“I’m a mage from the royal army!” he shouted as his mask fell off. “You just murdered three royal mages. Do you think you can get away after harming His Majesty’s army?”

Garlan laughed and kicked the man square across his face. “Do you think you can get away after harming Garlan? You might have lived longer if you hadn’t disclosed your identity, but well, for the respect you deserve, we shall forgo torture. Why are you trying to kill us?”

“That bastard is a member of Karleburo’s cult,” he raised his head with much difficulty and glared at me. “Those gloves alone are more than enough proof.”

“Karle-what? Are you trying to make a fool out of this illiterate undead?” Garlan shouted.

I coughed, partly embarrassed despite knowing that the insult wasn’t directed at me. I didn’t know anything about this Karle-whatever.

“Karleburo, the nomadic sage!” he shouted again, creases appearing on his chiseled face. “One who denounces the supreme ruler and recruits followers to boost her ego.”

“That deranged sage?” Garlan was surprised, but I realized he knew something.

“Why gloves then?” I asked, holding my chin in thought.

“The ritual for joining involves burning the hands, so every member wears a leather glove just like yours. Aren’t you a member of the cult?” he asked with uneasiness.

“We are just adventurers on a quest, mage,” Garlan sighed and fished out a knife from his baggy pants. “But the resolution of misunderstanding is the least of my concern. You stab me, I stab you. We mercenaries live by simple rules. The intricacies of loyalty and life aren’t worth shit in our eyes.”

Without waiting for the man to ponder on his words, Garlan slashed the guard’s carotid artery, and I froze the blood before it drenched our clothes again. The frozen chunk clinked on the floor and broke apart, the shards of red glittering in the flickering light of the chandelier above. The darkness encroached on us as the light above went off, and I touched the mana lamp close to the stairs to light the place again.

“Karleburo,” Garlan repeated as he leaned against the counter, lost in thought. “I always thought sages never interfered with the world, but I guess not everyone shares the sentiment. Burning hands sound stupid, nonetheless. And King’s plan of eradicating gloved people isn’t far off. Sometimes I wonder if mentally deranged people are the ones ruling over the masses.”

“The realization struck you too late, bread lad,” I upturned another chair and sat on it after checking the four legs thoroughly. We undead learned from our mistakes, so repeating the error is hardly graceful. “What do you know about sages? How come I heard about them for the first time a few days ago?”

“Who else did you hear it from? It’s classified information of the mercenary guild as far as I am concerned. You need to advance to A-rank adventurer for that,” Garlan raised his eyes.

“As in from the bottom to the top rug?” I asked in surprise, casting [Quagmire] on the unconscious eye-patch man. “What is my rank?”

“Are you dodging my question, bastard?” Garlan raised his brows. “You’ll progress as you finish missions, and the guild will brief on it when you get your bottom rank. For now, you can live in blissful ignorance. That’s the best you could ask for before inferiority complex nails you within a coffin of eternal shame once you start getting ranks. What should we do, now?”

“Continue onwards to the port. We’ll take on Karleburo when needed. Enemies of the royal family aren’t necessarily our enemies. Who knows? We might be able to amass an army out of the cult.”

“Sure, sure. And make them fight with faith.” Garlan rolled his eyes. “Army needs brutes and not fanatics.”

“Who cares as long as you get to see some blood and marred bodies?” I shrugged, got up from the chair, and climbed the stairs. “We are leaving at dawn. Dump the bodies behind the counter before royal mages drop by to greet us. Let the eye-patch live with a warning. He’ll die by my curse or at the hands of the royal army, either way.”

When I returned to the room, my lady was still fast asleep, so I got to work. Laundry didn’t seem like a good choice for my stained clothes, so I picked up a new suit from our backpack and burnt the old one in the bathroom that had ventilation in place. Once outside, I partially froze the body and cast [Weightless] spell on the large lump before throwing it down the balcony. Blood splashed on impact along with a mashing sound, but it wasn’t as enticing since I had already frozen the body. That should keep away visitors from Sidmouth Inn for a while.

By the time sun glazed the windows facing east, my lady was up after much hesitation. Helping her get dressed didn’t take long, and Garlan was already waiting close to the entrance when we were out. A brief walk to the stables was devoid of interruptions, but the body at the main street had my lady’s eyes raised.

“A couple of assassins tried to kill us last night, my lady,” I said offhandedly and watched Garlan walk inside the stable. The compound spanned wide bedecked with lawn and mana lamps with more than enough space for a couple of more stables. “So, I was busy getting some information out. Not that we found anything worthwhile from the dunces, but well, it was worthwhile.”

“And why didn’t you wake me up?” my lady glared at me.

“Don’t you always say interrupting your sleep is akin to getting beheaded?” I raised my eye in question.

She pouted and punched me lightly with an aggrieved look before ambling to her horse in annoyance. At least she hadn’t lashed out on me.

The rest of the journey outside the city had been peaceful, and I had removed my gloves as we passed by the gates. Cult member or not, getting swept by the internal politics of the court wasn’t something we preferred. The guards didn’t stop us either as they were busy checking out a few carriages that had just entered the vicinity of the port.

The ride through the bumpy roads beyond Carthan was cumbersome for our horses, so we took premeditated rests midway. Woods lingered on the right throughout our journey, beckoning us to get lost in the lush green blooms of the wild despite the prevailing winters. Trees lacked leaves, nevertheless, and sleets lingered on the bare branches. I covered my lady’s head as the winds of the winter basked us in the absolute chill, forcing me to cast [Warmth]. Our mare, adding to Garlan and his stallion, needed the spell, so I was forced to knead a lot of mana without rest throughout the morning until the squall had died down.

Garlan slowed down his horse as we reached a pass surrounded by elevated rocks on both sides and barren lands festooned with a few xerophytes that sprung up unnaturally.

“Thanks for the warmth, Rudolf,” Garlan’s stallion nuzzled against the neck of the mare, who coldly snorted and moved to a distance sideways. “We are good now. No chilly winds, no more shivers.”

“The weather will get worse, bread lad,” I said, glancing at the darkened skies.

“Why are you worried about slight chill, Rudolf?” my lady looked up and removed her cowl. “Even a storm wouldn’t be able to affect an Ice mage.”

“Sadly, I don’t have your passive boosts, my lady,” I sighed. The mare walked across the barren lands vigilantly, the enclosure making her all the more nervous. “Garlan, we’ll rest for a while. The chill isn’t helping our horses. A cave would be an ideal location, but I suppose we won’t…”

“There it is,” he pointed at the depression on the rocks, which almost resembled a cave. “We can reach the port by nightfall if we rest for around two hours, so let’s replenish our horses completely before resuming the journey. But hunting in these barren lands will be a problem.”

“We got bread,” my lady pointed out, holding my arm as I pulled the mare to a stop right beside the recession. “Rudolf had packed it a couple of days ago, but it’s fresh enough.”

“It is fresh, my lady,” I said, getting off the horse. “I never waste bread.”

I helped my lady down, and she hugged me for a tad longer with a smile before walking towards the recession. It was more than ten feet high despite being shallow, but it provided ample cover against the wind that had just gotten worse. The whizzing sound of the gale resounded inside the cave as I burned a globule of fire at the center. I let Garlan handle his stallion since the mare didn’t really enjoy his company. My lady was standing close to the entrance, enjoying the chilly breeze brushing against her cheek.

I opened my backpack, fished out three loaves of bread, and handed one to Garlan. “What do you know about Karleburo?”

“Are you interested in the woman?” Garlan settled down on the rocky floor opposite me with a grin. A burning ball of fire separated us, our shadows flickering in the enclosure of the cave. Water dripped from a fissure above us at one end of the cave, but it might have been due to precipitation.

My lady’s ears naturally perked up at his response, and she eyed me for a while before sitting beside me. “And who is this woman that my mongrel is curious about?”

“My lady–“

“She is a sage, lady Letitia. Notorious one at that. Legends about Karleburo sages date long back to the founders of Kingdom Arlikia and the predecessors of this notorious sage. They shared an amicable relationship in the past, or so they say. I can’t bring myself to imagine that, anyway. No gen about the current generation Karleburo is an obvious drawback, but it’s rumored that she is a woman and needs a lot of cult followers to boost her ego.”

“Rumor is a dirty word, mutt,” my lady said, leaning against my shoulder. “How come I have never heard about sages before?”

“For obvious reasons, lady Letitia. King Berzelius is already a skeptic without any external threat, so I can’t bring myself to imagine why a senile man would make things like cult and sages common knowledge. As you might know already, the female mages with potential are locked in the harem, while the promising male mages need to enter the royal army irrespective of their background. It’s all to prevent the growing number of wanderers. Losing a cognoscente mage is no different from losing half the army.”

“But Gladiata knew about the sages,” I said, thinking back to her words. She had kept it a secret for long, so what was the need to divulge everything before using the sealing magic? Was she trying to revolutionize the Kingdom? Even Lady Mylan didn’t seem to know anything about the sages. “The soldiers we met at the inn knew about these sagacious mages.”

“You met that bitch behind my back?!” My lady glanced at me in alarm.

I patted her head in reassurance. “She was the one who had stopped the hound, my lady. I was enjoying the commotion with my [Devil eye], so I didn’t quite meet her.”

She held my hand away with a pout and nudged closer.

Garlan laughed, much to my lady’s displeasure, and he was forced to clear his throat aberrantly. “I’m not quite sure how the royal army works, either. However, I’ve heard that there is a faction to keep track of the movements of the known sages, just like how A and S rank adventurers from the guild are allowed to certain restricted knowledge about the world. Politics hardly ever makes sense to me. One thing is certain, nonetheless. Current Karleburo heir is at odds with the King for reasons unknown. She alone isn’t strong enough to take on the cognoscente mages of the Kingdom, so direct confrontation is out of the question. Further, the Sagacious Commandments won’t let her assault the realm outside their purview.”

“Sagacious Commandments?” my lady’s eyes glistened with curiosity.

“Yes, lady Letitia. I’ve heard rum–“ he coughed, “tales that the sages follow certain rules. We call them Sagacious Commandments in the guild. Piecing together a few bits of information from the past, we ascertained that one among them involves not associating with the human domain. Who set them? What they are? And other such questions are S-ranked quests that often take a lifetime to complete. Rarely do any adventurers take them, but there have been many bold ones during the reign of the previous two kings. That’s why we have basic knowledge about the sages who have a rich history beyond the Kingdom. And probably the only reason why the King hasn’t shut down the discreet flow of information within the guild.”

“So, we can use this Karleburo narcissist to rile up some conflict in the kingdom,” I smiled at the thought and heard two sighs in succession.

“What?!” I asked in disbelief after a pause.