“This damned commoner trash!” I slammed my fist through the table of the inn I was staying at. This bare bones establishment way out at the border was far below what could be considered appropriate for someone of my stature to be staying in, but it couldn’t be helped. It was the only inn in this small speck of a village. My face scrunched up red with fury as I recalled being rejected once again by another adventuring group yesterday when I asked for escort. “‘I’m sorry mister noble,’ they said, ‘we don’t know how to navigate the mountain… You need to ask some other party. Our apologies.' Who do they think they are joking?!” I spat with rage. “Half of the requests in that rundown shack of a guild were in the mountains! Do they think me some kind of fool?!”

Kent had a wry smile as he offered his thoughts, “Well, a noble coming out this way is a little… suspicious. They probably don’t want to get involved with us. And we can’t really prove that they know how to navigate the mountain, so we can’t compel them to obey.”

“It’s already been a month since we received those orders! A MONTH! I can’t be having Campiana sending other nobles on this mission. I know those bandits must be housing his weakness if he wants me to chase them like this.”

“We may have to find a different village near the mountain range at this point. The adventurers can tell that if they get wrapped up in something like this, they’ll probably end up dead,” Kent said, proposing a solution. Well, he was right. We had to make sure that what we find on the other side of the mountains remains a secret. Once they lead us back over, they’d be dead. Killed in a sudden monster attack, probably.

“Keh! Just like those lowborn. Only looking out for their own hides,” I yelled. “I’m a noble, you know? They should be begging for the opportunity to help a higher existence like me.” In this world, nobles were a higher plane of existence than the common folk. Why? Simply because we have the job [Noble]. There are three “base” jobs. The average and ordinary [Commoner], the villainous and cancerous [Bandit], and the supreme and mighty [Noble]. You are either born a [Noble] or through extraordinary achievement and acknowledgement by the king, a [Commoner] can become a [Noble], though this only really happens in times of war. A lot of nobility may end up dying if the conflict gets bloody, so then many commoners, if they stack up enough achievements, can receive peerage. Well their families would be nothing more than polished garbage, anyhow.

The hierarchy of nobility within the Bassion Kingdom was a very strict caste system. Each noble had a specific ranking and were treated accordingly by those around them. Smaller nobles bent to your will, and you bent to the will of larger nobles. A Earl such as myself would never be able to go against a Duke with conventional means.

With conventional means, anyway.

But that’s why I’m putting up with this barbaric living conditions in some good for nothing village near the border. I sigh heavily as I sit back down on this establishment’s poor excuse of a bed. “We cannot wait any longer,” I muttered. “Apparently there is one more adventurer that is returning from a week long excursion today. If we cannot force him to guide us, we’ll have to try and fight our way through the mountains.”

“Are you sure we shouldn’t just move to another village?” Kent asked.

“This is the third village we’ve been to, the results will be the same. I’m not wasting a second more. The rights to a dukedom are on the line.”

Kent heaved a sigh before suggesting. “You should probably be waiting in the guild, right? Otherwise they may get tipped off from their comrades.”

I frowned. I didn’t want to have to spend much time sitting in the filth that was an Adventurers’ Guild, but he was right. I couldn’t let my last hope slip away. I stood up and made my way to the door. I desperately hoped I wouldn’t have to come back to this shack. I opened the door while saying under my breath, “If I never see this filth-ridden pigsty again, it’ll be too soon.”

As I stepped out into the hallway, a young girl, no older than 12 looked at me with a face of rage. “This inn is good, mister!” She shouted at me. “It’s the best in town! All the grown-up adventurers say so!”

“Why am I taking verbal abuse from young commoner garbage, I wonder?” I glared at her with fury, my face clearly conveying the overwhelming bloodlust I was feeling. The girl’s face quickly changed to one of panic and fear. I headed toward the stairs.

But she left with one more parting shot, “My mom’s inn is the best, baldy pig!”

Ahhhh, little girl, you REAAAAALLLY shouldn’t have said that one, you know? She was running away from me down the hallway, but after the long week in this podunk town, I was very much NOT in a forgiving mood.

I launched across the hallway with speed that did not match my slightly oversized stomach. My blonde hair that was only receding A LITTLE BIT shook in the wind. I appeared in front of the girl before she realized what had happened. I grabbed her by the neck with one of my large arms and lifted her up into the air. I chided her while stroking my short, pointed mustache that did not connect in the middle. “You know, little girl, saying such things to a noble is not something you should ever do.” She gasped desperately as she hit at my arms, but she was just a commoner in the end, and I was a noble. I walked back to the stairs. “I’m fairly magnanimous, you know? I’ve put up with sub-noble living conditions for quite some time. I guess commoners really don’t know their own position in the world. Just remember, girl, you should curse the gods for having you be born as imperfect, I haven’t done anything wrong.” I now stood at the top of the stairs, the girl’s mouth was foaming, and she was turning a very interesting color. “I hope that you can learn from this mistake. I trust this will never happen again.”

The muscles in my arm bulged, and I pitched her body down the stairs and into one of the many dirty tables in the dining room. A loud crash ensued, followed by a scream and a panicked bustling.

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I heard shouts of “Angie!”, “Oi! Somebody hurry and grab a potion!”, and “Is anybody here a priest!” as I slowly made my way down the stairs. A large group had gathered around the young girl and one adventurer was having her drink a health potion. Color was slowly returning to her face, and her neck was returning to its original shape and size.

The matron of the inn saw me walking down and shouted “You…!”, before some of the adventurers held her back, covered her mouth, and shot me some poisonous glares.

I gave them a smile while saying, “That girl, Angie, was it? She needs to be careful when running around the hallways. She was surprised when I exited my room and she fell down the stairs. It was a real nasty tumble.”

The glares only intensified. I continued to smile, but my eyes grew cold. If only I had my lance with me… “Why are you all looking at me like that?” A fake laugh echoed emptily off of the walls of the inn. “Even I wouldn’t go as far to hurt such a little girl. The day I hurt an innocent soul like her, is the day that the adventurers of this town can navigate the mountains. Hahaha! But that isn’t the case, right?”

The various adventurers that were staying at the inn that morning, all of which had rejected my request, looked away, unable to even mutter a retort.

My face fell flat as I called for Kent. “Kent, it’s time to go, I’m not wasting anymore time here.” He wordlessly followed me out of the inn and towards the Adventurers’ Guild. The soldiers I had brought with me were all up early and keeping watch near my carriage. I walked up to a pair of young girls. They were the most skilled soldiers out of the whole brigade, surprisingly enough. Well, they were commoners, and still sympathized with commoners, so they could be quite troublesome. They also were beneficiaries of the Campiana family, so they weren’t aware of my real intentions. Them nor most of the soldiers of the company were.

I gave the two short orders. “Mila, Nila, prepare the carriage, we are leaving today, with or without a guide.”

“”Yes sir,”” they replied. I quickly made my way over to the guild. As I approached the entrance, I saw a young boy headed towards the guild building with a Climber Deer’s corpse on his back. I didn’t recognize this lad, and I was sure that I had seen everyone that went in and out of the guild.

I was quite good with faces.

I walked up to the boy with my arms unassumingly open and called out to him. “Young lad! That’s quite the hunt you got there! Where did you manage to find it?”

He gave me a look of confusion, I’m sure he thought that a man as well dressed as I would not be interested in hunting. “My soldiers are always looking for a good meal, so I was wondering where you found a beast like that!”

“In the mountains, of course,” he curtly replied.

“Oh, so you know your way around the mountains? I need a guide to help me cross them. Can you help me?” I intentionally ignored the fact that he treated me like some kind of idiot. And even though I asked if he would help, he didn’t have much of a choice.

“How much?”

A big grin broke out on my face. I put a gold coin on his palm. A gold coin is enough for a small commoner family to survive for a year and a half without working. “We’ll be gone into the forest on the other side of the mountains for up to two months. When we return, you’ll receive two more of those.”

The young boy’s eyes lit up. He nodded his head, “I’ll do it. When do we leave?”

“Today,” I told him. “And don’t worry about supplies, we’re bringing enough with us.”

“Let me turn in my hunt to the guild, and I’ll be ready to leave.”

It would be nice if you just went now, but whatever. “Kent, make sure you lead the boy back to our carriage when he’s prepared. I’ll be waiting.”

“I’m Yama,” he stuck out his hand to shake mine.

I’d rather not touch such a dirty boy, but I didn’t want to seem disingenuous. “I’m Earl Havron Burgons.”

I walked with heightened pace back towards my carriage. I promised that kid 3 gold coins total, but he’d be dead upon return, so I didn’t really have to worry about paying him. I couldn’t stop myself from grinning. Finally, I’d be rid of this backwater hole.

About 30 minutes passed before Kent showed up with the boy in tow. Kent was all smiles, but the boy had a noticeably more worried expression on his face.

“This is an official request as the Earl of this territory, so please make sure to do it properly, okay?” I signaled to the rest of the army around me, and we set off. Well calling them an army was a little generous.

Once we reached the edge of town I made a different signal to Kent. He gave me his handsome smile, and then began a chant.

[Ferocious Wind, wild Wind. Surprise my enemies. Billow from where you lie in wait, and destroy your surroundings. Dance throughout the day and night and wreak havoc. Turn your surroundings to dust. Eternal Wind Bomb]

Suddenly throughout the village, large tornadoes sprang up. There were about five, but they decimated the buildings nearby. The town would be little more than rubble after a few hours. I had asked specifically that two of the cyclones appear on the Adventurers’ Guild and the Inn that we stayed at.

The boy stared back with shaking eyes at what was left of his village. A lot of the soldiers were caught off guard as well.

“Hey, Earl, what are you doing to that town?!” Mila screamed.

“Weren’t those innocent people!?” Nila shouted.

“Innocent? Them?” I questioned, condescendingly. “Hardly, they were traitors to the crown. They wanted nothing but destruction of the noble class, like the Campiana family. I couldn’t take that standing.” Any commoners that treated me like they did were definitely traitors and deserved death.

“”O-Oh…”” they muttered back to me. Those two were saved by the Campiana family, and if it was helpful to the Duke, they would let a lot slide.

So easy. I heaved a satisfied sigh as I left that stain behind. Kent caught up with the carriage as we marched and I let him rest inside.

“Those tornadoes should rage for the next 5 days without stopping,” he reported. “I’ve gained a couple levels, too, so maybe I killed a few of them.” He had a wicked grin as he finished his sentence.

“I just hope you cleaned up that trash inn girl. What was her name, Anna?”

“Angie, I believe, sir.”

“Keh, whatever, like I bother with the names of trash.”

Outside the carriage the boy’s ear twitched and I could see what appeared to be tears falling to the ground. Did he hear me? Well, it matters not. He’s basically a prisoner on his way to the gallows now.

I hope this is the last time I have to make a trip out here to the border. It is so very annoying.