Southeast of Royal Capital,Garia's plain.

Two men are walking in the middle of the night, both of them wearing a cloak to cover their body.  Suddenly one of them halt their steps.

"Your highness, I think we should rest for tomorrow."

The other man who still walking stop and turned his head.

"It's okay Keith, I can still go on."

Keith already used to his stubborness so he didn't back down.

"No, your highness. We should rest our body first, we never knew what's going to happen tomorrow after all. We need to keep our body in perfect form to prepare for any situation."

Alfred sense the firm tone in his servant's voice so he nodded and decided to comply.

"We can't build a camp here, so let's build it at the edge of the forest."

Both of them are walking while keeping themselves to not far away from the forest, so their distance with the forest is relatively close. After walking for 40 minutes they arrived at the edge of the forest.

"Let's build our camp here."

Both of them immediately started preparing their camp. Because the sky is clear it is very unlikely to rain so both of them just collecting firewood and placing ward around themselves before building their tent so the preparation completed very quickly.

Keith, who in charge of their luggage put out a pan and a few vegetables and meat and started cooking. Alfred who has nothing to do decided to patrol around the area.

He walk around the area for a while before suddenly noticing a few lights in the forest.

"Lights? Is there a group of adventurers there?"

Alfred walk slowly toward the lights. But not long after, Keith called out to him from behind.

"Your highness, where do you plan on going?"

"Uwaa!!"

"Aahh!!"

Alfred jumped and shout out in surprise because Keith sudden appearance, Keith also back away in surprise because Alfred's shout.

"Don't scare me like that!"

"No I have no intention to scare you...more importantly just where are you going your highness?"

Alfred calmed himself down before speaking.

"There's lights in that direction and I'm planning to check it out."

Keith squint his eyes toward the direction Alfred's finger is pointing.

"Aren't those just adventurers or hunters setting up a camp?"

Keith asked doubtfully, but Alfred shook his head in disagree.

"This forest isn't known for adventurers to delve into let alone hunters. Not to mention this forest bordered Feldian Kingdom and Holy Kingdom Ishar, and adventurers didn't treated particularly favorable in that country. Because soldiers always help people with pretty much everything there. From searching lost item and clearing garbage to subjugating monsters. There's not much job for adventurers with such devoted and hardworking soldiers."

Keith thought for a bit and nodded in agreement. Although the higher-ups in The Holy Kingdom is known greedy for money, that is the only extent of their dark side. They didn't have any scandalous information or rumours surrounding them and the citizens respect them very much. They always cheated each other for their money but they never cheated the citizen. Also they always used the money they hoard without hesitation when the citizens need it.  Because of that, many kings felt envious seeing such attitude when comparing them to the nobles of their respective kingdom.

The Holy kingdom is where the headquarters of the Salkrin Church, the largest religion in the world. This kingdom only consist of their capital and a few small cities, naturally their territories is small, but their military power cannot be underestimated. Many countries tried to invade them in the past but was crushed regardless of their size. Because of that many countries are wary of them but when they didn't took over any kingdom they crushed, the other became confused. And when the Grandel Empire, as a representative for the other kingdom, asked for their reason, their statement shock all of them.

"We don't want to because managing larger teritories costs more money."

At first nobody trusted their statement, but after waiting for so long and the Holy Kingdom didn't make any move, all country decided to trust them.

"Nevertheless let's not involved with whoever they are, it might be bandits or some kind of monster."

"It's okay if it was just that, I just need to exterminate them. But if they are actually people in need of help, I can't leave them alone."

Seeing his resolute gaze Keith can only sigh in resignation.

"Good grief, this part of you is really troublesome."

But that's also why I respect you very much.

Swallowing his last sentence, Keith followed closely behind.

They walk carefully almost without any noise, when they got closer they can hear the sound of weapon clashing. Both of them looked at each other for a moment before walk a bit faster.

When they finally arrived at the place where the light is they found a wolf with abnormally huge stature and scaly tail with razor sharp edge staring down at a beastgirl in a cage. Many corpse in which seems to be mercenaries scattered around with almost none of them still intact.

Direwolf!?

Keith recognized the beast and started to sweat. Dire Wolf is a monster known for their agility and ferociousness. But different from ordinary wolf they are a solitary predator. They almost always fight each other if a Direwolf met another one.

When he wanted to called out to Alfred, he realized Alfred is not beside him anymore. He saw Alfred rushed toward the Direwolf and reflexively followed suit.

The Direwolf noticed both of them and immediately turned it's body and opened it's mouth to bite Alfred.

Alfred jumped aside immediately but Keith who's behind him cannot make a sudden move like that and decided to cast magic.

"Earthwall!"

A wall of earth appeared before him but immediately crush by the direwolf's momentum. Keith got  blown and fly quite a distance while the Direwolf staggered because it's head crashed directly onto the wall. Without wasting this opportunity Alfred slashed at it's neck but the Direwolf react quickly to dodge resulting in a shallow cut.

Both of them staring at each other eyes. The Direwolf made the first move. It dashed forward but not to Alfred but to Keith who still laying in the ground. Alfred immediately ran after it but stop in his track after a few steps with a smirk on his face.

"As expected of The Genius Mage."

He notice a small lightning cracking around Keith's hands. As the direwolf opened it's mouth, Keith's hand pointed towards it.

"Thunderbolt."

A roaring thunder pierce the Direwolf directly and the Direwolf fallen with a charred body.

"Cough..."

A small amount of blood flowed out from his mouth, Alfred who saw this approached him and offered his hand.

"Are you okay?"

Keith took his hand and grumbled.

"Of course not, your highness. It's unbecoming of me as your servant to say this but please warn me beforehand before something similar happened in the future."

Hearing his grumbling Alfred couldn't help but sniggered.

"You can take the full force of Lady Astrea's kick head on, I'm sure this much is nothing."

Hearing that Keith opened his eyes wide and started shaking. Alfred notice this and ask in worry.

"What's wrong?" 

"I-I forgot to write a letter for Astrea before I leave."

"Hmm? We're technically running away so what's the problem?"

"Actually I leave a letter for my family saying I'm going to leave home for a while. And I forgot to write one for her."

"....I will mark you as a hero on your grave when we came home."

"Please don't jinx it!"

He clutched his head and started muttering something. Alfred sigh and decided to leave him alone. He approached the cage where the beastgirl is. He sized her up and noticed she's has cat ears on his head and short light-brown hair.

When he arrived in front of the cage he cut the lock with his sword and approached her.

"Are you okay?"

He tried to speak as kindly as possible with a reassuring smile on his face. But the girl still cower inside her cage.

"It's okay we're not going to harm you. Are you injured somewhere? If you injured can you show it to me? It's not much but we have some potions for injury."

The girl shook his head. Alfred smile in relief when he saw it.

"Let's leave this place first, it's dangerous here. Can you walk?"

The girl nodded at his question. 

"That's good then. There's a plain not far from here and we build our camp there, will you come with us?"

He said while offered his hand. The girl stared at his face and his hand for a while before decided to took it.

Alfred smile and took the girl out of the cage. He noticed Keith is still lost in his own world and called out to him.

"Keith! Let's go back!"

•••

Goldrift City, Prison.

"Ahh...it's still not working..."

I was laying down on my cells bed.

After being thrown inside I immediately thought to lockpicked the cell. But to my surprise this was a magic enchanted cell so it didn't use physical lock.

I'm just a weakling you know, isn't this a bit much? You should use this cell for the most dangerous criminal right?

After lament as such for a few hours I finally gave up and decided to use magic to get out of this place. 

Hnn? Am I capable of such magic you ask? Of course not.

From what i know, a magic enchanted prison can only be unlocked by the individual who made it and some people the caster gave authority to. And the other way is to break it with sheer firepower, but to do that you need to have at least the same magic power and capabilities with the caster. And it's impossible for me with my miniscule amount of magic power.

But grandma taught me other ways to use magic, that is to ask the most profficient beings with magic, Spirits. Many people tought that the most profficient beings with magic are dragons and witches, but the truth is all kind of creatures, including humans, who can cast magic is being helped by spirits.

Other creature only have the capability to channel magic power and tried to change but cannot actually change them into other kind of power or energy. The spirits can sense people tought to some extent and change their magic power into other energy based on that. People generally cannot make a clear picture of what kind of magic they wanted to produce so that's why chant was needed, to create the more clearer picture of what they want.

You might be wondering, why the spirits willing to help?

The answer is simple, because they thought it was fun. Spirit is not a being with a just thought, they are more like a selfish brat who do as it please. That's why there are many places in this world where magic cannot be used because the spirits there didn't think it will be fun to help.

In the past, a prince with ability to communicate with a Spirit mock one of them until it was furious and his country crushed as a result.

People thought the spirits destroy that country because they angry, but the truth is not like that. The angry spirit is only the mocked one, while it was trying to kill the prince, the others thought 'it might be fun' so they destroy the country while their at it.

Nobody know the exact reason, but the spirits can only understand ancient language. So technically people can ask spirits directly to cast magic. The only difference is that you don't need to expend any magic power using this method.

Or so I was taught by grandma.

Honestly there's still many things grandma told me about spirits and magic but I forgot about them.

Grandma said there are less people who mastered ancient language than the amount of fingers on both of your hands, but luckily grandma is one of them. 

Knowing that, I immediately ask her to teach me. I was studying so hard in ancient language that I doubt it was myself. In one year I completely mastered ancient language, she warned me to not rely on the spirits for every little thing so I never ask the spirits except when in dire situation.

Immediately after, I tried to asked the spirits to create wind to lift a few beautiful women skirts in the market and it was succesful. It became my habit to occasionally ask the spirits to lift beautiful women's skirts in the market after doing it a few times. I already stopped doing such things these past few months though.

So in this few days I keep asking the spirits to help me get out of this prison but there's no indication the spirits helping me in any way, and now I already gave up and just laying on my bed. Well sometimes I tried to ask the spirits though, about only 20 times a day.

When i staring blankly at the ceiling, the jailer came and  leave a loaf of bread. The bread is hard and taste horrible but i already used to such taste.

Honestly I didn't need any food for now because no one confiscated my belongings. At first I thought something was wrong, but because it didn't bring me harm I decided to leave it be.

Not long after I finish my meal I can hear footsteps approaching, and immediately lay down on my bed pretending to be asleep.

I have a feeling it will be the scary lady from before, best not to interact with her anymore.

Clank* clank* clank*

"Wake up!" 

I twist my body and sure enough the scary knight commander standing there, accompanied with a pretty girl around my age bringing a katana on her waist.

She has almost identical features with the knight commander except her hair color is lighter and she seems a bit more cheerful.

"Hmm... So this is him sis? He just look like a third-rate scammer to me."

The f*ck you say, b*tch.

I almost blurted out the majestic 'F' word in our first meeting but I managed to swallow it.

"Do you have any bussiness with me?"

I decided to ask their intention because I really don't want to stay with them in close proximity. But none of them say anything back so I just sat there staring at them.

The Knight Commander just standing outside without doing anything while the other girl looking around my cell as if searching for something. 

Finally her gaze landed on my cloak she stared at it intently as if searching for something and froze on the spot. She sent a murderous look at me and put her hand on the handle of her sword.

"Change of plan sis, he seems to be actually a member of 'that' organization."

A look of surprised appeared on the Knight Commander's face for a moment and she immediately entered battle ready state.

???

Which organization you're talking about? You sure you didn't mistook me for someone else?