The Tales of Draconic Warlock

"Damn it, why are the swamp monsters are coming this way. Everyone, there are a lot of those monsters. Get ready for a long battle", the guard captain shouted, alerting everyone to face the monsters that were coming for us.

Ah, swamp monsters, this is what I need. After that unnecessary mental stress I had to endure for the last few minutes, in addition to dredging through the swamp, I needed to beat up something. These monsters are arriving at the perfect time.

Let's beat the shit out of them.

Roar!

Hiss!

Kukuk!

The monsters are almost upon us, and we can hear various sounds made by the monsters. It means there is more than one race of monsters among the attacking group.

I am ready to face them. The more monsters there are, the better it is for me.

Here they come.

---

The battle was not up to my satisfaction, but I was able to vent some of my pent-up stress, all thanks to the monsters.

The reason why I didn't get a good fight was because of the twins. To them, I am still weak. So, they would protect me instinctively when they perceive that there is a threat to my life, even though in reality that was not the case.

This is going to be a hurdle, but this was something I could just spill without a proper reason to.

Instead of just speaking that I hid my power, it's best to show improvement over time and that too at a fast rate. It wouldn't be too out of order as they both know that I am a genius who was awarded the Student of the Year award at graduation.

I was always first in my class. No matter the student I faced, they all failed to compete with me in the academy. Angela even commented that many seniors wouldn't win against me if we had fought, but the rules of the academy didn't agree to that.

They were set to stop seniors from bullying the juniors. The strong would always bully the weak. It was something unavoidable, but the academy limited that to the same year, rather than having a free rein in that matter.

So, no one was able to actually measure my true strength.

Even though I trained with Angela, I held back because Angela held back too, thinking that I was weaker than her, which was true at first, but was not the same as the years went on. Now, I am at the same rank as her, and maybe even stronger than her.

This was something no one knows but by the time we returned I wanted to show atleast 80% of my strength to not only strengthen my family's place in the kingdom, but also want to make a statement that anyone who wants to be an enemy of mine, wouldn't have good time in their life.

That's for the future, I need to find a way to show that I improved fast and am strong enough to protect myself, so that those twins wouldn't do things like this again.

The question remains. What should I do that wouldn't raise too many questions?

---

"Everyone, I know that everyone is tired from the fight, but we can't camp in the swamp. So, let's collect the corpses as soon as possible and leave", the guard captain announced.

Many who heard the voice sighed that they couldn't get any relief after such a big fight, but there was nothing they could do about that.

First, they have to follow the instructions, or their pay might be docked. Moreover, what the guard captain said was true.

The swamp is very dangerous, filled with many monsters that can end their lives easily. Also, the surrounding was filled with the blood spilt from the monsters.

Even if no monster appears here naturally, the blood would surely attract them, and when they do, it would spell doom for them. They are already tired because of the fight that they just had, and can't fight anymore.

So, they quickly acted on following the orders, while cursing a little under their breath. They couldn't outright curse the merchant and the guard captain, as that would cause them to lose money in the end.

There have been many cases like that before.

Even though the merchants are usually weak, they are rich enough to afford a lot of guards and influence in cities. They are, after all, the supply lines to many remote places in an empire or a kingdom. So, whether it was a kingdom or an empire, they wouldn't make things difficult for the merchants, as that could destabilise their economy.

So, in many places, merchants have great sway and can make it impossible for the poor adventurers to make a living if they get on their bad side. So, unless the instructions were against their values or would cause their death, the adventurers would follow them, even if they grumble a little under their breath.

---

After half an hour, the entire area was cleaned as much as possible. There are always bits and pieces left behind. Unless they are the cores or some important pieces of the monster that are valuable, they are ignored.

Cleaning perfectly in normal conditions is difficult, much less so in this swamp area. They cleaned up as beast as they could, and so did I.

Well, I did kill a few monsters. They were mine to collect.

The twins, well, they killed a lot, which I had to collect as well. This was not something that they dumped on me. They did "protect" me. So, I am just being thankful for that.

"Okay then, let's move on", the guard captain shouted, and everyone started to move, though slower than before.

It is to be expected. They just fought and had to clean up the corpses. Who would have the strength to move at a normal pace?

We too followed their pace, as we didn't want to attract unwanted attention.