*swish*

Kenta was escaping from the bandits in hope that he could hide between trees, stones and rivers.

He was running through the Miraculous forest, located on the west in the Kingdom of Balux. This kingdom is called sometimes Eastern Kingdom due to its location on the Maderian continent.

Kenta jumped over a creek and looked away. He saw two figures of adult men, wearing light armor and having swords on their right hips.  «Where’s the third?», asked Kenta. Originally there were three pursuers.  “I hope he got lost in a thicket”, wishfully thought Kenta just to ease up himself.

In the beginning he decided to run through the forest believing that his small height could allow him to hide there. But the bandits appeared to be quite the experts and never lost the sight of him. So the only thing left for him is just to try to run away. “I am starting to get out of breath” said Kenta and breathed out.

In his village he was the most energetic boy among his peers and had the biggest stamina. However in the end he had no chances to escape from magically enchanted adults.

Kenta did not know but bandits, were able to pursuit him with ease due to their experience as former soldiers. So they had hard-trained, physically and magically enchanted bodies and even couple of magical elixirs.

Why did soldiers become bandits? They were the deserters, who run away from the battle with demons.

Their squad consisted of 50 armed soldiers and three intermediate level magicians. Hired to escort a noble to another city, on the way, they were attacked by 150 demons, mixed with a couple of humanoid types, who in the modern kingdom’s documents considered equal to 20 – 30 soldiers alone or 1 high level magician.  Eventually they would have died there due to significant differences in forces between their squad and demons.

A lot of their comrades died immediately due to sudden attack and a lot of scattered. They decided to abandon the noble, whom they supposed to escort and hid in the forest.  Those who left to protect the noble fought to the last breath in that already lost battle. But it happened to be that those demons were actually running away from another soldier squad.

There were several incidents with demons, attacking villages and the king decided to send his elite troops to annihilate demons. Originally there were 500 demons, who were scattered among several villages. As elite troops started to exterminate them, the ones who were able to escape, formed this group of 150 demons. But elite soldiers were already chasing them.

The demons happened to run into that noble’s escort and attacked it. But as soon as the elite forces caught them, the demons were all killed. The survived noble told whole the story and the soldiers that escaped were proclaimed deserters and were ordered to be killed on sight.

Those deserters who did not know about it came to towns and were killed. Other soldiers started to hide in the woods and live criminal’s life, hiding away from their eventual death.

So now they were chasing a boy, who had stolen their money and provision. At that time Kenta knew nothing about them and thought that they were average criminals, who could be easily fooled.

Now Kenta was running for his life and did not have any ideas in his mind now. “What should I do, what should I do…” Kenta was panicking.

Suddenly, while running, Kenta saw a road and a man, who’s walking on it. “I can use him!” the idea appeared in his brain, and Kenta started to run towards the man.

The man had short black hair and was wearing a white coat, with black and gold patterns. He also had white pants and black shoes. Additionally he had a black scabbard on his right hip, with a sword’s hilt, protruding from it. On the left he had a small black pouch.

When Kenta came out from the trees to the road, he started to run to the man and shout

- Help! Help!

The man in white coat, stopped and looked at the boy, who’s running towards him. Suddenly from the sky, a guy in the armor landed on the boy and the boy fell on the road.

- Caught you!

Then from the forest another two similarly looking men appeared.

- Good work, Roud. You are proficient in running on tree branches as always.

Said the guy on the right. “So that is why I did not see the third one”, thought Kenta, “These bandits are definitely the professionals”. The [Running on branches] is a term for a military technique which allows a person to jump from one branch to another in order to increase his movement speed across the trees or run away from the strong enemy.  So no matter how Kenta tried he could not escape from the pursuers.

That bandit on the right looked at the man in white coat and said:

- What are you looking at? Go away.

Another one, who stood on the left, interrupted him.

- Wait, Gerald. Look at his clothes. He’s definitely a noble. It’s strange that he’s without an escort but maybe we just got lucky. After all this area is rather calm and even do not have wild animals lurking around, much less demons.

- Fair enough. Hey you! - Said the guy on the right with the name Gerald. - Give up your money and the sword. Then you may go. We can even escort you.

All three men started to laugh.

While the bandit was sitting on him, Kenta was able to lift his head up. He looked at the man in white coat and carefully started to inspect him. “He indeed looks like a noble”, thought Kenta. From the looks, the man in white coat could not be from the commoners.

The man calmly observed all the party. Assuming that doing nothing means agreement, Gerald started to move closer to the man. Suddenly Gerald fell on the ground.

Everybody froze.

- What’s that?

Asked the man, who was sitting on Kenta. He tied Kenta’s hands and got up.

- No idea, Roud. I only saw that man put his hand on the hilt of his sword and then returned it back. I doubt the boy was able to see that move because it was fast. Maybe it’s some kind of sword technique?

- Who knows? But I recall the 11th Sword Saint was able to something similar – he was just standing as he’s doing nothing but all demons around were falling dead. But he’s Sword Saint and this man is definitely not one of them, as we met them all… Anyway the things turned ugly.

The Sword Saint was a title, which could be granted to a soldier with supreme sword skills by the king. Kingdom had 12 Sword Saints.

Kenta was impressed too. He was not able to see man’s hand moving at all. For him it was like Gerald suddenly fell and that was all. “Wow wow…He dealt with him so fast!!” thought Kenta. At first he thought that the man is done for, after all nobles do not have high sword skills and rely on the guards, but after this event, his hope to escape came back. “All the left is to deal with others and I am free. Do it! C’mon!”

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- Terlay, I’ll attack him and you use THAT. We have no other choice.

Said Roud, took out a sword and ran to the man.

That time white coated man looked rather puzzled or maybe confused. Maybe he thought that they would not dare to attack him after what he had just done, but anyway he made a step back. Roud thought that this person lost composure and sped up.

*clink*

He heard the sound of glass breaking and then felt that his sword became lighter. “No … way”, he thought. For him, the man in white coat did nothing but something definitely happened!

Then Roud lost his conscious.

Kenta saw at the scene with awe. When Roud almost reached the man, Roud’s sword suddenly broke into pieces and he fell as a sandbag on the ground. “My god! He’s a monster!”, Kenta’s thoughts were like this. The path to his escape now clear because that the man in white coat will deal with the last bandit for sure.

However he suddenly felt cold and his body started to tremble. He turned his head back to Terlay. Terlay drank some potion and after a moment his body started to cover with red aura. His eyes turned black and smoke started to come out of his mouth. “Berserk…”, Kenta knew what potion drank Terlay just now. It was a rather famous potion among soldiers and criminals. [Berserk] was a kind of potion, which allows person to break his limits with a cost of the high fatigue, to the point when the body was unable to move for a couple of hours. This potion was usually used when a soldier, surrounded by multiple enemies, wanted to break through. During potion’s effect, body was unable to feel any pain, fatigue and person begins to move faster, jump higher and is able to break enchanted armor and weapons with his bare hands. Fight against such person was equal to fight against multiple demons or 10 – 15 soldiers. This was quite an expensive potion and rather difficult to acquire.

*flap*flap*

The ground around Terlay started to tremble and Kenta could hear birds flying away. Then Terlay started to emit some cold waves.  Kenta looked at the man in white coat. The man scratched his head and exhaled.

- Well, [Berserk]. – He looked at the sky – What was its effect again?

- What are you doing! He is extremely dangerous now! Attack, attack!

Shouted Kenta.

The man looked at him, but next moment he heard several loud hits and Terlay, covered in red aura appeared in front of him. The hits were due to the ground being destroyed in places where Terlay, under effect of [Berserk], stepped.

“He’s done for!”, thought Kenta but immediately after that, Terlay, like being hit by something heavy in chest, was tossed up in the air and then, again as if he was hit but something heavy to his back, fell on the ground. He did not get up.

“What was that?!!”, Kenta’s thoughts now were in complete mess. He assumed that this man will be hit by [Berserk] or at least wounded, because the fight against [Berserk] in one to one battle is a complete suicide. But he not only was able to beat him but again did not even move from his position.

After a few moments, the man in white coat started to move the bodies of the bandits, dragging them into the forest. After that started to repair a road, by filling in the holes, created by Terlay.

- What are you doing?

Asked Kenta. The man stopped his actions for a moment and answered.

- No matter what happened, in the end everything should look like a good composition! Their unconscious bodies did not decorate the road, that one – he pointed on Terlay – even destroyed the ground. So at least I should clean it up and build an original harmony here!

While saying that, the man put right hand on his heart and raised up his left hand. “He’s an odd fellow”, Kenta thought. “He’s abnormally strong”, came to conclusion Kenta, “But at the same time his actions are rather whimsical”.

- Unconscious?

Asked Kenta. He did not see any traces of blood but he did not expect that bandits were still alive. The man in white coat nodded.

- Yup! I’ve just calmed them down a little.

After everything was finished, the man finally came to Kenta and untied him.

- Well, after all you are not decorating the surroundings either.

Said the man and laughed. “Bastard!” Kenta wanted to say that but he did not want to anger the man.

- I’ll take it as compliment.

Thought he had no desire to thank him either. Deeply inside he was afraid that this man will get angry after his answer. Now when he looked closer at the man, he could tell that his age was around 20. Kenta’s age was 15.

- Hahaha! That was a good one. Sorry, did not want to offend you.

His response was unexpected but Kenta was not bothered with that now. What he was trying to do, is to find the words, which would allow him to accompany this man at least to the nearest town.  So he decided to bow.

- Thank for your help! My name is Kenta.

- Well, no problem and all. My name is Shun. So, Kenta, would mind to tell me a story? I don’t think these former soldiers were pursuing you with no purpose.

- Former soldiers?

- Yes, they’ve got crown tattoos on their left shoulders, which means they belonged to the kingdom military. As there are several deserters that have not caught yet, I assume they are those deserters.

Everybody who joins the kingdom army must go and make a magical tattoo, which would allow to recognize a soldier and prevent spy infiltration.

“Now it could explain, why I was not able escape from them”. Soldiers were specialists in forest navigation too.

- Well, I’d like to tell you but I have to continue my journey.

- Oh? And where are you going?

“Well let’s try do to the end”, thought Kenta and told his final destination point.

- I go to Ivelen.

- “Heroes city”? Well, I am going to Serpentia.

Serpentia is the kingdom's capital located on the south east. When going to Serpentia, travelers usually pass through Ivelen.

“Great! That’s my chance!”, and Kenta asked

- May I accompany you? Please…

- Well, ok.. But I’d like to hear your story….

“Good! I have nothing to afraid now”, thought Kenta and looked at Shun, who continued repairing the road. Then he covered bandit’s bodies with branches and leaves, murmured “Wow! They merged with the nature!” and came back. “He is indeed strange”, was Kenta’s thought.

- Let’s go!

Said Shun and started to walk. Kenta followed him.