On the dirty street, which seemed to be the main street in this town, there was a crowd of people, all men and nearly all not sober. The girls in this town were either prostitutes or visiting traffickers, but to the men here it made no difference. Some of the passers-by had cloudy eyes staring into nothing, while others had a clear look with a light sneer on their face. At first glance this might seem like some kind of den of bandits and brigands, but here rested the knights and warriors of the Empire of Diolas, the Holy Empire of the Divine Virgin, who was said to have blessed the citizens of this empire with honor and nobility. No one believed such bullshit, much less Jack. Now, he stood with his back against some building, with the wall clinging to his armor and slimy, yet he didn't care, his faceless helmet peering at passersby. He was looking. Looking for him. His future lord. And if he didn't find him here, he would go to the tavern or to the frontier itself.

As he watched the stream of human destinies passing him, which were about to be severed, Jack mentally went back in time, to three years ago. Back then, he was standing in the same place, in search, looking, and then his luck smiled on him, he spotted a small young man among the crowd. The man looked about 25 years old, but his sparse black oily hair was so rare that he was at risk of going bald as early as 27. He was about six feet tall, had a sharp long nose, cloudy brown eyes, unattractive arched eyebrows, and a demeanor that was shifty, jittery, and docile. But that wasn't what Jack saw in him; no, there was fire in this man's eyes, fire that Jack knew all too well. Arrogance. Aristocratic arrogance. The man's name was Laman. And Jack had served him for a couple of months. Laman was the seventh son of the aristocratic Bogaan family, who for a hundred years had held the major positions in the court of the empire.

It was easy to get into Laman's service - just a little flattery, or rather a lot of flattery, throwing dirt on commoners and praising his royal blue blood. Laman liked flattery though he did not show it, nevertheless he liked Jack immediately, he thought that Jack would make an excellent personal bodyguard and servant.

Laman was neither respected nor liked in the family, rather they just ignored him and dealt with some important business, giving him enough money to keep his long nose out of their business. Also, Laman always had 2 guards with him, the twins Dian and Dion, but they were a hindrance to Jack's plans, so the usual innocent squire once accidentally spotted them stealing from the lord's private quarters and they were obviously kicked out of the family, with only Jack left near Laman.

Jack felt, sensed with all his being that there was something wrong with Laman, but he couldn't figure out what. He just knew that he had a secret that he would not tell anyone. All day long all Laman did was gamble, spending money on overseas trinkets, which he collected, as well as he dreamed of creating his own personal mercenary squad. And how could he not think of Helga. Oh, Helga! His pet pig, who was almost as tall as his belly button. Absolutely pink, clean and tidy, even Laman himself washed less often than he washed his favorite pig. He could spend hours brushing her lint, stroking her belly, talking to her, feeding her, and dressing her. The family knew about his strange fascination with the pig, but they just thought he was mentally retarded or something. To Jack, on the other hand, he just seemed like a weirdo. Seemed, until one day.

That day, or rather evening, Laman was getting ready for bed as usual. According to the usual routine, Jack came to check on Laman and brought him and Helga some linens. After that, Jack would retire to his room in the next wing of the building. That was usually the case, but not that night. On his return to his room, a maid came into Jack's room and said that Jack should tell his master immediately that Laman's father, the head of the family, was looking for him. So, Jack went to Laman's room again. As he approached Laman's chambers, Jack heard sounds that made his heart freeze and his eyes bleed a little.The sound of rapid breathing. Walking as quietly as he could toward the door, Jack peered through the doorway with one eye to see what was going on. What he saw almost made Jack vomit: Laman was completely naked copulating with Helga, saliva dripping from his crooked mouth and his eyes diverging in blissful pleasure. Helga was facing the door, so Jack could see her clearly. And he could have sworn, if he believed in God, that he saw the pig crying. Thin streams of tears flowed from its tiny eye sockets.

Jack pulled away from the door and sat on the floor, giggling silently. He was right. Right, he laughed even more, with a smile up to his ears, but he couldn't hold back the tears. Though Jack's sympathy for humans and animals had long since died, he still felt... sympathy for himself.

There was no point in transmitting the report now, the time had come... - thought Jack.

Struggling to get up, he strode back to his chambers, only to leap from there out of the fourth floor window and disappear into the darkness of the night.

Knock, Knock, Knock.

- Mr. Laman, breakfast is ready, rise for dinner, your family is waiting for you!" - Jack shouted in a monotonously sweet childlike voice as he went to the door.

After half a minute of rummaging, the door opened and Laman stepped out. From the corner of his eye Jack saw Helga huddled in a far corner of the room and lay there. Laman came out in a single robe the color of violets, his soot of sparse hair hanging by a wisp on one side of his head.

- Master, let me tidy you up before breakfast." Jack bowed obligingly.

- Don't you think I look good enough?" - Laman asked, picking his teeth with his fingers.

- I think you look better than everyone else, but if you're tidied up, you'll just be above everyone else." - Jack said flatteringly, walking over to the huge oak closet four heads taller than him and showing its contents to his master.

- I like you, Jack, because you always tell the truth. All right, get what you've got. Let my relatives choke with envy." - Laman said, mistaking the flattery for nothing.

Soon Laman was dressed, washed, combed, and smoothed by Jack. He now looked much more majestic, certainly by his standards. After looking in the mirror, playing with his nonexistent muscles, sending an airy kiss to his reflection, which, incidentally, did not occupy a third of the mirror, he went to the dinner table. As he left, he threw a quick glance at Helga.

Laman had always taken sleeping pills. He didn't really need them, simply took them, something apparently prevented him from sleeping, and Jack guessed what it was. So now, having once again satiated himself with his beloved Helga, he threw two small pills under his tongue. And with a voluptuous look, half-naked, lay on the bed, looking at Helga and waiting for the medicine to work. What Laman hadn't noticed this evening, however, was that the pills were a greenish hue rather than the usual crystal white. How could he have known that his beloved little squire had switched them out while he was amusing himself by wandering around the city.

A moment later, Laman's usually pale face turned white as December snow. Clutching at his throat, he began panting, cramping, his mouth foaming, his veins swollen. After another thirty seconds, his body turned purple and froze in perpetual wonder. The room was unusually quiet. All that could be heard was the muffled clatter of hooves against the marble tiles. Helga stared incomprehensibly at Laman's corpse and walked around his huge bed.

Suddenly, the door to the chambers opened ajar and an 11-year-old blond boy walked in. He was wearing a very long, obviously out of his height, brown cloak, and on his side hung a rag bag with something jingling inside. His blond bangs covered most of his face, but even through it you could see his indifference to what was going on.

Sitting down on the bed beside the corpse, Jack pulled out vials with various liquids inside and apples from the bag. Mixing the contents of the vials in a small bowl and getting an incomprehensible honey-colored viscous mass, he dipped his hand into it with a boat and scooped some. Holding an apple in his other hand, he began to dab the apple with this mass. A minute later he had two fully dipped apples, which he immediately gave to Helga to eat. The apples were smeared with the juice of the root of a flower called Viriano. The juice of this flower had one interesting characteristic that would not apply in most cases - it drove any animal into a frenzy. And this effect would soon manifest itself, so Jack hurriedly took out other vials. Similarly, he mixed the contents in a bowl, then took the huge leather gloves from his bag and, putting them on, began undressing Laman's corpse. When he had finished, he dipped his gloved hands into the mixture and with quick, jerky movements began to run his hands over Laman's body so that the mixture would soak into his still-open pores. Having dabbed him from head to toe, Jack quickly took off his gloves and threw them through the previously opened window.

Meanwhile, Helga, smelling the mixture from Laman's body, began jumping from place to place, stomping her hooves and glaring angrily at the obstructing Jack. Jack ran out into the corridor, bolting the door behind him. Reaching the end of the corridor, he took the hidden bag from the pile, where the dirty laundry always lay, and went downstairs, greeted the guards, and left in a hurry into town. With a relaxed smile on his face.

It wasn't until a week later, already in a completely different town, that Jack heard the news that the unknown son of a influential magistrate, had been eaten by his own tame pet pig. Hearing the news that he had been waiting for days, Jack smiled and took his beloved bag and went on a further search.

After all, that Alchemist had been right, the pigs were crazy about the secretions of Nue's ants. Well, Helga, I hope I helped you get your revenge...

***

Jack returned from his memories to the still beautifully horrible Parnifal. He'd been standing there for about two hours, but he still hadn't found who he was looking for. So he staggered away from the wall, stepping over a drunken prostitute, to the tavern, loudly called "The Eternal Troublemaker". This tavern was famous for extremely deadly drunken brawls, a huge collection of broken teeth, and the best booze in Parnifal.

On the way, Jack wondered if he should check in on Chris and Nelia later, but he dismissed the idea, getting attached to someone wasn't his style.

He found the tavern by the shouting, the swearing, the foul language, and the direction in which drunks from all the pissed corners of the city were unconsciously crawling. It looked very conspicuous: the main passage, very wide, went down to the ground, where, as Jack could remember, stood a hall capable of holding up to a thousand people. Above the entrance, there were small railings of thick steel bars, arranged like honeycombs-these were arenas, where drunks could find out which one of them was born with a much bigger fist and a much sturdier jaw. Around the area swarmed knights in armor, common warriors in cloths and swords, merchants, as well as just naked men who'd lost whatever it was they'd come here with. Disregarding the surroundings, Jack made his way to the entrance and went down inside.

Where he faced the tavern hall: dimly lit, with wooden tables that looked like disposable and a huge 100 meter long bar, made of metal but painted, stylistically, in wood color. Ridiculously fat and ugly waitresses ran around the room, every single one of them scary as night, not even the boldest and drunkest would dare slap one of those on the ass, which is probably why they were employed here.

There were many customers, at one table you could see rude mercenaries, dressed in whatever, at another - the high officials of Diolas troops, sitting in ceremonial uniforms and with a serious face, with beer flowing down his mustache, discussing the future strategy of combat, or local whores, who knows them?

Finding a free table, Jack sat down at it and gestured to the waitress to come over. She walked up to him with a bored look and said: "What do you want? Order." Jack was a little taken aback; her voice was much coarser than a man's, and a hair a third of a meter long was growing out of a wart on her chin.

- Two pints of Avarian stout and something to eat." - Jack made his order.

- Uh-huh." - she uttered and went into the kitchen, or some semblance of it.

Five minutes later there were two pints and a plate of roasted yams and pork on his table. As he began to eat, Jack began to study the tavern-goers around him through the narrow slit of his helmet. And as the two pints were coming to an end, he found the one he was looking for.

A lone man was sitting in the very corner of the tavern. He stood out at first sight. He was muscular, six feet tall, dressed in furs, and had a huge two-handed sword that he never let go of his hands. There was a huge elongated scar on his nose, sharp eyes, and a stance ready to attack at any moment. Jack could feel the aura from him that he was looking for.

Rising from behind his table Jack headed toward him. The stranger noticed Jack almost the same moment he stood up. His stance became stiffer, but when he saw that the knight's build approached him resembled that of a teenager, he calmed his ardor. Jack walked over to the stranger and leaning one hand on his stance, said in an uncertain voice: "E-excuse me, sir, may I ask you a question that is ridiculous to you?" Asking the question, Jack's helmet suddenly tipped over him and he almost tipped over, and to keep from falling, he held his head in flight. It all looked ridiculous.

The stranger frowned, but remained silent. So Jack continued: "Would you possibly accept me as your squire? I will serve you faithfully for many years. I am very experienced in all household matters and I can even fight for you in battle. Unfortunately, my previous master died of a severe illness and I was left alone. When I saw you here, I knew at once that you were a mighty warrior whom I wanted to serve. Shall you accept me as your squire?"

- Go away." came out of the stranger's mouth a low, half-loud growl.

- Sir, I have nowhere to go, please accept me!" - after these words Jack took off his helmet and revealed to the stranger his childish face full of tears.

At this the stranger grinned and growled again: "Get out of here!

- Have mercy, O great warrior! I will do your laundry for you, cook for you, fulfill your every whim, I am a man who cannot sit idle and I am a servant who cannot live without serving my master. Please accept me as your squire! I am in..." - in the middle of the conversation, Jack stretched out his hand to the stranger, in a burst of sobbing.

Phshh! There was a sudden gust of wind through the tavern. The stranger grabbed his two-handed sword in a sharp motion, as if it weighed nothing, and swung it at the young lad in front of him, with a speed that few in the Empire could repeat. Anyone hit by such a blow would surely be dead. Much less a defenseless teenager. But as he struck, the stranger didn't notice the blond teenager's smile on his face. A confident smile.

CLANG!

There was another loud clashing sound. Those seated at the nearby tables sensed a bloodlust and stood up, drawing their blades and searching for the troublemaker. In the meantime, a teenager stood in the corner, holding a two-handed sword in the air with one naked, bloody hand. The man, for his part, stood with a stunned expression on his face. After he recovered from the shock and looked at the teenager's hand, with which he stopped the nearly 100 kilogram sword rushing at him, he lowered the sword with a puzzled look.

Standing up, he pushed aside a nearby chair and gestured to it, saying: "Sit down. From now on, you are a squire of the Dreadmoor clan."

- О? Huh!?" exclaimed the teenager, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Nevertheless, his actions did not match his demeanor; with a confused face, he confidently sat down in the chair provided to him.

- "I swear to serve the clan Dreadmoor, until death!" - he exclaimed, while bandaging his wounded hand at the same time.

- I am Vion Dreadmoor. What is your name, my young friend?" said Vion unexpectedly warmly.

- 'I am Jack. A squire named Jack." the boy said smiling, showing his straight white teeth.