Crick stood in front of the large wooden gate. A couple of dozen guards formed two thick lines behind him.

He watched as the large group approached. They roughly numbered half a gross and were all wearing sand-colored clothes, typical of those travelling through the desert. At least half of them carried various weapons, whereas the rest had large crates strapped on their backs. Most looked haggard and their dark-skinned faces had a red sunburned hue.

Two people marched in front: a well-built youth carrying a short sword and a very short woman -even shorter than Crick- with a bow on her back. Contrary to the others, their skin was fair and their hair blond.

Even from a distance, Crick could feel their dense martial aura. But he didn't cower.

"Halt!" He shouted in warning.

The group gradually came to a stop and the well-built youth moved forwards alone. He walked until he was staring down on Crick. The short woman followed him a couple of steps behind.

"Open the gates, midget. Our master sends us to meet the master of this town." The youth ordered. He had the air of someone used to being obeyed.

"Please forgive us! We can't comply right now, young master." Crick tried to appease the other with a humble attitude. "Our master has clearly stated he'll personally behead us if we allow anyone to enter or exit". He hesitated a bit. "Especially westerners", he added. "Could I trouble the young master to camp outside for a couple of days first?"

"Who the hell do you think we are?" roared the youth. His handsome features thickened when he glared. Martial aura involuntarily leaked from his body, ruffling his golden hair and making his voice echo loudly on the city walls before trailing to the distance. "Camp outside the walls? We're giving you face by even halting our footsteps!"

Before the youth could continue, the short woman stretched her hand upwards to grab his shoulder in an intimate manner. He stopped talking at the touch.

"Inform the town's master then?" the woman asked in a half-polite, half-commanding manner. "I doubt he'd want to offend the Kong family."

While she talked, she waved the sleeves of her robes. In their hem was stitched the outline of a monkey moving a mountain.

"Some of our goods are gifts for your master, too." she added.

Sweat gathered on Crick's forehead. The Kong family! The absolute rulers of the Western Sea!  He definitely didn't want to offend them on his own. But he had a rather difficult problem.

"That's...." he hesitated for a moment. "Even if we wanted to, we can't find our master right now." he said apologetically.

Crick suspected not even master Skullsong's disciples knew what he was up to or where he was. In fact, for the last couple of days master Skullsong only appeared to give a random order or two before vanishing again.

"Excuses!" The well-built youth lost patience. "Brace yourselves! I'm breaking down that stupid gate of yours and will look for your master myself! Men, follow me!"

He punched at Crick's stomach with exceptional speed. However, speed was Crick's forte. He rapidly retreated backwards and out of range. Having practiced the maneuver before, his men opened their ranks for him to fall back and raised their broadswords in deterrence. However, as per Crick's previous instructions, they didn't charge forward to meet the opponent's momentum.

With his own people close behind, the well-built youth charged after Crick. Although it would be dangerous for any disciple -no matter how strong- to get surrounded by that many warriors on close quarters, the charging troops would clash shortly after to prevent that.

Two of Crick's men moved to intercept the youth, hacking at him with their broadswords. However, the youth casually punched aside the metal weapons with aura-covered fists. His speed remained unaffected from the maneuver and he casually kicked the men's stomachs to make way. Two cracking sounds reverberated and they cried in pain as they collapsed in agony. The youth didn't spare a second glance and charged through the opening they left.

The hair on Crick's neck stood on end when the well-built youth effortlessly broke through his men. The youth was much faster than Crick had anticipated and was upon him almost before the fight had started.

As fast as captain Costella?  Crick grabbed the broadsword on his back and brought it down with all his might on the youth's incoming fist, trying to infuse at least some aura on it.

Bam!

The broadsword didn't break, but the force knocked Crick off his feet.

He fell on his back and rolled to avoid a stomp aimed at his stomach. Crick vaguely understood that the youth was toying with him. With the corner of his eye he noticed that his men had at least formed a solid line in preparation of clashing with their own opponents.

Desperate to create some distance between them, Crick rolled futher away. However, he eventually collided with the feet of the closed city gates.

There's no more room for escape he realized. He shakily tried to stand up. However, the strength of the previous impact and the rolling had disoriented his sense of balance. He just slumped against the black wood.

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The youth placed his hand on the shortsword dangling from his waist and stopped in front of Crick. Only a few breaths had passed, but the disparity in their strength was more than clear.

"I won't kill you, but I'll definitely make you remember not to bite more than you can chew, midget." The youth glanced sideways to make sure his men were properly pushing against the guards' line and smiled sinisterly. Although his martial aura surged, he was so relaxed there wasn't even a trace of killing intent.

Suddenly, one of the guards forming the line broke off and sprinted towards the youth. In less than half a breath, he covered the distance between them - a superhuman feat by all accounts.

"Careful!" a woman's anxious cry reached the youth's ears and he glimpsed a streak of golden light. But it was too late.

A gigantic hand had grabbed the youth's neck tightly.

"Stop yer soldiers." Beor's deep voice commanded the youth.

"Unhand me barbarian!"

The youth tried to struggle away. But the other's brute strength was superior. Getting charged from his blind spot from such a foe, he had been caught completely off-guard. The youth's face fell. Who could expect someone that strong to have been among the subordinates of the weak midget? 

The man increased the pressure on his grip until the youth realized that struggling was futile. Master's gonna kill me for this. At this thought, his expression fell and his legs almost gave away.

"Everyone stop!" the woman's voice sounded authoritative, stopping the small skirmish between their forces before someone went ahead and got killed.

All action came to a halt, with weapons still locked against each other.

"Why haven't you knocked him out, Beor?" Cricked asked. He slowly found his footing again. He was panting and covered in a mixture of sweat and dark dirt.

Then, he saw blood flowing out of a hole in Beor's shoulder. Puzzled, he looked around, until he found that the short woman had drawn her bow with an armed arrow. We're on a standstill, Crick realized.

The woman's long-distance prowess had been rather unexpected; the original worst-case plan was to use a hostage and resolve everything without much bloodshed. However, this situation was still within the scope of acceptable results.

Crick looked at the woman, who was eyeing Beor carefully. 

"What now?" he asked. "You'll kill us at the cost of his life?"

The woman frowned and gradually lowered her bow. She looked around and seemed to come to a realization.

"Admirable!" she commented with a cold voice. "But that's an empty threat."

She hesitated a bit. "Still, it's a waste of a life-saving treasure against small fries. What say you, senior martial brother?"

"... Fine." the youth trapped in Beor's grip reluctantly agreed with a muffled voice. "We'll wait here without trouble until your master comes out. I promise on the honor of the family."

Beor looked at Crick, waiting for his decision.

Crick nodded to him. Many prominent schools and families gave life-saving treasures to their disciples. However, he knew that, in their view, they would find it completely unworthy to use one just for massacring a bunch of nobodies; even if master Skullsong was somehow enslaved, he would barely cover the cost of such a treasure. 

This is the advantage of being a weakling, Crick thought. We're just not worthy to go all out against. Even previously, the youth did not bother unsheathing his sword or be on guard, because he probably felt it was a waste of effort.

Beor's grip relaxed and the youth slipped out.

"Damn it, barbarian, you hid your aura well." The youth massaged his neck, but seemed to hold no further ill feelings. Crick narrowed his eyes. Even after being manhandled and feeling the other’s strength, the youth did not place Beor in his eyes. Either extreme confidence or extreme arrogance, Crick thought. Perhaps a mixture of both.

The youth rummaged inside his clothes and retrieved a tiny bottle, half-filled with a sparkling red liquid, and a small book. He threw the bottle at Beor and the book at Crick, who mechanically caught it.

"Compensation" he drily said. Without bothering with them anymore, he walked back to his men, who had disengaged and were watching the proceedings with strange expressions.

"We camp here." he commanded tersely. "No-one's allowed to enter the gates."

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Back in the dark dusty room, Johan was munching a chicken leg in high spirits.

Taliesin had used magic to perfectly cook the chicken in a matter of minutes. Even without seasoning, it smelled and tasted great. Johan's stomach couldn't agree more with his tongue.

"... and then he said: Never feel empathy for a chicken." Johan was recounting the day's experiences to the old mage, who sat propped up on the creaky bed, equally greedily devouring the other chicken leg. "Strange, eh?"

The old mage gulped down and shook his head in a negative way.

"Sounds about right." he replied in his aged voice. His white beard twitched in a cynical smile, but didn't explain further. Instead, he took another bite of the leg he was holding.

The statement was puzzling, but Johan didn't want to stray off topic.

"Anyway, I later checked and things like flour are rationed to the populace by Skullsong's men. They are stored inside his mansion. There's no way I could find a large quantity."

Taliesin finished chewing and noisily gulped down again.

"Ok, we'll try to lure him into his own house. I'll make it a memorable experience for him." he chuckled. "So, how confident are you of taking on the city withiut its stupid master?" he asked. "As I'm now, I can trap mostly anyone into an one-on-one standstill, but send twenty of the most useless disciples and I'm just a bag of bones." he clarified.

Oh, so that's how he got captured. Johan realized. From what he had gathered, the old mage was highly proficient in magic but had trouble against many enemies. While thinking, Johan took the last bite of meat out of the chicken leg he was holding. Regretfully, there was no more food.

"I'm not sure, but judging from what I've seen, Skullsong should have at most five other disciples on the same level as the one I clashed with... Hopefully fewer…" Johan calculated, as he absent-mindedly rubbed his still unshaved chin. He twirled a couple of the longer facial hair with his finger. The worst case would be very difficult.

However....

Johan smiled dangerously and grabbed the handle of the black katana stored under his clothes.

"As long as I have a proper weapon, it's doable." he made a judgement. After all, only he knew how many bandit groups formed of two or more disciples he had singlehandedly dismantled in the decade he had spent in the central continent, trying to pull himself together from his recurring nightmares.

"Unfortunately, I wouldn't be able to prevent others from charging you while I run around." he informed Taliesin.

"Haha, Johan, son, that's reassuring enough. I'll think of a way, no problem. Judging by that idiot master's temperament, we have until tomorrow, so try to recuperate fully until then."

Johan laughed lightly and nodded at the old man before closing his eyes. He focused on the martial aura coursing through his body. Under his guidance, its flow became slower. This way, it merged with his life force and started restoring itself. Johan estimated he would be in tip-top shape by the next day.

Johan leaned back on the trembling wooden chair. Although it creaked dangerously, his intuition told him it would definitely hold until then.