“The Hero and The Evil Dragon.”

Willem solemnly said the name of the story, his eyes reflecting a reverent gaze. His steps continued uniformly through the corridor, unhindered by the heaviness of his tone.

Mehr frowned a little, trying to understand why the title of the story felt so familiar. His mind raced, struggling to remember but came up with nothing in the end. There was a nagging feeling in his heart that he was forgetting something. He sighed, trying to suppress the feeling when suddenly his heart shook.

“It looks like I’m taking another bet on the future. I wonder where we’ll end up once all of this is over. Will The Hero of the village defeat The Evil Dragon, or will he be defeated yet again?”

“We’ll meet again soon, Hero of the village.”

A conversation he once had, came rushing to him. Sir Ghost’s words rang inside his mind, making his heart beat wildly. His steps didn’t halt and neither did his expression change, but his mind and heart were restless beyond measure.

‘Does Willem know Sir Ghost? No, that’s not really necessary. Their words might sound similar but mean completely different things.” Mehr’s thoughts gradually settled down. He knew that thinking about it too much would bring no result. He would have to complete this mission if he wanted to listen to the story.

‘There are so many things that I want to know from Willem. This is not very good.’ Mehr sighed in his heart.

“Of course, even if your team wins but fails to impress me with your performance, I will not tell you the story,” Willem said.

The students walking behind him nodded to no one in particular. To them, it was a mere story mentioned in an odd conversation. It meant nothing to them. The thing that mattered was the mission.

“Professor, can you tell us about the mission?” Fynn asked.

“Of course,” Willem giggled. “You will be going to the village of Sugasa. Even if it's called a village, it is quite large and provides substantial economic value to the city it is in. However, in recent years, a formidable criminal group has taken control of the forest near the village and has been terrorising the villagers. Your mission is to either cripple the group or eradicate them. The leader of the group is someone called Jason. There is not much information about him except that he is in the Third Stage.”

The students raised their brows while looking at Willem’s back. All of them were on the Orange Stage, the Second Stage. While it wasn’t impossible to go against someone who is one stage higher in the low stages, it was extremely difficult.

“Haha. Don’t worry, only the leader is worthy of your concern. The rest of them couldn’t possibly pose a threat to you. If all of you work together, you might be able to injure him and I would consider it as a passable result.” Willem answered when he felt gazes on his back.

“Professor Willem,” Sirius said, “Why isn’t the Kingdom doing something about the situation in the village?”

Willem simply shrugged, “How would I know. I’m just a professor.”

“So, will all of us be going together?” Daniel asked the question he found to be more important.

“No,” Willem said, “Your teams will be separated and put in different locations in and nearby the village. You will proceed with your mission however you want but I would like it if you finished it before midnight. You all have battle arts class tomorrow, after all.”

The children nodded. They had almost reached the Gate by now. Willem snapped and the black blob inside the giant stone arc started trembling violently. The black blob slowly started relaxing, covering the inside of the stone arc. The surface of the black blob of darkness settled as Willem signalled everyone to enter.

Mehr looked back at Willem, waiting for the information regarding the specific task he was supposed to perform. Willem glanced at him and gestured to him to leave. Mehr nodded and turned back, listening to the voice echoing inside his head,

“The leader called Jason is in possession of a Golden Quill. I would like you to bring that to me.” Willem’s voice stated.

Sirius, Mehr and Nora slowly stepped inside the Gate, closely followed by Fynn’s team. Daniel stopped as he looked at Willem and asked, “Can we choose a specific location in the village for you to transfer us to?”

Willem looked at Daniel and smiled, “Of course, why not.”

Daniel nodded and told the location to Willem before stepping into the Gate, with David and Meera following him.

*****

As soon as Mehr walked out of the Gate, blinding sunlight greeted him. His hand moved to cover his eyes as he waited for him to get used to it. He looked around, noticing that the Gate had disappeared behind him. His eyes fell upon a crowded street filled with many people that were staring at his party of three. The crowd was wearing modest clothes and Sirius, Mehr and Nora’s garb stuck out like sore thumbs.

Mehr looked closely at the crowd and noticed no hostility or malevolence from their gaze. He slowly walked away from the stone arc that housed the Gate.

“Why are they looking at us like that?” Nora asked in a worried tone, inching a little closer to Sirius as they followed Mehr.

“Perhaps they are just surprised to see us,” Sirius answered, not too confident himself.

“Let’s go to the officials to collect some information first,” Mehr said, walking briskly with the giant spear strapped to his back. He noticed that the gazes targeted at them seemed somewhat hopeful and delighted. Mehr ignored the constant staring and continued walking to the large building in the distance.

They soon ended up before the building that seemed important enough to warrant the need for guards. They started walking up the stairs when two guards stopped them and asked for their verification.

“Verification?” Sirius asked. He looked at Mehr and Nora, then turned to the guards and said, “We’re from the Academy of Baelor. We would like to meet the official stationed here.”

The guards nodded and politely escorted them in. One of the guards brought them to a rather well furnished and decorated room. He humbly asked them to sit on the seats and informed them that the official would soon arrive.

Mehr looked around the room, noticing the extravagant decor. The curtains over the windows seemed exponentially expensive, accentuating the feeling of the exorbitant chandelier on the ceiling. The seats seemed to be lined with gold and the showcase of crockery with gems. Mehr hadn’t even seen such extravagance at the Fryes, yet a small official in a slightly large village was living such a life.

The door to the room was soon opened and a middle-aged man hurriedly walked in. His back was bent and his posture was submissive, his hands clasped in front of him. There was a polite smile on his face, in contrast to the extremely tacky clothes he had on. His robe was golden in colour, lined with red patterned embroidery.

“Haha, how fortunate of me to be in the company of the young prodigies of the prestigious Academy.” The middle-aged man bowed at intervals while speaking. “How can this lowly person, Grayson Hullen, be of help to you?”

Sirius stood up from his seat and bowed politely, “Greetings. My name is Sirius F-”

“He is called Sirius.” Mehr suddenly cut off Sirius’ words. Sirius turned his head to look at Mehr and was surprised to find the familiar annoyed expression on his face long gone. Mehr was wearing a genuinely polite smile, his palms rubbing slowly as he bent his back to bow to the official.

“Lord, this one is called Nora and I’m called Mehr. We’re all from a remote town in the North and haven’t known much about the outside world. This is actually the very first time that we’ve been assigned a mission by the Academy. We would be grateful if the Lord Official could help us.” Mehr’s words gave quite a shock to all the participants in this small gathering.

Sirius and Nora couldn’t understand what Mehr was trying to do but didn’t interject stupidly.

Official Grayson Hullen was surprised when he heard Mehr’s words. However, as Mehr’s words went on, Grayson’s bent back slowly straightened. The smile was still there on his face but the politeness had lessened quite a bit.

‘Commoners? Hmph, and I was even bowing to them.’ Grayson chided himself in his heart. He looked at the three kids, who were in the Academy’s standard uniform and the humility in his expression slowly disappeared.

“I see. What can I do to help you kids?” Grayson asked.

Sirius and Nora looked at each other, noticing the drastic shift in tone and expression. Sirius was getting slightly angry at the two-faced man as he realised what was going on. However, they didn’t utter a single word and let Mehr handle the situation.

“Lord, we were informed that there lives someone called Jason in the adjacent forest. We would like information on him and his group.” Mehr said politely.

The official rubbed his chin when he heard the name, Jason. He seemed to be thinking hard about something when his eyes sparkled. He looked at Mehr with a covetous gaze.

“I do have some important information regarding the man you seek, but it is quite expensive. I can’t just hand it to you like that. You would have to either buy with gold or exchange with something of value.” Grayson said.

Mehr seemed a little worried at the proposition. He searched around in his pockets but failed to find anything. He looked at Grayson with pleading eyes as he said, “Lord, we do not have enough gold or anything of value to exchange. I only have my spear that might be worth something.”

Grayson nodded, looking at the giant spear that was completely covered in black cloth.

“Of course, show me.”

Mehr slowly pulled the spear from his back and uncovered it. Grayson waited as Mehr was removing the cloth covering when his eyes fell upon the spear. Its handle was shining with a black sheen, the wings on its sides giving off a sharpened might. Grayson was mesmerised, seeing such an elegant spear for the first time. He slowly raised his hand asking to hold the spear.

Mehr noticed the raised hand and smiled politely. He picked up the spear and moved it towards Grayson, swinging it towards his hand.

Aaaaahhhh!

“You!” Grayson’s scream of agony soon leaked through the room. He was holding the bleeding stump of his hand with this other, while trying to heal it with his insufficient healing arts.

Sirius and Nora were thoroughly startled at the surprise attack. They couldn’t understand what Mehr was trying to do. They just stood there, unmoving, for a moment when Mehr’s voice disturbed their trance.

“Sirius, Nora. Go round up all the guards in the building and ask them to show you the official’s cabin. Bring every important document and anything expensive you find there.”

Sirius and Nora jolted to action as soon as they heard it. Sirius stopped though, turned around and asked, “Wouldn’t we have to hurt those innocent guards outside?”

“Idiot. The guards are probably involved already. Moreover, we can just use our names and no one would dare to attack us.” Nora giggled playfully.

Sirius raised his brows, realising why Mehr had suddenly cut off his words previously. He nodded and rushed out of the room along with Nora.

Mehr was looking at the official, Grayson Hullen, with an emotionless gaze. His entire polite personality had shifted in a moment and only a cold and ruthless light was emanating from his eyes.

“Now, should we talk about how much that fellow, Jason, is paying you officials?”