The group walked through the dirt path which cut the village in half whilst looking at their surroundings. Some with interest, others with a sense of deja vu or a well hidden distrust.

The village itself was clearly in a rough state, even for poor villages standards, the fences in some houses were broken and strewn across the ground, walls had cracks or claw marks yet the buildings still looked somewhat recently built.

It was mostly empty,or maybe everyone was hiding inside their houses, throughout their short walk they had only seen 3 women outside busy repairing what they could.

They were in a trance-like state. They walked with an empty gaze and a blank expression, their clothes were dirty with vomit, piss and a dark brown liquid. Needless to say but nonetheless saying it, the liquid was blood.

The whole place seemed to be the very definition of disaster and despair.

The group reached the village prefecture without uttering a word, their mood had completely changed.

Aegon knocked on the door 5 times in a slow and rhythmic fashion.

Knock

Knock

Knock

…

The wood door was clearly old, every time he knocked the sound would be slightly echoed indicating that it was hollow.

Knock

Knock

"AAAAAAH!"

A terrified scream came from behind them.

One of the women they walked by had turned in their direction when she heard the knocking with a terrified expression.

Her face was twisted with fear, she manically looked around checking every direction but her search proved fruitless.

She collapsed to her knees, grabbed her hair and started banging her head against the nearby wall only stopping after the other two women came and comforted her.

The group watched everything in silence and shock.

“It's truly sad what happened to our village…”

Behind them the village governor had answered the door. He was a tall man, easily over 1.90m but also skinny, extremely skinny, something unusual for people of his standing. His beard was uncared for and reached his chest and he had big bags under his eyes, tell-tale signs of his lack of sleep.

“We need your help.” His eyes were still glued to the woman who was having a mental breakdown. Only facing the youngsters to ask ”Will you help us?”

In most other situations the way the governor was addressing them would be an insult to the young nobles, but today, maybe because they were a bit touched by the seriousness of the situation they didn't mind. In reality they were as emotionally involved as Percy, Roy and Aegon were.

[When I have enough power it will all be different.]

[I will be powerful enough to prevent things like this in the future.]

[I will make a difference…]

[I won't allow this…]

Everyone closed their fists and unconsciously swore the exact same thing, only in different ways, just without knowing.

Without a word they nodded towards the governor in a deep and respectful way, clearing accepting the plea.

A gentle smile of hope appeared on the middle aged man's face. [In the end the young always strive to be heroes, to be recognized for altruistic acts…maybe that's something inseparable from human existence.]

The governor led the group to a dining room about the same size as most of the villagers’ houses, yet it was glaringly simple.

It only had one large oak wood table with 7 chairs made of the same material around it. Everything else was empty.

No jars, no statues, no armor stands, no carpets, no flowers and not even a curtain to cover the windows.

Travis, Bella and Linda found it strange but Percy, Aegon and Roy found it stranger.

[This is it? Where is all the luxury? I get he’s only the governor of a small village but still, I doubt he can't afford some curtains, even some of the villagers probably have some rags covering their windows.]

Aegon turned to his two commoner companions in silent questioning but only received the same confused gaze he himself had.

“**Cough**. We asked for a group of at least seven, where is your companion?” The man tried to not look worried while asking but it was fruitless as they all noticed his apprehension.

"It's just us but don't worry, four of us have been training for more than a year, we should be able to compensate for the lack of one person.” Travis answered in a calm yet serious way with a determined expression, looking at him alone no one would doubt their drive to successfully complete the task.

[A true son of a businessman, he might even give Percy and his ability a run for their money.]

“Well if you say so… I just hope no one else has to die.”

The governor went quiet for a few seconds looking at the ceiling.

[Shit, the ambient is so heavy.]

“*Sigh*, let's start then.” The governor signaled for the group to sit while he walked to another room and came back with a rolled-up scroll which he unrolled on the table, surprisingly taking a big chunk of it.

It was a map of the village which was at the very center and the landscape within a 2 or 3 mile radius around it.

“That's not that descriptive.” Aegon frowned.

The governor scratched his head and with some embarrassment.

“Unfortunately that's all we have.”

The map depicted the village with some decent detail, well there wasn't much to depict since it was basically just one street but nonetheless one could tell the painter had put a lot more effort into that part of the map, or maybe he just lacked the necessary information of the landscape around the village.

It showed the river, one or two small hills to the east, the main road leading to the village and around 8 weaving paths through the forest.

[How can they have so few? In my home town we had hundreds of hunting paths all the way up to the 10km range.]

Cocking an eyebrow, Aegon turned to face the governor.”When was this map commissioned?”

“It's recent, less than two years ago.”

Percy, Aegon and Roy were even more confused.

“I bet you guys are confused.”

*Chuckle*

“This village was only built two years ago.”

[Well that explains a lot.]

“You see, most of us were ordinary residents of Grandfort city except that we all had something in common.”

The governor turned to the window and looked at the forest outside, reminiscing about the past.

“We were drowning in debt...”

The group's expression turned sour.

[Ahh yes…the sweet smell of a conspiracy….And here I thought he was a good man, well it serves me right for judging a person out of gossip.] In Aegon's mind the fake smile Haris had given him at the market superimposed itself onto his imaginary impression of Count Fraser, Haris’ father.

“That was until we received a letter.”

“It asked us to come to the Lawrence Manor.”

“You can imagine our shock and fear but also excitement, we were poor folk, most of our houses were full with just our beds inside. Now that I think about it, we lived all our lives in bedrooms, maybe we can't even call them that.” A small trace of a smile appeared when the governor mentioned his reaction to the summoning.

“Most of us ended up going. It was incredible to be honest, I had never seen a house with so many decorations, furniture, beautiful gardens…it was breathtaking!”

“We were led to a large corridor like room, at the end there was a slightly elevated zone with 4 chairs, they were made out of beautiful red fur.”

Looking at that clear display of fascination the group couldn't help but internally sigh.

[The schism between the powerful and the powerless is truly great.]

“Only one of the chairs was occupied, the biggest one, once we were all in front of the stairs he stood up and introduced himself as Count Fraser.”

“He was tall with blonde hair and a beard, but the most striking thing was the feeling of power and the urge to show respect we all received from him….Sorry I’m getting a bit side tracked….Anyways, he spoke idly with some of us before getting to his point.”

“He offered us a way out, in his own words he said : “I asked you to come here today because I need your help. I can't disclose much, I can only say that I'm creating a new village in a remote location and need people to live and in the future work on what I have planned. I do understand that it's a bit sudden and you have many questions and yet I can't give you any answers but… I can give you something better than answers…””

““A new beginning.””

““I realize most of you have high debts because of multiple reasons. These things happen, I'm not here to judge, on the contrary I'm offering you a way out.””

““If you help me I will immediately pay off all your debts, to the very last cent, and you don't owe me anything apart from leaving and working on that village.””

“”What do you say?””