Everything has a price.

Everything.

The last battle cost more than I expected. I overused my body, and didn't have enough rest for a while after that. And now, I'm laying on burning sand coughing out dead pieces of my lungs. I try to stop trembling, but it's useless. The burnt and dead tissues are releasing toxins into my body, too much to be able to heal. The pain isn't a problem, I'm used to it, the issue is that I'm immobilized until it stops. Luckily I had some food in the saddlebags so the nutrition requirements are solved.

Several hours passed and I can start moving again. I crawl towards the horse, mounting it I start after the caravan again, healing as I travel.

I should meet the caravan pretty soon.

...

It's been five days since I left Kamalesh, but I still won't be able to do anything major for quite some time. The tracks of the caravan were lost a few days ago in a sandstorm, now I can't follow their direct route. So, no caravan, barely any water, and no food. Well, at least the food problem has taken care of its self. A ten-meter sand centipede attacked from under the sand, the horse died from the attack. Even if the cut was small it still wouldn't survive, their poison was extremely toxic. I killed the centipede, but the fact that I didn't see it coming is bad.

Standing near the corpses I start thinking on my next actions. The Desert is a dangerous place, that's why I wanted to travel with the caravan, one day late and I'm in this situation. I butcher the very expensive dead horse and eat my fill. No time to cook it, and even less reason to take any with me, it'll spoil fast because of the temperature. Taking the bare necessities I resume travel in the direction they should've went, need to travel light.

Dying alone in a desert...

Sigh.

...

Earth mages can cause more problems than anyone can imagine. Sand traps, quicksand, earth javelins, earth wall, and so much more. The big bandit groups usually have at least one. The three dead earth mages laying on the sand tell me I was much more than just unlucky. I'm not sure if it was a bad thing though, because now I have food, water, and a new horse. Strangely, no coins. Maybe they hid them somewhere, but I can't find them, and staying here for much longer is too dangerous in the long run.

"Did you do this?"

Looking back I find a levitating mage, with long blonde hair.

No, I think.

A wind wizard, but she can't maintain levitation for long, and she definitely didn't travel through the desert alone. Must be part of a caravan, but I don't see anything.

"Yes. I was supposed to be one of the caravan guards, but I missed you by a day and got lost in the desert."

She looks down on me as if I'm a bug, and contemplates whether I'm lying or not, and if she should kill me here. Wizards are always arrogant, thinking that everyone is an insect under their feet. I'm not sure what pissed me off more, but an overwhelming desire to "rustle her jimmies" was hard to hold back. Interesting term, which was told to me by an even more interesting person.

"Tell your master that I'm here. Jitak knows me. Here, take the quest paper and showw it to him."

I take out the scroll and throw it at her. She catches the scroll with one hand, opens it and reads through the guild contract signed by him. The reluctance with which she does all those operations can hardly be contained. Her face morphs into rage and I see the thought of killing me becoming stronger. They're prideful, and hate being under someone else's command, calling someone her master should have don't the trick. Still, even wizards follow the rules.

"Stay here."

She flies away, and after some time returns with several bodyguards on horses in tow. As they come to a stop, the lead body guard looks at me for a minute in silence. Ah, yeah, my skin is still burned, I look like I just came out of an oven.

"I hate fire mages, had a small incident with one. Look, scars still there."

I point to the red-black scar on the right side of my face, still visible even in my current state. His eyes open wide in shock as if finally recognizing me.

"God almighty, the fuck happened? You look half-dead."

I tell him the short version of what happened. That because of a small event, I was late by a day and traveled after them, how I lost their path, my horse dying, and meeting the bandits.

After some discussion, it was decided that the bandits belongings will be taken by the caravan and sold, and I will receive a "share". Share, huh. Disgust and fear were easily recognisable on the faces of the guards and travellers. It was decided that I would be assigned to the rear guard, together with the poor and non-humans. Discrimination still exists, but at least it's not "active". I've seen many killed just because they looked a bit different. But there's no reason to complain, they're alive and have the same wages as humans.

The non-humans looked at me with even more disgust and fear than the humans. Some pointed, some evaded, and others look as if they're thinking of how to get rid of me. You would think that because of their experience, they would be more accepting, but no. The funny thing about this whole situation is that they may look different, but deep down, they're all the same.

Absolutely the same.

After the bandits were collected, we resumed travel. During the evening we stopped, several non-humans started speaking in Patu, a language from the South Continent, Paletia. It's not the language, but the subject that's an issue.

"Communism"

An interesting concept brought by one of the summoned a long, long time ago. The basic idea of equality was alien to the people, but after some time it started to resonate with many. At the start, inspired by the concept people were advocating equal rights for all sentient species. Pretty simple and logical, right? One place, the south-east region of Paletia, even implemented it, and started to economically develop rapidly.

With each year, people there advocated for more and more "equal" rights. And at one point the original concept of "Communism" returned. The ideas changed from "equal" to "equality". A new, quite aggressive group with "equality" as a core slogan appeared, they promised food and riches to every single person.

Promised.

They "collected" everything, and divided it "equally", to be truly "equal". During that moment I was there. I've seen how the militias "shared" the farmer's harvest. They did not ask, they took. Leaving many farmers to starve. It moved from food to land. From land to property. From property to gold.

And the leaders were always more "equal".

No one cared that some people worked for years to buy their land, or they spent generations clearing forest from the land, plowing earth, planting seeds, caring for them, and then gathering the harvest.

The speakers continued telling people about communism. While presenting everything in a bright light, and evading critical points, focusing on the riches they will get and the oppression they're currently suffering under. The bewitched eyes of the listeners told me enough. Great, more fanatics coming, this time their political.

More war.

More death.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Ever since I left the northern mountain post, it feels like the world is falling into the abyss.

...

It's been two weeks, travel is slow. My internal organs, and muscles have healed a bit. So I've started to send more nutrition to my skin. Even I can get tired of the horrified looks. Do they think that it's some kind of infectious disease? Or is it painful to look at me?

As soon as I started to look more human, a few groups started to talk with me. Unexpectedly the group I spoke the most with is the one I saw in the inn. Elf, dwarf, and a purple skinned ogre. The Elf chatted non-stop about their adventures, the dwarf pointed out the errors, or how he made the most important contribution, but the ogre was generally silent, but it was apparent that he was the party leader.

We were attacked a few times by centipedes and scorpions, but they were dealt with quickly. The big ones were killed by the mages, and the smaller were assigned to us, the melee guards.

...

"The swap smelled like the shitroom in a slavehouse."

"You sure know how it smells."

"Shut it, beard turd. Anyways, we could hardly drink or eat. Hunting that goddamn troll tribe was harder than we expected.

"Ha. I remember you eating like a bark maggot in heat."

"Fuck you cunt. You're not one to talk, you drank non-stop the whole time.:"

As they continued their story, we kept walking. A scream came from the front as people were running and trying to hide.

"DRAGON!!! HIDE!"

Shit, how the fuck did the attract a dragon? A few took out their weapons, and the mages started to prep their spells. After a few seconds of screaming, and guards giving orders, the sound of battle could be heard. The wind wizard was flying around, and casting spells, while the other mages fired ice, fire, and earth javelins.

Dragon.

As soon as I see the creature, confusion creep onto my face. After a few seconds of thinking, I sigh like I haven't for a long time.

Dragon.

Blind idiots, two wings and two legs does not a dragon make. I'm not sure what's more frustrating, the fact that a wyvern was mixed up with a dragon, or that they're so worked up over a wyvern with a thirty-meter wingspan.

Pathetic.

Dragons are flying fortresses of death. They wield spell that can demolish cities with a single cast. Scales harder than steel, jaws that can crush stone like apples, swallowing a carriage in one bite. In the air they're unkillable, on the ground it'll take a few armies and powerful spells to just wound them. A fucking wyvern is an oversized cave bat, barely able to cast a fireball.

As the people scream, and run around I just feel apathetic at their squabble. Mages continue to fire spells at it in horror. Idiots, most magic creatures have good magic defense. Attack the wings, ground it, and it's dead.

The wyvern opens its jaws wide to gather mana in order to cast a fireball. As its lungs inflate I wonder why they stopped their assault now? Cast a fireball into its mouth and it'll explode like an overfilled balloon. The fireball hits the carriages, spreading fire around the caravan.I draw my sword as I walk in the direction of the wyvern. Absurd, how did they survive for so long? Most of the mages are on their knees, breathing heavily, wasted all their mana more than likely.

I can see the wind wizard still levitating and gathering mana to cast another spell. Before she can, she's interrupted and blown away by a blast of wind from the wyvern's wings. It lands on one of the carriages, and starts eating the horse while it swings its wings to maintain balance.

I send mana to my legs to get a decent jump. As soon as I get close to its wing my sword cuts the wings membrane, I fall down and roll. The wyvern screeches and tries to take off, but falls down to one side, can fly with one wing can you? It turns to look at me, and starts to charge towards me on all fours. I evade and try to position myself so I can quickly kill it. But it's useless, I'm alone and no one is helping. Fucking idiots don't even understand support. It's bigger and faster than me. It's eyes and the center of it's neck. I can't evade much longer, and help isn't coming, so I need to do it myself.

It charges me again as I jump as high as I can go to get on top of it. Its jaws close on the place I was a few moments before. The moment I land I plunge the sword into its eye. Shit, swords too short. It thrashes around, throwing me off. Because of my velocity I didn't make a smooth landing, and it took a few seconds to stop myself. But it's too late, only a few meters separate us. I've got about two seconds before its teeth close on my body.

Teeth.

I do one of the stupidest things that comes to mind, and jump into its throat. As the jaws close, the light disappears. At least my legs aren't damaged. I'm inside, and I still have my sword, but there isn't enough space to move. So I start stabbing my sword into whatever I can. The creature starts to thrash around in discontent.

Oh, was that painful? Let me show you to not eat random stuff.

I finally fall into some sack, and something begins to burn my skin. Stomach acid, shit. I repeat my actions with even more vigor. Warm liquid starts flowing into the sack, but I don't stop. Finally after a few minutes the thrashing stops. Ok, now I just need to get out as fast as possible, not much air left, and I'd prefer to not be digested. Not sure how big its asshole is, but I'm not a big fan of that exit. I start carving through the flesh, after about a minute I carve a exit big enough to slip out of.

I fall onto the sand and take a deep breath of fresh air. After a dozen breaths I stand, wobbling a fair bit. A few people are trying to stop the fires, but most are just standing and staring at me. A prickling sensation on my skin tells me that my clothes are still covered in stomach acid. I quickly strip, and hear a series of gasps. Not understanding their reaction I look at them, but they aren't looking at my face, but somewhere lower. As I look down I start to regret taking off my shirt. The brotherhood symbol is still there. Can't get rid of it. It always returns, same as the scar on my face. I walk to Jitak and ask him for some clothes, a few clothes should be left over from the bandits.

One of his bodyguards, a dark elf, looks at me in pure hatred.

"Blood Demon."

Jitak winces, looking at me, hoping that his guard didn't offend me.

Yeah, we killed a lot of them.

Moloch, Baal, Lucifer. Different faces, one...creature.

Dark elves have "dark" in their names for a reason, and the blueish colour isn't the main reason. They've done a lot of stuff, horrendous stuff. The Blood Legion literally decreased their number by nearly half. Several tens of million souls. Some say it wasn't justified, but with each year dealing with them, I believed that less and less.

If your body has an affinity for dark spells,would you focus on other, weaker affinities? No. They always return to what they have been doing. All the pretty words aren't worth shit. They were prosecuted and forgiven several times. And still, they returned to their old ways. We were not the first ones who tried to stop them.

A person comes back with the clothes, hands them to me. I can see he's shaking in fear. The Blood Legion is the general term for Zeronel's army. They wear red and follow Zeron's teachings. They are well known and respected. The Blood Brotherhood, is a different story. We are not an army, we are hunters. We're marked by the symbol on our chests. People speak of us in hushed tones, and they fear us. They are a lot of scary children's tales about us for a reason.

Us. We.

No.

Them. I am alone. I am no longer a part of them.

I take the shirt and put it on, walking towards the back of the caravan. Everyone was trying to keep their distance from me, no one came any closer than five meters. The fire was out, no one was dead but a few were severely burnt. Not as badly as I was, but still. After some time the caravan started to move again.

...

No one tried to speak with me since the wyvern attack. But everyone whispered between themselves, with fear evident in their eyes.

Nothing new.

The wind wizard took several long glances at me but did not speak. Even the prideful wizard looked scared.

We arrived at Tomalesh, a huge sand stone "city" around two major oasis in the center of a dead desert. It should have been pretty quiet, but as we get close to the gate I notice that I've never seen it this active and noisy. After a few questions I find the reason. The Caliphate attacked the Desert Alliance. WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK. For centuries these kingdoms had a good relationship.

Wait.

The worshipers of Moloch and Minerva thought I was a Caliphate spy. I thought they just meant the usual spy, which the Caliphate is known to send everywhere. They thought I was Qaes. Sent to assassinate. That explains more, but still, why? For what reason?

But more importantly, and all out war is coming.

The Empire, the Northen Kingdom, Qing, the Caliphate, and now the Desert Alliance.

A third Continental War.

Fuck.