Getting a pretty girl as a walking partner who was willing to buy you something nice and expensive was a rather rare treat for Claud, who, in his utmost sincerity, had decided to put aside his caution of the noble-born bounty hunter called Isolde.

Artefacts that warded against poison were things he really desired too. His Ring of Poison Resistance, though great, didn’t guarantee full protection. It could only fend off up to five toxins at once, which meant that anyone who knew math and his anti-poison preparations would have a field day. Of course, he could wear ten rings, which would defend up to fifty poisons at once, but another issue would be that all ten rings would activate at once.

What if the side dishes had poison too? Or if he was ambushed by arrows with poisoned tips? Or what if the air he breathed in had poison?

That was not something Claud wanted to see at all. He didn’t gather and ingest that many lifestones just to die from a well-placed ambush. In fact, Claud didn’t even dare to test if Absolute One could be used against poison, because he couldn’t imbue the skill into a skillstrip. If he could, he wouldn’t have been this worried…

He sighed.

“Why are you sighing?” Isolde asked.

“Just thinking about how hard my life is,” Claud replied.

“Huh?”

“Don’t think too much about it.” Claud waved his hand airily. “You rich people will never understand just how hard it is to secure good equipment to protect your life. Maybe you don’t care, or maybe they just grow on trees.”

“Uh, okay. You’re weird.”

“I know.” Claud thought about the loot on his back, and shook his head. High-ranked lifestones were too valuable to be sold. No, he would use them, so that he could live forever and ever and ever and—

“Are you alright? You have a weird grin on your face,” Isolde asked. “Did you think of something good now?”

“Yes. I just thought of my dream, that’s all.”

“What’s your dream?” Isolde asked.

“To live forever!” Claud thumped his chest. “If you work hard enough, you can get enough lifestones to live until a few thousand years old! Isn’t that great?”

“Uh, yeah. I guess.” Isolde didn’t seem to quite agree with Claud, however.

“What? You don’t think my dream’s a good one?” Claud asked.

“How do I put it…why do you want to live forever?” Isolde asked. “There has to be a reason, right? You don’t just want to live forever for the sake of living forever, no?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Claud replied. “Look, there are some great things in life. Eating! Watching the sunrise! Talking to new people! Having fun! But you can’t do all these once you’re dead, right? Once the Moons claim your soul, that’s it. Over! Done! Only by living forever can you do all these!”

“But you can be killed easily, right? And wouldn’t becoming say, a tetra-folder, make it easier for you to gather more and more lifestones?”

“Huh?”

It was Isolde’s turn to get excited. “Look, if you’re someone really strong, you’ll be able to create an organisation with you at the helm! You can get people to bring you lifestones!”

“And how would I create an organisation that would do precisely that?”

“…we’re starting there? Aren’t you supposed to be, like, someone really clever? What happened to the intelligence I saw from you? Gone with the buns?”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Claud had the feeling that Isolde just insulted him three times in a row, but he didn’t really mind. An organisation that was centred around feeding him lifestones sounded great, so after nodding his head rapidly, he pressed Isolde to continue with her explanation.

“From what I know, you don’t normally show this level of liveliness…”

Claud turned on his ‘act cute’ eyes and gazed at Isolde until she turned away, embarrassed. “Fine, fine. Let me teach you the basics of running an organisation, until we arrive.”

Nodding his head, Claud focused on Isolde’s words.

“Okay, so the basics of an organisation can be enunciated with three words. Loyalty, interest and hierarchy. The core of an organisation is loyalty; only by inspiring it within your followers will they follow you wholeheartedly. However, this is an ideal; you must first rope people in with benefits. Money! Protection! Reputation! Things like these. Got it so far?”

Claud, under her overly-eager speech, nodded.

“Good. When everyone shares a common interest, it is easy to work together. What you want, however, is for everyone to work for you. It’s a step harder. For that reason, you need hierarchy. And the person above must be able to provide something the person below cannot get.” Isolde folded her arms. “For instance, a landowner is capable of creating an organisation, because he or she is able to provide land.”

Claud thought about gangs, and how they designated certain areas as their territory. “It seems like the easiest way.”

“It doesn’t seem like the easiest way,” Isolde replied. “It is the easiest way. Land and properties are the best way to create an organisation. As long as you control your own plot, and that plot has hard-to-replicate benefits, an organisation would form quickly.”

Claud really wished that he could take down notes, since Isolde was teaching him things that he never understood.

“Now, once you have the basis of interest — land, other money-earning ventures and the like — you must create a hierarchy. A formalised system of exchanges. What do you give? And what do they get?”

“So like rent, eh? Or protection money!”

Isolde reached over and rubbed his head. “You’re a good student, Claud. Yes. Exactly. An exchange of benefits. If they disrespect the hierarchy, they should also be punished. Like, uhh…”

“Gangs beating up shopkeepers who can’t pay?” Claud asked.

“Uh, yeah. Something like that. But I wasn’t thinking of such a violent example…but you get the point.”

“So what about loyalty?” Claud asked.

“Loyalty…is a rather nebulous concept. It is hard to nurture, yet exceptionally easy to foster at times. According to my father” —her words faltered slightly— “the fastest way is a crisis. An external threat that threatens to crush the organisation. Resistance creates—”

Claud’s instincts screamed a warning. Throwing himself at Isolde, the two of them rolled onto the ground, just in time to dodge a lightning-fast arrow. Before he could draw breath, another arrow whistled towards his current location.

The wristguard on his left hand — the Windwall Wristguard — lit up, and the area in front of them warped, a trick of the light caused by the hardening of air. An arrow smashed into the defence a moment later, creating a minor earthquake. Screams came from all around Claud, and the random passerbys Claud had ignored so far began to flee, leaving them alone.

Cursing, Claud checked on Isolde, who was staring at the direction where the arrows came from. “Are you alright?”

“Shopping trip’s over! We need to flee!” Without any hesitation, Isolde grabbed Claud’s hand and broke into a sprint. “Go, go! Get into shelter! They’re coming for me!”

“For you?”

“Yes! Go! Find a shop and get inside. They won’t pursue you.” Turning a corner, Isolde pushed Claud into the first open shop she saw. “Don’t go out and get yourself killed. Your dream is a great one. Don’t let it die here.”

Before Claud could respond, she had vanished, turning into a streak of blue light. Mana was emanating off her body and shooting into the skies, creating a pillar of light.

A declaration of battle? Why else would she try to make herself so conspicuous?

Shadows darted past the doorway of the shop he was in right now, none of them sparing him a glance. None of them looked like an opponent Isolde was preparing to face; for starters, those grey clothes and masks didn’t exactly point at them being the kind of people to fight in honourable single combats. Furthermore, the arrows that had been fired at them earlier also hinted at the same thing: these people weren’t warriors.

They were assassins.

“Damnit,” Claud muttered. “Damnit. Isolde, who did you anger? Why are assassins after you?”

He took a few deep breaths, and then left the shop. Tearing up a skillstrip, he followed after the assassins unnoticed, as they took up positions all around the street. In the middle was the bounty hunter, who had drawn a sword. Her face was calm and tranquil, but the occasional quiver of the blade’s tip gave her fear away.

Claud ran through her thought process. If she was confident enough to stand here, she probably was someone who had skills for fighting in close-range. The only issue came from the fellows with bows, throwing knives and whatever other ranged weapons they had.

They were probably tinged with poison too.

Working with that assumption in mind, it would be pointless for him to go and help Isolde directly. He had a few working options here, and as someone who didn’t like violence…