Illume, the eternal, forced himself to pay attention.

“… and he stopped mid-swing and shout’d that those without killing inten’ better scram. It was so unexpected, I couldn’t think! He then pummeled me in my ic‘berg, shoving the dead Solomon’s seal after me.“

The alluring woman’s jet black wings fluttered once. She took a very emotional breath and readjusted the edge of her long hair – their scarlet matching finely her snow-white skin.

Illume wondered if she planned to stop at all. She had been talking almost constantly since the moment he had met her a fortnight ago. The stories were interesting, but he had heard them perhaps too many times in the past and knew them even better than the lay of the land they were treading on.

“’t was then I think my heart was st– Lord Illume, are you payin’ attention?“

Illume realized he had accidentally become too engrossed in reconstructing a map of the unchanging mountain range in his mind.

“Hm… My concentration momentarily lapsed. Do forgive me.” He casually replied.

She beamed back, ready to resume. Before she did though, something strange caught the corner of his eye. He raised a hand to interrupt again and fixed his gaze in a particular patch of the bright blue sky.

“Say, little demon, shouldn’t a peak be there?” he pointed.

“Eh?” she extrapolated the straight line from his finger and fixed her sight at the correct place. Puzzled, she raised her palm and a transparent copy of the mountain range appeared on it.

After examining the flow of power, Illume admired the ability of her illusion to mimic the corporeal. This is a good skill. He commented inside his head.

“True, there’s rubble there – As usual Lord Illume’s amazing with details!” she commented.

How was it destroyed? Illume tried hard to recall. Due to the ground’s absurd durability, it was very rare for any kind of change to happen in this mountain range. Such changes often coincided with monumental happenings.

“There should be seven destroyed mountains, correct?” He tried to recall while walking.

“One, when Asyarvago first challenged the world, two more when the previous age ended, the little rascal following me around also destroyed one during the fourth crusade and the Lightning God transcended the heaven’s will on another. I myself crashed into the sixth during that battle and the Clockwork Tower tried their so-called particle weapon on the last.” He carefully counted.

“Ah, lord Illume doesn’t know – you haven’t visited for some time now.” Her previously cheery demeanor clouded a bit. ”My emperor’s ‘dvisors had some very unfortunate hardships. They ended up fighting t’ theh death.”

She paused to think.

“Though I’m not ‘xactly sure if they were quarrelling or getting stubborn for strength, 'cause they miraculously both survived…” The corner of her red lips slightly tremored, as if she found it funny despite herself.

Illume sighed long and wearily.

Time sure changes people. He still remembered those two fanatically pacifistic guys. However, there was nothing noteworthy to comment on the subject. Change just happens, he thought. Thus, despite his clouded emotions, he kept moving – he had always kept moving.

The little demon walked alongside him, apparently respecting his change in mood. Well, some changes are for the better Illume admitted. In the past, she would have just continued her talk-equivalent of magical bombardment without a care.

He peeked at her again and realized she was busy studying the hologram on her hand. Illume was thankful for the continued silence. Although she was very likeable otherwise, she was simply too passionate for the things she liked.

Eventually, her eyebrows perked up.

“Lord Illume, there’s something interesting, if you would prefer to go the long way.” She proposed. It was amazing how her speech pattern changed in accordance to her emotions.

Illume considered this. They had time to spare anyway.

“Very well” he agreed.

----------------------------------------

Johan narrowed his eyes, examining the woman folding her hands over her pink dress. He considered her request of negotiating. “Always accept a negotiation instead of a fight – it saves effort.” His sickly master had said. “When you’re done with the morning exercises go ask your martial aunt for useful tricks – make her work for her appetite.” Johan’s lips curved upward when he remembered his sword-cradling master make an awful face. However, he returned his attention to the situation at hand.

The woman -was her name Anne?- also scrutinized him.

“Ok, what are you thinking of?” He asked. Although he addressed mostly her, he kept an eye on the two leather-jacketed-Mohican-shaved men edging protectively to her sides - presumably to respond in an emergency.

At the same time, he didn’t neglect the young man silently smirking from the opposite side of the room. Although it felt like the latter had really given up on attacking him, one never knew.

“How … wise.” Anne replied. “Even if you could make short work of us, the organization is not something you can antagonize… So, let’s get this straight; you want us to release our -what’s the word- assets?” She pressed

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“Yes… And get a piece of information.” Johan replied patiently. He tried to figure out if she was stalling in any way – the prospect of negotiations not being negotiations was always the most dangerous part.

However, Anne immediately moved to the main subject.

“Let’s say we comply. Naturally, we’d like some sort of compensation. I doubt you have much money...“ she scoffed at Johan’s ragged clothing. In response, he thought that this was too much coming from her horrid fashion sense.

“So, how about this?” she continued. “You can join one of our expeditions next spring and I’ll call this off as a talent recruitment cost? You’ll even get paid accordingly!”

What a strange proposal! Johan weighted her visage but gleaned no information. Everything was very suspicious. But his intuition was only good for stupid things like discovering danger and unscrupulous individuals and was of no use here.

“I don’t know where I’ll be by then.” He said probingly. What’s that talk about an organization in the first place?

“Oh, I see, you’ve never heard of us. But don’t worry, our services cater almost everywhere in the continent – it should be easy to find a nearby branch.” Anne gave a scathing look at the young man observing them from the other side of the room mid-sentence, but otherwise concluded evenly.

“So, what happens if I don’t turn up?” Johan asked again. The whole deal seemed too randomly convenient for all parties to be true.

“Nothing.” Anne shrugged. ”But you’ll always need to watch your back.” Johan shivered under her confident gaze, despite the absence of killing intent.

Johan became silent for a couple of breaths, trying to remember if there was something he should do in these cases. “Pay attention, little hatchling. Now, for the last point, always prioritize immediate benefits when working out deals with businessmen. They’ll have calculated some better long-term returns of their own, but with your talent you’ll be strong enough that by then your effort will be disproportionately less. You don’t understand? Let’s see… For example, your master offered me a month’s worth of those incredible tarts of his to explain my negotiation tricks. I immediately accepted and by the time he finds we finished in a single afternoon it will be too late to take it back… Ok, wrong example but close… … … Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that, eh?”

Johan went over the most relevant piece of instruction. The memory left him remembering his martial aunt ruffling his head and promising to share half the tarts if he remained silent until they were baked.

Now that he thought about it, the advice was a bit too irresponsible. But when had her advice ever failed him? Even her insistence to teach every student how to augment their senses with before fully mastering their aura had proven well worth the painful initiation process.

As grandmaster Kenji liked to say, one should listen to those they know of knowing better.

Johan’s hesitation vanished.

“Deal!” he agreed. “So, tell me if a new sword master has emerged in the Black Lands in the past decade.”

Crick stood patiently in front of a half-dozen people, waiting to be announced to the two members of the Kong family. He watched in boredom the two large blue tents erected behind the multitude of sand-colored ones and was forced to remember how slowly information could travel through encampments.

He eyed the female leader of the otherwise all-male band barring his way. She eyed him back with even more distrust. It made him thankful that he was far enough to comfortably flee in the direction of the narrow gate portcullis without needing to engage. Although he was confident in handling two or three non-disciples at once, more would be too much.

Crick caught his thoughts wander aimlessly towards overthinking and he reassured himself for what felt like the hundredth time that those people had not been offended too much.

However, it was one thing to create enmity with some random affiliate of the Kong family and another to offend the disciple of the Dragonslayer – someone recognized by the Kong family’s leader as an equal!

But they even gave compensation and all, right? They shouldn’t be too displeased.

To calm his nerves, Crick opened the small book he had received as part of said compensation. Master Skullsong had instructed to learn from there in any case and he’d rather not waste an indefinite amount of time.

The small booklet easily fit into his palm. But the tiny words densely packed into its small pages were very clear to read despite the glare of the mid-day sun and the refractions from the desert. Overall, he assumed this was thanks to how clearly the black characters contrasted against the soft white pages.

People call me Kamitaka.

I was born in the Kingdom of Sergh in its founding year CCCLXXII.

When I was V, my parents took me to the annual test of …

“How’s the manual, midget?” An arrogant voice interrupted him before he could get far.

The blond-haired youth of the Kong family – no, the disciple of the Dragonslayer, Crick reminded himself – called from the edge of the tents. Contrary to Crick’s expectations, he was alone.

“Damn, very brave of you to come here. Aren’t you afraid I’d kill you on sight?” the youth arrogantly proclaimed while he leisurely walked over. He motioned to the band of people to hold their place when they made to follow. Crick noticed that the band’s leader looked a bit disappointed.

“Surely, young master jests. Young master wouldn’t have given us compensation otherwise…” Crick gestured towards the booklet, which he closed.

The youth stood in front of him and, for the second time in two days, stared down towards Crick’s face with disdain.

“Hmph! A weaselly answer, if I ever heard one. Although only the potion was compensation for the injuries. Kamitaka’s heritage is just a thing master said to give to anyone interesting.”

“I’m honored by young master’s interest then…” Crick used a fast chop-like motion towards his neck to show his respect. For a moment, he slipped back to playing a game of words, but he quickly caught himself before he could continue.

“Call me Sieg. It’s annoying enough hearing people inside the family call me young master without outsiders repeating this...” He passed his left hand through his blond hair in a carefree manner.

”Anyway, midget, I was informed you had a message.”

Crick wondered whether he should also point out that he was being addressed in a terribly rude manner, but decided against it.

“Master Skullsong wishes for the envoys of the Kong family to guard from the outside this gate should anyone break out.” He formally stated. He avoided further needless formalities and hoped that he had correctly judged the youth’s personality as one that hated beating around the subject.

Sieg stared at him with a displeased expression. His lean muscular body was threatening, but Crick stood his ground.

“Who does your master think he is?” Sieg’s voice rose in anger – although he managed to not shout nor leak killing intent. “Who does he think we are?” He pressed.

For a moment Crick blanked, wondering why should anyone be offended by a master’s attention. But, considering the other’s status, his reaction was not too unreasonable.

“No, no, youn- mister Sieg misunderstood! Master Skullsong said he’d own a favor if you do.” Crick replied hastily.

Sieg’s mouth almost fell open in surprise, but immediately after his killing intent almost exploded in anger. “A favor!!?? Who does he think wants-” he stopped mid-sentence, apparently remembering something.

“Hm… Good relations, eh? This is a type of good relation...” He mumbled. Seemingly pleased with himself, he stroked the hilt of the blade strapped on his waist.

“Well, fine, midget. You can leave this to us.” He eventually declared.