The goblins did not want to give up. The further they got from their nest though, the easier it was to pick them off. It was a running battle for sometime, Guy making sure to keep to the rear in case any more special goblins showed up.

He dropped back when the other's speed had faltered for the hundredth or so time. He swung his sword almost mechanically pulling off air cutting techniques and sword barrages which were staples of his two styles. He almost fell over when his twisting sword failed to connect to anything. He finally fell out of his trance, looking around in confusion. There were no more goblins on their tail.

The others noticed as well. They didn't stop moving though. Tired as they were, they could only walk slowly for hours until they felt they were far enough away. Even the dark didn't stop them from walking on, Jasmine casting a light cantrip without any prompting.

When they finally set up camp, no one was going to sleep and they all knew it. Guy was still in the rear, and he split off from the others before they complained too much about his involuntary nudity and whatever else. He had retrieved his pack as he'd withdrawn from the forest under intense fire from the goblin mages. How he'd remembered to pick it up even in the midst of his battle trance, he'd never know.

He used the water in his flask to clean his face and arms at least. Everything else would have to wait. With that taken care of, he returned to his party. The supervisor watched him from a shared fire. She watched his every step.

“Explain,” she said succinctly.

He shrugged. “I realised what was happening when I ran into more than usual hobgoblin numbers, so I went to check out their camp. There were more goblins than I expected, and the leader was stronger than most of them. He evolved mid battle, and he had several goblin mages supporting him.”

She gave him a blank look. He didn't blame her. They were all too tired to do anything except stare at him blankly, like his words were hardly registering.

“How many is several?” she asked.

“Somewhere between fifty and a hundred,” he said with another shrug.

She sighed, grimaced, then went to rub her brow and took a long breath.

“What were you thinking? Or did you not know how many there would be?”

“I overestimated my abilities,” he said with a wince. “I'm sorry.”

“You're sorry?” Jasmine said almost like she was whispering. “You're sorry? You're sorry?!”

The last was a shout and caused him to flinch for a second. But then he set his face and stared at the angry mage.

“You almost had us killed!”

“Yes,” he said quietly, and she quieted and looked away from him.

No one else said anything. They just sat there in the quiet for a long moment. He was the first to leave the comfort of the fire.

“I'll take the first watch,” he declared, though he didn't plan to wake any of the others.

The return journey passed much faster than the first. They were all rushing to get that experience out of their minds, and they all had a hard time sleeping during their journey. Guy still kept to the back of the formation. When they saw the imposing walls of the city, he stopped and watched the others rush for it.

He touched his sword hilt and looked back where they'd come from. Sure, he felt bad about getting these guys in trouble. But then again, he thought his hunt might have been a lot more carefree if he'd been there alone. And it wasn't like he could get his guild card with such a performance. He couldn't return to the mercenary company. Maybe heading right back and eliminating a village of goblins wasn't the worst idea.

He looked forward. The others had not even noticed he had stopped. That was kind of sad, but then again, they were not friends or anything. He turned back where they'd come from.

****

“You guys should all get some rest at inns or something. Take a bath, get some good food. I'll see you at the guild tomorrow,” the supervisor said without turning around.

Orlandir smiled. It was time for a legendary fight. He'd seen the guy, Guy, fight. The man had been impressive if very predictable. Besides, he'd killed an evolved monster. It had never seemed like the right time to challenge him, what with Jasmine being very angry and poor Rhea traumatized. He looked behind him to find the boy. There was no one.

“Hmm. Where did Guy go?” he asked Grunter.

The giant just grunted and lifted his massive shoulder in a shrug. The girls were going their own direction, not even paying him any mind. With a shrug, he turned to head to an inn he knew well. He was sure he'd see Guy the next day. And then they'd have their duel right in the guild sparring rooms. The more watchers, the more glorious it would be anyway.

The next day, he was called up to the guild master's office. He'd never been there before, and he noticed there were a lot of people there too. Their supervisor was there, talking to the big man behind the desk. She saw him when he entered, and called him to stand with the rest of his party.

“He was there too? “ the guild master asked the woman. “I think all four of them will be promoted straight to iron, for surviving that whole mess and bringing us this important information.”

“Four of them?” the woman asked, “wait, where is that Wilde kid?”

“Wilde?” the guild master asked, and his expression turned flat.

Orlandir noticed it, but he didn't think any of the others did.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Jasmine shrugged. “He didn't enter the Southern gate with us. I think he stayed behind somewhere. Rather, I doubt he entered the city.”

“What?!” the supervisor and the guild master shouted at once.

Jasmine seemed to realise something was wrong as she looked at them in wide eyed confusion. Orlandir wanted to shake her. She'd known Guy wasn't following and she'd said nothing. He wanted to spar with the asshole, and she knew, and she said nothing.

“Cynthia, I hope you have an explanation?” the guild master said through gritted teeth.

The woman winced. “I may have been a tad hard on the boy for overestimating his abilities. I know the others weren't friendly with him, but I didn't think he could…”

“Could what? Take being yelled at by a supposedly neutral supervisor as evidence he'd failed the test?”

He sighed and looked at the children. “Can either of you tell me where he could have gone?”

Jasmine just shrugged, having gotten her poise back. Rhea didn't meet the guild master's eyes, and Grunter just stared at him unblinkingly. Orlandir took it as his cue to answer.

“He obviously went back to the nest. I think, the only reason he left in the first place was because we were there.”

“Explain,” the guild master and supervisor said together and startled. They looked to each other, but then the guild master snorted and turned away with a glower.

“Did you guys notice he wasn't as wounded as the rest of us? I mean when we were first on the run, he had a lot of blood and his clothes were in pieces. When he washed off the blood from his face and arms, there wasn't a wound on him. And you guys were mad at him, so Rhea wouldn't heal him.” He finished with another shrug.

“So he had a potent self healing spell. Is that what you're saying?”

“That is not not what I'm saying. Or rather, not the main point. The main point is that he only left the forest because we were in danger. He did not overestimate his abilities. He just hadn't accounted for us. So he came, saved our lives, and went back to his hunt. Or so I assume.”

The guild master turned a glare on the former supervisor. “You will get the boy back, or so help me-”

He took a deep breath to calm himself down.

“He's one of Jonathan's boys, you know. The monsters he is picking up left and right. If the Ellans find out a Wilde was in the middle of this whole mess, I don't want to consider how they'll use that information. The Grandill noble house will take the fall for this oversight, but before that I need all witnesses accounted for. Find the boy.”

“I'll go too,” Orlandir said in the intervening silence.

He wasn't interested in learning about which noble house they'd got in trouble and how the others would react. He was a commoner, after all. No need to be involved in that kind of thing.

“You will not,” the guild master said simply.

“Of course I will. You don't own me. Besides, the guy owes me a duel. He ran away from it.”

“But we'll need to protect you kids as witnesses-”

“I really don't care about that, you know.”

“Well you should.”

“I don't. Besides, I'll be with Cynthia here and a couple other experienced adventurers, no? I don't see a lot of safer options.”

****

He was restless. He only slept a couple of hours every few hours, and then he was running until he was exhausted. By the evening of the next day, he could smell the smoke of the half destroyed forest.

He reached the forest on the noon of the second day. He smiled like a predator seeing his first meal in a week. It had been four days, after all. It was time to hunt. He really hoped at least one of the remaining hobgoblins would give him a fight as good as the boss had.

He fought for almost six hours, and the smarting of his muscles reminded him of the war he'd taken part in all those years ago. It was refreshing to go wild again after so long. He was exhausted by the end, and one of his arms had been lobed off in the fourth hour. He had multiple fractures and he was coughing blood. It was painful, but he grinned at the pain.

And when he couldn't lift his hands anymore they fell upon him with clubs and sharpened stones and crude iron tools. He screamed, the pain of a rock taking out his eye too strong to resist.

When he resurrected, he could still feel all the phantom pain from the many, many stubs. He took his time to catch his breath, regain some mental energy. Two hours later he was harvesting goblins again.

He destroyed the village eventually. Some goblins managed to escape, but he left those alone. There was a river some ways behind the village. He enjoyed a good refreshing bath.

Then he sat in front of the shimmering orb at the edge of the village. They'd built a hut around it, covered up all nice and everything. It floated in that same place it had been since it's birth. He wondered what, if anything, would happen if destroyed it. It would inconvenience the guild, and he wanted to join them eventually. He frowned up at it. It would cause a massive explosion, he was sure. Just then something appeared at the edge of his senses. He collected his sheathed long sword and ran to the edge of the forest in a half crouch.

“Relax, boy. We are allies,” he heard his former supervisor say.

He stopped his charge and stood to study her and the party she had brought. Three men and two women, not considering Orlandir and Grunter. The five experienced adventurers were staring around at the bloody carnage with disbelief and confusion. The supervisor was torn between relief, scorn and a bit of smugness. Grunter had no expression to speak of, but Orlandir looked like a child who'd just received a birthday present.

Guy frowned at the man, who noticed his look and grinned at him. Orlandir crossed his arms such that they each touched a blade sheathed on opposite sides. He unsheathed them, and Guy started.

“Orlandir,” the supervisor said in a kind of warning growl.

“I have to fight him. I have to. You can't stop me.”

And then he was charging. Guy unsheathed his own blade and started to warm up even as Orlandir pressed his attack. It wasn't easy to deal with, Guy noticed. The man had some thing about him. His style was crude, but he used both blades like he could fight with both hands.

Guy frowned. This was not the demon lord's promise. It was a school of swordplay Guy had never even heard of. He smirked. Maybe he could enjoy this. He increased the pace of the fight, transitioning from defense to attack in one movement. Neither of his styles was particularly good at counter attacking or deflecting, they were all out attack oriented styles.

He was still holding back, but he was pushing Orlandir enough, testing, probing the other swordsman to see what he could do. And Orlandir always had an answer. His style had a dedicated parrying technique, it seemed.

It took five minutes for Guy to see what he thought were the other swordsman's limits. Still, he had enjoyed fighting someone with such an exotic style. He upped the tempo once more, getting his sword to twist past both Orlandir's blades and aim for his chest. The other man used the guard of one of his swords to not only block but trap Guy's sword for a second while his second sword came in for a counter attack. Guy dodged it just barely, letting his sword go.

As the sword fell, he extended his leg to try and flip it into the air but Orlandir had just set up his ultimate move. Holding both his hands straight at his sides, he started to spin and it was all Guy could do to back pedal only slightly dodging the rotating blades with each movement. For a moment, Orlandir became a rotating whirlwind with the swords flapping up and down to make sure the whole area around him was covered in a domain of steel. Only for a moment though.

“You…” Guy was flabbergasted. “That technique is almost at a sword master level.”

“Yeah, I'm impressive, ain't I?” Orlandir said in between wheezes.

“Yeah… but you're a beginner. You can't be past the intermediate stage. You can't just skip a step. Who was your teacher?”

“Teacher?” Orlandir scoffed. “I don't need one of those. I taught myself. I'm the best.”

“You…created your own sword style,” Guy said even as he deflated.

Yeah the guy had earned his right to be cocky. What had Guy done? Just gotten lucky to meet Noid and join the Wilde company. He suddenly felt so tired.

“Your style has a lot of potential, you know. You need to get a teacher, learn the basics, then don't skip steps. That pseudo sword domain you have is quite the move.”

“So I won?”

“Well,” Guy said with a sigh, “you definitely did not lose.”

Orlandir nodded like that was obvious. “You are strong too, you know. So what's your plan now you're an adventurer?”

Guy looked at the supervisor with wide eyes. “I passed the test?”

“Yeah you did. I would have told you if you weren't so sensitive for such an annoying guy.”

“An annoying…Guy?” he tilted his head with a small smile.

She snorted and threw something at him. An iron badge with his name on it.

“I'm iron already? That means I can get back to the company now.”

“The company?” Orlandir asked.

“The Wilde mercenary company. It's where I was supposed to go after earning this badge. Still, Jonathan did say I ought to keep away from there for a while. Perhaps I should get training in the city as Jonathan advised me to.”

“If you don't have any concrete plans, why don't you join me and Grunter for a while? You said I need a teacher. How about we train together? I could teach you my new style, and with your strength, we could take on more expensive jobs.”

Guy hesitated, remembering Noid's warning about attachments and insignificant relationships. Hadn't he once seen Orlandir torn in half by the world itself. But the man was a genius swordsman, on the other hand. And Guy found he really hated solitude. He couldn't go back to the company for now, so what was the harm in travelling with this guy for a while. He'd even get a new sword style from it. One that promised to be strong.