“Stop where you are!”

Jerome stopped and looked up at the boys who had just chased away his first meal in ten days. Rihal had told him to ensure he ate every ten days, whether he was hungry or not. Was it a crime now to do as he was told to do?

The boys who spotted him jumped down from the tree they were on. There were four of them, all wearing cheap leather cuirasses with unknown crests. The leather cuirasses were their only protection in these wildlands. How unfair. They were quite underdressed for the adventure. He wondered how long they’d be able to last on their own.

Heh. I know the feeling of being inadequately dressed, boys, he thought. But he also knew the look on their faces. 

Greed.

They wanted his stuff. His nice shiny-looking spear and complete leather armor.

“You’re the one who beat up Young Lord Alvric, eh?” one of them said. “You sure have guts.”

Jerome grinned wickedly, putting them off-guard.

“Why are you showing us your teeth? We don’t want to see teeth. Drop that spear Young Lord Alvric wanted and run along,” the leader of the group said again with a shooing gesture.

Jerome took the spear in hand and extended it to full length. The spear was a foot taller than him from the ground up.

“You mean this spear?” he asked. “You’d have to work for it to take it.”

“Tch! We won’t be merciful with you like Young Lord Alvric was. He let you pick up your spear to continue the fight but we won’t.”

“And there are four of us. Do you think you can beat all four of us?” another said.

“Better do as the boss says now or you will live to regret it,” a third said.

The ‘boss’ laughed out loud. A maniacal laugh. It looked to Jerome like he wanted to sound like a psycho. Maybe for effect. Ehn, he thought, unconcerned but nodded slightly to himself.

“He wouldn’t be living to regret it, Two. He would be dead. Young Lord Alvric wants that spear and we are going to sell it to him,” the boss said with a cruel grin. “Together with his corpse.” 

Guess he was ‘One’ then, if the one beside him was ‘Two’. That was the one who spoke second. Then the one who spoke third should be ‘Three’ and the last should be ‘Four’ who was yet to speak — or was not supposed to. The ‘pecking order’ was very well established. 

These were the common thugs who would grow up to become gangsters and start robbing merchants on the backroads. What’s a good ole underdog trope without the bad guys that would ultimately become fodder? They were necessary for every story back on Earth. Jerome grinned to himself.

The boys started surrounding him but he paid them no mind. He could see the clubs they held behind their backs even though they tried their best to hide it from him. Such weapons were not to be underestimated. But these kids had no strategy. They should have attacked him from above when they were in the tree. They had a better chance of beating him up if they had gone with an ambush.

Heh. Guess I get to play the underdog for a bit, Jerome thought. He smiled and popped the joints in his neck — for effect. He could almost hear the main theme from the 1966 Sergio Leone film, ‘Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo’ — ‘the good, the bad, the ugly,’ playing as background music in his head, and feel the cool wind on his skin as the bad guys surrounded him. But instead of revolvers, his assailants were carrying clubs. Heh. Works all the same.

Before they finished surrounding him, Jerome attacked. His spear blurred toward the leader with a spin. Jerome bludgeoned him in the abdomen with the butt of his spear before he could position his club to block. He sailed into the very tree they came down from, hitting it with a grunt. 

The others attacked at once. Jerome had to give them props for acting quickly. But they were still a tad bit slow. His spear blurred around him, acting as a shield and knocking off their clubs.

He kicked Two into One and hit Four between the legs in his ‘homemaker’. The boy went down with a loud ‘Ooomph!’. Three tried to tackle him but he pushed off the floor, jumping over him in one swift move. Jerome did a split mid-air and brought his spear down on Three’s back, knocking him into One and Two.

“Is that all you got?” he asked after touching ground. “I thought you were going to ‘make me regret’, no?”

The three boys that were pushed into each other got up clumsily. One looked at Four and shouted at him. “Stand up, you lazy bag of bones! All you know how to do is eat but you never grow any meat on you!” 

Three quickly went over to help Four up who was still cradling his ‘homemaker’. One turned to Jerome next and glared at him. “You better watch your back throughout Pilgrims’ Keep. We will be back and by then, hope we have mercy on you!”

He turned around to leave and the rest turned to follow. Jerome however, had other plans for them. The fun had just begun. Why did they want to leave so soon? He pushed off the ground, sailing through the air, and rebounded off the tree in their path before landing in front of them.

“Wait now. You can’t just come and go as you please. You don’t enter a dragon’s den and expect to walk out unscathed. So…” he looked between all four of them. “Who do I start with?”

“What do you want to do?” the leader asked apprehensively. He took a step back away from Jerome and his friends did the same. They turned to run the other way but Jerome came down on them like a beast.

 

~~~

 

Farryn. The Orphanage.

“It is a good thing we bought a few more knives, Tara,” Moss said as he and Old Wen dragged their knives across the ground, cutting the soap that had been left out to harden. “Are we going to wait for it to cure like the last batch?”

Tara tilted her head at him with a smile. “What’s the rush for, Moss? You know this way the soap can last longer when used. Weren’t you surprised when it didn’t fall apart the first time you bathed with it?”

“Heh. It was fascinating. I never knew that was even possible,” he replied. “Still unfortunate that we have to wait more than a full moon cycle for it to cure though.”

Old Wen cleared his throat as he raised his head from his crouching position. Moss flinched when he saw the look on his face and quickly shut his mouth, going back to work. Tara stifled a giggle at that as she watched the both of them. 

“Soap is a luxury only the rich and noble can afford,” Old Wen said, continuing with his work. “Be thankful that you have the privilege to use it. Also,” he looked up to survey the roof, “I think we need to start saving up to buy some roofing sheets. Won’t do to continue as we are until the rains come.”

“True, Old Wen,” Tara responded, gazing upward herself. “Thank you for bringing that up.”

“I’ll be coming with you to the market for that. I know someone.”

Moss raised his eyes at that, confused. He looked at Tara but she also had no idea who the person was. Old Wen was a shut-in and they had never seen him go out. Ever. 

They had come a long way since they started selling the soap. Tara’s gaze shifted to Moss’ face. His brows were drawn in concentration as he continued cutting the hardened soap on the floor, drawing straight lines across the flat blocky soap to separate them into bars. 

Moss was no longer as bitter as he used to be. He even sometimes played with the children now. Even Old Wen was training with them when he was not training on his own. 

Tara shifted her gaze next to the elderly man. Old Wen didn’t have a lot of time. He needed to advance to the Spirit Realm. If not, death would come too quickly. But now he was training. Tara felt she now understood why she had never seen him train. He had lost hope of ever advancing to the Spirit Realm. But he had also stayed as Sprout for too long. She hoped he would be able to advance when he was ready. How he would do it, she had no idea. She had never asked, because she also had never planned for it.

Tara sighed. They had been living from hand to mouth from day to day. None of them had ever had to consider advancing when they were always so hungry and had hungry children to feed. But now…she looked down at the soap on the ground — the source of their new and improved livelihood.

This was the second batch they would cure properly. The first had almost sold out in the market and some bars were still left at home to be sold. This new batch would make no less profit than the first. So maybe they could afford to spend a little on themselves, right?

“Do you think we can get ourselves some crystal stones?” she asked.

Moss stopped and looked at her with his brows raised. Old Wen too. But there was something else in their eyes. Tara shivered lightly. Not from cold or fear but from the look they gave her.

“I do believe we can afford to spend a little on ourselves as we are,” she said again, voice tight. She held the purse from their sales but the decision to buy anything was taken by all three of them. 

Something she hadn’t felt in a long time threatened to overwhelm her emotions. The same thing she could see in both their eyes.

Hope. 

 

~~~

 

The Northern Mountain Range, Pilgrims’ Keep

Was it possible that all these Blanks were somehow communicating with each other? That should be the reason why there were so many of them across from him right now. And how the hell did they track him down? It had to be ‘the four dumb donkeys’, or ‘the four Cro Magnon boys’ as Jerome had dubbed them. Those sons of bitches ratted him out. 

If I ever lay my eyes on them, he thought.

Jerome stood a few paces away from a group of Blanks, thirty strong. He had to do a headcount to get that number correct. They all stood opposite him grinning from ear to ear as if it was Christmas and Santa had arrived. But this place was a hell of a lot bushier than the last place he fought, with lots of trees. He could jump into the trees and disappear in a twinkle. With his smaller frame, he had the advantage here. They just didn’t know it yet.

“What do you all want?” he asked.

Someone came out of the group, crossing the bushes that separated him from them. He looked older than everyone around.

“It’s very rare for a manhunt to happen during an adventure like Pilgrims’ Keep,” the young man said. “You, my friend, have made us all very happy.” 

He wasn’t too old from what Jerome could see, but he was definitely older than a teenager. He must have been Blank for a long time, which would make him stronger than every other person present. Better to stay away from someone like that. Light only knows how strong he would be. 

“I’m not your friend,” Jerome said.

“Heh. Never mind,” the Blank waved him off. “We will be taking your spear. You either leave it with us, or we take it from you…and give you the beating of your life.”

The Blank folded his arms in front of him with a smug look on his face as if delivering his ultimatum made him seem powerful. 

“Did Alvric send you as well?” Jerome asked.

“Oh, he did. As long as we bring him your spear or your corpse, he will pay us handsomely.”

‘Or’ my corpse? Jerome thought and smirked. “You think he would pay you all?” he asked out loud so all of them could hear. “Or he will pay whoever brings him my spear. Did you even bother to find out? Or do you think he would pay all three tens of you?”

Realization dawned on them all after he spoke. He could almost see the gears turning in their heads. Some of them started sneaking away from each other. Perhaps, afraid they might be put down and stopped from fighting for his spear. Others decided to attack him head-on. Eleven boys shot out from the group toward him, all of them aiming to strike him down with their weapons.

He turned to the older Bank. “You know you should be ashamed of yourself. They say wisdom comes with age, but it seemed it left the building when you were born.” He jumped into a tree behind him.

The Blank narrowed his eyes at the insult, still focused on him. “I would enjoy torturing you when I get hold of you.”

Interesting. He was surprisingly level-headed. Jerome knew he couldn’t win against all of them. Heck, he was sure only half a dozen of them could take him down. Except he could enter into that state he was in when he beat up Hedon to a pulp, he would be the one to be beaten to a pulp. And he had no way of doing it again. 

Even if he knew how to, he wouldn’t. Losing his mind to rage was an experience he wasn’t willing to go through again so he did what any sensible person in his shoes would do.

He bolted.