-Grrr
The raptors growled in displeasure as they pulled our carriage, the cobbled stone roads of the Upper city of Lueurre, not to their liking.
"Do we really have to leave today?", Cana called out to , poking her head from the carriage window. "As you know, haste makes waste."
"That's the favorite saying of lazy people.", I said, effortlessly guiding the raptors towards the Baron's mansion.
"Coming rich from soone who was cooped up in his bedroom whole day!", she retorted.
"Soone's jealous."
"Of course, I am. I was worked to the bone for the past two days, and the today instead of resting we are travelling again!", Cana sighed in frustration before slumping, muttering to herself as she rested her face on the window fra, "I wanted to rest…"
Well, I couldn't bla her. She along with Syrus, dealt with all the things that required completion of the contract between our rcenary group and baron Marek.
It included raiding the noble houses with Baron's forces, apprehending them, questioning them. That was not all, yesterday they even had to deal with Claire, to give her second life potion, as well as with Elista, as the guests in my room all ca in secret, and all sorts of loose ends.
From what Syrus told , they had quite an adventure. Though, people who saw Cana use her power got scared, and she was ostracized again. And while she was used to this, didn't an she was immune to it.
Thankfully, she had a day's buffer yesterday and was just grumpy now.
"You'll get your chance.", I replied wistfully, as we approached the mansion.
"Halt!", the knights at the gate commanded, but at this point, even they knew that they were doing this for formality and nothing more.
Waving at the familiar knights, I stated, "I have business with the Baron, just confirm it with him."
Following the protocol, one of the knights behind the gate went into the mansion, confird my appointnt and ca back to open the gate.
"How inefficient.", Cana comnted.
'Atleast don't say that on their face.', my smile cracked a little. As magic users I was sure they heard that. Thankfully, they remained professional and let us in, and soon we found ourselves seated across the Baron.
"Leaving already?", the Baron asked as we were all dressed to travel.
"Yes, my job is done. There's no need for a rcenary to prolong their stay."
"Hm.", nodding, the Baron affird, taking out a small pouch filled with Coles that he passed to .
Pocketing the pouch in my bracelet, I extended my hand, "It was nice doing business with you."
Shaking my hand, "It was nice doing business with you as well, Troubleseekers.", the Baron responded in kind.
At the sa ti, I felt the contract that had been embedded in my soul being burned to ashes, no longer of any use.
After our handshake, I asked him in tersely, "How's Jack?"
'Yep, there was still one last thing I had to do before leaving.'
***
The first floor of the Baron's mansion held facilities for his subordinates and knights, including the infirmary, where the injured were treated.
In one such wards, one specially made for higher ranked officers such as executives or knight commanders, laid Jack.
The forr aggressive knight commander, had lost his previous touch, giving off an aura of despair. He didn't move even when I walked beside his bed, with his arm covering his eyes, he laid as if dead.
"Hey, you alive?", I tapped on his arm, after settling down on a stool near the bed.
"Who!?"
As if shocked, he jumped up in fright, looking at as if he saw a ghost.
'Did I just disturb his sleep?', I barely kept my smile as I looked at Mark's twin.
Finally aware of his surroundings, Jack relaxed as recognized , "You're that rcenary… Ray? Why are you here?"
"Well, we fought together and all, so I thought we were comrades.", I lingered awkwardly. "So, I thought, I'd visit you."
"Thanks for your visit, but let be clear, we did not fight together. Nor are we comrades. You are an rcenary while I am a servant of the Empire, we can't be comrades."
"If you say so…", I shrugged, feeling better knowing that he hadn't lost his edge even after being mutilated. In fact, he seed better than Mark who had sunken cheeks, dark circles and dead fish eyes.
"Anyways, I just ca here to deliver this.", I said, holding up a glass vial with nebulous mana flowing through it. From the outside it didn't even look like a potion, instead it looked as if strings of light bundled together that was stuffed in a glass vial.
"What's that?", Jack asked in confusion as stared the vial that brightened the whole room as soon as I summoned it.
Actually, it was my mana, or more specifically, my mana without the any speck of attribute Enchanter, or my essence. It was a little complex, but if I had to explain, a person's mana had three things, first was the spirit imprint, or the mana signature, then it had soul imprint, aka soul signature or the person's essence and lastly it contained the person's attribute.
To form this potion, of sorts, I spent the last evening, painstakingly extracting bits of other things from my mana till only the [Lightbringer] attribute remained.
Of course, I didn't explain this to him.
"It's the repaynt for all the tis I troubled your brother.", I said. "Debride you wound and then drink this, and you'll go back to your previous self."
Of course, he didn't believe .
"It's okay, I have tried many tis already. Drinking all sorts of potions including the high grade ones. According to the Baron the part of my soul that overlapped with my leg has been destroyed, so don't bother wasting your potion on . The Baron has already prepared a desk job for , so I'll live just doing that.", he spoke quite calmly unlike a certain soone; it was obvious that he had given up on healing himself.
"I know that.", I said, tossing the vial towards the four-ard beastn, who panicked but still caught it. "I brought the potion to you knowing that."
"What are you saying, I just explained that you need to heal my soul for that and there exists no potion that can heal the soul…", he replied in an annoyed tone but I spoke before he could complete.
"It can do that. It can heal your soul."
"What!? Do you expect to believe that? And even if such a potion exists how in the world can a re rcenary acquire it?"
"Well, it's up to you if you want to believe or not. As from where I got it? I just had to beg Prince Rayne really hard for it."
"Prince Rayne? What does he have to do with this?", Jack got confused over the sudden ntioning of my na.
"Oh, right! You don't know what happened two days ago. Hm, it doesn't matter. Keep the potion with you, drink it if you feel like it, or throw it away, it will be your loss not mine.", I said while getting up, giving Jack a goodbye wave before he could say, "Wait a minute-"
***
[A Month Later]
"Are you there? Are you there, yet?"
A voice filled with excitent echoed in the luxurious carriage which I was currently riding.
"Nope, it'll still take a while.", my nonchalant voice replied the excited one.
"Is that so?", the voice dismissed my nonchalance with her own, complaining, "But it's unfair. So unfair…!"
"What is?", I asked innocently, as the blue haired girl in the holographic display in front of bared her teeth.
"Enough of that nonchalant display, Rayne Von Ellsworth! I know you are enjoying this much more than you're letting on. This princess doesn't need her subjects to suppress their excitent from her great self."
Kapheira declared, walking around her gigantic room before she turned to and questioned, "So, tell Rayne, how excited are you for your first raid?"
"Very, your highness.", I smirked, "I'd be much more excited had you been personally present here to cheer up.", adding.
"And I'd happily whoop your ass if I was there.", Kapheira sighed, going back into her complaining mode as she said, "It's unfair. How co your parents let you participate in a raid while mine just keep training . I want to go out, I also wanna participate in raids, kill so ugly monsters, and play…"
"Well, I'm not exactly here to play…"
"Shut it, you kiddie hero who passed the, oh so holy, Trial Of Light!", the teenage girl sneered exaggeratedly. "Trial of light, my ass, anyone can see you acquired so random power by chance and yet they believe in so bullshit story you cooked up!"
"I-It was my dad who cooked up that story…", I stamred with embarrassnt.
"Oh, my? Are you getting shy? The hero who passed the trial of light!?"
"I'm not!"
"You better not! I still haven't forgiven you for not telling about this power! It would've been such a cool experience! Both of us getting our hands on that power, as people later ford matching monikers for us."
"You already thought of monikers?"
"Yes of course! I'd be called the priestess or Saintess of Light and you… you could be sothing like paladin of Light!"
"You just thought of my moniker on the fly, right?", I asked, before sighing at the hamster like expression Kapheira made. I'd poke her cheeks if I could. "Well, aren't you busy enough training your second attribute? Why do you even want a third one? Didn't you hear, people popped up like balloons while trying to absorb this power. Only I, the hero who passed the trial was allowed to wield it!", I said mirroring her previous exaggerated motions.
"Yea, yea, oh so mighty prince blessed by the Spirit Of Light, go on forth and conquer your enemies!", she played along.
Then in a casual note, she added, "Then, talk to you later, it's ti for my literary classes. You too should ditate for a bit; you're actually heading into a battle. It'd be a disaster if the mighty Prince Of Light gets injured on his debut."
"That'd what I'd been doing had soone not called ."
"What? Can't hear you, seeya!"
-Creak!
Just as the phone call ended and before Cana who was sitting beside could quip sothing, the carriage ca to an halt.
"Young Master, we're here."
"Thanks, Syrus.", I said to my trusty companion, who was driving the carriage, opening the door as a bustle of activity greeted .
Currently, we were in a village called Loana, it was a moderately sized town, with one of its sides facing a magical forest that spanned far and wide bordering another three smaller villages nearby.
This particular town had a common problem, just like many forest-side towns present in the central realm, and that was Monster Overgrowth. It referred to two situations normally. First, actual overgrowth of monsters where the monsters actually bred too much, destroying the ecosystem of forest causing them to venture out of the forest, for prey. And the other where a particularly powerful monster erged, uniting the monsters to execute waves of attacks on surrounding villages to pillage for resources.
The response in both cases were the sa, set up a defensive point, barricade the villages and form a raid party of magic users to kill the monsters and their leader if any.
So, what greeted as soon as I got off the carriage was just that. Hustle of people, soldiers and rcenaries working together to barricade the already tall walls of the town. Loading magical ballistae, cannons, setting up landmines imbued with magic, digging trenches, spiking up the wall with poison thorns and much more.
It was mostly soldiers doing the barricade work, their duty only consisting of defending the village, while the rcenaries were setting up temporary camps behind these walls, getting ready for the attack.
It was pretty much a magical flea market behind those walls where many rcenaries sought so useful potions, tuning their equipnt, so even outright bought or sold artefacts. The fun fact was that everything was portable, ready to flee at a mont's notice in case of an attack.
Our carriage, which had the Ellsworth Estate's crest and reeked of luxury, was pretty noticeable in that sowhat cheap environnt. So, as soon as we rolled in, various gazes locked on myself, who had just disembarked the carriage.
Since we weren't incognito this ti, I had all kinds of top notch equipnt and artefacts adorning , my trusty armor covering from neck to toe, blinding anyone who tired to uncover its secrets. Sa could be said for Cana and Allen who were going to participate this ti, albeit as supporters.
Before anyone could speak, an imperial knight, who seed to be commander of the corps in this town walked towards .
His face devoid of expressions as he gave a deep bow, "I greet you, Young Master Rayne, heir to the Ellsworth Estate. My na is Grehwan, and I'll help you in assembling the attack party for this raid."
Normally, the spearhead of the raid party is decided by the imperial governnt, choosing rcenary groups who had proven themselves before. But this ti, the Earl had pulled strings to make the spearhead. It was my chance to prove that I am indeed the hero who passed the trial of Light, increase the faction's value and as such.
So, under the uncertain gazes of rcenaries who probably weren't so enthusiastic to hand their lives to a kid, I confidently stepped forward and said as calmly as possible, "Nice to et you, Sir Grehwan, I'll be responsible for leading the attack party in this raid. I'll look forward to your cooperation."
That was all I had to do, the rest were to be proved by my abilities.
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