Three more months passed and Anna had kept her word. She came over for a visit every now and then. She’d always come on a random Sunday, and no more than once a month. When she was there the trio had a jolly time. Wolf silently cooked, Anna chatted about random things, and South… He was told to shut up whenever he opened his mouth to say something. Wolf didn’t know about the other two, but he really enjoyed their time together.

When his friends weren’t around Wolf had plenty of things to keep him occupied. The number of beggars he helped out with rations slowly grew. Now over a hundred people would gather at the prearranged spots, and Wolf had to use four spells to feed them. Surprisingly, during one of his trades, he ended up with a Least grade magic item worth at least ten gold pieces. Wolf didn’t say anything. However, whenever that woman showed up, Wolf gave her food for free.

At first the woman didn’t complain. However, each time she got free food for herself and her little girl the woman felt unnerved. She was afraid that this shriveled up old man trading food with them wanted to get her into debt and then extort other forms of payment from her. If it came down to it, she would prostitute herself to feed her child. But there was no need. She was just as able to collect junk as any other beggar that came over for the handouts.

Finally, the woman couldn’t stand it anymore and confronted Wolf.

“Why won’t you take the things I bring?” she asked with a trembling voice.

Wolf had no idea what was on the woman's mind, so he answered like explaining things to a child. “That copper ring you’d given me was worth quite a bit more than you thought. So, I won’t be charging you from now on.”

Wolf thought that was the end of discussion, but the woman was still afraid. There were all sorts of rumors going around of this old imp doing experiments on people.

“And you won’t ask anything in return later?” she asked again, but Wolf just shook his head.

“I’ve just told you, you’ve overpaid me. So, here’s your bread and please don’t make a commotion.” Wolf handed the woman her two loaves and sent her on her way.

Even though Wolf’s sincere act touched some people, others had started spreading even more rumors of how he was exploiting women.

As the size of the group of homeless people grew, so did the troubles that came with them. It wasn’t just the baseless rumors, but real tangible trouble. Gangs of small fries attacked multiple times, but each time they were beaten up with a heavy hand. Some men died, others were permanently crippled only to regret not having died immediately.

Wolf easily and promptly solved all his problems. Some by being oblivious of what was happening, some through liberal use of violence.

Other than feeding the beggars, and accidentally removing criminal groups, Wolf had another chore. Those were his monthly visits to Roger and his Cornucopia merchant group. Wolf went to order supplies for Oakwood Freeland towards the beginning of each month, and each time he got a short report on how the people of the settlement were doing.

Fortunately, the people of the tiny lumberjack community still hadn’t encountered any trouble. Hopefully by the time Wolf got his next report, Rand would’ve already joined them. If men swinging axes their whole lives were fed and properly trained, they should be able to destroy bandits with ease, let alone defend their food stock.

Apart from the little time Wolf spent wrapping up his chores, he mostly focused on studying. Thanks to his big brother’s advice, Wolf had easily comprehended casting Ninth Order spells. However, that’s where he stopped. Wolf had decided that he didn’t want to advance to become an Archmage yet. He had too many spells of all Orders to learn, and he had come to realize that those spells he’d found useless before were really good to have in certain situations. Just like his father used to say, learning them was essential, using them was secondary.

Learning new spells was taxing and Wolf had to be mindful of his Soul Force expenditure, otherwise Silver would go hungry.

The little fellow was also doing quite nicely. Once or twice Wolf had actually felt her-him actually move on her-his own inside the egg.

Given Wolf’s circumstances, life was as good as it gets.

***

*Sizzle. Tok! Tok! Tok!*

Wolf stirred a sizzling and popping pan, while South chopped vegetables masterfully on a wooden cutting board. Wolf had bought it for his big brother weeks ago. When he got it the drunkard grumbled that you didn’t have to buy a block of wood. Better to spend money on whores, and get cured of the whole big tits issue.

Whenever he heard the sound of a knife on wood, Wolf couldn’t help but think about the issue South had mentioned, and the illusions he faced every night in his Mind Palace.

“Hey!” Anna shouted from the mouth of the alley. The girl had started getting up really early on certain Sundays. She’d get up before the sun rose, and wait for her retainers beside the carriage at the first crack of dawn. She’d take a nap on the way over, while her guards yawned and silently cursed her for being eager.

“Hey Anna!” Wolf exclaimed and turned towards her, finding a sack flying straight at his face. With barely awakening his senses ten percent the bag slowed in his field of vision and he snatched it out of nowhere.

“How do you do that?” Anna cried out in wonder. Wolf’s reflexes were impossibly good!

As for Wolf, shifting his senses from dormant to fully awake didn’t even take a moment now. Burning that bit of Soul Force to take in the world around him was negligible, yet very rewarding and intoxicating.

“With my hand,” Wolf answered and shrugged, then passed the sack to South’s executioner’s block for vegetables.

Wolf could tell that South smirked the tiniest bit while he was working. He always grumbled about Anna shushing him, yet he seemed oddly cheerful whenever the girl popped over for a visit.

And so, just like always, the trio joked. Well, the young duo chattered and joked while the bum was being shushed. They talked about what was new since last they met, well the duo did, and the bum was shushed. South wanted to say that he felt like a third wheel, but was yet again shushed.

“And so he…” Wolf abruptly stopped talking in the middle of a sentence. His face turned stern and serious.

The laughing, more than half drunk South immediately became sober. He turned his sharp eyes and looked towards the mouth of the alley with an ugly expression.

Before Anna could turn her head, and see what these two clowns were looking at, her bodyguards grasped their throats as blood fountained from their necks.

All three of them had been assassinated simultaneously.

Anna turned pale and screamed when she saw the blood spray from the open throats of her guards. This was the first time she’d seen a person die, and it happened in such brutal fashion.

In the next moment five figures clad in black stood at the mouth of the alley. They grimly gazed at the trio.

After a split second of silence South spoke first.

“Well,” the messy drunk shrugged in an unperturbed way and downed a mouthful of wine, “these guys ain’t here for me.”

Wolf almost chuckled. Almost. He was more surprised by South’s attitude than with the three blood fountains a dozen meters away.

Was Big brother making a joke just now? Wolf wondered while examining his opponents.

As soon as he’d sensed something wrong Wolf began casting Subtle Swiftness on Anna, himself and South. He added Anna in the spell, hoping it would help her flee or dodge any attacks coming her way.

The leader of this band of assassins was an experienced professional. He had an uneasy feeling watching the man and the boy standing next to his mark.

“Give us the girl and the two of you get to live,” he offered.

In response three people shouted simultaneously.

“I’ll go! Just leave them alone!”

“I’m sorry gentlemen, but Anna is my friend!”

“You can’t have my little brother’s whore!”

The first two statements were cliched, and nobody really paid them any mind. But seven pairs of eyes focused on South, their owners not believing what they’d just heard.

Wolf was so surprised that the Subtle Lethargy spell he’d started casting fizzled out because he’d lost his focus on the flow of Soul Force.

“What?” South shouted, “She’s yours, she’s a whore and they can’t have her. Right?”

South’s logic was… infallible…

Are you sure you know what the word whore means? Wolf had just recently found out that a whore was a woman who sold herself to men, and it definitely didn’t apply to Anna.

Unlike Wolf’s calm reaction, Anna screamed at the top of her lungs, breaking the silence South’s shout induced.

“You’re a whore! Your whole family are whores! That’s why I don’t allow you to speak!” Anna yelled, forgetting their current situation. She was overwhelmed by the madness only South could invoke in people; so furious she’d almost attacked the damned drunkard.

“Alas my family is long gone–” South started, while the leader of the assassins silently regained his senses.

Even to a professional, something as nonsensical as what’d just happened required a moment or two to recover from.

However, he was still a professional.

“Leave no witnesses!” he shouted and charged towards the surreal trio.

His yell and charge were like a trigger, shaking the remaining four assassins back to reality. Three men and a woman followed after their leader, intent on slaughtering everyone present.

Wolf charged to meet the leader. In a corner of his eye he’d caught South’s movement. The drunkard was still droning on as he bent down, and picked up something from the ground.

Before Wolf made two steps a small metallic object whizzed past his ear, and flew straight at the rearmost assassin. Whatever the metallic trinket was, it hit the man straight in his left eye, exploding it completely.

The man’s head jerked back. His legs went up into the air, and he almost spun full circle before his lifeless body smacked down onto the soiled cobbles face first.

Wolf was stunned by the sight, awed by his big brother’s display. However in his mind he was screaming something completely different. Why did you kill the one furthest behind!? You’re supposed to go after the closest ones first!

Hearing the crashing sound of his comrade falling to the ground the newly promoted furthest assassin turned around to see what the hell’d happened.

In that exact instant a broken off piece of cobblestone, roughly the size of a child’s fist, whizzed past Wolf’s head at a terrifying speed.

A blink of an eye later the rock struck the confused assassin in the back of his skull, cracking his head open while breaking his neck in the process.

Wolf thought he was in a serious situation, since he’d felt pressure from these people. He could easily kill them all, but he wasn’t sure he could keep Anna safe. He’d half awakened his senses prepared for battle, but ended up watching his big brother’s random pitches claim lives in slow motion.

However, he mostly focused on the still living assassins. He was five paces away from the lead assassin when he willed his silver-hilted sword into his hand. Wolf’s weapon met the assassin’s dagger.

Droplets of thick, black liquid flew through the air when their weapons met.

It’s poisoned! Wolf thought as he focused on the dagger. The dagger’s blade was dull black, the same color as the poison. Wolf caught a glimpse of a multitude of grooves on the blade, but he’d have to fully awaken his senses to see how much poison was left after the parry.

Wolf wanted to cast Finger of Death to eliminate another assassin while fighting their leader. However it was impossible to execute the mudras and swordplay simultaneously. The only way Wolf could do it was by using a Subtle spell.

As for the assassin, all it took was a single exchange for him to realize that Wolf was no weakling. The boy maintained a proper stance, and without the element of surprise the best the assassin could do was match up to him and buy time for his subordinates.

“Kill the mark. I’ll handle this brat,” the man ordered his henchmen while tying up Wolf.

He was certain that the boy couldn’t kill him shortly, and if worse came to worst he’d use Beast-lord’s Cleave, a Second Order maneuver to kill the brat. Suffering a backlash from fatigue shouldn’t be too dangerous without other opponents.

The two surviving assassins dashed past Wolf, and were almost upon Anna and South.

Panicking, Wolf executed Rabid Tiger’s Flurry, a Sixth Order maneuver. His sword flashed eight times in rapid succession as Wolf pierced towards his enemy. After blocking the first blow a second dagger appeared in the assassin’s off hand, but even then he struggled. The assassin fended off the first three jabs, but each blow grew more fearsome than the last, as if all the leftover force of the previous blow carried over into the next.

Finally, as the fourth strike landed, the assassin crossed his daggers in front of his chest to block. The fine steel blades shattered and the silvery-blue sword bit into the man’s flesh.

The wound was shallow, as the shattered blades had managed to absorb most of the power behind the fourth strike. However, the four blows that followed landed one after another, opening ghastly wounds in the man’s torso, nearly ripping him to shreds.

As soon as the combination maneuver was finished, Wolf started casting a Finger of Death. He turned around, wanting to help out with the two remaining assassins. That one maneuver he’d just used had expended more than a third of his Internal Energy reserve. With his body lethargic, Wolf had to rely on magic.

The boy was certain that his big brother could handle one assassin, but he was worried about what would happen when South faced a pair of them.

Wolf turned around. He saw two assassins, a man and a woman lying still on the ground. Their heads were at odd angles, their necks wrung like chickens, making for a grotesque sight.

The scene was truly sickening, and sure enough, Anna was retching behind South’s back. The drunkard on the other hand just patted his hands as if dusting them off. No, he was actually clapping.

“A good choice of maneuver, Little brother,” the bum commended. “Assassins and their ilk are often physically weaker. They excel at short bursts of strength, so using brute force to wear them down is generally the way to kill all sorts of sneaky bastards.

“Now you could work on your technique a bit more. Look at you,” South pointed at Wolf. “You’re panting after using a single maneuver, which means you’re lacking control over your energy. You killed him with the fifth strike, but kept wasting more and more energy with the three followup blows.”

Anna heaved once again, and South turned towards her with an annoyed expression.

“Hey! If you don’t mind, I live here!” he exclaimed. “Only I can hurl around wherever I please!”

Wolf stared at him flabbergasted. Of the five assassins South had killed four, and the manner in which he did it was brutal beyond words.

“Why did you first kill the ones at the back?” Wolf found himself asking without thinking.

“Once a fight starts, the guys in the back are the most likely to run and get away. So, naturally, you have to deal with them first, otherwise someone might escape!” South spoke matter of factly.

“Remember Little brother, when dealing with enemies, it is imperative to leave none alive,” the drunkard finished his explanation.

Wolf blinked dumbly several times, trying to process his big brother’s way of thinking. This was the first time he’d ever heard such logic, and while twisted, it was perfectly reasonable. It’s just that people rarely approach battles as places where you don’t want anyone to escape with their lives.

“What do we do about your whore?” South asked, pointing down towards Anna with his chin.

The sight just now seriously traumatized the eleven year old girl. Her bodyguards had painted the alley red with their blood, the two of the men that ran towards her had their heads practically explode after being struck by improvised projectiles and lastly, whatever South had done must’ve been terrifying, based on the way the assassins’ eyes bulged out.

“What about her?” Wolf asked.

“Do you really think it’s fine for her to know what you can do?” South asked without batting an eye. He didn’t really care about the girl’s trauma. There were more practical concerns.

“That,” Wolf hesitated. “That is a good question.”