“You bastard! Do you know how expensive that thing is? Your horse is a bloodthirsty animal, pay up or I will get the damn guards!” The man in fancy clothing pointed at Marc; obvious furiousness can be seen on his face as he began to look around at the people surrounding.

“Pardon me, what’s happening here?”

After pushing through the gathering crowd, Pearl and the rest, still confused, tried to get a grasp of the situation: It seems obvious by the sight of another horse whimpering on the ground, red on its calf that it’s been attacked by the team’s own horse.

“Tuna kicked the guy’s horse… I did warn him but he didn’t care, can we just pay up?” Marc whispered, knowing it’s a very bad idea to cause unwanted attention, especially when they don’t exactly know how to keep a low profile while on the run.

“Our horse’s name is Tuna? Was mom in charge of naming?” Esmeralda turned to look at Marc in disbelief, remembering well the time he tried to name her.

“What is this, are you mercenaries?” The man took a look at everyone of the Freedom’s Group, from an armored guy like Marc, to an elf who is armed with a wooden bow, and an exotic looking pet; Mei and Pearl did not stand out that much, concealing most of their gear. 

“You want to gang up on me? Revenge? Everyone, look! They attacked my horse and tried to intimidate me! Call the guards! Get these criminals off of our town!”

Without getting a word in to explain or defend themselves, the crowd started to speculate, pointing fingers, not in the favors of the Group however.

“What are those gears? Are they travellers?”

“How vicious of them to disturb the neighborhood!”

“I’m getting the guards.”

“That’s one ugly lizard.”

“Krek!” Esmeralda spoke (squeaked) up, which translated to “I heard that!”

The situation got uglier as time passed, Pearl shook his head in disbelief before stepping up to make an offer.

“My name is Pearl Magmal, I believe we could make something work. Do tell me what you need.”

The man eyed Pearl up and down; from his distinct blue hair, well dressed and demeanor, the man knew right at that moment he struck gold.

"You are lucky I got no carriage on, so you have to pay for medical treatment, medicine, bandages, physical and emotional damage, loss of my time and my energy to raise my voice. That comes out to 100 gold coins.”

The moment the man finished his sentence, even the civilians watching was shocked; Esmeralda herself started to make sounds which resembled growling as she tried to launch forward to this absurd request, luckily having Rina holding both her smol head back. Meanwhile she was whispering something to Marc.

“Well that is a outlandish reques-”

“What is going… on here?”

Mei tried to say something but an eerie voice disturbed her mid sentence, the second time today, which didn’t make her happy, but the young mage decided to keep it for herself.

“Ah… An AAA, even better! You people are so doomed! Excuse me, sir. These people have done nothing but cause ruckus, trouble and property damage, look at my poor horse! That fierce horse of theirs has attacked mine and they are refusing to pay up! Send them to jail immediately!”

The man who arrived was a tall man, maybe taller than Rina at more than 180 centimetre; yet he was thinner than expected. He was wearing a darker red suit with the word “AAA” printed on the back, smaller text below spell out “Above Authority of Alcray” and no visible weapon. Upon hearing all of the merchant’s blabbering, he turned towards the rest of the team, fixating his eyes on Esmeralda as Rina noticed and hugged the girl tighter onto her chest.

“Everything…. he says… are correct… Adventurers?”

With the same pattern of speech, the man immediately started asking questions, before he turned around and waved his hand, signaling some town guards in chainmail armor and spears to disband the crowd.

While that was happening Marc sent Rina a confused look of expression after their secret conversation, before she simply winked, handed Esmeralda to Mei and took the responsibility to answer the question.

“I’m sorry sir, our only witness when that happened was our swordsman here, but he’s born deaf, he could not tell the story, so it is unfair.” Lying with a confident smile and blank stare she was.

Esmeralda, Pearl and Mei instinctively turned their heads towards Rina, as Marc awkwardly smiled and started to wave random hand gestures as if trying to imitate bad sign language, even holding up a peace sign at one moment.

Pearl was staring at Marc, he knew the blonde man in iron knew sign language yet was throwing random stuff. So he quickly concluded this is an act, patted Marc on his shoulder and nodded:

“I can confirm that, yes.”

The man in the red suit didn’t react much, apart from just staring in their general direction like usual, over a white mask it is easy to notice his eyes were normal, yet completely stationary, not focused nor relaxed.

“Lies!” The merchant screamed, pointing his finger in frustration. “Just mere minutes ago I heard him speak with my very own ears! You vile liars!”

“He’s getting on my nerves…” Mei whispered into Esmeralda's ears as the sisters, also partners in crime, exchanged a look wanting to punch him, uppercut.

“He… said what…?” The AAA finally spoke up again, now turning his upper half body towards the merchant. “A team… but swordsman in… heavy armor is deaf… Not very efficient… It seems.”

“Lying is… Not tolerable… After causing a… ruckus.”

Quickly being caught on by the lie, Pearl tried not to look at Rina, not knowing her exact plan, he was already prepared to fight; even though again they were in enemy’s territory, as already criminals. But it seems Rina was not confident either, keeping her smile yet a sweat was seen rolling down as the man in red suit slowly grip his hand in mid air, as if holding a weapon no one could see, meanwhile maintaining a calm standing position.

“Yes! That guy said he didn’t want trouble but his horse is battle trained and aggressive so he ORDERED me to move mine! He is definitely can speak fine even if deaf!”

‘Dug his own grave.’ Rina thought, holding back a smirk.

“He… warned you… it seems…?”

“Why does that matter! Lock them up for lying!”

“The core of… The problem is… The horse, which was… warned and, you did not… listen, lying or not…”

“What… you! You?”

Before he could say anything more or less, the merchant was taken away by two guards in chainmails who got their orders. His voice still resounded as he was escorted out.

“Your boss will hear about this! Do you know who I am! You god damn !#$%&!”

Afterwards, Marc spoke up first, bowing down slightly to show his gratitude and equity the AAA shows. Rina then explained that in order to clear this out, she had to lie to get that man to confess himself, luckily that did not backfire, they were on a very thin string. The man in red didn’t react at all like before, just nodding before walking away.

“Refrain from… Causing any ruckus… I hope.”

Everyone sighed in relief, Mei went up and praised Rina for her quick yet risky thinking; emphasizing on the quick part only. Before the team began to set up to move again, Pearl got on the back of the carriage and swirled his hand in the air a few times, creating a small window for the team's groceries to fall out.

“This always costs me so much mana, still I prefer it over physically carrying.”

Preparing to leave town before the sun goes over their head, a small silhouette quickly appeared and ducked under the carriage, holding on to it as if hitchhiking. Of course being The Freedom Group, they all noticed it and looked at each other, as if to say “No you go check it.” Except for Esmeralda who just stared up at everyone and wondered why they all stopped all of a sudden. Soon, Rina shook her head and spoke from on top of the carriage without even bothering to look down there.

“Hello there.”

Silence ensued, no one answered as everyone went on as normal, stacking, cleaning, checking gears and all that.

“You feel familiar, weren’t you the girl from earlier?”

Being caught so easily, the hooded thief slowly emerged from below, using her eyes to try and locate a tall mage with glasses and blue hair who was checking Marc’s sword. She went over and handed him a silver coin.

“The sandwich, thank you.”

Mei and Rina already noticed it beforehand, but they decided to not comment on it, could only give the cold man of the group a warm smile.

“In context, that coin is worth more to you than me, and I don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t like sandwiches.”

Refusing to take the coin, Pearl didn’t look at the young girl, nor did she try to convince him to take it, she pocketed the coin before pulling out something else from her waist.

[Wanted]

Marc Omal

Pearl Magmal

Mei Magmal

Rina Wenswood

[Sketches included]

[Dead or Alive]

Wanted posters they are, there’s none in town as far as the team know so she must have gotten it from some thugs or went somewhere near Sulkos, which might explain her attempt at attacking Mei and Rina earlier.

“Take me with you, or I will call the guards.”

“Excuse me?”

“I want to be out of this town, I want to be away but I can not survive on my own."

Pearl, very much confused, stopped whatever he was doing to spend a moment and stare at the young girl, obviously noticing her not in the best shape possible.

"You are not useful to us." He said calmly.

"Hey, can I?" Marc got in before the conversation got worse, knowing Pearl and how he could be too straight forward at times.

"Hello, I am Marc. We can bring you along but… Why do you want to get away? It is very dangerous."

"Mine is Gona, I want to start a new life, but it's hard to make money. You need to help me."

Everyone stays focused on the conversation while still doing their part. They do not know how to deal with this situation, certainly not wanting to get into another fight, or wanted in another country at that.

Hearing the girl; or Gona’s answer, Marc paused to sort out his mind a bit before signaling the team to wait for a bit, not rushing their leave as planned while he sat the young girl down with some cheese to have a chat, like a wise man once said: You may fascinate a woman by giving her a slice of cheese.

This however, concerned Pearl because they might not reach their predetermined destination before sunset, and will have to stop by some village or town for rest, with that in mind, the mage immediately spawned out a map to inspect.

“Did we tell Marc she tried to robbed us earlier?” Mei whispered to the other two girls in the group; Esmeralda and Rina Wenswood.

“At this point, don’t.” Rina hugged Esmeralda while walking over to check on Pearl.

“Eik.” Which translated to “Agree.”

Pearl was hyper focused on the map when he felt a warm reptile appearing on his shoulder, quickly crawling on the other side; the mage fixed his glasses and did not react, being aware of it already.

“Veldrielynth, Rina, where do you guys think we should stop?”

Being called by her original full name that Marc named her and being included in the planning. Esmeralda widened her eyes and let out a loud happiness “kek!” noises near Pearl’s ears, before jumping down to the carriage where Pearl laid out the map and started looking.

“This town is called… Lariak, the first town in Alcray contiguous to Sulkos’s border, we are heading East, if we move right now we might reach the big city here.” Pearl pointed at a small dot on the map, which is the town they are at, then moved his index to the right a bit to a symbol of a four walls structure; a city, under it is a symbol name of “Chalk City”

“And if we delay our departure a bit…” Rina leaned down to look and gave her view, using her wind magic to push Esmeralda a bit so the kid wouldn’t obstruct her view. “If we started moving in the afternoon, we might reach this birch forest, or a village’ bit further Southeast.”

“Eik! Eik Eek!” This time, Esmeralda noticed something and rapidly pointed at the map, almost poking her sharp nail into it; the dragon was pointing a bit North, to a symbol of a cave; a dungeon it seems, named Avora.

“...Why so?” Pearl simply asked Esmeralda. In return he received multiple weird poses when the lizard tried to stand on her two legs and do obscure body language, did she forget she had a human form too?

“Truly, the wisest you’ve ever been.” Rina, who didn’t understand a thing either, giggled with one hand on her cheek. “We’ll discuss later if we wanna visit that dungeon or not.”

By then, Marc had finished talking with Gona. The leader told everyone to gather around when Pearl picked Esmeralda up with one hand by her nape, the other to touch the map and sucking it into his palm, storing it.

As expected of Marc; the sentimental guy he is, agreed to help Gona. Her story stated that his father was obsessed with his work again, putting her, himself and many others in great danger. She'd do anything to get out of this town away from him, but she does not have any skills necessary to survive on her own in regards to shelter or food, stealing small times and saving up won’t ever help since she lived here and could get caught, she tried to get a bounty off of the team’s head earlier on. And now she would need them to help her get out of town and into another town where she could start her new life, in exchange for not ratting them out.

But Marc got another idea, trying to convince the father that his daughter’s feelings matter too.

“That’s a lot of trouble.” Pearl said, crossing his arms while Esmeralda had found a new spot on his shoulder. “You sure you do not want to just take her along for a part, leader?”

In response, Marc shook his head at Pearl.

“No, we can not guarantee her safety, and I myself, do not want to separate a family.”

The rest stared at Gona. Knowing Marc, a man who works on emotions alone, and often contradicts Pearl on their beliefs is offering help so randomly. Also often makes choices that affect the whole team, irritates Rina to a degree.

“You guys can go help, I’m going to rent an inn to rest for the day.” The elf turned around first and walked.

Mei, feeling uneasy to make decisions, a part of her that can not offer to help someone with such ridiculous reasoning, another part not wanting to leave Marc alone, waited for the other two.

“Pearl, Es, what do you think?” She asked.

“Eik…” Esmeralda jumped over to Marc’s chestplate, crawling up to his face then onto his hair, making her decision.

Pearl kept his silence for a while, behind those classes are judgement, disbelief and fatigue. The young mage got his hands inside his cloak and simply nodded.

“I trust your instincts.”

With that said, Mei let out a deep breath of relief, she bowed down to apologize to Marc, but she decided to be with Rina for this occasion, quickly turning around and ran towards her last seen location.

“This should not take too long.” Marc anticipated as he followed Gona's instruction, on her way, she was very frustrated at the young man too, for having her return home and talk to her dad.

“I don’t want to see him, you go in first.” Gona said, standing on the opposite side of the fence.

It was a fairly normal house in their eyes — in a residential area, the wooden house was built side by side with many others, with a stone path in front and more residential houses across the street. One thing that separated Gona’s house from the rest is… Her windows are boarded by planks, completely shut from any light emitting in or out of.

“Knock knock…”

With Esmeralda on the shoulder and Pearl behind adjusting his glasses, Marc knuckled the door twice, immediately afterwards, a loud explosion went off, just enough to blast the door from the inside out, sending the whole group backwards to the path.