“How the hell did I even get into this situation?” I whispered as I started to creep up the hill behind who I guessed was the bandit leader.

It was one thing to be thrust into a situation where I knew nothing of the country I was staying in, or the people living there, but it was an entirely different thing to suddenly take up arms against a group of people I knew nothing about.

Thinking about it, it was quite the ludicrous that I had even stepped up with the axe in my hand in the first place instead of fleeing, but before I had even noticed I was just repeating a movement that my body remembered so often: moving forward to dangerous places, and towards dangerous encounters.

Oh well, fuck it. If this is how I was wired, I’d just have to find out why, but that’s a problem for me to solve a different day. I crouched in a patch of tall grass, and slowly crawled to the base of a large tree before dive-rolling behind a boulder.

I peeked around the side of the large rock and spied on the man commanding the bandits. He was largely built with a chainmail vest, dark leather pants and a set of brown gloves on his hands.

His hair was shaved off, but not cleanly leaving sparse patches of hair along his head. A thin layer of grime covered his head and neck, making his skin seem oily and disgusting.

“Jesus he needs a bath.” I muttered under my breath while inching closer, and stalking towards the man whose back was turned to me. There was a large broadsword resting inside a sheathe on his hip, and I made sure to keep it’s movements in my peripheral vision at all times.

“Come on now, it shouldn’t be that hard to find her, she’s just an 18 year old girl! She should be developed in all the right places, so the first person to find her will be the first person to get a turn with her tonight!” The man made lecherous movements with his hands as he shouted and a chorus of cheers could be heard from the grove below.

Even though I couldn’t understand the words, context clues were enough and I felt a heat rising in my chest as I stalked closer, raising the axe so the head rested against my shoulder. The sunlight hit the axe and reflected of his bald head, a fact which the distracted man himself didn’t even notice.

---

Brago Shields was a former Azure Continent Imperial soldier who was currently the second-in-command of the Cuor Bandits, a group of thieves who currently operated out of the capital of the continent: Songrande City.

Brago was a rarity among the grizzled bandits, in that he still held his personal hygiene in high regard. It must have been a remnant from his days as a soldier, during which he would go home to the barracks every day where a public bath as well as soap provided by the royal family would be waiting for him.

Now 40, he had enlisted at age 16, and retired from service at age 26 due to extenuating circumstances, but still had more pull with the royalty of the capital than most politicians due to a rescue mission he was on during his active service.

However, it was this same connection with royalty that landed Brago in his current situation to begin with. It all started when the current king of the continent, King Pola, called Brago to his chambers for a private conversation.

“Greetings your Majesty. What do you require of this lowly servant?” The King chuckled and lifted his hand from his bed.

“Nonsense Brago. I feel as if you are a son to me, since you served with my own son in our military before his passing. Come, I know I’m unsightly, but won’t you please take a seat?” The king gestured towards a seat at his bedside, which Brago obliged to by sitting next to the man.

The king had become extremely ill in the past few years, contracting flu after flu, and even though it was kept secret from the public as well, there was a certain uneasiness that permeated the capital due to their King’s declining rate of appearance.

Even now, an unknown skin disease had afflicted Pola, causing warts to grow along his arms and legs, which was why whenever he took the throne he wore thick clothing and all audiences with the king were now conducted from his chambers.

“Don’t look that way my boy, I’ll be alright for a while longer.” He smiled, reassuring Brago before wiping it from his face and donning the steely visage of a ruler. “However, even I am aware that my clock is ticking, Brago. That’s why I want to know the truth.”

The king sat up and coughed, a deep hacking that had attendants from outside of the room come rushing in to aid the sickly ruler. After regaining his composure and dismissing the servants, he returned his gaze to Brago, who just seemed confused.

“What truth are you talking about King Pola? As far as I know, there’s been nothing out of the ordinary that you’ve needed to concern yourself with.” The king smiled, but this time not as a king, but rather as a tired man.

“I want to know the truth about the incident with my son, and the demoness who murdered him.” Brago shuddered, not from fear, but rather surprise and rage. The murder of his best friend, Prince Heshan had been a hard hit not only to his heart, but his pride as well.

Following the ending of his career as a soldier, Brago had been chosen as Heshan’s right-hand man and bodyguard. Within the first week of his tenure, however, Heshan was murdered by a demoness named Rora Clairborne.

Heshan was found in his chambers, strangled to death, and Rora was found mere feet away at the foot of his bed with Heshan’s own dagger stuck in her throat. The dominant belief was that Heshan had initially fought his assailant, lodging the blade in Rora’s throat before she had grabbed him and strangled the man to death.

It was a tale which would usually have never seen the light of day, or the belief of anyone’s mind. However, Demons were known for their high vitality and ability to persevere to see their goals through. Brago himself had seen many Demons in the Imperial army at the time survive things he would have otherwise thought fatal and finish their mission before succumbing to the embrace of death.

In response, King Pola and his wife at the time, as well as Heshan’s mother, Queen Luora had passed a decree which severely limited the places where demons could live, and even further, made them non-citizens of the Continent.

As a result, many demonkind chose to leave the continent altogether, fleeing to places where they could live as free beings and not a race that was hated by the humans for the slaughter of a prince. In fact, even a member of the Imperial Coat of Arms, and one of the best ten fighters in the Kingdom, not to mention Rora’s mother, Jane Clairborne, took her granddaughter and fled to a corner of the continent.

This left those two as the last known demons on this continent, and with that came the painful decision of forgiving those whose only part in Heshan’s murder were their relation to the killer, or seeking murder on a woman who had served the country for years and her innocent 4 year old granddaughter.

The aftermath for the royalty was not as far off, with Luora divorcing Pola, and going missing soon afterwards. The king was then accused of aiding in the murder of his own son in order to keep the throne. This accusation still hung over the heads of many in the King’s camp, and caused many of his former allies to flee his side.

However, those were all only public speculation, and only those close to the situation at hand, such as Brago, knew the truth. In reality it was not a joint decree by both parents that led to the ostracization of demonkind, but rather a selfish piece of legislature that was brought forth by the queen in the days following the loss of her son.

The king disagreed with her decision, and banished her to a seaport city in order to get her away from the capital under the pretense of divorce. However, once there she managed to lose the Imperial special operatives that had been sent to keep watch over her.

However, Luora didn’t just vanish quietly into the night. Instead, she started spreading rumors about King Pola, which caused severe civil unrest at the time. All these events led to was a steadfast and cautious King coming to fruition. The only problem was, he had no heir to speak of and no kingdom worth their gold would sent him a concubine to bear his children after what he did to Luora.

Now a man in his later years, King Pola didn’t care so much for politics or public appearance anymore as much as he did for finding out the truth. In their initial shock and sadness after Heshan’s death, they had forgone an investigation and jumped to conclusions, branding the only other corpse in the room as the murderer.

Not only that, but the speed and detail with which Luora created that decree astonished and scared Pola in hindsight. Not only was his wife distraught and grieving, but she had never been much of a politician anyway, caring much more for the glamour of flaunting her royalty instead of the work needed to keep it.

Thus, Pola brought Brago to his chambers to carry out his will, to find the truth about what happened that night all those years ago, and to finally put one of Pola’s greatest regrets to bed.

“What would you have me do then, my king?” Brago quickly got off the chair and knelt on one knee before the king as he asked, tears welling up in his eyes. For him, it was not only a chance to learn of what really happened that night, but to also redeem himself through service to the father of his best friend.

“Raise your head Brago.” The former knight lifted his gaze to meet the King, however he dared not move from kneeling and disrespecting the man he thought so much of. “I fear that in our haste to chase the Demons out of the continent, we probably isolated and created distrust with one of the greatest pieces of evidence we have of that night, a witness in the form of Jane Clairborne.”

Brago’s eyes widened. Of course he always kept in the back of his head that the demoness was still alive, but to hear it come out of the king’s mouth was a different feeling entirely. “So my lord… what do you propose we do?”

Pola sighed, and looked down on Brago with his regal gaze. “We won’t be doing anything Brago. You, on the other hand, will be traveling to Undine’s Respite, a lake to the far north where Mrs. Clairborne is currently living. Here, give her that.”

The King nodded his head behind Brago, who turned his head to see a giant black scythe with a silver hilt placed up on the wall like a trophy. The mere sight of the weapon and mastery with which it was forged made Brago involuntarily gulp.

“Is… is that-”

“Made of Cold-Iron, a specialty of the demon race. It can hold its form for a minimum of 500 years, grants the user access to the Frost system of magic, and also has the added advantage of being immune to most types of damage. It used to belong to Jane’s daughter, Rora, as her primary weapon, but was confiscated following her death. Please bring it back to Jane as a peace offering, and don’t try to wield it yourself. An amateur such as you or I could seriously injure ourselves or others if we tried using a weapon that takes decades of practice to master.”

Brago stood and took the weapon in his hands, and felt the chilling numbness of cold immediately take over his fingers. He turned back to see King Pola smiling, this time neither bearing a regal air nor a exasperated weariness. Instead, it was that of a loving father.

“Ah, if Heshan were still alive, he’d be your age, no?” Brago froze, a fact which didn’t go unnoticed by Pola, who shook his head and chuckled to himself. “Oh my, I’m becoming emotional now. Please, take this and carry out my will. I believe in you.”

Brago left the room with tears in his eyes, but quickly shook them off and strode down the hall with a determined gait. He thought he needed to keep calm, especially because he heard what King Pola said as he left the room: “This is my last order as your king.”

---

Brago stumbled around a tree and came to a large field of flowers. Immediately, a patch that was well above 4 megards snatched his view and he walked towards it.

“Come on now, it shouldn’t be that hard to find her, she’s just an 18 year old girl! She should be developed in all the right places, so the first person to find her will be the first person to get a turn with her tonight!”

He heard cheers all around him from Domas’ proposition, and a shudder rose up his spine. He needed to be the first to find her and run back to the girls house, hopefully getting her grandmother to help them ward off the impending bandit onslaught.

Trespassing further into the flowers, he parted the stalks of the tall flora and gazed in astonishment as his face met with that of a young girl, whose eyes were puffy and tearing up. She took a breath to scream, but Brago saw that and quickly covered her mouth with his hand.

“Shh! Are you trying to get the others to find you!?” He took his hand away from her face and she showed a confused look.

“Ok, I know this is… Gods damn it, they’re coming! Move over quickly!” He practically shoved the poor girl aside, which he felt bad for, but right now her long-term safety was much more important than any scratch or bruise she could potentially acquire right now.

“I need you to listen and stay quiet.” He said as he watched two bandits rush past the flower patch and back towards the forest. “My name is Brago, and I’ve been sent by the king to restore the relationship between the kingdom and your grandmother. I have a gift hidden underneath a tree in the grove, but you’ll need to trust me. I know that’s hard given how I look now, but I used to be a soldier under the king’s direct command. Now-”

Brago was interrupted by a blood-curdling scream and a series of gasps from the surrounding trees. He stood up, instantly giving up his cover as he couldn’t believe the sight before his eyes. Domas, the leader of the bandits, had his head nearly chopped off his body, with only a small strand of flesh left connecting the two pieces.

As his body fell from the cliff, a smaller, more lean figure was revealed behind him. It was a man, or at least, he thought it was. The clear difference in height between the human Domas and this new creature made judging it’s race difficult, but not impossible. It’s white hair and piercing eyes made Brago shudder, but he eventually controlled his shaking joints and stared at the figure, who had backed up.

That was scary, but it should make leaving the area easier. Brago reached down for the girl, but stopped when he saw her staring at the cliff with a smile. “He did it” she muttered, causing a crease to appear on Brago’s brow. Wait, she knew that being? Was it her body guard? In that case… oh Gods no!

Brago stared in horror as the figure he thought had left jumped off the cliff and onto a tree below, deftly hopping from branch to branch to break his fall. When he reached the ground, it was clear what he had killed Domas with: a pitch-black axe, one Brago now recognized as Cold-Steel.

With silent fury, the man tore through space and immediately decapitated the bandit closest to him. ‘He must be insane!' Brago thought. There was no way he would attack the fifty-something bandits around here and hope to get away with it, but again, Brago’s expectations were blown out of the water, harpooned through while in the air, and left to bleed out in the ocean they came from.

The man cut through bandits, one after the other, leaving nothing but blood and a flash of blue in his wake. Before Brago could even realize it, half the bandits had been taken out and one of them had called for a retreat.

After they were gone, the man- no, he must have been a boy with his height- the boy walked towards Brago and the girl, drenched in blood, but threw his axe to the ground.

Brago, feeling safe, took a step forward and smiled at the boy. “Thanks for all your help, now I don’t have to worry about the bandits on my way back. Ah, that reminds me, the scythe is still around here. Come, let’s unbury it and be on our way.”

However, that was the only mistake Brago needed to make. The boy once again dashed forward, and swung at Brago. However, at this distance Brago didn’t have the luxury of reacting to the boy’s movement and promptly passed out, his body being caught by the very flowers which he had trampled through only moments before.