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                   Location: A Fortress in the middle of the Forest                                                                Year: 1067 AD

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(POV : Unknown)

 

 

 

*Footsteps on stone staircase*

 

I was woken up abruptly by the loud warnings, I ran upstairs holding the torch,

 

In order to see what was happening, I went to the top of the Fort, From here one can see complete surroundings through the crenels,

 

It is the dark midnight sky, one of the Triarcs has a full moon today, but still, it is dark because the clouds are in the way,

 

The clouds that were blocking the light now slowly moving away exposing the places that were previously covered by the veil of darkness,

 

This Fort is surrounded by flat elevation of rocky snow-covered landscape which sometimes has sharp rocks protruding out of the ground, This entire place is surrounded by cold fog that hides the circular forest line around this elevation, So anything that tries to reach the Fort can be spotted through these six Crenels, but the only problem is that I have to crouch the entire time since the ceiling is very low as if this entire Fort was made especially for small people,

 

The clouds moved away mostly showing the white and grey snow-covered rocky elevation, except for one particular side where it is still dark because of the cloud blocking the moon, but even that is clearing slowly lighting up the last blind spot around this Fort,

 

The shadow veil slowly lifter to expose the intruders

*Groaning Noises*

 

The group of Bandits gritted their teeth against the cold while having a ridiculing gaze thinking that they can get this Fort easily,

 

'Bunch of Idiots',

 

"Hey, Blonde! We got Intruders!" Going to one of the metal pipes, I shouted,

 

" *Stone thump* Ouch!.......Hey can we ju dis tommoyo, I Jush wann shum Sheep... Wait! did you said Intruders?,........ then the Brave Warrior of Lockhart is at your Service" amplified voice can be heard from another metal pipe,

 

"Uughh! whatever, just be ready" a few moments later we both arrived at the Battlements, she had a bump on her head making her look silly,

 

"There are only two of them there, Whoah Look at that blonde I'll take her first" "You're not the one to decide!" few bandits argued with themselves,

 

"Surrender the Fort Bitches or we won't go easy on you," One of them shouted from the ground with a mocking tone, *bandits laughing*

 

"You-How dare?...." the Blonde shouted,

 

"Boss says to wait, there is something in there" a bald bearded guy who looked like Leader shouted like that after looking back at the shadow behind him in the fog,

 

"Don't worry, we'll just 'probe' and see what they got" they replied excitedly,

 

The shadow within the fog gave a signal to let them do what they wanted, immediately these greedy bastards smirked to themselves running towards the fort,

 

"Yeah come on! let me punish you for your transgressions!" the Blonde boasted herself,

 

These two bandits ran excitedly towards the Fort Entrance that is left open without any gates to shut it,

 

The two ran inside the fort's dark entrance, moments later they ran outside with even greater speed,

 

*Earth-shaking steps*

 

The runners soon stumbled down on the snow, and when they turned back, their pursuer have already caught up with them,

 

*Loud Roar*   

 

It is a Dire Bear which is at a height of four meters roared at the two guys throwing out all the saliva mucus and even bones at them, after which the Direbear cleared its throat,

 

The two bandits passed out on the spot,

 

"That's right! Feel my Wrath you unworthy scums!" the blonde went on again waving her scimitar,

 

The bald guy looked behind after which the person who was hiding under the Foggy Shadow finally came out, 

 

With a red cape fluttering, a person covering his face and head with scarf and hood showed up, he was wearing heavy padded gambeson, quiver, longbow and one hand having a small axe ready for hacking,

 

But the real threat is what he was riding, a full five-meter high DireWolf, watching the new opponent the DireBear snorted,

 

I am shocked to find out that the Bandit also has a Ferocious Beast,

 

"At last a worthy opponent, our battle shall be epic!" looking at the Direbear and Direwolf staring eachother, the blonde shouted again spouting nonsense,

 

With its sharp fangs shining in the moonlight the Direwolf ran pouncing towards the Direbear which is smaller compared to its size,

 

But just when it was getting close, a huge shadow came from behind the Direbear and smashed against the snow infront of it making snow and dirt fly towards the wolf,

 

The Wolf rider halted his tracks midway to dodge,

 

After the snow and dirt settled, the person responsible for this force showed up, squeezing its body out of the gate was an Eight meter high Huge brown DireBear now looking at the Wolf angrily,

 

"Why are you still staring at us?, shoo shoo get lost! or get Stomped!" my partner shouted at the Wolfrider and the bunch of Rufains,

 

Those bandits wanted to retort but the Beasts that are standing infront stopped them from doing foolish actions,

 

With the Wolfrider's signal, one by one those small fries and the horse riding bandit leader, left in this moonlit night,

 

I ignored everyone and focussed at the other Beast Rider sitting on his mount, looking at us patiently,

 

*Low growling sounds* 

 

The Red Robed guy immediately made his Direwolf run around the Direbear and jumped on the Fort walls with an insance speed aiming towards us in the battlements,

 

"Hugert! Harry! protect us!" looking at Direwolf's speed, I shouted behind at the Inner Bailey,

 

*Loud Roar*

 

With an intimidating Roar, another two more small DireBears from inside the Fortress jumped on the Battlements, shielding us from all possible offenses,

 

The wolfrider who turned into a blur from the speed suddenly changed the wolf's course with a sharp turn returning back to normal from the blurred state, now jumping inside the Fortress Bailey and going towards the Courtyard,

 

"No don't follow him, that's exactly what he wants, he wants to divide and kill us, instead we'll surround him and trap him in the courtyard" I shouted,while looking at the Fortress layout, I smirked internally at my own wisdom,

 

Realizing the danger that he is in, the red-robed guy made his wolf turn and escape the encirclement and tried to aggravate the Bears from distance by shooting arrows at them but I stopped them from responding to those harassments, I know what he's trying to do, he wants to lure us out, but that won't happen with me around, and those arrows will do nothing but tickle these Bears,

 

-

 

Finally, Realizing that none of his plans work, the wolf rider ran out of the rocky elevation disappearing into the fog and into the endless Sea of Forest,

 

'There he goes' I was relieved before turning to the Huge Direbear, "Mom, that Slam almost collapsed this old Fort!" the Huge Direbear pretended looking at its nails like a Lady,

 

"I know you can still hear me stop pretending!" I shouted at the Bear but it suddenly started sniffing something from the wind and turned towards the Blonde who was previously giving her speech,

 

She was frozen in place with her scimitar still pointing at the Red robed guy's previous spot before he charged at us,

 

"Hey, are you alright?" I slapped her cheeks as she was not showing any emotion,

 

"I-I am Fine",

 

*Hoarse Bear sounds*

 

I looked at the smaller Bears laughing at her, lowering my gaze, I found the perimeter around her is wet, only then did I realized that she pissed herself out of Fear,

 

"Didn't you saw him coming towards you? why didn't you back off and run?" I asked this stupid girl,

 

"Facing.... any the adversaries with steel heart is.... *Sniff* the honor of Noble" again with this bullshit, she must have petrified from her fear I guess,

 

"Then why did you piss and why are you crying now?", 

 

"It is but the call of Nature, not my own...." I held my urge to slap this pretentious girl,

 

"Let's go back, they might return again, we need some shut-eye" I patted her back,

 

"O-Okay....what about the prisoners?" she asked, which reminded me of the two bandits that passed out at the start,

 

*Bones breaking*  *Muffled Noises*

 

"There are no prisoners" I replied without looking back at the bandits being eaten by the Bears, 

 

 

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(POV : Derek - swordsman under Sergeant John)

 

 

 

*Hoove steps* *gravel and stone sounds*

 

We are riding from the morning, but we still haven't got there yet,

 

Accompanying me was Gunther, we are both trudging towards this rocky hill in a path along with a meandering river,

 

"Derek, what'd you think about that Jared Bastard?",

 

'A few months ago we were all under Sarjent John's command, but now some new prick is bossing us around',

 

"I wanna punch his smiling face"  "same here"

 

"we're climbing for so long, is this village even here? or not?"

 

"How could the grass path exist without people? just think about it, They must live somewhere at the end of this path"

 

"So what's the village's name again" he took out the parchment and read the name of this village,

 

"Ro-Rotten Shacks?"  "Give me the parchment" I reached out my hand from my horse to receive the parchment,

 

"Rotten Shacks it is, this the seventh village with 'shacks' in the name, what were those previous ones again?" I confirmed it before asking,

 

"Broken Shacks, Vandalized shacks,..... Ranshacks?"  "No, I don't remember either, but its definitely not Ranshacks"

 

"I think I see the outline, look there!" we increased our pace,

 

-

 

*Anxious mob noises*

 

It was evening and by the time we finally arrived here, we didn't have the same hospitality as we had in other villages,

 

A group of ragged villagers standing at the entrance of the village,

 

I subconsciously put my hands on the hilt just incase they try to attack me,

 

"I think they took us for bandits"  "Really?"

 

"Well.. why would someone visit a remote village very far away from the Kingdom that has almost nothing to offer? doesn't it seems suspicious"

 

"In anycase It's getting late, I'll do the talking with them" saying that Gunther dismounted from the horse and walked towards the crowd,

 

After he talked with someone in the crowd, they became less anxious but still vigilant of us and enquired us, when we asked for a place to stay as it is getting darker but they rejected the offer at first, but after showing some coins, one of them immediately accepted and dragged us away from the crowd while the rest of the villagers regretted hesitating to accept our offer,

 

"Damn" I shouted with one hand covering the nose, I can hardly stand the stench of this wood, They weren't kidding when they said its called rotten shack, most of the houses here are built with green mossy woods,

 

At this point, I've been to a decent number of villages and I got used to sleeping in shitty places, but this is the worst,

 

Settling the Horses, we walked around the village to check out what they could offer,

 

As per the orders, we were split into groups of two so that we can 'investigate' out all the villages that lie along with the Ferocious Beast Forest,

 

We have been given tasks to collect information from these villages and report it, like how do they look overall, who is the current chief/leader, how many orphans are there, what are all the businesses they have, what do they desperately lack, is there any unique things or find if any new villages exist around the place, this is what we have to fill as basic information and beyond that, we can add any information that we deem necessary,

 

Looking around there're few stone houses with light can be seen from windows and others are mostly green rotten wood houses, former must belong to the village chief and their family while the latter to normal commoners,

 

There is a Pyre that is burning in the middle of this village, where people were standing or sitting around while drinking, talking sounds can be heard from the distance, This is what taverns look like in these remote villages,

 

We approached the said place, and when the locals saw us, one by one their voices went stopped and finally dying down into an eerie silence with only the Pyre's fire crackling could be heard,

 

The atmosphere is clearly hostile, people were looking at us suspiciously, but thankfully Gunther took the initiative and went forward casually,

 

"One drink for everyone here" as he said that, he tossed several big copper coins,

 

*Crowd cheering*

 

Suddenly the atmosphere became less intense, Obviously, drunkards will be happy for free shit, although our act reduced the hostility, some of them still had skeptical look towards us,

 

Using this opportunity, he suddenly started gossiping about neighboring villages and some lip service to these Locals, 'Nothing is more interesting than badmouthing their neighbors and some of them joined in the charade as well, 

 

While he was doing that I looked around the place and found a group next to a small fire, Walking closer I can already smell some meat is being cooked making me salivate,

 

It was an eye-patched Oldman selling cooked meat, learning that the meat was cheap I bought some from him,

 

"just five coppers? that's ridiculously low" I couldn't believe this, usually, it will be twenty coppers even in our Barony where hunting is the main livelihood, 

 

Bringing some with me, I directly interrupted Gunther who was busy extracting information from the villagers, "What are you doing?"  "I think I've found something" I replied with a grin,

 

 

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(POV : Aymar)

 

 

 

*Ice crackling*

 

One by one I took them from one crate, freezing them from within inside until it is hard as a rock, and put them in another Crate,

 

John looked at me freezing it, with his mouth and eyes wide open in awe,

 

The Crate is filled with long dildo shaped brown mushrooms and other mushrooms in varying shapes but the long ones are atleast one feet in length, I froze as much as I can since they will perish quickly if let outside, I'm doing this to learn how long the freezing can preserve them,

 

These new mushrooms are bought from the last village, and I stocked up a dozen crates but I can only freeze little more than one and half crate worth of Items for now,

 

"That's all I can do for now, let's keep moving" with that, we walked out of the Cart,

 

We are in a clearing near a route that passes through some pine forest, I mounted my regular Yak horse moving some distance away from the rest of the group,

 

*Hooves sounds halts*

 

Now we can see the rest of the group,

 

Five Tents in a row neatly set while twenty of my henchmen and their horses can be seen here and there, either riding or taking care of them, the Horse carts at the back are filled with rations and random supplies, the only female minions are just three and all these three are in carts taking care of supplies and doing auxiliary tasks like cooking soups, All of whom belong to John's Squad,

 

For this first time leaving the Barony, I chose John and his underlings to march with me, since he's my first recruit and all, I have to give loyal servants some preferences like this,

 

When leaving the barony, John's squad had 31 lackeys, which is a lot, or half of all my henchmen to be precise, So I asked him to split ten each and appoint a squad captain for each one,

 

Now he has two squad leaders under him managing two 10 men squads while the rest ten are directly managed by John himself,

 

As for the rest of the idiots back home, I ordered them to conduct performance training and distribute new improved weapons or equipment to those who perform above average,

 

Due to continuously living in a peaceful environment, they might slack up a bit despite the daily training regimen, this should improve competition and keep my minions motivated, 'I think',

 

Other than my own minions there are also some Royal knights and their Entourage behind the temporary Camp,

 

The leader of the Knights looks cool like Goblin slayer while the rest are regular Knights,

 

These people arrived along with the Carts that carried my shopping items, Dad introduced them just before leaving so we didn't have much time to know about them except that they belong to Pleu's mother, and from the look of things she has very little faith in me, these Knights follow me like a tail wherever I go, I feel like a prisoner around them, she must have sent this group to keep me from vanishing into thin air,

 

Traveling like this, I expected encountering Beasts or atleast Bandits, but I haven't encountered any bandits so far, maybe social order so far is good or they are just not stupid enough to attack Royal Knight,

 

The Forest that I'm in currently is near one of the small kingdoms south of Ravaeyn Kingdom, I thought people will go and patrol  every inch of their borders like modern times, but it seems there are no such a thing as borders here,

 

As long as there aren't any large army loitering around they seem to be fine, there are tolls connecting roads or bridges in between where everyone has to pay based on their ability, But thanks to my mother-in-law's Knights we can pass through tolls without paying anything, 

 

Now my current plan is to travel south along with the Ferocious Beast Forest and visit all the villages bordering it to find what they have to offer, These villages are underdeveloped and are not exploited or not given much care due to its proximity with Ferocious Beast Forest, So far I'm getting various berries, mushrooms, nuts, and even some rare dye as well, it has its own problems as well, and the further I travel south, the warmer it gets,

 

As for trade, I'm not selling anything, just buying everything that I see without a stop, I can't sell anything to these poor villages, I'm only incurring costs and not a single copper earned so far, But it's not very bad since its a research cost, After this I can just enter restaurant business, selling food made from these Forest sources, but the only issue is that there should be either me or Kolin freezing the food from the source until the goods are transported to Hotel Kitchen or Kitchens, whatever the case it maybe, because these foods have a very short shelf life which won't make it through the journey, so I have to freeze every one of them whenever I purchase it,

 

*Eagle Cry*

 

"Uugh!" I remembered this annoying bird circling around and crying throughout our way, but it is not bad considering the benefits,

 

I brought Doggo along with us for the journey, It has proved quite useful over time and kept us connected with what was happening in the Barony, Hell we can even send a small bag of goods to our Barony,

 

It can fly the same distance equal to five days worth of horse ride in one hour and return the news the next hour, and it ignores the geographic hurdles which makes its journey quite faster than ours,

 

"Another team is coming, one more to go" John said looking at the distance,

 

Sometimes a bunch of villages can be found in the same spot, in order to check out all of them, I trained some minions to pair up with teams to do this scouting mission, It makes life easier, but there are also risks on doing this, If Bandits exist, they might possibly target them,

 

The two-horse riders at the distance directly came to me, "Master we have a Special Report" one of them said energetically,

 

- 

 

*Crowd Yelling sounds*

 

"I told you so, They were Bandits from the very beginning, now they brought their friends as well"

 

"How dare you call a Royal Knight as Bandit! You will lose your head for that!" The Goblin Slayer angrily shouted while pointing his sword at him,

 

When I heard that there are cheap and tasty meat was available, I can't just not see it for myself, cheap meat means things can change, that's why I'm here personally to find this potential cheap Meat source of 'Rotten Shacks',

 

A while later their commotion died down realizing that he is the Royal Knight and let me and a few people inside those miserable place,

 

I looked around only to find a rotting swamp-like smelling village, the report said that villagers purposefully planted decay from the wild in order to keep the Ferocious Beasts away, They boasted that no Ferocious Beast came afterward, I made a mental note of this piece of info,

 

Soon enough, we found the guy, seems like it was perfectly the time he sets his small stall thingy,

 

"Wait... you came with an army for this thing?,..... well just a moment" 

 

'Why is he calling some bunch of Knights as army?, well village folks have rarely seen any Knights so it's understandable',

 

"There you go" he brought it to us,

 

"....."

 

"what in the Lord's name is this... Horrendous thing?..." the Knights were disgusted while looking at it,

 

"Master? are you fine?" john asked while his eyes sparkling and salivating like a little girl looking at cute pet,

 

"Are you guys fine with this, I mean.... you know what the meat is made from right?" 

 

"Yes,... What's wrong?" they seem to have no problem, 'No wonder I don't see any stray animals ever since coming here',

 

"No don't mind me, I'm not Hungry, you guys go ahead and dig in" After giving them the green flag they started downing the Meat skewers without any visible end,

 

What is wrong with the meat? well, not its preparation, not its appeal to salivate the eater,

 

Its just it was made from something unholy, because this steaming food infront of me are made from Rats,

 

I can see its long rat tail as well being sucked like noodles by my minions,

 

While these guys were eating, I talked with the Eyepatched guy, turns out he catches fanged rats that try to ruin the farmlands using traps and sells their meat for extra cash, His eyepatch seemed to have been resulted from an attack of these fanged rats, 

 

'Okay, I thought that I can add cheap meat in my future restaurant, but I can't sell this, If they knew that my restaurant is selling meat made out of rats, I'll be pretty much screwed',

 

"RIP Ratatouille" I muttered before leaving the place,

 

 

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(POV : Wolf Rider)

 

 

 

-  The Next Village

 

 

*Random Cries*

 

"Just know your place Bitch!"

 

"AAAHH" the woman screams as her hand was broken while being raped,

 

looking at this I frowned at the baldy,

 

"Sorry Boss, the boys are in a bad mood ever since we failed to capture the Fort" this bastard has some nerve to touch the wrong spot, I just snorted before heading to the previous Village chief's Cabin,

 

I'm so tired of sleeping in woods and random shacks, I just wanted that beautiful Stone Fortress as my home, but there were already two bitches in it and some hundred Bears hidden inside it, like what the fuck?, and on top of that that red headed bitch predicts my plan easily and I could do nothing about it,

 

*Knocking sounds*

 

"Boss! Boss!"  "What?!"

 

"Knights! Knights are coming here"

 

'Crap! did someone escaped and spread the word about us?, I made sure that these Bastards dealt with everyone, it seems these drunkards were good for nothing as usual',

 

"How many are they?"  "Like Fifty maybe?"  "TSSK! Baldy! come with me!" my wolf immediately gripped his clothes and teared through the Forest,

 

-

 

*Multiple Clip-Clops*

 

"Now tell me your analysis" hiding in the forest, we looked at the approaching party from the sides,

 

"Those Knights doesn not belong to the viscount, these Knights can only be trained by crown and they don't belong to this Kingdom, Look at that flag, that crow banner belongs to Ravaeyn Kingdom",

 

"So what are these Foreign Royal Knights doing all the out of their home?" 

 

"I don't think they are here for us, look at that snobby brat in the middle with good clothes, he must be one of those thousand princes",

 

Before we could continue our speculation, one of the Horsemen turned to our direction,

 

*Leaves Rustles*

 

"What should we do?" Getting back to the village I asked the baldy,

 

"We catch him as long as the presence of the Beast is not known to them and also, don't kill the Knights",

 

"just get inside the houses, we'll ambush them when they come" looking at the bastards, I ordered,

 

"But Boss, won't it better if they kept their distance" after he left, the baldy complained,

 

"Didn't you said that we're low on food and too many useless scums squandering it?, just convince them that its an easy fight and give them extra booze before the battle, There won't be a better way to get rid of those bunch",

 

"...Y-Yes Boss",

 

 

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(POV : John)

 

 

*Clip-Clop sounds*

 

It's been two months, I don't know how long the Ferocious Beast Forests are but there doesn't seem to have any visible end to it,

 

Thankfully due to master's ability, we can keep stuff for a long time and eat it when we wanted, otherwise most of the stuff would have been spoiled and went to waste,

 

*Leaves Rustling*

 

"Huh?" I turned towards the side at the Forest making me stop there, 

 

"What Sergeant?"  "Nothing" 'Something felt very much wrong, This feeling is somehow similar to something that I've felt regularly but I can't put my finger on it' I continued riding despite the discomfort,

 

And Finally, another village came into view, a typical lumber village with logs stacked around the village like a Fence,

 

"This should be another Lumber village," the Knight said albeit doubtfully since the village infront of us is very quiet unlike the bustling ones that we've seen before

 

"Start Camping!" shouting the usual orders, I followed the Knights along with Master into the Village,

 

Entering the village everyone can feel the difference in the air, random debris and broken stuff all over the places,

 

"Suspicious..." the Knight muttered before walking further into the empty streets while looking around at the closed doors and windows,

 

"Now!" with that shout all the doors of the village opened abruptly with burly, hairy men ran outside surrounding us,

 

A band of men with mismatched armour and weapons, Some of them were very drunk to even stand,

 

"Bandits?" I muttered slowly, while their disgusting smell permeated around our presence,

 

*Arrow blocked with Gauntlets*

 

"Protect the Boy! *Horse Neighs*" saying that the leading Knight slashed the sword in an arc at the approaching Bandit,

 

*Sword going through Flesh* "AAARGH"

 

his strike killed two Bandits in a single swing, soon after his command, me and master were pushed in a small circle and Everything happened next is simply chaos, Bandits trying to use their sneak attacks while a Knights are busy fighting with another one of their peers,

 

*Few more arrows hits metal armour*

 

"Fuck that Archer!" one of the Knights shouted but stood his ground as he cannot move away from protecting Master,

 

"FAAAAK! MY- UGGH"  "*Girlish screeches*",

 

Few Bandits tried to flank attack from the sides but they could only injure the squire before they were also impaled or decapitated by the Knight's sword,

 

*Groaning sounds* *Horse hooves stepping back and forth*

 

The first wave ended with seven Bandits dead with their bodies still in the way making the Horses step on them, making their corpses stomped into an ugly disgusting mess, a few squires and one Knights was injured while one of the Horses have an arrow on its leg which was unprotected by the armour,

 

The entire time there were no sword clashing sounds, just the sweet sound of sword tasting flesh and bones, while these amateurish bandits who must have been used to dealing with villagers are struggling to read the Knight's movements or even do a proper counter attack, except for that archer hidden within those houses, other than that there's nothing that can stop these Knights,

 

"Royal Knights are something else..." I mumbled to myself, thankfully I left my minions out at the entrance of the Village otherwise they would be first to die in this surprise madness,

 

Seeing this clear difference in combat ability and obedience, the Bandits kept their distance while few of them even ran away,

 

"Surrender or Die! *Horse Neighs* " looking at this opportunity one of the Knights shouted with is sword pointing the sky making his Horse stand with two legs,

 

Looking at this impressive scene, I no longer care about their random bickerings at times,

 

These Bandits looked like they were about to break into tears, maybe its their first defeat so far,

 

With recovered morale, the Knights prepared to charge and finish off all these bandits since there is no sign of surrendering,

 

But just when they prepared, I sensed something coming from the side,

 

"AAAAAAHH!!" *Horse screams* *Metal armour hits the ground*

 

Before I could understand, the world was turning upside down by some grey blur as I was also pushed away by a powerful force with my horse before finally hitting the ground,

 

*Multiple Groanings*  *Cheering sounds from Bandits*

 

"AAAH!" only the Knights' groan and Bandits' cheering was what I could hear from my dizzyness and confusion, What I could see was a house's wall made out of stone edifice while I was stuck with my fallen horse on the ground as I was struggling to release myself from it, 

 

Finally, I managed to get myself off of the horse before looking around, the Knights are either standing or in a similar situation to that of mine, being stuck under a Horse but their heavy armour makes things only worse for them as some of them are getting exhausted moving around with this metal weights, as for Master himself, I can't see him anywhere near while his horse has stood up from the ground and ran a short distance away from our mess, the bandits kept their distances,

 

The rest of the standing Knights looked horrified and clueless about what happened, whatever happened, it happened quickly and the only thing I could remember was the black blur, while the confusion is lingering a Horsemen came from the bandit's side with Master on his hands,

 

"Bring Hundred Gold Coins for the boy, now leave!" The bald man who looks like the leader of this lot shouted,

 

Hearing this, the Knights looked at each other and finally decided to leave with the relief that they are not dead and the Young Master is also not dead, so we quickly cleared the area,

 

I called my Henchmen to evacuate this place, who were puzzled at our hasty retreat,

 

We camped at a clearing far away from the village that night, while the Knights talked among each other in their tent for an hour before dragged me into their camp,

 

(In low voice) "Hey Listen carefully, We can rescue your Master quite easily, They just want some hundred gold coins, So here's what you have to do, Just... somehow... 'borrow' some gold from your Barony, if the Baron asks anything, just tell him that everything is Totally fine(sassy tone), and no matter what happens never let this matter reach Lady Limni's ears(Pleu's Mom)" the Knight said with a forced ear to ear smile, while his peers also looked at me with similar anticipating smiles,

 

"Me?...Uhhh... and who is Lady Limni?" when I asked that, all of their anticipating smiles died down and turned into disappointing expressions,

 

"We're so screwed!" one of them groaned loudly,

 

-

 

Returning to my Camp, I was at a loss as to what to do without Master's orders and I don't believe his father would leave me alone if I returned without him,

 

*Eagle Cries*

 

"Someone shut that fucking..... Wait! Yes! The Protocol! ask for reinforcements! Kolin should be able to do something about this" I decided before writing a Letter to Kolin,

 

"Go now!" attaching the parchment, I instructed it to go,

 

*Wings flapping sounds*

 

With temporary relief, I went to sleep but something was still bothering me,

 

'There was still one question lingered in my mind as to what was that dark blur, the Knights told me that he might be some Knight captain of some fallen Kingdom, and said that they can do crazy things with their strength like bursting into a fast charge just like he did, but the thing that we saw today had similar feeling to that of the King Beast, could it be?...' clearing the thoughts I presumed to sleep,

 

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