***Roadside***

**Day ???**

*Trey*

As I woke up, feeling the worst pain I had felt in my life, I really wanted to curse the one responsible for this. Unfortunately with my neck twisted in an unhealthy way, which in turn let me see broken shards of my spine showing through my skin, currently that was out of the question.

(Fuck you too, godly ball of ass, could've at least fixed me up before taking off somewhere, or at least let me die in peace and be free of this pain) – I tried saying, as I struggled to do anything.

Well, wanting something and doing it are 2 different things. Ever tried saying anything with most of your ribs broken and your lungs pierced by them? Not to mention that air had problems flowing, what with my vocal cords blocked by my twisted neck. Besides, I guess cursing an all-powerful, possibly, omnipotent being could really end up badly for me, so I guess I was lucky that I couldn't. Who knows, maybe next time he would make me watch paint dry or how rocks get smoothed by the flow of the river, without fast-forwarding the time.

As I tried to contemplate my next move, if you could even begin to move, being in this broken state, I guess someone must have heard my plea. I felt my neck slowly twist back in place, broken spine shards connecting and ribs dragging out of my lungs. All-in-all the worst experience I have felt in my life. I swear, even getting my body mangled like this in the first place was more pleasant, just because at a certain point, when your spine is damaged enough, you stop feeling parts of your body. This time, however, what made me come back to normal, didn’t care about how I felt, and the first thing that came back was not my mobility, but the pain that was gone from most of my body. A few minutes later, being in much better condition, I lay under a tree feeling incredibly tired and looking at the one responsible for this mess my body was in. Well, at least that Ball did fix me up. Guess, not living as cripple or living at all for that matter, is a big plus in my book. You take what you can get.

You might ask what kind of evil man, horrible beast or any other monstrosity might have done this to me, while I was on my holy quest to save the world from the clutches of monsters, demons and evil mages. Please don't ask me that, it only makes this situation even more embarrassing. No, it was not some evil magic obsessed mage, majestic dragon or any other mythical being that done this to me, it was my steed – Donny, who now was nibbling on the grass nearby. Asshole didn’t even look sorry or embarrassed one bit.

As I was riding back from the town of Bristol to my home village, after day’s work of delivering messages as a postal boy… Alright, alright! I admit, I was kind of racing full speed and it might have been my own decision that led me to this, but in my defence it was a matter of life and death, as I needed to be home early enough to receive my free meal of the day, and we all know that free food is a matter of life and dead. Anyway… Where was I? Ahh yes - as I rode, there suddenly was a flash of bright light illuminating the whole road, making my steed lose his vision. Being dumbass like he was, Donny abruptly stopped in place. Unfortunately, while Donny was a brahham and thus perfectly obedient to do just about everything short of jumping off a cliff. They are dumb animals, and my steed was one of the moronic ones at that. He, probably, decided that not seeing anything meant it was night time, and nighttime meant stationary sleep. Where he had four strong legs that could anchor themselves while making his large body stop almost immediately, I, on the other hand, didn’t have that privilege. What stopped me, was not my legs or saddle, it was a large rock.

So here I lay, thinking about life and how objects in motion tend to want to fucking stay in motion when suddenly my eye caught a glint of something. Feeling lucky, as not every day you get to survive a crash like that. I dragged my body up to take a closer look, only to have my high expectations smashed to dust. You know, meeting God gives you a reason to expect more from life, even if I’m usually in considerably realistic person, but just when you start to finally want more, reality reins you in.

“Huh, that's just my luck, I guess” - while cursing my life, I reach down to pick up the broken crystal.

“Guess I got robbed and they didn't even use more expensive storage device.”

That, I could at least sell for some quick cash, but then, I guess, they wouldn't leave it laying around in the dirt, if they had used one. Besides that, it looked broken, as a crack had spread through the sparkly crystal.

“Quartz huh, Figures... Might as well be brahham dung for all it’s worth in current condition.” Tossing away the worthless thing, I returned to my ‘trusty’ steed, who had stayed behind to protect me. Yeah, that was a huge load of sarcasm on my part, brahhams are so stupid it actually takes few days for them to recognize anyone else as their master or listen to another person’s commands. Bandits must have thought it was not worth the hassle, as moving brahham that doesn't recognize you, is harder than trying to move a giant rock. At least, the rock would stay where you moved it, but brahham would just go back to the last place it had seen its master. You may call that loyalty, but point is - everyone could become its master. It wouldn't matter what you asked from the beast after that. As long as you give it food for a few days and let it smell you, it would become yours until you no longer gave food or ordered it to go away. Fun story that, okay, no it was not fun. When I got Donny I had to spend 5 days following him and sleeping beside him. No, the most pleasant experience. Speaking of fun facts - you could even torture it, while at the same time giving it food. It wouldn’t give a fuck either way, not that I have done that myself, but it has been proven by people who have nothing better to do than studying brahham psychology and torturing animals. In the end, the conclusion was drawn that they are dumb enough to follow even the worst commands. There is no correlation to loyalty, a brahham wouldn't even care if someone sawed my legs off while it got to watch. Some researchers suggest that they could be a result of failed experiments between normal cow/horse and mana.

All right, enough about the bloody beasts. I must think of a way to get out of this mess. While most of my money was safely stored in a hidden spot under my bed, my saddle still contained my day’s pay. Checking through the saddle, I found that there was nothing missing. Strange, I thought, the fuckers killed me and then did not even show common courtesy of considering my things worth stealing. Well, okay, their original plan probably didn’t involve murder, but they didn’t add my moronic beast into their calculations. Imagine a lone mage fresh out of the academy, not knowing how the world works, just wanting to hitch a ride, but ending up a murderer. Must have scared the poor fellow for life. Must be an unforgettable experience, watching man splatter on the side of the rock. I snickered to myself, just imagining the fellows face. Nah, I’m kidding, I actually wish him all the nightmares and sleepless nights he can get. A practical joke was not worth what I just experienced.

No, wait, something was different! The letter pack on the other side of the saddle, which I need to deliver tomorrow, seems to be gone. I looked around, just in case it fell somewhere, but no, I guess it had been stolen. Well, nothing I can do about it now, instead of pointlessly spending my time looking for it, I decided to slowly ride back home. Slowly, ’cause I already missed my chance for free food, but mostly because having experienced my lungs being pierced by my ribs once, is already something I rate less fun than washing dishes, and boy do I dislike washing them. Besides, I had enough otherworldly experiences for one day. I figure, if I don’t die again anytime soon after riding recklessly, I don’t have to be bored by the glowing ball again. Other than that, I needed some time to think about what the actual fuck actually happened.

So let’s start with the big thing - I died. Or, at least, I should be bloody dead from injuries like that, not to mention the ridiculous healing speed I experienced. If not for the similarly ridiculous pain that accompanied healing and torn clothes in a place where bones were sticking out before, I would have thought this all figment of my imagination that my brain made up after I received concussion by greeting rock with my face. No, I definitely did not imagine that, as even the knife cut on my left hand, that I got yesterday by peeling potatoes, was now gone. Not even scar remained behind. So, as far as I could tell, all of it was real.

The next thing on the checklist was the colourful glowing orb thingy showing me visions. While the healing can be proven by looking at the evidence at hand, this one was a bit trickier. It might happen to people before they die for good or it might be my fantasy, but one thing for sure - before this, I did not have any noticeable healing abilities. Either I have awakened as some kind of healing mage and that was part of my awakening ceremony illusion, or I might have actually met a God and he, in turn, healed me. I don't know about other people, but I for one do not enjoy being made plaything by someone who can probably destroy me with a simple thought, so fingers crossed it's the former. Though with my luck, the ball was real and is some kind of Evil God, who gets joy from watching people being miserable. Well… it's not something I can do all that much about. It's not like I can shout at the sky and get all my answers, believe me, I tried. Honestly, those were 5 minutes of my life that I will never tell anyone about, shouting loudly into the sky, demanding answers. Yeah... Let’s not think about that again and pretend it never happened. People might think I’ve gone nuts. I really hope that I, as a matter of fact, haven’t gone nuts. Oh well, whatever… everyone’s a little bit nuts anyway.

About the bandits - well there isn’t much to say. They came, they robbed me, while I lay there as a pile of broken flesh, and then they were gone. Time passed and I woke up. All-in-all there was nothing unusual about this unless you count me waking up unusual. In these parts, people get robbed all the time. Most of the time, you can get away with your life, so unless you want to risk death by trying to run away, you just comply and give up your stuff. No reason to pretend you are a hero and end up dead. Not all bandits kill people and even in a case like this, they probably didn't even try to kill me. There is nothing I can do about getting back the message pack. Even if I’m now a mage, most likely, I’m only a healing type. What can you do as a barely awakened healing mage against steel swords and arrows? I don’t even know how I healed in the first place! Can I repeat it? Not to mention the crystal they used, which was strange on its own. A cracked and used one was worthless, but one that had spell still stored inside would cost more than they would gain from robbing postal boys.

“Ugh…This probably means there’s going to be a penalty waiting for me tomorrow after I return to town.”

“Hey, at least they didn't take my money, so I got that going for me, which is nice.”

Roads being this dangerous is the reason it pays so well and why I do this job in the first place. Usually, I get surrounded, after which I proceed to give away my money without any unnecessary hassle. Then they just let me go afterwards, it’s just that easy. They get the things I hide in plain sight and I get to keep the stuff I hid behind Dannie’s right leg. This usually happens about twice a year and it's not that horrible. It’s not like I’m taking a particularly large amount of money with me when I go to town anyway. Just enough to buy some food, clothes or tools I cannot get in the village. In the end, the plan always was to put my hands up, don't talk shit when not asked to, comply with orders and live to see another day. This time though, they had the help of a mage and things went horribly wrong for me. At least a novice mage would be necessary to pull off that flash, maybe they even had apprentice mage, but I doubt it. Mages are not that easy to find, even when the whole countryside smells like old ruins and mana. Even the worse mage could make twice as much in a day that I make in a week. Banditry is just not that profitable nowadays. At least, that’s what the bandits keep telling me every time I get robbed. I guess they lied. So either they had a novice one join their gang out of sheer boredom and from now on the road from town to my village will be more dangerous, or this was something else. Fortunately, this seemed later, judging how the only thing missing was the letter package. Whelp, this was not something the current me was capable of dealing with, so I brushed those thoughts away and focused on the most crucial thing for me right now – discovering my magical prowess.

A mage was a powerful individual that could draw from the world’s mana to bind its power to his will and create feats not possible through conventional means. Well, that was as dry of a definition I could think of, but from the two books my parents had, one was called common creatures of Kundun, the other was basic magic by Steve DeGrieve. Technically, everyone’s a mage, at least a sleeping one. More practically, to become a mage one need to go through what’s called an awakening. Nobody really knows how to induce the state of awakening with 100% surety, but many agree that experiencing life and death situations or by meditating day and night, one is more likely to awaken. Even then only 1 out of 1000 people become an awakened mage, and even less of that go further to become novice mages. Mostly because they don't even know they have awakened. Not all people after seeing visions think they have awakened. Most just think they have received a vision from God, drank too much, got drugged, or just dreamed the whole thing. An awakened person only differs from non-mage with having the potential to draw in mana. Having the potential to do it and actually doing it, is not the same. So, they keep on living as if nothing had changed. In some strange cases, mostly the ones in life and death situations, a person can not only awaken but even cast his first magic spell. Fingers crossed I just cast healing magic and I’m now a white mage or the more specialized version known as healing mage.

Apparently, as people use mana they get tired, so after rechecking my body condition, I wouldn't say I feel just tired. More like exhausted and hungry at the same time. If I had to describe it - something close to what you feel after slaving away for weeks in mines, digging at the rocks while being whipped by slave master and receiving no proper food for my effort. I had to do that after I got drunk and attacked some bigshot at the town’s pub. At that time I just didn’t like how he looked at me and was too drunk to care about consequences. Turns out, that when you are wasted, people don’t look at you in a favourable way. Well, the guy was nice, instead of straight up killing me, he just made me work for a while in the local mines to cool off. Good! Feeling tired is a check-mark on the side of me being a budding mage. Well as exhausted as I am right now, I can forget about casting or in my case trying to cast the most simple and smallest of spells. Food and sleep come first.

As I pondered the questions in my head, and my existence in general, I almost didn't notice I had already reached the village. You would not believe how time flies when you die and then get put back together. It was currently night, and while I was passing the gates, a moonshine illuminated a sign that said: "Welcome to Greenville" in bright green letters, or at least they used to be bright and green. Now, the paint had already mostly peeled off and even on parts where it hadn't, if you didn't know beforehand, you would be hard pressed to guess the actual colour right. Now it just looked like dirt smeared piece of wood with some random letters. Passing the worn out, I tried to stop my thoughts wandering around and focus on getting home.

At gates I greeted the guard: "Hey John, how’s night treating you. This time try not sleep on the job, eh? Maybe later I will send some of my maids to help you relax from this nerve-racking experience of guarding our mighty gates against the great forest monsters. Don’t let the wabbits in or the evil will triumph!"

I didn't really mean anything bad by it, John was one of the few people in the village that I could actually call a good friend and I knew he wouldn’t take offence. Probably, he would just quip about me having an easy time exploring the world and going on adventures, while he was stuck on a guard duty. Besides, he was the reason I had this foul mouth of mine. That’s what you get when your daily company are drunkards and jokers.

What I got in reply was a wide smile and his usual quick minded insult: "Oh, Trey! Where have you been? I thought you said you would be back the same day at evening, with some beer. Now, here you are 3 days later, no beer in sight and being awfully pompous, as if you were some young lord, returning home from whoring at the town. To think you would treat your only friend like that. Wait until I become big, famous and leave you in the dust of my majestic steed, while I ride for the castle, where I and the princess explore each other’s body with great interest and intensity."

At that, I cracked a smile of my own. Wanting to reply with something along the lines of him having an ogre for a wife, while spending the rest of his life sleeping in a brahham stall, but then something he said came back to me in a rush.

"Wait, what did you say? 3 days? What do you mean? We had this conversation this morning." - I startled back, now feeling a bit more unsettled.

John shrugged his shoulders: "That excuse would only work with your whore of a mother if she was still around, but we all know you went to town and sold your body as a public toiled for 3 days straight."

Too unsettled to reply with my own insult, I fell in silence. Thinking about it, I can probably figure out where the time went. If the vision with glowing God ball of doom was anything to go by, it probably took me 3 days just to see the planet change. Oh well, I guess that explains some of the weird looks people I know gave me on the road after I greeted them. Well either that or the fact that I was covered in blood, mud and shredded clothes. Thankful for the night that was currently hiding my blooding attire, I bid farewell to John, who looked visibly concerned about me being so out of my character. Me not insulting him back, probably made him more worried than being 3 days late.

Hurrying up home, I entered my grand house. Okay, let me rephrase that. Entering my wooden shack, that was more a pile of wood barely nailed together using my amazing carpentry skills, I hastily made dinner. Simple bread with cheese and some brahham milk to wash it all down. For the first time in a while, it actually tasted good. Finally, barely awake, I fell down on my bed and in 10 seconds already fell asleep.

Interlude – For all it’s worth

***Town of Bristol***

**Same day, the incident happened**

*Khanos*

I took off my cloak and tossed it in the corner, honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it landed with a wet sound, judging from how much I have sweated in the last 2 hours.

“Never again” – I mumbled under my breath, for what seemed like the hundredth time.

Carefully checking outside the Inn’s windows for any suspicious activity, I finally relaxed a bit. This has been the worse day of my career being a mage. Scratch that, this probably was the worse day of my life, and if I don’t find a safe spot to lay down for the next few hours, quite possibly, the last day of my life.

“I should have known, this whole business smelled fishy from the get-go.”

I sighed, but alas you cannot keep crying over spilt milk. Even more so in a situation where delays will mean death. So I sat on the nearby bed in and started gathering mana. The speed of which mana gathered towards me and got refined by my body was noticeable, but for me, it has always been that way. It was this speed, that made them all called me a young genius, a star so bright, a grand master in the making, the youngest master mage in the history of the academy. So they praised me, while simultaneously shit-talking me behind my back. Jealousy brings out the worse in people. Well, look who’s jealous now! I wish I could still be safe behind the walls of the academy, but alas, now I’m stuck in a middle of nowhere, with assassins on my tail. I wish being a genius came with a shortcut of not having to work my ass off for my whole life, or at least instruction manual on how to make life easy and get me out of situations like this.

The thing that bugged me the most was, I really hadn’t done anything to deserve this. It’s not like I ran away with something important or done something to the wrong kind of people. It was supposed to be a regular run-of-the-mill job; secure the package, bring it to currier, who then proceeds to bring it fuck knows where. I did all they asked of me. Gathered bunch of thugs, took the package and killed the post boy. Okay, maybe that last part was more of an accident than on purpose, still, the kid had to die either way, though that didn’t mean I hadn’t felt anything about that. Shit… no normal person is a born killer, I could still smell the blood on that mangled corpse of a boy. Wait, maybe that’s my blood. Shit, am I bleeding? I checked again, but cuts these assassins had made, thankfully, hadn’t reached my skin.

“This should be enough,” – I mumbled, slowly getting up.

I need to keep moving. If my mana hadn’t run out after the last encounter, I would already be running for the Empire’s border. Let’s be frank here, that was too many assassins for an easy to do, low danger job. It meant that there was somebody in high places pulling strings behind the scenes. Means there was no safe place for me in the nearest towns or cities. That leads me to only one possible rout - out of the Empire and into the Great Beast Lands.

Suddenly, feeling unease, I leapt for the window. Mid-leap I felt something sharp embed itself in my leg. Fucking dark mage assassin, probably, slowly stepped inside while I was meditating, and was waiting for me to fall asleep. Not even looking back, I fired 3 compressed fireblasts behind me. Let’s just say that the building wasn’t built to withstand even one of those. As the roof came in and the screaming ensued, I gnashed my teeth, pulled out the dagger from my leg and tried to run as fast as I could with a bleeding leg. I ran to the brahham stalls, where I left my steed.

Midway to there I stopped and cursed while being frustrated with myself, - “Idiot that’s where they want me to go.”

So instead of doing the obvious, I channelled half of the mana into a flare, compressed to the size of a melon, and made it expand inside the stall. After hearing the satisfying scream of someone, just before the roaring blast took down the whole building. I started to run for the nearby forest.

“I just hope the screams from inside, were assassins and not some random stall boy’s.”

Killing was new to me, and let me say that it didn’t quite feel right to kill someone who has done nothing to you, but killing these fuckers came to me like a cold beer on a sunny day.

“Hope that showed them, that the next time they decide to mess with the genius master fire mage Khanos, he will proceed to curb stomp you into the ground.”

Truth be told, I knew I was being foolish here. No one capable of pulling so many resources just to kill me will give up that easy. So while thinking about that cheerful thought, I ran through the forest, bleeding leg slowly taking my strength.

End of interlude

Interlude – Axe that changes.

***Ogre camp near the hound valleys***

**Day 3**

*Aeania*

Waking up in the same shit pile I fell in yesterday, after drinking the stuff they call alcohol, came as no surprise. None of them would care if I drowned in it. They would just think that funny, and maybe for a few hours that would be the new joke of the day. After that, I would be forgotten, like the rest of the fallen. Nobody really cares about how much a life is worth in ogre war camp.

Alright, got to hurry up or there won’t be anything left to eat. Let’s hope the shit they call food doesn’t poison me to death, though, got to look from the bright side - at least they aren’t feeding me human remains. Those, at least, they save for themselves.

It has been 3 days since I’ve been captured. Demons know, why I still haven’t been killed like the rest of people who resisted, but that, probably, had to do with the fact that I looked funny to the ogre warchief. Me, alone, swinging my shovel while trying to protect my little brother, 5 ogres surrounding us. I even managed to kill 2 of those fuckers, but that doesn’t count for much when you are 100 more of them just around the corner. Now I’m all chained up, this way I can forget about taking my revenge. Maybe I should just let myself change into a demon, grab the nearest axe and show why they feared me in the army, but… no… I cannot, not when I have the responsibility to live on for all the fallen. Revenge can wait, for now, I’m patient enough to wait for my time, and when it comes, oh let’s just say there will be lots of blood.

A rude shove from nearby ogre woke me up from my daydream.

“Move your piece of filth, move!” – The grey beast growled at me.

“Good morning to you too, shitface” – I quipped back.

That one earned me a new bruise on my face and probably re-broke my nose, but at least I got to release some of my pent-up anger. Silly, I know, but cursing someone is about all the resistance I can muster, covered in chains as I am. I honestly think they expected me to try for revenge after the first day. Must be why I got so many chains on me, and I’m starting to think they are disappointed by me not doing so. I judge that by the increasingly meaner looks I’ve been given since yesterday, but honestly, that can also be attributed to their dwindling fresh meat supplies. Well sorry to disappoint, you monsters, I’m just fine staying alive and biding my time.

Picking myself up again, I went to the place ogres call the kitchen, and what I call shithole, even then I’m being modest calling it that. Coming to the building that used to be a horse stall, I got myself some stale bread from a nearby table. The bread could be used as brick, and the thing they called prisoner stew, well, the less you smell it, the better. Just as I was about to move to the corner of the room, to “enjoy” my meal, I got shoved again. It’s not easy to remain in balance when you are covered in chains, so I fell while placing hands in front of me to protect my already damaged face, obviously, this lead to me spilling my meal on the ground.

“Good doggy, now lick it up, as you should.” – One of the ogres spat in my general direction.

“That’s okay, I wasn’t hungry anyway.” – I answered slowly crawling away.

“Did you not fucking hear me? Lick that shit up! I said” – At that, the voice combined with something more physical, and for all my efforts of trying to get away, I still got my stomach kicked.

Rolling in the grass few times, I came face to face with, probably, the ugliest ogre I have seen in my entire life, and trust me when I say that I have seen plenty of them. Living in ogre camp where most of the people belong to the ogre race and the rest are few human and daemon prisoners, you can see your fair share of ogres, enough for a life time’s worth. Thus, came 10 minutes of pain, as he kicked me all over the camp hill.

Thankfully, before something important could be broken, there came a sound of horns and with the sound came shouts from all sides.

(Finally, they came.) – I thought, too tired and hurt to speak.

With my last remaining strength, I lifted my head and saw knights in heavy armour, slaying the monsters that had tormented me for these past days, the last thing I saw was my ugly ogre ‘friend’ getting sliced in half by a two-handed sword. I smiled, and then the darkness took me.

End of interlude

***Village of Greenville***

**Day 5**

*Trey*

As with all things in life, next morning was full of disappointment for me. I should have known life would not be that easy. In a sense, this new development was amazing and meant that starting from now, I’ll probably rise in fame and fortune to become a hero, something that children always wanted to be. On the other hand, the implications that I might have become some kind of abomination didn’t sit that well with me. Besides that, I was not a child anymore and becoming a hero wasn’t on my list of top priorities.

Long story short - I was not a mage. That became clear rather quickly, as the first thing I did in the morning, was to try to recreate my awesome healing powers by cutting my hand with a kitchen knife and focusing on gathering mana to heal that. Which was hard as is. Have you ever tried to purposely cut yourself, at least, a cut deep enough to matter? So the blood would flow? Yeah, call me a scaredy-cat, but that took some time to execute. Anyhow, my plan failed at the first step, mostly because as soon the knife left my self-inflicted wound, it was already healing on its own. Mana be damned, but I was quite sure that’s not how magic works, at least, no conventional magic I knew of. Feeling of amazement, immediately followed by dread I proceeded to poke my hand full of little holes that knitted almost immediately on their own.

“Haah… Well… Shit…” - I really don’t think there are more appropriate 3-word combinations that I could use in this situation.

“Anyway, enough. Enough self-pity. I'm not doomed. This is fine. Nobody has to know this. This can be my little secret.”

There is no way in damnation, I’m going to show off this power. As far as I know, there is nobody else capable of what I’m currently doing. Even Troll regenerative powers shouldn’t be able to fix broken spines and pull my ribs out of lungs. The last part proved that this was not my natural troll healing power, which just suddenly awoke and came from my grandmother’s side of the family, as even if you had regenerative powers, you would have to manually remove the bone stuck inside the flesh, and my grandmother was not known for fancying trolls.

Now I knew 3 things. First of all, I was probably a puppet, whose strings were in the hands of some Godlike devil orb that has nothing better to do, than watch planet being recreated. This leads me to the second part - I knew nothing else of use. Not what I had to do, not what the orb is expecting of me, not what this all meant. Finally, I knew this could become ether huge blessing or huge disaster for me. If some archmage took fancy in studying my power, I might get locked up in a cell for the rest of my life, and the rest of my life sounded closer to eternity if my newfound powers stopped me from getting older. That last part, at least, wasn’t proven yet. Heck, it might not even take archmage, just a common one would do it for me, as I’m not known for my fighting prowess. Not to mention, what would happen if the church of Holy Fire caught wind of this. If their inquisition didn’t just straight up burn me to death (If I can even die for good), they might just decide to lock me in a steel cage and bury alive. There is only a little difference of what they consider a miracle of their God and what is considered heresy that needs to be exterminated.

With that jolly thought in mind, I finished my morning workout and headed out to take care of daily necessities. Visiting village tailor, I ordered a new set of clothing, as my old one was currently burning in my fireplace. No amount of washing can get that much blood out. Finishing that and realising my bare minimum of savings I had, already dwindled to few silver coins, I hastily made for the stalls. People have to eat, at least I still did, and nothing had changed there. I had the sinking feeling I could probably go without food, but the pain of my stomach being digested by itself while simultaneously regenerating was probably not pleasant, so left for the town again. I still had to meet up with my boss and inform him about the robbery. That didn’t bode well; I could already see him reducing this month’s payment because of that. Life is hard, even for a non-proven-immortal. Maybe I can look for a work more suited to my newly acquired powers; maybe I could join the bandits. No, I quickly discarded that thought, they would catch on pretty quickly that, for some reason, I just tend to not get hurt at all. After that, I was just a few reports away from getting my ass hauled off by the Inquisition, so the work should be something I can do alone. How about becoming a master thief slash assassin?

“Hmm, that sounds cool. Me, a master thief, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Ladies would love a dashing and dangerous man like me,” – I said while striking a pose, which was not easy while riding. – “Or better yet, being secret government assassin on a mission to assassinate neighbouring countries royal family.”

Just as quickly, I stopped, when I realised the nearby travelling caravan had people looking at me strangely. What do they know, they are just jealous of how beautiful and refined I am. Anyway, now that I’m through with embarrassing myself, I should really decide what path I should take in my life. Do I really want to pursue danger-filled jobs? The answer is probably a big no. I have no real skills that a thief required, and worst of all, I sucked at being stealthy. So what’s next? An assassin? No, the same thing, and I’m not sure I want to kill people for a living or kill anyone for that matter. Mother taught me better than that. I should, at least, make her proud, wherever she is now. It’s not like I need money badly enough to hurt somebody. So that automatically excluded almost all criminal activities from my possible job list. It’s sad, when you think about how even being practically semi-immortal, don’t just come with a free pass in life. I still needed to eat, I still need clothes and I still needed money for all of that. Maybe I should become adventurer and hunt monsters for a living, I know I have no real skill with weapons, but I could, at least, give it a try. Worst case scenario, I would just regenerate any damage that the monsters would deal. Well, that’s one thing I could do, I should at least add that to my possible job list. Joining the awesome ranks of adventurers would allow me to learn some self-defence and slaying beasts could gain me fame, fortune and money. I think, I have finally convinced myself on the path I want to follow, now what’s left is just the execution of said path. Celebrating my own quick-witted decision I raised my head to look for the gate, as I closed in on the town

“Fucking hell. What is it now?”

Life is never that easy, and when you think everything’s figured out, it reaches out and smacks you in the face. Now, seeing the huge plume of smoke that rises over the treetops, from the general direction the town was in, I knew that to be truer than ever.