8 years have passed since the incident. Since the fall of the Luxus kingdom. 

 

I, the former heir to the ducal family had been reduced to a common worker in a small bar. Then again, I could not complain, this bar is our home. 

 

The old man had apparently traded all our gold to start up our little slice of life as the only bar in this unnamed village. 

 

Over the years, when we weren’t tending to customers, the old man had trained me in the way of the sword. It was a tough journey that I had thoroughly struggled through at every step. 

 

Magic, on the other hand, had come to me easily. As expected of the Flare bloodline, which had produced many heroes for centuries. 

 

The magicules in the air always seem excited to do my bidding. As such, powerful fire spells came to me as easily as simply willing it to happen. Fire, being my main affinity. 

 

Yet, despite my lack of affinity for any of the other elements, other elemental spells seemed to manifest far more easily for me than for the many monster hunters who I have met over the years. I often wonder why the Flare family even bothered to create a sword style in the first place if magic was as easy to do for my ancestors as it was for me. 

 

" Magnir stop dreaming and start wiping that cup you have been holding for the past 5 minutes!" The old man yelled from somewhere at the back of me.

 

I snapped out of my internal monologue and began wiping the wooden cups with a rag. The old man had carved these cups all those years ago from some logs from the woods. 

 

Not sure how, but these 8-year-old babies still look as good as new. That talented old man must have been a crafter or a carpenter in the past... But I could have sworn that he had been a knight when my father found him... 

 

" Magnnniiirrrr!"

 

" YES! I know!" Exasperated with the nagging, I put down the cup I was holding and picked up another to wipe dry. 

 

As I mechanically wiped the cups, I looked up from the counter and watched as two men walked in. Both had swords strapped to their waists and some basic leather greaves and arm guards. Both also wore what seemed to be steel breastplates. Seeing their lack of associated identification or team badges, these men were either unassociated mercenaries or monster hunters.

 

Taking a moment to judge their rather worn-down armour and the many scratches on their breastplates, I determined that they were monster hunters.

 

" Gives us two ales." One of the two men spoke as they took a seat at the counter in front of me. In response, I simply nodded.

 

I pulled out one of the four barrels that were under the counter and used a cup to scoop up some ale, using it to pour two cups of ale for the order. Then, I passed them over to the men.

 

Now that they were closer, I found out that they smelled rather bad... I schooled my facial expressions and concentrated on how to swindle them off their money.

 

" Ah, that would be twenty copper," I said absent-mindedly.

 

" TWENTY?! For two ales?! That's double the regular price!" The blonde of the two men yelled. The other, the brown-haired one started choking on the ale.

 

" Well. As you can tell... we are running a bar on the absolute border of the empire, sir. Think about transport costs, it would take an entire 3 days on horseback to bring some ale to this backwater place. We need to make money somehow." Giving the well-thought-out and well-abused excuse to strip them of their money, I eyed the men who are the only customers at the moment.

 

Neither of the two looked particularly handsome nor did they seem to have a hidden stash of money that I could fleece them of. No longer interested in them, I went back to wiping cups. 

 

However, I soon noticed the rather huge pouch that they had suddenly pulled out of nowhere. As they began extracting the 20 owed copper, my thoughts began to race as I spotted a gold piece in that pouch.

 

" Do you two good men need any information about the local monsters?" I said while channelling my best William impression. Cold and indifferent, I didn't need to give them information, they needed it and they would have to pay me for it.

 

They two began to contemplate as they tried to communicate with each other silently. AS, a master of face reading, I decided to translate what their faces were saying in my mind.

 

' What do you think? I think we need it!' - Brown Hair

' F#ck no! We need the money to buy new equipment!' - Blonde guy

 

The man with brown hair turned to me and opened his mouth to speak. However, I quickly cut him off.

 

" One gold for this nice little book that I made about all the monsters in the forest. Quite cheap for something that might save your lives right?" I lied as easily as I breathed. I had pulled out a small notebook that I had made on monsters that had been sighted recently, with their characteristics and behavioural patterns. However, one would have to be a fool to think that the book actually had a list of ALL the monsters in the forest.

 

Fortunately, Brown hair seemed to be a fool. I watched their faces again as they had their hushed conversation.

 

' NO! NO! We are not spending gold for that tiny book.' - Blondy/ kill joy.

' It is a good investment! Come on!!!' - Fool

 

Fool simply snatched the gold piece and handed it over to me without another word.

 

" Here, pass over the book."

 

" Sure, here you go. Oh, and there is a public bath near the village head's house." I said as I hurriedly pulled the gold piece under the table and straight into my palm.

 

" If that is all, I shall take my leave. Just call if you want another ale." I said. Then, I turned around and walked over to the door behind the counter. Entering the back area of the bar, I found the old man sitting there carving what seemed to be a leg of a stool.

 

" I did it, old man! I got a gold! Told you so! Told you writing that notebook was worth the time and effort! And I am done with your challenge, five gold in just two weeks instead of your four-week time limit!" I said with unbridled excitement. 

 

I had made an investment of time into writing five of these notebooks, of which I had ended up selling three at one gold each. One gold is enough to buy a nice set of steel armour or a good sword from a well-known smith. These five gold that I had made would be my starting capital for my rapidly approaching monster hunting career.

 

" Well... good job Magnir, you are free to go. I shall take care of the counter from now on." William said with a smile.

 

" Thanks, old man." I gave the old man a sincere smile.

 

Grabbing my pouch of money, I turned away from my father figure and the smile melted off my face and turned into a hard frown. 

 

It was time to get some gear and slaughter some monsters.