I begin my journey with only 10 gold coins, some spare clothes, a pair of short sword, and one long sword. Some hooded clothes and trousers are the only spare clothes I bring. I put them in a small bag in my left shoulder and I put the swords in a long box with its halt sticking out in my waist. The short sword is ready to take whenever I want. But to take the long sword I need to press something on the box and the middle of the box opened. That way I could take the long sword. I left the rest in my room.

Before leaving, Ariana gave us some medicine. She said we need to take it in case we need to kill somebody so our mind and our body won’t go in a state of shock. But it seemed all of us thought the same thing. We took our medicine right at that time because we could never know when we need to kill somebody.

Unfortunately, Avareel’s gate of the world is not connected to Sairkhan. As I’m a human, from Avareel I need to travel through the coastline to get to Grouse Port. I join some human party to get to the Grouse Port. Nothing important happened on the way. We depart in the Grouse Port as my destination is Sairkhan.

I don’t have much money so I stay on the fourth level. When pirates attack, I get down to the fifth level and fight them. To tell the truth, they’re a bunch of weakling. I don’t even need to use my magic. From Loos Port to Sairkhan, I can’t find any caravan on the first day, so I decided to stay in some inn.

“How much for the rent?” I ask the man standing behind the desk.

“One gold coin.”

Uwa, that’s expensive. Even the in the Avareel the Inn only cost 100 silver coins. The only money left in my bag is 10 gold coins.

“Um, excuse me.” a voice of a woman rises up behind me.

I turn around and see a girl dressed in black cloth. But not one single black cloth. Layers of black cloth. And on the outside, some light armor covers her shoulder, her hand, and her torso. She brings a big iron box half or her size in her back. When I look into her little horn and pointy ear, I could guess she’s a mix blood of a demon and an elf. From her face and height, I guess she’s a few years younger than me.

“Um, would, would you share the room with me? I’ll pay 600 silver coins.” She frequently looks into another direction. Trying not to make eye contact.

I take a better look at her. Both of her hand met in front of her. And she tries her hard to face into me. What a shy girl!

“It’s okay, I’ll pay 500.”

“Ah, really?” her face brighten.

“Sure.” I let out a smile to her.

“Thank you. Thank you very much.” She takes my hand and shakes it so hard. “My name is Ling Xiel. You can call me Xiel. It’s my given name.”

Ling Xiel. Xiel. A person with a family name in the front, eh.

“My name is Nevi Frendezcht. You can call me by Nevi. It’s also my given name.”

She already allowed me to call her by her given name. It will be rude for me to not give her my given name.

As we spend the night together, I realized everything in this place is a lot more expensive than in Avareel or Grouse Port. If the stuff in Sairkhan more expensive than this place, then I won’t stay at all in Sairkhan. She’s heading to Demon’s Realm, so I decide to join her until midway. On the next day, there’s a caravan near our inn looking for a guards. They’re heading for Demon’s Realm.

One bald person is sitting behind some wooden box. It seems he’s using the box as a table as I see a piece of paper on top of it.

“Excuse me, is it possible to guard only halfway to the Sairkhan?” I ask the bald man.

“Sure, we can look for another person in Sairkhan.” The bald man answer.

“Then, can we register ourselves too?” I step aside to let him take a look at Xiel that’s hiding behind me.

The bald man raises his left eyebrow. I can see he’s inspecting me. He focused on my body and the box in my waist.

“Okay, the pay is 1 gold per day for each person. You don’t need to worry about the food. We’ll give it to you. How about it?”

“We’ll take it.”

We encountered numerous bandits on the way to Sairkhan. At first, I only fight them with my swordsmanship. But as the number keeps increasing, I take the spare swords in the caravan and use my flying swords magic. When the opponent uses a magic, I dispel the magic with my anti magic. At the time, I can finally see Xiel ability too. She transformed the iron box she brings using alchemy into another weapon. She’s pretty great at using weapons. All kinds of weapons.

If my memory serves me right, I remember seeing Euca also did some kind of alchemy. Mada could also do it but he said if he wanted to master the art of alchemy, he needed to go somewhere else.

We have been traveling for 5 days. It will take us another week to reach Sairkhan. But yet, only half of the guards remain. The rest has already fallen due to the bandits attack. As such, the master of the caravan raises our pay and they keep the swords in the caravan for me to use. We manage to pass the rest of the journey without any loss.

We finally reached Sairkhan. It’s already night so we’re staying at an inn. I got 30 gold coins including some bonus. I take it even though I’m considering to continue this guard place. This place has changed so much.

I left the inn and head to another other place. My former house. After I walked down for half an hour, finally I reached my destination. Deep inside my heart, I knew this might happen. The house has gone and been replaced with something else. A store. Well, at least I know it’s not standing anymore.

I head back to the inn to find the caravan has completely been raided. I run inside the inn. Everything has been destroyed. The inn that’s previously neat has been changed into something like a warehouse.

“Ughh.” A voice emerges from the rubble.

I run and take the rubble off. “Hey, baldy. What’s going on?”

“We let our guard down. People suddenly raided our belongings and kill everyone. Your friend managed to escape.”

I run outside and look into every direction. Something is not right. The silent town suddenly bursts out in flame. Riot erupts everywhere.

~night is the silencer of the day and everything between. The one envelopes things in its cold and dark aura. The night watcher~

By using night watcher, I can see everything in range of a few kilometers. Just a kilometer in the north, I can see a crowd going after Xiel.

~Speed boost~

I get to the caravan, but all the swords already missing. The only weapon I got is the ones on my waist.

I need to reach her as soon as possible. I’m not dispelling the night watcher so I could see my surroundings better.

What is wrong with this city? It was a silent and nice one but in just a moment it changes into something completely different.

I push the button on my box and take my long sword while running towards her. It seems she’s not using a body enhancement magic at all as I see her speed is nearly the same as the crowd.

I cut through everybody coming at me and kill them on the spot. It doesn’t matter whether that person is a man, woman, or old person. They all are crazy. Crazy enough even to kill a little kid as I see a lot of kid corpses.

The crowd that’s chasing Xiel is in front of me.

~let your iron shine through the dark night. Through the cold and the heart of the dark night. Oh, let your cold steel feel the flesh of the living. Show them your true might. Nobody is allowed to question your might. The flying swords~

I put both of my short sword under the flying swords magic. They’re flying in my side and I make them spinning fast.

“XIEL! GET DOWN!” I scream as hard as possible.

I let my short swords fly into the crowds and cut everything in their way. Blood and flesh are splattered in the way to Xiel. Xiel made it in time so the swords passing her by.

“C’mon! We need to run fast!”

I take Xiel’s hand and take her with me.

“Use a body enhancement magic! Concentrate the mana in your foot and cast the spell ‘speed boost’.”

Xiel do as I told her and now she’s using a speed boost magic. But her magic is far from perfect. Her speed only increases a bit. It seems this is the first time she’s using speed boost.

I sent my swords to cut any enemies in sight. If they got too far while the enemies came close, I cut their body with my long sword. We keep on running until finally we reach the gate. I look into the top of the gate and see a couple of guards.

“HEY! LET US OUT! THIS CITY IS CRAZY!” I shout at them.

At that moment, they shoot an arrow at us. Thanks to my reflex and my swordsmanship, I manage to deflect them.

“Nobody is allowed to leave. You are here to stay.”

Fuck! Are they trying to kill us? I turn around and see the crowd is getting closer. I could use air jump to jump out of this place at ease. But my mana reserves won’t be enough to take both of us out of here. I can feel Xiel’s hand is shaking so great. Apparently, there’s no other way around.

“Xiel, I’m sorry. And thank you for accompanying me this last few weeks.”

“Huh, what are you saying?”

I send my short swords flying towards Xiel. I make sure the short swords won’t hit her vital organ. Thanks to her layers of clothes, it’s easier. My swords take her flying outside of the gate. I feel the weight of the swords is gone not far after they pass the gate.

“RUN!” I yell as hard as I can. Hoping she could hear it and run for it.

“NEVI!”

“RUN! YOU DISTURB MY CONCENTRATION HERE!”

“Quick! Shoot her! She’s getting away.”

I can hear one of the guards voice.

Oh, no you don’t. I make my short swords fly back and a pair of head is rolling by my side. As my mana reserves have been dried out, both of my short swords fall to the ground.

It seems it was too soon for me for an adventure. I’m sorry Mada. It seems I can’t catch up with you.