Charles walked slowly alongside the caravan guards, after he had taken out the arrogant bandit Charles had lightly torched the remaining bandits as thy ran away. On autopilot Charles’ body helped the caravan guards bury the fallen bandits bodies far from the road and accepted an offer to travel with the caravan towards Thame. Even after walking for quite a while Charles was still listless and felt like his brain had been filled with lead, he was disappointed, not even a day after coming to a new world and making a vow to do better he was already brutally killing bandits on the road. What happened to his commitment to do better it seemed like had definitely taken a step backwards. In an effort to distract him from those depressing thoughts he started thinking about something else which ended up no less depressing.

What was he going to do with his future, a question that filled him with stress all throughout high school, here he was following the directions of some crazy backcountry hermit priest, become a mercenary when he was so shaken from killing a single man who was he kidding. The more he thought about it the more clear it became that his options were very limited, he needed money and there were not many skills that he could market. Other than killing people he only had mask making and runes but even then starting a store in a foreign country with no backing was not something he could realistically do, he would still have to do many other jobs to raise enough money to start the store in the first place.

If he wanted to make it in this new world Charles was going to have to work for a period of time as a mercenary. He honestly didn’t have much of an idea of what he would do if he became a mercenary, on earth they were just soldiers for hire that worked for any country that could pay their fee. Charles didn’t know if he was ready to make a career out of hopping from one battlefield to the next.

It took until the caravan stopped for the night for Charles to open up enough to talk to the other people on the caravan they talked around the campfire as they ate allowing charles to learn a bit about them. The caravan was from a smaller city in the countryside named Lofton this caravan traveled out from Lofton to Thame and back again every two months to make sure their city had access to all sorts of services like mail. It was run by a Rich merchant named Briant who was using this journey to teach his daughter Anne the craft, they were accompanied by four townsfolk, Old man June a young couple and their son. They were protected by a team of five experienced guardsmen who travelled this route all the time with the caravan.

Charles immediately forgot most of these details as he was not completely free from his melancholy yet but he tried his best to show his friendly side to the caravan members. They noticed he was a bit quiet but they didn’t think too much about it. The caravan members went to bed early as there was not much to do on the road while the guards established who would do watch first.

Charles looked up and stared at the sky and the beautiful night stars began appearing, they were some of the most beautiful stars he had seen and they reminded him of pictures of stars in the desert. Before the magic could wear off and return him to his depressing thoughts he heard a cough from Old man June who had snuck up on him while he was staring at the sky.

“A beeautiful naught innit”

Chuckling a little at the old man’s accent Charles replied, “Yeah it is, much more pretty than where I’m from”

“Don’t nauw where youve came from but answer me this, earlier this day thayt was yer first time killing someun wasn’t it.”

“Yeah”

“New it dint I, its rare that someun whoos as skilled as you to have never killed someun else boot I can tell you think that yer a bad person or someing cause of it. Well, yer not you saved our lil operation her and if naut that you at least saved a fiew guards.”

Charles smilled, at least the old man was trying to make him feel better. “Thanks Old man June”

“Nay proublum”

The old man left a little after, and Charles was immersed in his thoughts, he had taken a step back today but he could work to make Orson’s attitude about killing work for him. Just because he had killed someone today did not mean his path forwards was closed off, in the future he was probably going to have to kill more people and he knew that he would have to make a choice in the moment and stick with it. He would learn from each opportunity and improve because that it what it meant to be human.

Now, what the Fuck was he going to do with his future.