Chapter 9: Into the Dark World

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…Knights fought fiercely, but the creatures were too resilient and powerful, and they began to fall.

The Marshal threw the communication orb to the ground and stopped providing commands for the Evoker squads and the army. He flared all his mana and cloaked himself with it, turning into an elemental avatar.

The Marshal, now a figure made purely of water, charged at the dark creatures. He shot thousands of ice spikes that riddled most of the dark creatures with holes. He kept dashing around the small army of creatures, evading their swift claws and shooting more spikes through them.

The man looked like an ice deity shredding the creatures by the dozens, but it wouldn’t last long. Blood began to come from his nose, and he knew the time was over.

‘Retreat!’ His voice thundered through the battlefield as he committed himself to his last stand...

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“I can’t believe that bastard. One drachma for a hard bread and one for a single waterskin.” Otis cursed, munching the bread hatefully while he walked. “Robbery I say. Robbery. He did not rob us with his sword, he did it with this thing.” He shook the bread in front of him, and even when he tightened his grip, his fingers barely sunk in it.

“That’s what people do. They like preying on the weak.” Kancil muttered.

Otis’ frown eased and he looked at Kancil. “Right, what was that back there? You looked like a village boy. Where was the boy that saved my life and wants to risk his life against demons in the Dark World?”

“I thought you’d guessed it by now… I don’t like most people. They betray and deceive.” Kancil said, his face retaining some of the apprehension from before.

“Well, am I not a ‘people’? I haven’t betrayed you as far as I remember.” Otis frowned.

“I said most. You are a decent fellow, though stupidly addicted to wine.” Kancil shrugged.

“Addicted?” Otis said, outraged. “I’m a connoisseur. It’s something a child wouldn’t understand.”

“What I understand is that wine tastes like piss.” Kancil said.

Otis gasped dramatically and whipped his head away. “I’m beginning to doubt the working of this association.”

Kancil snorted and chuckled. “I’d like to see you getting those crystals alone.”

“I’d like to see you getting another Rune Scribe to work with you. It might not look like it because of my regrettable situation, but us Scribes are a highly sought profession. You wouldn’t believe what a town would pay to get the services of a skilled Scribe.”

“I don’t think Lenore paid you for your services. So your skills must be…”

“I’m a skilled Scribe, you don’t need to doubt it. But I find it best to not flaunt the extent of my skills openly. Someone might take advantage of a Scribe without a backing like myself.”

“So you do admit that people are despicable.” Kancil’s gaze picked up, having thought that he got Otis to agree with him.

“As I told you, there are good people and bad people. There are also good people that are forced to be bad people and bad people that pretend to be good people. You can’t think of everyone in a black and white scale when there are innumerable shades of gray in-between. There are even other colors that don’t fit on that scale.”

Kancil slowed his pace and looked down. His words had a certain merit. Miles and Tim had distanced themselves from him, but they had their reasons. Miles had surprisingly found his mother working in a tavern inside Lenore and he knew Tim well. The brat would be terrified living surrounded by stults and citizens of doubtful character. And what need they had to live like that if they could have a better life joining the garrison and training to become stronger. They had even offered to help him to get a good place in the shack-town, but he had refused rudely, feeling betrayed by the guys that he thought of as his brothers.

He felt that he owed them an apology, but he doubted he would ever have the chance for it. He’d probably die following his impossible revenge.

He stopped walking and widened his uncovered eye. Heck, maybe even those bastards have some reason for what they did, he thought, then shook his head and continued walking. Just because there were good people doing bad things that doesn’t mean that they were like that. After all, bad people also existed, and he was sure the bastards more than bad people were evil.

“You might be right.” Kancil said, munching the hard bread and picking up his pace.

Otis smiled and increased his pace to Kancil’s. The boy was in a good direction to avoid walking a path full of anger and enemies, and no friends to trust, like he had.

By nightfall they reached the crossroads that the mercenary had mentioned. Just like the man had said, the signs pointed to Philac and Dunlac.

Their chosen path was Dunlac, to the east. As far as they knew it was the easternmost settlement in the kingdom, unless some other refugee town like Lenore had bloomed farther to the east. From there they would go to the mountain pass to the Dark World after getting the appropriate information and supplies. They guessed they’d have to spend the next few weeks eating only bread and water, with maybe the occasional wild fruit if they ever found any.

The mercenary had made them use half of their money buying eight loafs of bread and two waterskins, all for the grand total of one talent. They were even lucky that the thug Kancil looted carried eight drachmas with him, otherwise they would have spent most of Otis’ money in only food for two days—three if they stretched it. With what they had left they might make it to the Dark World, unless they had underestimated too much the journey, which was a possibility they preferred not to think about at the moment.

They traveled a little to the east, where the forest continued and camped under the protection of trees and bushes. It was a place riddled with bugs and small critters, but it was better than getting sighted by bandits or demons while camping near the road.

… …

Two days later they arrived at Dunlac. The travel had been uneventful and thankfully they didn’t bump into a single demon like the mercenary had warned. For once their luck didn’t seem so bad, and as they approached the growing shack-town outside Dunlac, they knew that their luck was never that bad to begin with.

The shack-town of Lenore had been something that surged naturally after more citizens and stults had moved there. It was a refugee town in the first place. Anyone who worked would have a good standing and enough to eat, as everyone living there made the city bloom, even stults. But the sight outside Dunlac was truly miserable.

People walked around with sunken and sickly faces, clearly at the brink of starvation. Most of them wore the stult black collar—making people wear it apparently was not a thing of only Count Lenore—but there were also some people going in and out of shacks barely holding their own weight that did not have a collar: citizens. Normally it was something unthinkable to see so many citizens living in a stult shack-town, but in Dunlac it seemed pretty common.

Most people didn’t have the courage to move to new settlements like Lenore, with an untrained garrison and little to no real protection against another wave of demons. Most preferred to take refuge near a long-standing city like Dunlac, which still stood even after the dungeon break in Southwell.

The people living outside the walls probably bordered the hundred thousand, almost the same that those living inside the walls. It was either that the damage caused by the dungeon break was far beyond what they thought or that Dunlac held some kind of allure for refugees.

It didn’t take them that long to discover that it was the later.

As they walked to the city gates they saw a squad of legionnaires coming from the insides of the shack-town with a group of at least a hundred emaciated stults following.

Otis approached one of the many people staring at the group. Kancil followed, looking about nervously.

“What is happening?” Otis asked the man.

“They’re takin’ them to the Dark World. Those are the ones that can’t work for food anymore.” The withered man said. He looked at Otis, his gaze stopping longer on his bulging backpack. “You a traveler?”

Otis nodded.

“I suggest you to leave as fast as you can. This place is a trap.” The man said.

“How so?” Otis asked.

“Well, here ye’ have to work like a slave to get any food, and what ye’ get is not enough to keep workin’ like that. In a few weeks ye’ll find yerself thin as a leaf and marchin’ with the legions to the Dark World. They promise to feed ya’ three times a day if ye’ join the colonies, but they don’t tell ya’ that many of those colonies get massacred by demons every week.

“Ya’ see all this folk?” The man pointed around. “There’d be at least four times that if no one went to the Dark World. It’s like we’re naught but cattle for them. Of course, ye’ are a citizen.” The man gazed at Otis’ neck. “I wouldn’t worry that much in yer’ position. They’ll get ya’ to one of the good colonies if ye’ volunteer. I’d worry more about the lad.” He looked at Kancil’s neck with the black collar and turned around and left.

They looked around and found the words of the man to be true. The citizens, while looking hungry and sickly, walked about doing something, having work to do, but many—if not most—of the stults just laid around, looking at the going legionnaires with a dead stare or rolled up on the ground, trembling because of some illness that would kill them eventually.

Kancil looked at them with a deep hollowness in his heart. If he gave up his revenge and instead used his abilities for those people’s sake, he might possibly be able to do something for them. But if he gave up his revenge he’d be without direction.

He knew what his revenge was about, getting stronger and… beating? Defeating? Killing? Well, in truth he wasn’t even sure what his revenge was about, but he had an objective at least. If he instead made his goal helping them he’d be lost about how to even begin, how to use his abilities to help them.

Kancil sighed. He felt not much different from the uncaring people he loathed so much.

“Well, I think we have the information of how to get to the Dark World. Now we need the supplies.” Otis said, glancing at another squad of legionnaires leading a hundred stults with a few commoners mixed among them.

“Can’t we just join one of those groups and go to the Dark World?” Kancil said.

“That’d be counterproductive for us, those people are workers. The only reason the legions take them to the Dark World is to populate and build colonies and plantations to maintain the legions battling against the demons. We’d be stuck as workers without freedom if we do that.”

“True.” Kancil nodded.

“Let’s go buy some food and find a place to sleep. I’m exhausted.” Otis said. “Tomorrow we’ll investigate a little more and decide what to do.”

“Um- I don’t think that’s wise. We should buy the food and be off quickly.”

“Huh? Have you gone mad, boy? We’ve been walking nonstop for two days. I can’t stand my feet.”

“Unless you want to find a knife burrowing through your ribs this night, we should do that.” Kancil hissed. “Haven’t you noticed how people is looking at us?”

Otis looked around and noticed at least a dozen men looking away when he crossed eyes with them. Only then realizing their position.

“We’re easy prey.” Kancil whispered. “A weak scholar and a stult boy? Even I’m tempted to steal from us.”

“And we can’t afford an inn inside the walls…” Otis grimaced.

“Not if we want to survive the journey.” Kancil shook his head. “As it is we might even have to starve for a while before reaching a colony in the Dark World and finding some work.”

Otis hung his head and groaned. “But my feet…”

They entered the city without a hitch thanks to Otis’ status as a craftsman citizen, which put him above a third of the citizenry. They ate their first hot meal in a while for two drachmas—a world of difference with the hard bread the mercenary sold them—and bought another backpack to fill with bread and waterskins. With that they were left penniless and without knowledge of how to go to the Dark World. The asked people several times about that, but even something like that had a price tag in Dunlac.

But it was no problem, they waited until the legionnaires departed with the workers from the city and followed them. Just like that they would know where to go.

Not even an hour after they began following the legionnaires, a squad approached them.

“Why’re you following?” The squad’s sergeant demanded.

“We’re not following, sire. We just travel the same path. We’re headed to the Dark World.”

“You’re joining us then?” The sergeant asked.

“No sire, I’m a craftsman that wants to try his luck in the colonies.” Otis said, stressing his status.

The sergeant clicked his tongue and turned around. “Just stay two hundred meters away from us. We’re escorting the workers and don’t want you making trouble to them.” He and his men walked off, but not before throwing Otis a disdainful glare. Well, at least that hasn’t changed. Otis thought. Low ranking legionnaires have always felt jealously for craftsmen that earned more or the same as them without risking their lives. It seemed that even a world war couldn’t change that.

They did as the legionnaire said and kept their distance, there was no use in causing trouble at the moment.

The group of the legionnaires was comprised of a century and a thousand workers. They moved slowly to maintain the tightness of the group and prevent the workers from dying on an ambush.

“People’s legions.” Kancil snorted. “They’ve fallen really low if they don’t care to protect even a citizen now.” Kancil tightened the bandage around his hand that had loosened.

“Well, we didn’t decide making this journey relying on their protection anyway.” Otis shrugged. He eyed the bandages around Kancil’s arm and eye. “You know,” He said. “I never asked you about those bandages.”

“No, you didn’t. Until now.” Kancil said with and edge on his voice.

“Well, you know, I’m a curious man…” Otis said with an apologetic-but-not-really expression.

Kancil sighed. If they were going to be partners, then at least they should know a few things about each other. “Did I ever tell you where I’m from?”

Otis shook his head.

“I’m a survivor from Southwell’s incident.”

“So you lived through all the mayhem that occurred there two years ago?” Otis said, guessing that the bandages came from that time.

“No.” Kancil shook his head. “I lived through the mayhem occurring there until eight months ago.”

“Eight-” Otis narrowed his eyes. “Eight months?”

Kancil nodded. “There was a group of people that couldn’t escape after the demons began to appear in the city. We were surrounded and all we could do was flee into the sewers, where we could hide and defend better from the demons. It was only eight months ago that the kingdom decided to send a legion to clear the place. I and most of my friends were lucky to survive until then. I injured myself escaping from goblins, orcs and worse things.

“It’s because that fourteen months that I spent there, surviving among great demons and killing minor ones, that I’m confident on becoming a slayer.”

“That’s unbelievable.” Otis gaped. “I heard the day of the dungeon break was horrible enough. And you lived like that for more than a year? Unbelievable.” Otis shook his head with amazement. “And how was it? Living like that?”

“That’s- that’s something I’d rather not talk about.” Kancil looked down. He was not prepared to relive the horrors from that time. The tears, the pleading eyes, the bloodied faces, the traitors. He gnashed his teeth. I’ll make them pay.

“Right, I’m sorry. Must have been really though.” Idiot. Otis reprimanded himself in his head. Why did he have to make the boy remember the things that twisted his way of thinking in the first place.

“Stop.” Kancil raised his hand in front of Otis’ chest. “You hear that?” He curved his back slightly and began looking around.

“I only hear the wind and the depressed workers arguing with each other.”

“Shh.” Kancil held his finger over his mouth. “Don’t you have a core? Enhance your ears.”

” You say it as if it were that easy…” Otis began looking around, trying to hear with his pitifully enhanced ears.

“Run.” Kancil grabbed Otis’ arm and pulled him forward. “Damn it, old man, run.” He yelled.

“W-what?” Otis said, confused and scared, but following him.

“Blue manes!” Kancil shouted, loud enough so that the group ahead could hear.

They ran as fast as they could, the bulging baggage on their backs bouncing and slowing them down.

They reached the group and four squads of legionnaires were already in formation to protect the workers. A sharp contrast with what he had seen from Attalus’ legionnaires, Kancil noted.

“What are you doing.” One of the sergeants shouted.

“Behind.” Kancil pointed. “Blue manes.”

“What do y-” The sergeant stopped mid-sentence, as he could finally see the dozens of beasts pouring from the forest.

“Spears.”

The legionnaires unfastened one of their spears from their back and threw them when the pack was at range. They followed with a second round of throws and then formed a spear wall with their last one, their shields raised up.

The workers began retreating and the rest of the century joined the battle.

Arrows flew, spears pierced, swords slashed and maws snapped. It was a hard for the legionnaires to hit properly the agile beasts, but they outmaneuvered and overpowered the beasts eventually, ending the battle with fifty beast bodies littered on the ground.

Kancil and Otis had retreated with the workers, as they wouldn’t be truly of any help. Kancil had fought with blue manes before, but if he stepped to fight he’d only be obstruction the legionnaires tactics.

A few legionnaires were injured and fewer received serious wounds, but none had fallen. That century had been escorting workers between Dunlac and the Dark World for some time and quickly grew into an elite force with quite a few Warriors and mostly high leveled Combatants.

They began patching up the injured and reassembling to protect the workers.

“It’s time to earn your meals, folk.” A sergeant shouted at a section of the workers. “I want our spears retrieved and the bodies disassembled by the next hour. Move.” The he continued walking to his post but stopped when he sighted Kancil and Otis. “You.” He glared, veins bulging around his neck. “Bloody bastards.” He stomped towards them.

“What?” Otis and Kancil looked at each other in confusion. The man looked at them as if they had swindled him.

“You brought the blue manes.” He grabbed Otis’ shirt and pulled. “What are you trying to do?” The sergeant snarled, his hand rested on his sword.

“You’re misinterpreting something, sire. The blue manes approached and we fled.” Otis said, raising his hands in submission. “How can we even make the beasts do that?”

“Shut it bastard.” The man shook Otis. “Who send you to sabotage us?” He drew his sword and-

Before the sergeant could bring his sword closer to Otis he found himself with a knife on his neck.

“I suggest you don’t move any further or we’ll have a red fountain coming from your neck.” Kancil hissed. The man was at least two heads taller than Kancil and with a robust physique, but exactly that was what allowed Kancil to get through the man’s defenses without him noticing.

“Now release him slowly, no sudden movements.” Kancil said.

The sergeant opened his hand slowly and let Otis go, his face growing paler by the second.

“Kancil…” Otis said, his voice shaking.

“What’s going on there?” Another legionnaire passed by and realized something was going on. Not that it was too hard, seeing a legionnaire with his sword half raised and a boy with his hand to his neck.

“Th-” The sergeant tried to speak, but Kancil pushed the knife bringing it to the brink of drawing blood.

“Bring your centurion.” Kancil demanded.

“I’m here.” A man fully equipped with plate armor approached.

His breastplate emitted a slight glow around the borders. An artifact. Kancil thought. Not a weaker demon artifact, a real one. One worth a few gold crowns.

“I would appreciate it if you released the sergeant.” The centurion said.

“I would appreciate it if this madman behaves.” Kancil responded.

The centurion nodded. “The sergeant will step back and stay like that until I say otherwise.”

Kancil let go and pushed the man with more strength than his slight frame would suggest.

The sergeant growled and swung his weapon at Kancil.

“Legionnaire!” The centurion threw a punch at the direction of the sergeant and a powerful gust of wind send the man rolling over the ground. “Do you want to be punished for revolting?” The centurion stomped towards the man. “Was I not clear?”

“Apologies, Centurion.” The sergeant scrambled to his feet and hurried to stand a few paces behind the centurion.

When the centurion returned his gaze to Kancil and Otis the sergeant began glaring daggers at them from behind.

“So, what’s all this about?”

“Sir, I found these spies-” The sergeant began.

“That man is delusional, sire.” Otis interrupted. “He claims that we somehow controlled the beast to attack your group and that we harbor ulterior motives. I think the man has forgotten about the pact between the Six Kingdoms. Why would they send spies? Who would even send spies to sabotage a small operation like this?”

“Are you spies then?” The centurion lifted an eyebrow.

“Of course not, sire. I’m a scribe hoping to try his luck in the Dark World. All we could do when we spotted the blue manes was run towards your group, else we’d be torn to shreds by now.”

“T-these are spies, sir. They brought the blue manes, now three of our men might lose an arm or a leg.”

“No, sergeant.” The centurion shook his head. “They alerted us of the pack. If they hadn’t we might have lost tens of workers and a few men. Thanks to them we could get in formation quickly. We owe them, sergeant.”

“Don’t say that, sire. You also saved us, so we’re even.”

“We saved two of you, you saved dozens of us. That’s not even.”

“Well, how about you let us accompany you to the Dark World? Next time we might not flee on time, so you’d be saving us again.” Otis said.

“That seems reasonable.” The centurion nodded and turned towards the sergeant. “I don’t want to know that you’ve caused troubles for them, is that clear?”

The man flinched when the centurion addressed him and then saluted. “Yes, Centurion.”

The centurion nodded towards them and walked off, the sergeant following, but not without glaring at them one last time.

Otis let out a sigh of relief and pated Kancil on the shoulder. “For a moment I thought we’d have to escape again.”

“If the bastard wasn’t a coward we might have.”

“…a stult…” The legionnaires from nearby pointed their bracelets at them, whispering to each other.

They would definitely use that information to get a few laughs at the sergeant’s expense for a few weeks.