Land of Mirriam

Simon dodged another knife, arrow, and rusty sword. The thieves were by no means trained swordsmen; few of them knew how to throw or swing properly. The old man was right; through experience and practice, he had improved. He didn’t even feel the need to use his sword.

“What the hell are you doing?! He already knocked a bunch of us! Kill him!” the leader of the thieves screamed, manically.

Simon smirked at them, and the thieves who saw his face instantly grew angry. Simon was literally testing the limits of his dodging skills. “Weak,” he said as he started counterattacking, instantly knocking out four thieves. The combination of footwork and positioning did the trick. ‘The old man was really good then’ was a validation on his mind, comparing what he was doing to the old man’s training.

The leader finally grasped that Simon was no ordinary opponent. What was worse, he noticed Simon was accomplishing all of this with his eyes closed. “Monster!” the leader screamed as he attacked as well.

“...,” Simon thought to himself. He was certain they were weak—or perhaps he had become strong? Recollections of previous encounters with the thieves flashed through his mind. He had once struggled to overpower even one of them.

Danger passed a chill behind his back, he used fancy footwork, dodging an attack from behind. Simon realized it was the leader of the thieves. With a swift motion, he twisted the leader's arms and forcefully threw him to the ground. “Are you targeting the village south?” Simon questioned the leader.

“FUCK YOU, BOY!! AAAAAAARGHGH!!!” The leader screamed, but then Simon broke a few of his fingers, releasing a wave of bloodlust.

The leader, who had shouted, almost fainted, but Simon made sure that the leader maintained his consciousness using the pain. (Playing with the broken finger) “Answer me, please. Are you targeting the village south?”

“NO!!! Aargh… we are waiting for a carriage!! A carriage!! AAAARGH!!!” The leader's response was strained by pain. Simon then snapped his broken fingers back into place.

“I see... you keep your life then.” Simon smiled at them and finally opened his eyes. “Is that all I need to know?” Simon added another question, gesturing to the other hand of the leader.

The leader shook… the boy was terrible, had no mercy, no emotions in his eyes he was very sure of it.

<--->

It was nighttime, and as the princess predicted, they arrived near where the commotion was. There was a patch of forest on the east side of the main road where the caravan was traveling.

The caravan is made up of three carriages. The first carriage was a dummy, while the piece of dungeon core was on the second carriage, where four knights guarded it. The princess's carriage was at the front.

They assembled a five-man party along with the princess. As it was the frontier, nobles were actually used to fighting, especially against monsters. So everyone was an experienced fighter.

Her attendant was a hunter before; she scanned the forest, and the deafening silence of the usual bustling forest registered to her, something was going on in the forest and they were about to find it out.

Princess Diana Elford; wore a chain armor on her upper body that flowed into a mini skirt, a shoulder protector left and right then a breastplate added by a complete set of protection for her limbs. She looked the part of her nobility, with a sword in her hand. She and her attendants commenced a search in the forest with their torches. The hunter attendant was at the front guiding them.

The party dressed lightly, opting not to wear their heavy armor. The princess was tired, it was a hassle to investigate it, she rather sleep, but it was her duty; her father would scold her if he knew she had let thieves go. But her father was not at home right now, he was on a dive along with his trusted knights. She would try to enjoy it while she could, this gave her the drive to finish early.

“Aeon Buff!!!” the princess raised her hands.

Her party of five glowed with renewed strength, their body became lighter, and they began traveling through the forest. With the lead of the ex-hunter on their party, they started jumping forward using the tree branches as footholds.

It didn’t take that much time before she noticed something, she felt a presence. She saw the Ex-Hunter’s hand signaling, there was something ahead. She began smelling a pungent smell of human scum.

They saw around a lot of thieves tied to the trees, as the party began scanning their surroundings, they found some hanging from branches as well, it seemed that who ever did this left torches so that they could be easily seen.

Assured it was safe to proceed, the hunter who was leading them approached the first thief closest to them. The Ex-Hunter shook the thief’s shoulders “Who are you? Who did this?” the hunter asked. The thief remained unconscious even though she shook one of them, and she immediately felt a chill on the back of her neck; the hunter knew someone was watching them.

A shadow emerged from the darkness, slowly revealed by the flickering light of the torch. The party of five tensed up and automatically prepared for battle. They took a step forward blocking the princess’s body with their own.

“Who are you?!” it was the princess's turn to ask.

The princess contemplated a never-ending list of possibilities. Her family possessed a special secret coveted by nobles from both the central and surrounding areas. There was also the possibility that someone desired the artifact.

“The question is... can you survive the night?” the shadow said all clad in black with only his red eyes exposed. He made strange signs from his hands and magic flowed, from his shadow, new shadows sprouted in his image (Kage-bunshin!!). The shadows were clearly nonhuman.. They began moving to attack.

“Oh... so it's true... at least he was honest.” It was an unknown voice, sounding young. A young boy jumped out of the trees, and with a sword in hand, he aimed to land a sword slash. The shadow that had spoken first was instantly cut with a sword from the boy’s hands—the blade taken from one of the thieves. The ground was painted with blood.

The other shadows, about to attack the princess's party, stopped and instantly changed targets. “Kill the boy first.” The voice came from another direction; the shadow man had managed to survive Simon’s surprise attack.

The shadows that were on human shape began attacking Simon with forceful strikes. The sounds echoing through the forest indicated the intensity of their assault. “Let’s help the boy!!!” the princess screamed, but…

“No!!! Their knives are poisoned!!!” the boy warned them with a roar. The five-man party of the princess was unable to move, the hunter leading them had better eyesight than the norm, she instantly noticed. There were more of them, the shadows. Other shadows were free and started to encroach upon their range.

Simon noticed this and said “Hmm… so I’m not enough, right?” the boy opened his eyes. The shadow man was instantly alerted, knowing that the boy was not a normal human. Its yellow eyes dimly glowed in the dark as it stared at him.

“4 o’clock!!!” the hunter screamed, alerting Simon to the direction. He finally spotted the controller of the shadows, bloody from his encounter. He hadn’t escaped Simon’s ambush unscathed. Simon initiated the chase, and the shadows that were supposed to attack the princess’s party redirected their target to him again.

Simon was sure that he was faster than the shadows. On this note, he predicted their positions and drew a thief's ragged blade. He started a combo, effectively clearing out the ten shadows, and the shadow man was surprised by Simon’s skills.

“Kid… not here!!!” the shadow man protested, removed his cloak, and conjured shadows as claws. Simon was quite surprised, but he managed to dodge the attacks. In the process of breaking the thief’s sword, he was holding.

“BOY!! Be careful!!! He's an assassin!!!” the hunter, who was watching from a bit far away, exclaimed. There was a crossing sickle and stiletto tattoo on the assassin’s head; it’s a famous clan of assassins, but Simon didn’t care that much.

He dodged the attacks. He was now really reluctant to use the old man’s sword to deflect the shadow claws after it broke the thief’s sword, but he had to use it.

The assassin could sense the boy’s doubt and if he was right… “If you give up, boy… I will make it painless… you are all going to die anyway!!” a grumbling plea from the black-clothed assassin.

“You are fast… I give that to you… but I’m more skillful,” Simon smiled and taunted the assassin. The assassin remained calm; he knew it was just a taunt. The two started a deadly rondo of dodge and slash.

“Princess, we can fire some arrows to support the boy,” a knight suggested.

“No, princess… the boy looks like he is enjoying this,” the hunter, who could see the battle precisely, said. The princess was a bit confused about what she was supposed to do.

After a few trades, his speed and agility advantage immediately diminished “... Who the hell are you?” the assassin noticed how the boy was slowly adapting in the battle. “Boy, let me do my job and I will reward you. The artifact that they have is worth a mountain,” the sweating assassin said.

“... that attack… I’ve seen that before,” Simon said. He was right; Simon precisely predicted where the assassin’s head would be when it dodged; he just had to place his sword there.

The assassin’s head was cleanly severed. The expression of the severed head showed shock but no pain.

Simon looked at the princess. There was a moment of silence before Simon attempted to leave. “Hey, wait!!!” the hunter who was watching tried to call out to Simon, but the princess stopped her. “No… that boy… he is a monster!” the princess said.

She had never seen the princess act so afraid.

<--->

The thieves were alive; they kept their lives… the only thing they lost was their supply of food. After this, they were going to be slaves. The boy just vanished. The assassin’s body slowly melted; it was part of their dark magic ritual to dispose of their body automatically.

“46 of them… that’s a lot. Luckily we have enough ropes for them…” the knighted hunter said as they rounded up the thieves. Diana sighed; it would be a lot of explaining with her father.

She could actually just execute them, but she didn’t have the heart. The thieves called themselves the Bloody Axe, newly named thieves that terrorized the eastern frontier. They were probably the lowest of the low in the thief's group.

“Princess... we are ready,” one of the attendants kneeling said.

The caravan started to move with 46 thieves in tow. They would be made into working slaves for the rest of their lives, in mines or probably on the construction of the kingdom’s buildings.

<--->

It was already dark. Three cloaked men visited the site of the operation where their comrade had died. The three started going around, inspecting the traces of the fight. The assassin who died was one of the #10th and above number of the assassin guild.

Twenty numbers down are considered elite assassins in their guild. “Can’t believe #15 died,” one of the assassins started a conversation. “But the info said that the princess would be weakened whenever she finishes a ceremony… did that villager lie?” another assassin spoke.

“Doesn’t matter now, check everything and anything. We are the Assassin’s Guild; we will trample anything that would threaten the guild,” another assassin said.

They immediately traced the fight of number #15, but to their surprise, there were no other traces of magic, only of number #15. This would mean that number #15 fought and lost against someone who didn’t use any kind of magic.

This was bad since they won’t be able to track down whoever was responsible for the death of #15.

<--->

After a bit of detour, Simon planned to sleep on top of a tree branch. He should not have shown his eyes. He actually forgot last night when he was fighting with the assassin. The adrenaline and the fact that he was having fun erased his awareness… it's been so long since he had a good fight.

‘Oh, I should have picked up some of their silvers too…’ Simon thought. He was still broke and was just living through hunting and scavenging in the forest. Their food supply made him smirk as though he was going to have a feast.

The assassin was really good; it's rare to find that caliber of fight. He checked out his sword, and it was really in bad shape. If only he could use the magic edge technique, then it would reinforce his sword.

‘Probably going to break this sooner or later,’ Simon thought as he put back the sword in its scabbard. He reminisced about the old man using the sword; it would usually light up dimly.

But that night it started to rain, and he had to take out his cloak and cover himself up; he had to preserve the heat of his body. He then took out a rope and tied himself to the branch to make sure that he would not fall.

It was a bit of a downer that he couldn’t prepare his spoils for a feast, but he would do it after the rain.

“Time to sleep then,” he verbally spoke. Deep in his heart, he was feeling something strange, something that he didn’t feel when he was traveling with the old man. It must be because he saw that girl’s eyes that were full of fear. It was loneliness, a word expressing the feeling that was on the top of his head but he couldn’t realize it.