The man outside was let into the house. A guard led him towards one of the living rooms of the building.

There he saw the person that he wanted to meet. A handsome young man was sitting on a couch. He had a cup in his hand, which he sipped every so often.

When he saw the man enter the room, he nodded towards the guard that brought him. The guard bowed his head and left the room. The only other person in the room was the captain, who stood behind his employer.

"What's your name, again? I seem to have forgotten," asked the man on the couch.

"Laker, my lord," Laker bowed his head and answered. He was not at all offended, instead, he felt joy that the Lord had bothered to ask for his name.

"Well, Laker, what information do you have for me? What do you know about the villages to the West?" asked the man. He couldn't hold back his anticipation.

Laker started to feel nervous. He had disappointing news and didn't know how the man would react. He thought that he was hired for something unimportant, so he didn't think too much about it before. The only reason he hurried was that he was hoping for a small reward for being quick.

Now that he saw the expression of the man in front of him, Laker started to think that whatever was supposed to happen last night, was significant.

"There was nothing, none of the other scouts reported seeing anything different. We were unable to see any villages on fire. One of the scouts did notice a part of the fields on the farthest village being burnt, but that was it," said Laker. He was worried about the reaction his words would have on the man before him, but it would be a lot worse if he was found to be lying to a person of noble blood.

Laker braced himself and waited for something to happen. After seeing that his words had no reaction, he looked at the man sitting before him. The noble's eyes were narrowed as he processed the information. He set the cup on the table in front of him.

"Tell everyone else to come back and return their horses and pick up their reward. I want you to go to the West most village and find out what happened. If anyone asks, you are one of Lord Drogo's men. Pay attention to anyone that may have killed any outsiders that night. Remember their faces." Finished, the man got up and started to walk out of the room.

"Lord, lying about working for Lord Drogo is a high crime, punishable with death," said Laker.

As the man heard him, he turned around and said to Laker with a smile, "Calling me lord could be considered treason, and as you know, the punishment for treason is much worse." The man left the room, and the captain followed behind him, and Laker was left behind.

As the man walked far enough away from Laker, he turned around and spoke to his guard. "Take a few people with you and follow behind him. If the bandits from the Black Kingdom decided to run away, then track them down and finish them. If they were caught or killed, finish them off and everyone else that was involved."

"Understood," said the guard.

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Sam felt himself being shaken awake. It was still dark when he came back, so he decided to catch a little bit of sleep.

Sam opened his eyes and sat up. It was Xander that was shaking his shoulder. His eyes felt dry and tired. It was definitely because he stayed up for most of the night reading. Sam wouldn't be surprised to find out that his eyes were completely red.

Sam yawned and stretched his arms. "Good morning," he said to Xander and Laina.

"Good morning," said Laina.

"Buenos dias," said Xander.

They ate breakfast after a few minutes. Stratus and the horse were each given a bowl of food. It was the same thing that they ate the day before. Sam only ate it twice before but, it was starting to get boring. He could see that Xander was feeling the same way. Xander no longer hurried to eat, he took his time with each spoonful.

Sam was starting to wonder if the village had anything else to eat. When he finished eating, he asked, "Laina, does your village have any other type of food? I don't want to sound rude but eating the same thing all day is getting a bit boring?

By now, Laina was used to their question, no matter what they were. "This is what everyone eats. Even the lord eats the same thing. Of course, his meal is probably a lot better because of all of the other spices added to it." Laina explained. "There is no other food source that I know of."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Sam nodded his head as he listened. He sort of guessed that that was the case, but didn't expect it to be so extreme.

Just then, Sam remembered about the piece of paper from last night. He took it out of his pocket and gave it to Laina. "Can you read this?" he asked.

Xander, who was still eating, paused and let the spoon stay in his mouth. He really wanted to know what the writing said.

Laina took the piece of paper with a surprised look on her face. Paper was a luxury item that she never came across.

"Where did you get this?" she asked.

"The thieves from last night were carrying it on them," said Xander. He remembered the other item he found and took it out of his pocket. He held it up for Laina and Sam to see. "I, also, found this, but I'm not exactly sure what it does," he said.

Sam looked at the thing in Xander's hands for a few seconds and figured out what it was. "It's basically a lighter. Scrape the two ends together, and you'll get a spark," said Sam. He didn't know where he remembered this from, but he recognized that it was similar to the fire starters that were used in the middle ages.

While Sam and Xander were talking, Laina was reading what was in the letter. It took a few moments for the excitement of holding a piece of paper in her hands to go away. A soon as she started reading, she felt her emotions start to rise. The more she read, the angrier she felt.

Sam watched Laina's expression and understood what it meant. Last night, everything that he got from the paper was right. He waited for Laina to finish reading, when she did, Sam asked, "Can you read it out?"

Laina nodded her head. She began to read out loud what was written on the paper, "Bandit from the Black Nation. I know about all of the criminal activities that you have been doing for the past year. There is a job available for you and your partner. The better job you do, the higher the reward. If the job is perfectly done, except a reward in gold coins. If you decide to accept, two horses and twenty silver will be proved for you. The job is to set fire to all the crops in each of the villages. If you can, burn the villages, as well. The more crops and villages burnt, the bigger the reward."

"What is the value of a gold coin?" asked Sam. "And what is the Black Nation?"

"You can basically buy anything with a gold coin. Even if you sell everything in his village, you wouldn't get a gold coin." Laina paused, trying to remember if she heard anything about the Black Nation anywhere. "I vaguely remember the village head mentioning the Black Nation, but I don't know anything about it."

Sam stood up. Xander finally finished eating, and it was time for them to move on.

"Laina, how are your crops doing?" Sam asked.

Laina was caught off guard by the change in topic, so took a few seconds to answer. "Um... Most of it is still edible. Why?"

"You should be able to get the best value for your field if you sell it right now when people are worried about the food situation. You should, also, sell all the extra food you have right now. Find someone whose field was completely burnt. While you do that, I and Xander will go and talk to the village head. We should get out of here before the day ends today," said Sam.

Laina didn't understand what the hurry was, but she listened to Sam. What he said did make sense, and she was going to sell them sometime soon anyway. "I understand," she said to Sam.

After Sam found out where the village head lived, they split up. The horse and Stratus stayed inside, while Sam and Xander went to the village head's house and Laina went to talk to another person from the village.

As Sam and Xander walked through the village, Sam noticed the change in the gazes that people gave them. Yesterday, it felt like the people had something against them, but today it felt like they were a small annoyance. There was the rare person that had more hate than yesterday, but they were only a small number of the villagers.

Most people had realized that Sam saved the crops and the village from thieves. The six men had already told everyone what happened and people trusted their words. The people that still didn't Sam and Xander were the ones that had their entire crops burnt.

Sam stopped in front of a house and knocked. It was similar to every other house around it and had little difference. A few moments later, the village head opened the door.

"What do you two want?" he asked. He had been sleeping until Sam decided to wake him up. He had stayed up and did his duties as a village head last night and that forced him to lose more sleep than anyone else.

"We have a question concerning the Black Nation that we think might be related to what happened last night," explained Sam. He made sure to make it sound important so that the village head would want to know what the question was.

"What's the question?" The village head wanted Sam to hurry up so that he could head back to sleep.

"What is the Black Nation?" asked Xander. Sam was about to make the question sound more mysterious, but he was beaten by Xander.

"How can you think that the Black Nation is related to last night if you know nothing about it?" asked the village head. He was about to just ignore Sam and Xander and just head back to sleep.

"One of the men said something about it right before they died." Sam quickly replied making sure not to let Xander say anything.

The village head sighed and began to talk, "Fine, the Black Nation used to be a part of the Red Nation before the people rebelled against the king. After fighting for a few years, the Red King recognized it as a nation. Of course, the fighting didn't stop at all. In Carthage, as it is part of the Red Nation, if someone is found to be from the Black Nation, they are executed along with their families, no questions asked. Now, if you excuse me, I have something important to do," said the village head as he shut the door.

Sam had enough information for now, and so he let the village head go back to sleep. He walked back to Laina's house, and Xander followed behind him.

"What do we do now?" asked Xander. They did the thing that Sam wanted to do, but they still had the rest of the day remaining.

Sam thought about it for a while as he walked. They didn't really have anything that they could do right at this moment except one thing.