Over 75 average views and only 3 comments so far...*cries*
Ahem, don't mind my amateur story teller's outburst..Ash's emo looks are starting to rub on him. But rejoice! I managed to steal a chapter away from him :)
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As soon as the blonde brat opened his mouth, all of my suspicions were confirmed. He really was one of those arrogant characters which are used as third class villains to harass the MC or give him a reason to get stronger or move the plot or combination of those things. They are nothing but troubles and even if they somehow don't cause the trouble themselves, the trouble finds them instead. Besides why should I bow to him? just because he swam little faster than his million other competitors? I don't think so...let's discuss my options.
Can we just kill him?
What if they have those jade token/slip thingies here which tell their family about whoever harms them? You know like one of those martial arts novels?
How troublesome...Cat really shouldn't have saved him. Let's just tie him up and put him in front of wild monster then? Besides how will they find us even if they have those jade-magic thingies?
Err....Some sort of Magic tracking method?
Let's just ditch him then and run like hell. He doesn't really know much about us anyway.
Sure we can do that but will your cute kitty follow us? Besides the brat seems to be thinking about something and not spouting nonsense like those 3rd class villains anymore....maybe he isn't really a lost cause?
Villain with a working brain...just great.
After brainstorming about my options and no finding any good one I simply decided to get back at him for shouting at me.
"Look here you blondy, I don't care if you are prince or king himself, you wouldn't even be alive if I wasn't here so why don't you bow down instead and thank me for saving you? I wouldn't mind just killing you now and making it look like that the wannabe assassins did it."- Ash
The brat looked at me with wide eyes, going wider as I continued my berating. He was about to open his mouth but quickly closed it when I mentioned killing him. Nothing works better than the good ol' scare tactic. I grinned to myself mentally before continuing.
"So why don't you introduce yourself and why you were being attacked?"-Ash
And that got him talking. First he told his name but I already decided to call him brat, atleast in my mind. Then he told us how he was prince from another kingdom and came here to buy an artifact which lets you communicate at long distance. I thought that would be common here with all this mana and what not...oh well. Then he told about disappearance of said artifact owner and the attack, of which he didn't know much, just few guesses.
I really planned to ditch him and leave him for his own but the brat begged and convinced Sumila with his puppy dog eyes to let him join us. A dog and a cat..some travelling companions. As he just came from the city of Tane, there was pretty good chance of encountering more of his assassins so we had a change of plan and decided to head towards a town to the west of here, about 5 days on foot if pass through the marshy region and more if we try to bypass it. It would take us about 3 days to reach the marshy region then a day in there and finally another day to reach the town. Annoying brat...he wasted 4 days of my travel. Before we set off for the new destination the brat went in his carriage and brought out a birdcage. After writing a short note on a paper and securing it on the bird's leg, he let it out of the cage. Apparently he sent the message to his father to let him know that he is safe so the two kingdoms don't go to war over his death. Good thinking. I really thought that the use of magic crystals and orbs for communications would be common in a fantasy word but I was utterly disappointed when I saw the brat using a bird to deliver the message and he was supposed to be a prince. How is it any better than earth?
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Anyway, I told the brat to change into less showy clothes and more travel friendly clothing and Sumila approved so he went in his carriage again and after going through all of his clothes he picked up a light blue tunic and and dark trousers.They were a lot less lavish but still were of better quality than mine but that was to be expected as he was supposed to be a prince. I also grabbed a bag of a knight, I am only guessing but I doubt assassins would have brought any bags. I stuffed a comfy blanket from carriage in it and also took a bit plainer white shirt and brownish trouser from prince's clothes as he almost had same size, perks of being young again. Well atleast I have change of clothes now, wearing same things for 4 straight days isn't exactly pleasant. I also changed my short sword with a good double edged long sword of the knight captain cause having longer reach is always better.
After finishing up we put the bodies of knights together and after paying some respect to the dead set them on fire as we really didn't have time to dig hole for all of them and set off to the town of Li'stth. I still feel a bit weird about this brat for some reason.
Maybe because he has been looking at your kitty like a lost puppy so... A rival's instincts or something like that?
Oh please...like you'd ever agree to date a girl again. And isn't he bit too young for her?
Well...unlike a certain masochist, getting hurt once was enough for me. And who knows maybe she is into reverse ageplay? And she doesn't even have to worry about the law so..all the fun but no hassle.
I am not masochist! and it's still better than having a trigger happy split personality.
....
Our journey was without any incident till we reached the marshes. I continued to practice my tai chi and attempt at meditation. I got relatively more sleep now as there was one more person for the watch duties so I only had to keep watch for one third of the night after that Sumila would take over and some time later the brat. We only came across bandit one time in three days and Sumila took care of it while Ken kept giving me weird look...maybe it's weird to let the girl handle all the fights, after all, but hey she was the one who said I am a bully.
After reaching the marsh though, we encountered something troublesome. They looked like humanoid alligators so I aptly named them ma-lligators...Sumula however corrected me and told me they were lizard-man. They were bit like goblin as they weren't exactly mindless beasts but they were still treated as monsters. They were about 2 meter tall hulking green monstrosities, covered in scales, their long alligator like mouth full of pointy teeth and had long claws and if that wasn't enough they carried spears and swords in their hands.
Sumila could only handle 2 or 3 at a time because unless she hit them in their eyes, the scales prevented taking too much damage from her throwing knives and they also seemed bit resistant to the slashing attacks so they were bad match up for her style. She gave me free rein to do whatever I wanted, after the first encounter so I joined in the fun from then. They were tough, well atleast tougher than goblins as they didn't get their head blown to pieces with a light punch but still died or were knocked unconscious. So I got bolder and after bit of experimentation I found out that they could take upto 15% percent without going boom, give or take a few percentage cause like I mentioned it's hard to control or accurately measure your punch's strength.He stopped giving me weird looks like before after I smashed up few malligators...or atleast he wasn't as open about them as before.
After a day and about 10 or so malligator encounters we were through the marshy region and after another day of travel the town's wall came in my sight.
that's more like a fantasy town...much better than that village.
Why do I feel like something is off though...
Shut up and stop jinxing everything...