Red and Yasuke stood on a hill overlooking a vast grassy area, with one small building dotted a distance away. Yasuke put both hands on his knees and panted heavily, sweat dripping down his face.
Red looked over the area and smiled, “I didn’t expect to be back here so quickly!”
“Quick?” Yasuke shouted between labored breaths, ”It took a week to get here! We barely took any breaks, I can’t believe we ran almost the entire way! Tell me again why we couldn’t just take two of the horses?”
Red looked over the area stoically, showing no signs of exertion at all, “You need to get your stamina up if you want to participate in my future plans. If you need to know the reason, ‘Jeannot’ character won’t be alone, and they will easily be able to overpower us, so we need to get an idea of all of the abilities at play and create a plan. And to do that, we need to be as inconspicuous as possible.”
“Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I guess that’s a legendary knight for you, it sounds like he’s done this a thousand times,” Yasuke thought to himself.
Red looked back at Yasuke, “Besides, we have pressing matters to attend to back in Oldum. Forever and whoever is supporting her needs to go, one way or the other,” He clenched his fist and turned back to the landscape.
Yasuke shielded his eyes with his hands and looked around, “So where do we start?”
Red pointed at a lone wooden building standing proudly among a sea of grass, “We’ll head there, the Daemon Hunters Adventurers’ Guild Hall. I spent the last eight years there, it’s been my home more or less. That’s also where our support mage is, I’m hoping it won’t take much to convince her to join us. Once we do, we’ll camp out in the guild hall and wait for them to come to us.”
Yasuke rubbed his chin and silently thought of a hundred objections, but kept them all to himself, simply saluting and muttering, “If that’s what you desire Grand Officer.”
Before they descended the hill, Yasuke nearly fell over himself attempting to get Red’s attention.
Before Red could question what Yasuke was doing, he noticed it too. A giant golden tower rose and pierced the sky, and a moment later it turned into liquid and dissipated. Another tower rose in a different area and then melted the same way. The mana emanating from the colossal towers was hot, so hot it nearly burned Red’s face.
Red struggled to hide his shock at the sight of this, “I haven’t seen an ability like that in a long time! The range, the speed, the size…” Red’s thoughts trailed off as he began to walk over to the rising towers without thinking.
Yasuke grabbed his arm, immediately shaking him from his daze and he shouted, “Where are you going? What about the plan you just told me?”
Red snatched his arm from Yasuke’s grasp and nearly snarled, “Yasuke, what do you see when you look at…“ Red struggled to find the words, “Whatever the hell that is?”
Yasuke watched it for a few more moments as the towers began to rise and fall more rapidly, “It looks like an innate ability…I’m not too familiar with the ins and outs of innate abilities, but even I can tell it’s extremely powerful.”
Red shook his head as he watched it, unflinching, “Powerful is an understatement. If it wasn’t clear already, Jeannot and any other Socotra knights he has with him are over there. Based on the description we got, whoever is creating those gold towers isn’t Jeannot, but that should show you the level of power we’ll be going up against. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was one of the lower-ranking Seraphim members.”
Yasuke looked on in horror as the gold towers rose and fell even faster now, destroying the vibrant green landscape and sending monsters flying into the air.
“Damn it!” Red thought to himself, “If Valafor didn’t take all of my support abilities, I could at least sense how many there are. This new ability he gave me is versatile but I still don’t have a good handle on it yet.”
Red sighed as he slowly descended the hill, heading towards the large towers. After a few seconds, he stopped and turned to Yasuke, “Based on my experience, the Socotra army usually employs very small groups, never more than three or four soldiers, to take on any given task, even if it was something as important as fighting for their border. The reason should be obvious, their innate abilities are on another level entirely. A lot of them can affect the entire environment and disrupt ecosystems without breaking a sweat. You’re poorly suited to handle whatever’s going on over there, so I’m going to take a look myself. You head to the guild hall and tell the guild master Day Oathright that you are with me.”
Yasuke looked away in embarrassment, “Red I think you better head to the guild hall, what if she recognizes me from the attack a few weeks ago?”
Red looked at Yasuke, confused, and thought for a second, “Are you worried she’s still holding a grudge after you threatened to kill some of the regulars of the guild? Yasuke, you can’t let things like that stop you. In your path to freedom, I want you to remember one thing Yasuke: Nothing changes if nothing changes. If she recognizes you, get on your hands and knees and beg for forgiveness. She’s not the type of person to hold grudges anyway.”
Yasuke looked on at him and only nodded silently. He walked down the hill, in the opposite direction of Red, towards the wooden building.
----------------------------------------
Thoughts overflowed in Yasuke’s mind as he approached the building.
“What have I gotten myself into? A weak Socotra knight can do something like create a giant golden tower in a fraction of a second, what can I do?”
Yasuke stopped and unsheathed his blade from his scabbard, examining it, “I mean, all I have is this blade and my swordsmanship. How can I compete against abilities like that?”
Yasuke sheathed his blade, shaking away any doubts, and sprinted toward the guild hall.
Stolen novel; please report.
After nearly an hour of running, Yasuke stood a few steps from the front entrance to the guild hall. He placed his hands on his knees and panted for a while, looking over in the direction that Red headed in while doing so. Immediately, he noticed no more golden towers were being formed, but in their place stood a giant wall of ice that stretched higher and farther than any of the towers did.
“Did Red do that? That’s almost as tall as the castle in Oldum, how does he have enough control over the arcana to do that?”
Yasuke turned his head back to the front entrance, finally standing up straight. He slowly approached the wooden door and grasped the brass handle softly, slowly swinging it open. An older woman stood behind the counter, mindlessly wiping at it with a rag, a melancholy expression spread across her face.
As the woman opened her mouth to speak, she immediately shrieked back in horror, throwing the rag in Yasuke’s direction and holding her mouth open. After a second her expression morphed into anger and indignation as she walked from behind the counter and approached Yasuke.
“What are you doing here, you - you…” Day could barely force the words out as she got it right into Yasuke’s face, nearly pointing a finger into his eye.
“My name is Yasuke, are you Day Oathright?” Yasuke sheepishly asked, struggling to meet her gaze.
“You don’t get to say my name! You don’t get to be here! After what you did…” Day’s voice trailed off as she shook her head violently, failing to hold back tears.
“Ma’am I know, no I…” Yasuke finally turned his head and looked at the woman looking up at him, with fury in her eyes, “I’m sorry. I can’t apologize enough for that incident a few weeks ago, but I’m with Red—“
Day slapped him across the face before he could react, and Yasuke had to stop himself from falling to the ground and wailing out in pain.
“This woman is just a support mage? That strength is on another level.” Yasuke thought to himself.
Day began to shout at the top of her lungs, nearly shaking the room with her raw emotion, “Who do you think you are? Do you think you can just walk in here with some half-assed apology and some fake story and think I’d hear out what you have to say? Do you know how hard it is, to pretend like I’ve just gotten over the attack on my comrades, my friends, my family? You all injured eleven of our members! You crippled them! Those men were somebody’s brother, somebody’s father, somebody’s son, my people! And now their lives will never be the same again!”
Day’s anger shifted into disgust as she turned her face up at Yasuke.
Yasuke placed his hand on his hips and shook his head, “Do you think I wanted to injure those men? I told them to stand down, but they still stood up against us so proudly. They were ignorant of the world around them. We aren’t school kids, if you go around picking fights in the real world you should expect to get hurt or worse.”
He closed his eyes and clenched his fist tightly, “This world revolves around power. Those of us with it have a responsibility to use it against those without it, to maintain the stability and order of society. If everyone without power thinks they should be able to get their way, that’s where problems arise.”
Day backed away from him slowly, placing a hand on her chin, “Are you insane? Where in the world did you learn such a horrible way of thinking?”
“It’s a pretty common belief in that eastern land, Nippon,” A tall hooded man with a remarkably deep voice and arms obscured by a long coat interjected from across the guild hall. He stood up and slowly approached Yasuke, "Might makes right,” The hooded man got right into Yasuke’s face and Yasuke could now see his entire face was obscured by a blank white mask.
The hooded man continued, “If you do go out of the way and try to grasp at something more, if you try to attain greater powers yourself, you'll get smacked down and you’ll be labeled a pariah and an outcast,” He leaned in as close to Yasuke as he physically was able, “Did I get that right Mr. Soldier?”
Yasuke did not answer, only staring up at the tall hooded man blankly, and Day watched on, her mouth agape.
The hooded man turned to Day and shook his head, “Don’t be shy Mr. Soldier, I agree with those values! With that belief system, the poor, the destitute, and the downtrodden stay that way, and the strong get stronger! How great would it be if everyone in the world adopted that collectivist attitude?”
Yasuke squinted his eyes and examined the man, simply asking, “Who are you?”
The hooded man turned to Yasuke and then back to Day, “Ah, how rude of me! I am Jeannot, the newest member of the Daemon Hunters Adventurers’ Guild.”
Yasuke’s mood shifted instantly, and he gripped his sword at his side, “Jeannot, huh? That’s a pretty unique name. About when did you join up with this guild?
Jeannot began to pace around, and casually answered, “Maybe a little over a month ago,” Jeannot erratically and awkwardly turned his body to face Yasuke, “Why? Do we know each other Mr. Yasuke?”
Yasuke smiled, “You don’t know me, but I know a lot about you Jeannot,” Yasuke turned to Day and facetiously asked, “Did you know your newest member Jeannot is a high-ranking member in the army of Socotra, they call him Jeannot the Optimist. He’s been running around killing Oldum and Britanius soldiers, all while using your guild hall as a base of operations, eating your food, and drinking your drinks to replenish his strength between killing sprees. How is that for insanity?”
Though Jeannot’s face was completely obscured, it was obvious that he was surprised by this revelation, “Ah, that…” He looked over to Day and shrugged and turned back to Yasuke, speaking in almost a joking manner “Damn, looks like you caught me. But hey, don’t misunderstand me. I’m not going around slaughtering helpless soldiers for no reason, I’m on a mission from my home country!”
Yasuke got into a battle stance, bending his knees on running his eyes over Jeannot’s entire body, “What kind of mission?”
Jeannot sat down on an adjacent table and laid back, facing the ceiling, “My superiors have tasked me with coming down to the mainland and testing the level of power that is present here now. I only killed those soldiers as a means to draw out the stronger powers that were lying dormant, and…“
Jeannot sat straight up, looking in Yasuke’s direction, “It looks like one of them just appeared before me. Not quite on the level I was looking for but you’ll suffice for now.”
Day now reached behind the counter and began fumbling and throwing objects around as Yasuke shook his head and asked, “Why would you be commanded to do that? I thought the people of Socotra were -“
“Pacifists? Monks? Ascetics?” Jeannot interjected, “Definitely not, but I’m not surprised you came to that conclusion considering the limited information on our religion down here. You see Mr. Yasuke, Socotra shares one specific belief with Nippon; the weak should be subservient to the strong. It is a little different though, we don’t believe in flexing and fighting with our strength. No, to us it is about pure domination. Our power should be so overwhelmingly intense that we don’t even have to fight, those that are weaker should just cower before us. We’ve been praying, studying and experimenting for years now, so I’ve been sent to see how our power compares to the surface."
Yasuke snarled, and black smoke began to billow from his body, filling the entire room in a second, “You talk too much.”
As Yasuke unsheathed his sword and stepped forward, a large flash of light blinded him, causing Yasuke to shield his eyes. When he opened them, he was in the middle of a large grassy field. Yasuke looked around the landscape and spotted the large wooden guild hall that seemed to be nothing but a tiny speck from his position. Yasuke looked in front of him and noticed Jeannot lying flat on his stomach.
“So we were teleported this far away from the guild hall by Day? In the seconds before I could attack? I think I see why Red wants her as our support mage.”
Jeannot awkwardly stood up directly from his prone position. Jeannot finally revealed his arms, both of them scarred with severe burn marks, “Are we going to fight now?”
Yasuke snarled at him, “No, I’m going to kill you.”