Year 2, Summer, Third Month, Third Week.

“Please, listen to the rest of my story before judging me!”

Lew lowered his head to show that he wouldn’t make any moves. The Council members slowly calmed down and sat again. In the beginning, they felt his pain and sympathized with his story, even though his father’s position made them a little uncertain. But the last information was too much to ignore, the section's Captain was a figure they grew up fearing and hating.

“My father and more importantly, I’m against everything the Serion Kingdom does, I hate this system, I hate how they treat non-Mages as slaves and trash, I hate everything… But what could I do? What could my father do? It might not look like it, but we were trying to change the system. Although I was a Captain, I never did anything unnecessary to the villagers, I even try to save them… That’s why I…”

Some tears left Lew’s eyes against his will and he stammered a little before getting on track again.

“I lost my position a year ago, partly because they needed a scapegoat, but also because I tried to save the villagers and lost too many Guards… There was an incident in the first section, a MT beast left the Forest and attacked all villages in its way. I lost many subordinates trying to contain the damage and save more people… In the end, they choose to brand me a traitor and hunt me down… That’s why Keller sent me here, I’m an enemy of the Kingdom, there’s no chance for me to collaborate with them… I guess I was have been an enemy of the Kingdom, both sides only pretended that I wasn’t…”

Silence reign again in the pavilion, too much information and too many uncertainties, nobody dared to voice their thoughts. Marlen recomposed herself before saying to him:

“Thank you for being truthful and sharing your story… Could you give us some minutes to discuss it among ourselves, I’m sure you can understand…”

“Sure.”

Lew exit the room, but they didn’t start immediately. Surprisingly, the usual silent Toni decided to speak up.

“I think we should give him a chance… If we ignore his Captain position, his story is similar to many villagers… He also suffered a lot.”

Omero was still uncertain, the story looked genuine and Keller wouldn’t send him if he was a danger to their current deal.

“I don’t know… Maybe we could find a middle ground…”

The others nodded in agreement, the sad story had left a deep impression on them. Marlen spoke up again:

“We could learn what he knows and let him prove himself slowly, so we could control the damage if he ended up betraying us… We just need to make sure that nobody is gonna slip any important information…”

***

Lew was shocked by the team’s organization, they continued to move through the wild without breaking formation or without being careless with their surroundings. He had helped with their training, so he already knew about their potential, but seeing in action was another thing. He guessed that this is what happened when everyone is invested wholeheartedly in a mission.

When he opened up to the Council, he had little hope for being allowed to stay in the village. In truth, he didn’t plan on telling them everything, but somehow he did and that ship had sailed. Anyway, they agreed to give him a chance and let him participate more, in exchange they expect him to teach about the manipulation of magic energy inside the body. He ended up losing his only bargain chip but he wasn’t too sad about it. Different from Keller, he saw potential in the villagers to actually stand up to the Kingdom and survive. But before that, they would have to survive long enough.

The fact that they were closer to the Forest than to Wind Castle, could actually work in their favor. He didn’t know their whole plan or if they had thought further, but this idea to hide in the Forest borders would probably get them an extra year. However, a better option, in his opinion, would be moving south towards the fire region, where they could capitalize on the ongoing war with the Sandines to get more years of peace. With his training, their abilities and Keller's supplies, they would be able to form a relevant force in five years. But for now, he would help them as much as he could and leave his suggestions for later.

The team stopped at Sania’s sign, they had arrived at a water intersection, where the timid water stream joined with others to form a narrow river. Their mission was to check the river for any aquatic beasts, their camp would be constructed nearby and they didn’t want any surprises.

After fighting separately and following their leader's habits, the teams started to develop some different characteristics. Diana’s team was good with open and direct battles, Toni’s was getting good with cornering and taking down bigger beasts, Tael’s team was good with moving faster and covering more ground, Samia’s team was specialized in ambushes and stealth approaches. On the surface, Sania’s team didn’t have any unique abilities, but they ended being the team that hunted more uncommon beasts, which made them the to-go group for looking for the aquatic beasts.

Sania stopped the group a dozen meters from the river and continued further alone. Lew was concerned about her safety and decided to join her.

“Why did you left the team behind? You’re an easy target…”

“Exactly. Many LT beasts don’t dare to attack large groups, but if they see a single target they won’t be able to resist…”

“That’s fair, but isn’t it a big risk for you?”

Instead of answering, Sania only gave him a sly smile. Lew shivered at the girl’s action, few people could make him scared like this. Before he had time to protest further, something got his attention. His first instinct was to push the girl back, but when he tried she had already jumped to the side. Not a second later, a snake jumped out of the water and attack the place Sania was standing earlier. Lew easily dodged the beast and unsheathe his sword to slash it, but the girl appeared at his side and asked him to stop.

“They need the experience, let them fight the water snake…”

Before he could answer, she was already taunting the snake to follow her toward the team. The beast didn’t hesitate and jumped forward trying to bit her. Soon, it was crashing against the shields while trying to shake off the arrows. Sania watched from the side, giving commands and only interfering when someone was in a fatal situation. Lew finally gave the girl some credit, her methods were indeed good to give the other team members more experience, but he still disapproved of her taking so much risk.

At this time, the snake was almost done, being ripped by several attacks on its side. Sania started to move towards Lew bearing that smile, he was a little confused but guessed the girl wanted to gloat over about her methods. However, when she was a couple of meters from him, she started to run holding her spear in an attack position. He got even more confused but instinctively raised his sword.

Sania passed Lew and jumped forward before stabbing a smaller snake that was slowly making its way towards the distracted Fighter. The beast wasn’t a risk to him, but he was surprised by the girl’s keen senses, it meant she was watching their surroundings the entire time. Lew smiled and thought:

‘These villagers keep surprising me… I wonder what more they have upon their sleeves…’

***

“I don’t believe I let you convince me to do this…”

“Shush… Wait until we passed the gates before complaining…”

Ten minutes later, the lid of a barrel shook before bursting open. The sweating Keller had to get help from his employee to get out of it. Then, he knocked the other barrel before Arnold pop out complaining.

“Your distasteful, Origin forsaken Merchant! Why did I have to be so humiliated, I should have stayed in the Democracy and…”

“Argh… Stopping spilling nonsense, I already told you that’s the only way to leave the city without being noticed, the nobles are on edge and anything could make them burst… Anyway, it wasn’t too difficult to convince you…”

“What?? Did you should me that artifact without any ulterior motives? I have known you for decades Keller, don’t think that I can’t see your plans…”

“Humph… I can’t wait to see your face when you see what they got.”