by Aaron Oster
“Oh, is that all you’d like to buy?” he asked with a nervous laugh. “Why don’t you have a look at my selection of boots?”
“We already have perfectly good boots,” Morgan cut in. “Just tell us how much, so we can be on our way.”
Sarah turned to glare at him over her shoulder. There was no reason for him to be acting so rude, but when he didn’t so much as look at her, keeping his eyes glued on the merchant, she began to wonder if something was wrong.
“No, really,” the merchant said, wiping his brow with a cloth. “I’m sure there are many items of interest for a lovely couple, such as yourself. Perhaps you would like to buy your woman a dress, or a pretty hair ribbon…”
Sarah couldn’t decide if she should be offended or not that the man had assumed they were together.
Then again, she thought, why should I? It was a rational conclusion for the man to make, and since their evolutions had made them age in appearance a bit, it wasn’t too far-fetched.
“No, I think she’s fine,” Morgan replied, taking a threatening step forward. “Now, you either tell us what the cost of these items are, or I’ll just take my best guess.”
“All your money. That’s how much.”
Sarah’s head whipped to the side as a new voice sounded, and she inwardly groaned as seven figures emerged from behind the changing hut. Led by none other than Doug, the guard who had greeted them by the gates.
9
Morgan had known something was up the moment he’d finished changing. He’d emerged from the small hut to see the merchant whispering something into his palm. Had this been a few months ago, he would have thought the man was just crazy, but seeing as he had a pendant tucked under his shirt for communication, he knew better.
He still wasn’t sure who the man was calling, or why.
“What are you doing?” he asked, watching as the man jumped in surprise, then scrambled to hide something behind his back.
Yup, he thought, noting a small flash of silver. The merchant definitely just called someone. Seeing as he was acting so guilty, it was likely he’d called someone who they wouldn’t want to be meeting.
“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all,” the man replied, failing terribly to plaster a smile onto his face.
“Then why do you look so nervous? Are you worried that we’re going to rob you?” Morgan asked in the same flat tone.
The merchant’s eyes darted to the hut behind him and Morgan heard the light scuffing of several pairs of boots in the shifting sand. The man wouldn’t know how strong he or Sarah were, but he had probably assumed they were wealthy, judging by the quality of their clothes and the money they were carrying.
Should’ve flashed copper instead of silver, he thought, noting that Sarah was now emerging from the shop.
She was dressed in a similar fashion to him, and when the merchant turned to her, he noted that the man’s eyes flicked to her belt, where their spatial bag was tied.
Yup, he was definitely more interested in taking their items than actually selling them anything.
He watched as Sarah approached, giving him a glare and trying to placate the man, but by that point, he was no longer paying attention. Instead, he was focusing on the fight ahead.
The merchant tried to get them to stay and Morgan was less than friendly, telling him that they would pay what they wanted if he didn’t give them a price. He could hear the scuffing of boots growing louder and didn’t want to give any indication that he’d already spotted the trap, but then the moron in charge stepped right out into the open, announcing his intent for all to hear. Morgan just shook his head in disappointment as the men emerged from their hiding place, swaggering out into the open.
Morgan readied himself for a fight, muscles tensing in preparation. Then he did a quick scan using aura sense and froze.
These men were a bunch of weaklings.
Blowing out an annoyed breath, Morgan held his hand up to stop what was sure to be a long speech about how they should have seen this coming, and that they might be allowed to live if they handed over their valuables.
“If I were you, I’d leave now,” he said, motioning Sarah to relax.
Doug, the leader of this impromptu little gang sputtered in disbelief.
“Excuse me? Do you know who we are?! We run this town, and you’ll give up all your valuables if you want to leave here alive.”
The men standing behind him began snickering, as though at some kind of inside joke. Morgan already knew what the joke likely was. As soon as they handed over their valuables, they would be killed. Not much of a joke if he thought about it.
“You’re a bunch of weaklings,” Morgan replied dispassionately. “Unless you’d all like to die, I suggest you be the party to leave.”
He then turned back to the merchant and glared at him.
“Seeing as you planned to have us robbed, we’ll be taking your goods for free. Seems fair to me, how about you Sarah?” he asked, completely ignoring the now red-faced Doug standing behind him.
Sarah shrugged in response, not worried in the slightest. She knew about his Aura sense skill, and if he wasn’t worried, then she wouldn’t be either.
The merchant, who was now pale and visibly shaking, gave them both a fearful glance, then darted away without saying so much as a word to the contrary. Morgan took that as a confirmation and motioned to Sarah that he was ready to move on.
“Hey! You can’t just leave!”
Morgan turned to examine the group of men, who had all drawn long, curved swords from their belts and were now advancing on the two of them. He held up a hand as Sarah stepped forward, and turned to face the men head on. They had positioned themselves in a reverse-wedge formation, with Doug standing the furthest back and in the safest position.
“I’m warning you now, leave, or die,” he replied, tensing his legs in preparation for a short fight.
“Attack!” Doug yelled, and that was all the provocation Morgan needed.
The darted forward, not even bothering to use any skills, and leapt into the air. Using his momentum, he spun, lashing out with a sweeping roundhouse kick, and neatly decapitated the three men on the right with a single blow.
They were only rank 3, so it wasn’t difficult at all.
He landed before the heads or bodies hit the ground, and his fists flashed out in rapid succession, splintering the heads of the other three men in a shower of gore. He then straightened, staring down the now pale-faced Doug as the headless bodies of his companions hit the ground all around him.
Morgan understood that look of fear. To him, Morgan would have appeared to move in the blink of an eye, killing all his friends without so much as a hint of effort. He’d faced people like that before, so he decided to end the man’s suffering quickly. He still couldn’t help but feel a small sense of satisfaction, that for once, he was not the weakling on the other side of a beating.
“What kind of monster are you?” Doug exclaimed, eyes wide in terror.
Then Morgan’s fist flashed out, tearing his head from his shoulders. He watched dispassionately as the man’s decapitated corpse fell to the ground, the thirsty sand already soaking up the blood pooling from his corpse.
Blowing out a long sigh, Morgan felt the sense of satisfaction bleed away in an instant. There was no challenge in killing weaklings, and the joy of battle had been fleeting. Turning back to Sarah, he noted the look of disgust on her face.
“What? Did I get blood on my shirt?” he asked, looking down at himself.
Sarah seemed to shake herself then and shook her head.
“No. I thought you were kidding about the whole killing them thing,” she replied, eyeing the seven headless corpses and trying not to gag.
Morgan shrugged, stepping away from the scene and walking past her. The commotion from their fight, though brief, would undoubtedly attract attention soon. They had to find out more about the city of Mitten before they were discovered. Their time was limited.
“They were going
to kill us. I only gave them the same,” he replied as she jogged to catch up with him.
They walked around to the front of the shop and Morgan noted that several people had indeed been looking toward the shop. He walked past them as well, acting as though nothing were wrong.
If he looked suspicious, then they would try and stop him. Best to act as though nothing happened. There were still a few things they needed to take care of before leaving and he only hoped that they’d manage it all before the alarm was raised.
“I know,” Sarah replied, sounding troubled. “But did you have to be so brutal?”
Morgan quirked an eyebrow at her.
“I killed them before they even knew what had hit them. That’s merciful in my book.”
He finally spotted a stall that looked to be selling supplies and angled in that direction.
“You didn’t with that last one, though,” she replied in a soft voice.
Morgan’s steps faltered for a second when she said that and he slowly nodded.
He hadn’t killed the man right away. For what reason, he still wasn’t sure. He wasn’t one to gloat about his victories, so this was a step away from his normal behavior. Deciding that this was something worry about later, Morgan shoved it to the back of his mind. He decided to focus on figuring out how to reach the Ruined City.
Stopping before the supply stand, Morgan and Sarah were forced to wait for the elderly woman behind the counter to finish with another customer, before giving them her attention.
“Would you happen to have a map of the region?” Morgan asked as soon as she turned to them.
“Aye, I do,” she replied, “but it’ll cost you a tidy sum. Can you pay?”
“How much?” he asked, not willing to volunteer any money beforehand.
“Thirty silver.”
Morgan whistled. Though not a lot of money to him now, that was the equivalent of an entire month’s pay for a regular person.
“Can we see the map before we purchase it?” Sarah cut in.
The woman nodded, pulling a rolled up piece of cloth from under the counter and opening it for them to view. When Morgan saw the quality and detail on the map, he understood why it was so expensive. Something like this would take a cartographer nearly a week to draw up. Not to mention how much time it would have taken to get all these details.
“We’ll take it,” Sarah said, pulling the money from her belt and handing it over to the woman.
She took the silver with a slightly shocked expression that Morgan took to mean that she hadn’t really been expecting them to buy anything.
Taking the map from the counter, Sarah rolled it up and slid it into the pouch tied at her waist.
“Would you happen to have a canteen or water skin?” Morgan asked, to take the woman’s attention off the spatial bag.
The woman did and after paying the two copper required for the metal flask, the two of them left. They made their way quickly to the outskirts of town, where Sarah pulled the map from the bag and unrolled it. The alarm had yet to be sounded, so they figured they still had a bit of time.
Sitting in the shade of one of the houses, he and Sarah looked over the map. After a thorough examination, they discovered that they were in the most eastern part of the West Kingdom, just two days walk from the border. Tracing a line due west, they found the city of Mitten marked on the map as the Ruined City.
There was a red line painted around the perimeter, with the words, ‘prohibited to enter by royal decree,’ written below. Looking at the bottom corner of the map for scale, they discovered that the line was roughly five miles from the city walls.
This presented them with somewhat of a problem. If they couldn’t get in legally, then they would have to, once again, break the law to get what they wanted. When Sarah pointed this out, Morgan just shrugged.
“When was the last time we had things easy? We literally killed a bunch of people not half an hour ago. We’ll be lucky if they’re not out for our heads soon.”
“We could avoid all that by talking to the guards,” Sarah replied, rolling up the map and playing it in the bag.
“We could. Then we’d be held up for weeks while they tried to sort this mess out. And at the end of it all, they’ll likely find us guilty. Do you really think that merchant would stick up for us? And who do you think they’ll believe? A couple of outsiders, or a local?”
Sarah grimaced at the logic and let out an angry huff.
“Why do you always attract trouble?” she demanded, as Morgan rose to his feet.
He grinned, holding out a hand to help her up.
“I could say the same about you. After all, you’re always with me, so how do you know that you’re not the trouble magnet?”
Sarah gave him a wry look as she dusted herself off, but failed to reply, giving Morgan a small victory. He never won an argument with her, so this was a rare occurrence and should be savored. He debated rubbing it in her face, but in the end, decided against it. He couldn’t stoop to her level.
“We should probably leave,” he said, stretching his arms over his head.
“You wanna go through the gate?”
“No, we’ll just vault the wall. According to the map, it’s about five days to the Ruined City if I fly at full speed. That’s not accounting the time we’ll have to spend fighting whatever beasts we run into. It’s best we go now, and not risk being stopped on the way out. I’m sure they’ve discovered the bodies already, and if they’re not looking for us yet, they will be soon.”
Sarah nodded, arching her back and groaning lightly. Her stomach growled then and she looked to Morgan in surprise. His brows furrowed as he tried to remember the last time they’d eaten anything.
“Two days,” Sarah said, answering the question for him. “We haven’t eaten to two days, and I’m only noticing now!” She seemed shocked by the revelation and Morgan shared her surprise.
Apparently, increasing in rank had its perks. He’d known that his need for food and sleep would diminish over time, but he hadn’t been expecting it to really kick in until his next breakthrough at rank 29.
The evolution might have something to do with that, he thought, taking the piece of dried meat Sarah handed him.
If he ever reached the Pinnacle, would his need for food and water vanish entirely? Morgan thought this over as he slowly chewed on the tough jerky, heading for the sandstone wall. He grabbed Sarah around the waist in a one-handed hug as they approached and floated easily over it, landing softly on the other side.
He noted that Sarah’s heart rate had picked up when he’d grabbed her hip, but he already knew why, and he chose to ignore it.
As soon as they landed, a loud horn sounded from behind them, followed by shouting voices. He and Sarah shared a look. Then, popping the rest of the jerky into his mouth, he scooped Sarah up and took off running, activating his Explosive impact skill and dashing away from the town walls.
10
Dabu sat in his clearing, sipping slowly at the fragrant tea that he’d recently procured from Buryoku. He breathed in deeply, enjoying the rich scent of honey and cherries, when his serenity was ruined by a loud clap of displaced air.
Doing his best not to grimace, Dabu turned in his seat to eye his new visitor. Samuel stood in the center of his clearing, looking around with clear disgust on his face.
“I don’t know why you spend so much of your time here, when you could spend it literally anywhere else,” he said, walking through the sunlit clearing and approaching Dabu’s small hut.
“I enjoy the small things in life,” Dabu replied, ignoring the look on his old comrade’s face. “What I don’t understand is when you became so jaded. You used to enjoy sitting in a glade much like this one if I recall correctly.”
“I haven’t enjoyed sitting around and wasting time in millennia,” he replied, pulling out one of the chairs and slumping down in it.
Dabu stared at the man sitting across from him. Though his face didn’t betray it, he was qu
ite interested as to why Samuel was here. He hadn’t been to visit in nearly a century, so he must truly be desperate to come to him now.
Samuel didn’t mince words and got right to the point.
“Morgan refused my deal.”
“As he should have. Your calculations were off by an entire day. Demanding that he complete the task, then adding to the difficulty for the same prize is hardly worth taking. Besides, he has no reason to trust you after what Gold did.”
Samuel’s countenance darkened at the mention of Gold’s name.
“What is he planning?” he demanded.
Dabu shrugged.
“Even I don’t know that.”
“Don’t give that cryptic bullshit, Dabu. You know everything,” Samuel replied, interlacing his fingers and staring at the man over them.
Dabu cracked a smile at that. Samuel wasn’t wrong. He did indeed know everything, but that didn’t mean he was going to divulge the man’s secrets. What fun would that be?
“Even if the rules didn’t forbid me from telling you, I wouldn’t,” he replied. “To be frank, I don’t like you. Once, we were friends. But what you’ve done to Morgan is beyond reprehensible. You and Loquin both should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Samuel snorted out a laugh.
“Come on, you can’t be serious. You know what he is, so why do you care?”
“What he is doesn’t matter, it’s who he is that does. All I see when I look at him is a confused boy whose life has been tampered with since the moment he can remember. He has, only recently, recovered the memories altered by Gwendolyn.”
This particular piece of news was a surprise to Samuel. Focusing his attention on Morgan directly, it took him a moment to piece the veil his spirit naturally produced. After a few more seconds, he frowned. Gwendolyn had indeed returned his altered memories, so Morgan was even less likely to listen to him now.
“Damn that woman,” he growled under his breath.
If things were difficult before, they would be damn near impossible now.
“Do not blame others for your own mistakes Samuel,” Dabu said. “It is ill-becoming of someone of your station to do so.”
