Three days passed before Jack decided to return to town from the hideout he’d shared with the other thiefs. The first thing he did once he got there was head straight to the lookout to ask about the merchant.

“He hasn’t left town, right?” Jack asked.

The lookout shook his head. “He hasn’t done much of anything since you left. Something is off about him, though. He walked up to me the other day asking when you’d be coming back around like you were friends.”

“You thought it was a good idea to let him see you?” Jack asked. Another member of their group who couldn’t do such simple work properly. Why was he not surprised?

“That’s what’s off about him. There’s no way he could have seen me. He just walked up like he’d known I was there the whole time.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’m not kidding,” the lookout insisted.

If that was the case, then maybe the merchant spotting Jack out the other day wasn’t a slip-up on Jack’s part.

“What sort of business do you have with this guy, anyway?” the lookout asked.

“He sold me some magic beans,” Jack admitted.

His fellow thief raised an eyebrow. “He sold you some magic beans?” He emphasized the ‘you.’ “Never seen you as the type for gambling.”

“I don’t gamble.” That was common knowledge.

“Hmph, so what, you’re telling me they’re the real deal then?”

Jack reached into his pocket and took out three glowing red beans. “Real as could be.”

“No way…” With wide eyes, the lookout stared at the beans.

Jack slipped the beans into the lookout’s pocket, then held the pocket closed. “They’re yours,” he spoke in a slight hurry, “Don’t take them out in the open and don’t tell anybody about them, okay?”

“Right…” the lookout said, his eyes locked on his pocket.

“I’ll be off to see the merchant.” Jack set off jogging.

“Alright. Thanks Ja—”

Boom! The sound of an explosion cut off the lookout’s words and Jack turned back around. Just like the other bandits outside the town and just like their hideout, the lookout had disappeared in a ball of flame.

He could have just used one bean if had only wanted the man maimed and dead, but Jack didn’t want any trace of him to be left behind. One was enough for bird and branch, but three were needed to do the same to a man. A count he was sure of after he’d worked his way through most of their group.

After leaving the alley they had been in, Jack headed straight to the merchant and his wagon. The lookout wasn’t the only member of their group remaining in the town, but there was no one left amongst them who could connect him to their group’s disappearance. No, the only one who could do that now was the easterner.

With his hand resting near a hidden knife, Jack approached the merchant. Though he was eager to hear the man’s secrets, he was also wary of his capabilities.

“There’s no need for that,” the merchant said as Jack approached. The man hadn’t even looked in his direction yet.

“No need for what?” Jack asked, but the man ignored his question.

“That's an interesting scent of magic you've got on you,” he said after turning to face Jack. He wore the same smile that he had when they had met in the alley. “I wonder what kind of beans you’ve had to grow to make it.”

“What would you give me if I told you?”

“More than you’ll ever need. My masters are quite generous.”

Nobles? Jack thought. “And what kingdom do they hail from?”

“My masters are of no kingdom,” the merchant said. “They are freefolk, they are fey.”

That caught Jack off-guard. He didn’t expect it, but it was obvious now that he’d said it. Bold of him to admit, though, considering what most people thought of the monsters. The man’s dealings with them had probably stolen some of the wits he’d needed to realize admitting so could be a problem. Jack wondered if that’s what they’d taken in exchange for the merchant’s uncanny senses.

Regardless of the answer, all Jack needed to do was nod along and ask questions. The man was more than willing to reveal everything he knew. His masters may have tricked him, as fey were wont to do, but as far as the merchant knew, they wanted them to reap the seeds of power that lay dormant in man so that they could better protect themselves from their enemies. The merchant hadn’t been told who those enemies were, but Jack assumed some of the kingdoms of the east were among them.

"My masters bestowed me with this bag," the merchant said, holding up a large pouch. He explained that it was the beans found within that showed strange magical ability when planted by people who had a strong need and shared Jack’s name. It was also what they had tasked him with collecting the various beans grown by the Jacks in.

Jack asked if the merchant just wanted him to sell one of the beans he had grown to him, but the merchant told him no. "The fey's magic guided me to you because you are one who can help me with my tasks," he said. The fey could not afford the kingdoms of man knowing about the merchant’s tasks, but every Jack that he dealt with brought risk of their actions being brought to light. To lessen this risk, they had given the merchant magic to find one who would not align himself with the kingdoms and who also had the potential to make those who planted the beans disappear.

After hearing all of this, Jack asked what was in it for him.

“Anything you wish for,” the merchant said, “My masters will grant.”

Jack took that as a blatant lie. A lie that he was sure the man believed, but a lie all the same. The fey were asking him to do away with his fellow men, but he was supposed to trust them not to do the same to him once the job was done? Jack couldn’t even trust his fellow men with his coin while he went around the corner and so he was sure that he couldn’t trust this.

That’s why, after having agreed to aid the merchant in his task, Jack made the man disappear that very night, just like he had wanted him to do to others with his names. Unlike the other times when Jack had used enough beans to make someone disappear, however, this time something was left behind. Laying on the ground, unharmed by the consuming flames was the merchant’s magic bean bag.

Jack took it, of course. The beans within it had already granted his wish once, so maybe they could grant him another through others with his name? As for the rest of the merchant’s possessions, he’d already taken the man’s life, so why not take the rest as well?

With such thoughts in mind, Jack took the man’s fortune, his clothes, his wagon, and whatever he found useful within before departing from the town that sat near the fey border with the new life he had been given. His old gang was now too broken to tell if he had fled or he was missing like those he’d made disappear and the fey wouldn’t be able to hunt him down as long as he kept heading west. Jack was truly free.

West out from the lands the giants had captured and west past the frontlines of the war, Jack set out in search of new Jacks. Though the money he’d found hidden in the merchant’s cart was more than he needed to retire to somewhere quiet, he wanted even greater things from those who could sow his seeds of fortune.

He thought it wouldn’t be too hard with his name being so common and the amount of people willing to buy from their local bean selling conmen. Unfortunately, he couldn’t have accounted for the king’s decree. Having been so deep into the giants’ captured lands since the beginning of the war, Jack had never gotten word of it. All men of fighting age with his name and some who were still boys too were called upon to fight.

Who would have thought that the king would do something so mad as to summon all these men to war over their name? Perhaps he was after the same supposed power that the fey were. Whatever the case was, Jack held no interest in finding out and held no interest in serving his kingdom. The fey had at least been right about that last part when they’d sent the merchant to him.

All he really cared about was his safety and finding those with a strong enough need with which to plant his magic beans and the army was creating issues for both. Most men who were too old for the decree were also too responsible to be seriously gambling on beans. As for the kids, most of their parents wouldn’t give them what they needed to trade for such things. It was a different story if they were convinced, but that meant more witnesses, more loose ends.

The group who was most likely to buy from him without anyone noticing, were the army men, but Jack had never been the type who was interested in doing things with a high risk of attracting attention from the authorities. That was even truer than before now that he was a wanted man just for having his name.

Still, Jack believed there was opportunity to be had and that he could find a Jack who could plant him something that would keep him well hidden from the army. There had to be those who had escaped the grasp of the king's decree like he had and he would find them. And so, further west he went from the frontlines, past the territories worried by war and past the mountains that split Arland in two.

Going from city to city and town to town, he looked for the hidden Jacks that he could make disappear. With his skills and the great funds that he had inherited from the merchant, it was an easy task for him to find Jacks who had managed to hide. What he quickly found out, however, was that the common case with such men was that they were not hidden by their own capabilities, but instead by their connections.

There was a bounty on the head of every man who ignored the king's decree, after all, so those who remained were there because the ones around them wanted them there. Perhaps more than any other type of Jack, this group was untouchable.

That was not enough to discourage him. If he could not find the Jacks in the cities and towns, then he'd find them in the villages and in the fields. With that in mind, he traveled to and fro pretending to be the mundane sort of scammer that those who sold beans were along the way. He’d sell some mundane beans to keep up appearances, but his magic beans remained untouched for months until his wagon rolled into a small remote village in the north.

In that village he met a young man who lived on his family's farm, far out from the other houses. His parents had always been of the type that kept to themselves, so the other villagers didn’t know much about him or his siblings. They didn’t even know their names.

That’s why, when both his parent’s suddenly passed and the other villagers were too wary to approach them in fear of disease, this young man was the only one who would care for his younger siblings. But what the young man could do wasn’t enough. There was barely enough for the family with both his parents working and now that they were both dead, there was the real risk that his siblings would starve.

The young man's situation had made him desperate, the kind of desperate that Jack thought he could abuse. He told the youth that his siblings would be in a worse position if he didn’t plant something that would keep him safe from the army and that he’d pay for their food if he did.

Jack thought that would be enough, but the youth’s worries proved too much. From what the young man sowed, stalks with beans that could fulfill any man’s hunger grew. It wasn't the sort of bean that Jack wished for.

Still, the new type of bean was a gift and for it, Jack made sure that the youth and siblings would never go hungry again. He had to burn their house down rather than drawing attention by making it disappear, but the work that required was a small price to pay for hiding what he had done.

Time passed as Jack weaved through the smaller settlements of the kingdom. He kept himself busy testing what the beans could do when used on those who were unwanted and making them disappear when the tests revealed obvious magic. Eventually, as he was doing so, he stumbled upon another hidden Jack.

He didn't meet this Jack desperate in the middle like the one before like the previous one, but instead was told of an old man who spent all his days by the waters of a nearby lake. Nobody cared much for him and someone probably would have turned him into the army already if he wasn't too old.

When Jack approached the man and asked what he was doing, the man revealed that he had lost something precious long ago, deep within the lake that he couldn't manage to fish out.

Hearing that, Jack offered the old man help. Though the man cared little for Jack's beans at first, he was convinced to plant some after Jack had restored his strength with the bean he had gotten from the young man trying to feed his siblings. From what the man sowed, stalks with beans that made men breathe water like air grew.

Again it was not what he wanted, but Jack knew he’d never get this old man to plant something that was best for keeping himself hidden. The army didn’t want him, so why would he ever need to plant something that would keep them away? He only bothered to help him because there was still value in gaining new types of beans.

Though the old man had already given Jack what he wanted, Jack was kind enough to at least let the old man swim to the bottom of the lake and recover what he had lost. As soon as the old man resurfaced, however, he made the old man and his sunken treasure disappear, just like the young man and his siblings.

The third one bearing his name that Jack came upon was a boy, still too young to go to war for the king's decree. The boy wanted to impress his friends, so he boasted that once he was old enough to be sent to war he could jump up to a giant's face and punch it if need be.

Obviously, the boy had make up some excuse when his friend's asked him to prove that he could do so. Hoping to find some other means of impressing his friends, the boy came to the rational conclusion that he should beg a bean merchant to give him some magic beans.

Truly, Jack was lacking in potential targets to be caught dealing with this child. Jack knew full well that these beans wouldn’t help him avoid the army directly, but he did decide he’d help the kid anyway. He assured him that rather than impressing his friends some other way, he could give the boy the ability to jump high enough to punch a giant if he really wanted it. All he had to do was plant the beans and wish for it like he was told.

The youth followed his instructions and by doing so sprouted stalks with beans that could make one able to touch the tops of the trees with a single leap with which the boy was indeed able to impress his friends. After he had done so, however, and the boy's friends had left, just like the others, Jack made the boy disappear.

Though the three Jacks had each planted beans that had some use, none of them were of the sort that Jack truly desired. He wanted something that would keep him hidden, something that could keep the kingdom, the fey, and the giants from ever finding him.

Perhaps they need more guidance, he thought, staring at the crimson sparks that his personal breed of bean produced. If the other Jacks weren't going to make something useful from their desires, then he’d just have to work harder to change their desires to something that suited him.