“My name is Irlan.”

“I am Kaitrine, but you can call me Kait, Captain.”

“Zelos.”

The tall boy introduced himself first, and then the quick girl followed with an unusual smile… she didn’t look so grumpy, which made Zelos frown. Girls are a real enigma.

“We will only reach the location of our client in three days, so you can relax until then. Let’s use this chance to get along better and learn more about each other.”

Zelos knew that the mission would be a pain in the ass, but not in such a weird way. That seemed like a waste of time, so he decided to take some iron bars from his backpack and then began to train with them. Doing handstands inside of a moving carriage was bound to improve his precision, but it would be annoying for the others… he had to wait for a little longer.

“Captain, are you in a good mood because you heard something good recently, like a promotion or something? I can only imagine that joining the group missions would be a pass to work outside the territory.”

“I am not supposed to say this, but this is a test for me. If I do it well, then my father won’t have any qualms about letting me join the front lines when something happens. I am already fifteen, so he can’t stop me without a good reason.”

“I am sure you will succeed with flying colors, Captain.”

Zelos was starting to get a clear picture about the situation. It looked like Hei was being overprotective of his only daughter, but he was also trying to test her. He wasn’t going to stay around forever, so that made sense. Still, he couldn’t tell if the mission was going to be easy or not since he didn’t know if Heirina was underestimating the job or not.

Another thing that he realized was the fact that Kaitrine was surprisingly fond of Heirina for whatever reason, even though Heirina didn’t act like they knew each other for long or at all. That would explain why Kaitrine looked like she hated Zelos’s guts since he had been pretty cheeky during the times when Heirina called him a slave boy.

The group left the town quickly and began crossing large fields of grains. For quite a while, they found nothing but golden fields in all directions. The smell was quite good, though, so the start of the mission felt like a vacation.

“I can finally understand why your strikes are so heavy despite your young age… you will probably become quite big if you train this much for so long.”

“Anyone can do this much.”

“Not for that long. That requires a lot of resolve.”

Irlan was quite curious about Zelos’s training method. While it was simple, the results spoke volumes. At the same time, Zelos looked a bit bigger, even though he had only spent three weeks in the town so far, and the kids had only known him for two weeks.

“That proves that even the most basic and simple traits can become quite effective. Even though I still don’t know what your trait is.”

Zelos looked at Irlan for a moment. He seemed quite talkative while talking about Zelos’s trait, which seemed suspicious, but his gaze didn’t show much of that. He appeared sincere, and that only looked more troubling to someone like Zelos.

“What is with the sudden silence? Keep talking.”

“Is that an order?”

“No, just a… a little push.”

“You can continue the conversation then.”

Heirina grunted a little… it seemed that Zelos decided to be a bit hard to deal with for whatever reason. Or maybe it wouldn’t be fair if they all do the talking while she only listens. If she truly wanted to get along better with everyone, then she had to show some effort as well.

“You made me realize that I have some poor communication skills.”

Zelos wanted to say that it had been pretty obvious from the very beginning, but there was no point in creating conflict, even more so when the two girls could be hard to deal with, and Irlan was weird for his standards. Kaitrine was already glaring at him again.

“Where are we going? You can at least reveal that much?”

“We are heading north to Captain Lua’s territory. At least the one she is defending, since she was hired recently to do so.”

It was that woman with some anger issues… Zelos hoped that he wouldn’t stumble with him. That would be a stroke of very bad luck. He wanted to ask why they were heading there when she was there, and he wasn’t the only one with those thoughts in mind. Irlan was thinking the same.

“I heard that Captain Lua doesn’t like to do things that she deems too troublesome… an escorting mission should fit those criteria for her, but I thought that she would hate even more someone doing that job for her.”

“I was also called directly to do this kind of job, so I thought that the person wouldn’t be someone of importance, but considering the pay, I assumed that I was wrong. We won’t be able to enter that territory without being seen, so hiding that information from her would be a waste of time. Causing even more problems… despite her bad personality, she is very skilled at what she does.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“... It might be the case that she is aware of this job and pushed it to you because it is very troublesome. I am not sure if it is risky or if she is underhanded enough to do that kind of thing, but if something were to happen to the captain, the future of the clan would become grin, and the people who would be willing to join us would join the closest one, it would be hers. Eventually, the clan would fall apart and its members would be absorbed by others.”

Kaitrine’s explanation was solid and simple, to the point that it left everyone speechless… they never thought that she would be that knowledgeable, after all. In any case, considering her hypothesis, a lot of things made sense, so the atmosphere of the group grew a bit darker. Still, Irlan improved the atmosphere a fair bit.

“I wouldn’t bet on that too much. Your father wouldn’t have passed you the mission or even told you about it if he had any suspicions about it. Besides, losing a capable leader or destabilizing a clan like ours would only weaken the country. There were many others there, but they aren’t as trustable.”

“Tell me more about that. It looks like the conversation is getting more interesting.”

“Well, I can’t say that I am an expert when it comes to the situation of the whole country. This is the first time I have left the town as well, but I do hear a lot from a lot of people. Someone of your age probably would benefit a lot from hearing more about the whole thing.”

“That is right.”

“Well, where do I start?”

“I guess the fact that numerous countries are making clans like ours for over a millennium is a good starting point.”

Heirina’s words seemed insane. One thousand years… that seemed quite the duration. As one would expect, Kaitrine looked really annoyed by her own statement and the other two also looked rather troubled by it. How many people had died in those battles for over one thousand years? Zelos couldn’t even begin to imagine.

“Why does everyone keep fighting like that? Even if it is to defend their lands, it feels like it is very inefficient since nothing changed in one thousand years.”

“People tried to change things in the past, but those who did that and messed were annihilated. I heard that there was a country that tried to create a system where they had a fixed army and all the clans were disbanded. At some point, the people in the army obtained too much power and the common people rebelled. While the rebellion was taking place, the neighbors of that country made their move and wiped them out and split their territory among them.”

“Eh, is that so?”

Heirina looked surprised by that kind of information… how come she didn’t know that when she was the next head of a clan like that? Zelos had no idea…

“The future looks grim…”

“Tell me about it…”

Zelos didn’t continue his sentence… it looked grim for the clan with you as the future leader. Still, she was just starting her journey, so perhaps a lot of things might change in the future.

“Continue.”

“Where was I? About the changes… Having to control and maintain a large army is a lot of work, so the authorities decide to just pay the clan for the services and outsource that kind of thing. That is our livelihood and we mostly live near the borders, so that is another motivator for all of us.”

“Authorities?”

“Yeah, like the emperor and his subordinates. They control things beyond the military conflicts… although all the countries have their own emperors, so we might have over twenty of them now.”

There were twenty countries around… just crossing the territory of a single farm seemed like a task that could take days, so he had a hard time grasping such proportions. However, such numbers looked interesting, if anything. It meant that Zelos would have the chance to face a lot of enemies and train even more. That also explained why that war has been lasting for so long and probably won’t end in his lifetime.

“It is about lunchtime, so we will stop at that village. Don’t talk about anything that could be raised by weird rumors. If something happens, we might cause trouble for the clan and we want to avoid wasting time.

The group stopped at the closest village to have lunch and soon resumed their journey. At that point in time, even Kaitrine was surprised that Zelos did muscle training the whole time… that was the only thing he could do to kill time, after all.

It was only a matter of time before people would learn what his trait could do, after much thinking, he didn’t find any ways where people could counter it, but it was better to be cautious and avoid revealing details of it in order to gain time. Besides, he didn’t have as much knowledge and experience as others, after all.

When night came, the group stopped to camp and let the horses rest. There was no place to rest since they were close to the limits to the clan territory, so it couldn’t be helped. They found a good shelter under some trees and the weather was fine, so it was no problem.

“I take it that you two have no problem letting the ladies use the interior of the carriage to rest… considering your expression, you should have something cheeky to say about that.”

“Do you want to hear it?”

“No,”

Zelos shrugged since there was no point for her to bring that topic. What he had to say was that it could be questionable if they were ladies or not. Calling them little girls or tomboys could be more acceptable. Regardless, they brought some food to the village at noon and began to prepare it. Soon they found a problem, though. Call it cliched, but Heirina and Kaitrine didn’t know how to cut the meat and the vegetables…

“I can handle this… let me handle this, please.”

“All right… and you… don’t say anything.”

“I don’t have to,”

Zelos shrugged. The only relief that those two had was the fact that Zelos rarely showed any emotion on his face, and Irlan was pretty mindful of not saying the wrong thing.

While Irlan was cooking, Zelos grabbed his club and then began to train under the darkness of the nearby tree. Although he was trying to stay hidden, it was clear by the sound of the weapon cutting the air that his swings were sharp and precise. Recently, he added three kilograms of weight to the club, and weirdly enough, it felt more comfortable in Zelos’ hands. Regardless, Heirina felt a bit bothered, since she said that they would train along the way.

“We are going to do some light sparring after eating. You don’t have to train now.”

“For now, it is a waste to spar with you guys. Give me one week and I will make it worthwhile for you guys.”

“What can you even learn in a single week?”

“That is for me to know and for you to find out.”

Heirina sighed while Kaitrine's eyebrows twitched… both of them were quite hard to deal with, but it looked like Heirina knew how to behave better when she was leading a mission.

Despite the darkness, they could tell that Zelos was just doing some basic swings, so they couldn’t tell how come that could help him spar against someone like Kaitrine. Moreover, he won against Irlan, but he didn’t think that the result would be the same now… the reason should be obvious.