that was simply wrong. Injure them or knock them out if they attack you, sure. But take their life?

“They are bad people,” he explained to her while walking to the ones she had knocked unconscious and slitting their throats one after the other. “They deserve to die.”

“But…nobody deserves to die,” she muttered, her beliefs and idealistic views shattering right before her eyes. “Shouldn't we just like…put them in jail or something?”

“Jail is too good of a place for this scum,” the man hissed, slitting the final dwarf's throat. “There. That's the last of them. May they all rot in hell where they belong! Justice is served.”

“How is killing them justice?” Velvet still couldn't believe what she had just witnessed and more concerningly participated in. She just participated in cold blooded murder of these people!

“This,” the man answered by pulling a cloth off a cart, revealing a cage with trembling children in chains inside. “This is why it's justice. Because they are trafficking innocent children!”

Velvet walked up to the cage and grabbed the metal bars, staring at them in disbelief. One of the older girls——she looked about eight judging by her size——crawled over, her chains clinging as she did so. Her long ears gave away that she was an elf by race. She placed her small hand on Velvet's and looked at her with pleading eyes.

“Please help me…I want my mommy.” The girl looking in at her felt her eyes fill up with tears. She glanced over to her partner who was gripping his knife tightly in his hand and gritting his teeth in anger. He was crying too.

“Do you see it now?” he spoke calmly, wiping his tears. “The face of this ugly world without a mask to cover it? Welcome to the real world, Velvet. You will find it's not quite what you've imagined it would be.”

“This is terrible!” she cried and turned back to the small elf girl and the other children in the cage. She pushed her hand through the bars and patted the child's head gently. “Don't worry. We will get you out of here. You will get to see your mommy again.”

“Do you still think what we've just done is not justice?” the hooded man asked her.

“It is,” Velvet nodded. “It is absolute justice.”

“Attagirl,” he grinned, barring his sharp white teeth again. Two longer fangs were sitting in the corners of his mouth. “You're starting to understand now. How this world really works.”

Thank you for reading this part of the story! I hope this next week is a good one for you!

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Did you know? Jakkals are beast-people with animal features. Their sense of smell and hearing is the best among all races in Rumerra by far.