Chapter 21

Even with anger in my heart, disgust in my head, and bitterness in my mouth, I search the bodies for valuables. I hate myself for doing this but I keep rationalizing it by telling myself the dead don’t need coins and if I’m not prepared enough, I’ll be dead on the ground right next to them in no time. The vast majority of the corpses don’t have any valuables on them and the ones who killed them must have already taken what they could get. But my dreadful looting is rewarded with 25 copper coins when I’m finished searching the bodies. When I put the coins into our pouch, each metallic clang I hear brings a corpse’s face to my mind and I feel like puking. What a drastic change in what I’m feeling right now and what I felt back then and how ridiculous all of it is. When we sold the goblin ears and the goblin eyes and put the coins into our pouch, I completely forgot about the boy we killed and all I could think of was how satisfying it felt to pour all those coins into our pouch and imagine the things we could buy with them. Why am I feeling appalled now? What a fucking hypocrite I am.

We can’t do anything for the dead villagers, there are just too many. We’d need to spend at least three or four days here burying all the bodies with only the two of us. We don’t have a shovel, we don’t know their names, and we don’t have the obligation. We feel bad for them but that’s all. We leave the village whose name we don’t even know in a dour mood and we tell ourselves this is only the beginning, if we’re discouraged by this, we won’t be able to survive in Midriver.

It takes us a whole morning and most of the afternoon when we reach the outskirts of the city. I never understood the differences between villages, towns, and cities. Is it based on how many people live there? Or maybe it’s based on how many buildings those places have? Most villages are built with wood and it seems most towns are built with stone, is that the difference? Could be the walls too since no village we’ve visited had walls. Wraine tells me it’s based on who’s in charge of the place. Villages pick their chiefs from the local villagers, towns appoint mayors from their resident citizens, and cities have nobles governing them who are chosen by the king. I’m not too sure about that because I remember Augustine was the village chief at Abermock and he was always going on about how he was going to turn the village into a legitimate town and he was going to be the mayor. Wraine isn’t too sure either and he says it could be a mix of all those things. Kapri told us a few things about Midriver’s city lord but how did someone the king chose to rule over Midriver allow the city to deteriorate to how it is now?

The city itself looks pretty normal. The stone walls are even higher than the walls surrounding Mountain’s Toil and the walls look pretty clean. I don’t know what I expected to see when we arrived here but after witnessing the travesty back at that village earlier, I think I was expecting blood smeared on the stone walls and bodies impaled to the walls with spears. The city isn’t anything like that and if we didn’t know any better, I’d say this was the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, aside from my dream city of course.

Just like its namesake, the city is located right between two huge, raging rivers. There’s one right in front of us that we’ll need to cross to get to the city and there’s another on the other side of the city that we can barely make out. Based on what we’ve heard from the villages leading to the city, Midriver is supposed to be the greatest stronghold against the Loran Mercantile Alliance and also the first point of contact if the merchants ever decide to invade the Nasaar Kingdom which many of the villagers were worried about. How did this greatest stronghold become a city filled with criminals? How did the king let the city which is supposed to be the kingdom’s frontline against the Loran Alliance run amok under his watch? What is this city? Why does it exist in its current state? All these questions have been rumbling around in the back of my head this entire time but now that I’ve seen the city with my own eyes, I can’t help but become curious about my new home.

As we get closer to the city, Wraine and I find a stone bridge that’ll help us cross the river. Strangely, we see a young man sitting on a wooden chair right in front of the bridge with his eyes closed. The young man has his arms crossed and he’s resting his right ankle on top of his left knee. He has short light brown hair and his light colored skin reminds me of Aldore and his attendants. It makes me think he’s never once had to toil under the blistering sun in his life. In comparison, Wraine and I are a shade darker, closer to the color of sand. The young man’s clothes look expensive and though I don’t know what that material is called, I remember seeing it being sold in an expensive clothes shop back in Garwengil. Looking at his waist, I see a black leather sword belt wrapped around his waist and a sword with a golden hilt sheathed in the belt. The whole hilt was gold: pommel, grip, and cross guard. On a closer look, there’s actually a golden bird on the tip of his sword’s pommel. How much would a sword like that cost? I wonder what he’s doing out here?

Wraine and I hug the right side of the bridge, not wanting to draw attention, and are about to step on it when the young man shouts with his eyes still closed, “Drop all your valuables before you can cross this bridge.” His voice is cold and emotionless, as if he wasn’t talking to people but to dogs he was trying to train. Surprised, I look at the young man still sitting in his chair but he doesn’t say another word. Are we being robbed? This fucking early? I’m about to voice my thoughts when Wraine grabs ahold of my shoulder, hard. Looking at him, he motions with his eyes and I turn around, seeing four robust looking men coming out of the nearby woods walking over to us at a leisurely pace. Sigh, godsfuckingdamnit. We’re not even in the fucking city yet. What can we even do? Literally nothing, huh? Undoing my sword belt, I toss it to the ground with the sword still wrapped with linens inside the loop. Wraine does the same and I notice the young man opened his eyes and stood up to walk over to us. Can’t hold in your greed, huh? Well, our things are important to us but they shouldn’t care too much about them. Wraine reaches into his pocket and tosses his iron knife onto the ground while I take off my leather pack and open its flaps before putting it on the ground. There’s not too much inside it, just two blankets, our adventurers’ guild licenses, a leather waterskin, our coin pouch with only copper coins inside, and the linen bag we’re still using to hold our food. When I toss my shield onto the ground, I don’t have anything left on me. Dear gods let us keep our boots. If we lose the silver coin in Wraine’s boot, it’ll be over for us.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here? Two newcomers to our lovely city it seems. What are you here for? Business or pleasure? Or maybe you’re like me, and you’re here to escape from something. Doesn’t really matter, you can just think of us as city guards collecting entrance fees before you’re allowed into the city. Let’s see what we have here.” Says one of the men who came out from the woods with a grin on his face and a happy chirp in his voice. The man has dirty blond hair that almost covers his blue eyes but his full beard looks well trimmed. His skin tone is a bit darker than the one sitting in the chair and it’s closer to Wraine’s which is a bit lighter than mine. He looks well equipped as he’s completely covered in leather armor and there’s a sword with a black hilt in a black sheath on his waist. He looks well practiced as he starts rummaging through our belongings while his companions keep their eyes on us. I mean, c’mon, do you really think the two of us will try something? The blond bandit finds the coin pouch inside the pack and lightly tosses it in his right hand a few times before he says, “About 30 copper, give or take. Not too much.” Alright, I’ll admit it, that’s a pretty cool trick. The blond bandit decides to shove all our belongings into the leather pack before handing it over to another bandit. He grabs our swords, belts and all, and my shield and hands it over to a second bandit. Seeing all the hard work and the struggles we’ve been through the past two months basically evaporate into nothing is disheartening. But what else can we do?

When the blond bandit is done, he turns to the two of us with a smile on his face and walks toward us with his arms raised. I don’t know what to do right now. I don’t know what he’s going to do. We can run but we probably won’t get too far. We can fight, maybe? Definitely not. Seeing the blond man approach me, my mind is too stunned to do anything and I just freeze where I’m standing. The blond bandit reaches us and wraps his arms around our shoulders like we’re old friends. He starts walking back to the other bandits, taking us with him. “You see, it’s all about reciprocation. You make it easy for me, and I’ll make it easy for you. Help me out, and I’ll help you out. You boys don’t seem like the right type for Midriver, you step one foot into that city the way you are now and you’ll be dead before nightfall. Why don’t we do this? You boys don’t have anyone in the city who will protect you, otherwise, you wouldn't have been robbed by us here today. But hey, how does that saying go? Today you get robbed and tomorrow you do the robbing? Something like that. Anyways, my associates and I run with one of the biggest gangs in the city and we’re always recruiting. What a lucky day for you boys! In exchange for the shit you’re donating to us now, you get to join us and tell everyone who fucks with you, you’re working for Alira from now on. That’ll scare the piss out of them. Now what do you say boys?”

Fuck. Literally our first day, we’re not even in the city but outside the city, literally day one here and not only are we being robbed but we’re getting forcibly recruited into a gang? We can’t say no, can we? No, they’ll fucking kill us, right? There’s no guards out here, no one will know, no one can stop them. Godsfuckingdamnit. Why the fuck are we even here? Putting on the best smile I can muster, I secretly glance at Wraine and he’s not doing any better, I say, “Yeah, that sounds great. I’d love to join your gang.” Fuck, even I know that sounded unnatural as the words left my mouth. Laughing loudly, the blond bandit pats my chest with his hand that’s still wound around my shoulders. The other bandits right in front of us start laughing too, apparently enjoying this farce.

“Good to hear, good to hear. Looks like we’re coworkers then. When we were waiting for you boys to reach the bridge, I noticed the both of you were coming from Weistrell’s direction. Tell me, how’d you like our handiwork there?” There’s a sinking feeling in my stomach when I hear his words and I’m instantly reminded of the massacre we saw this morning. It can’t be. He’s actually fucking bragging about that? I try to feign my ignorance and appear confused.

“Don’t know where Weistrell is. Neither of us can read and we don’t know any village names.” Please just fucking move on for my sake. Taking a look at the blond bandit’s face, I can see a huge grin on his face as if I just told him the greatest joke he’s ever heard. He’s enjoying this. He wants to see our reaction to finding out they’re the ones responsible for that depravity.

“Now, now, you couldn’t have missed it. C’mon, you had to have seen it either today or yesterday on the way here. Let me refresh your memory, houses burned to rubble, all the villagers gathered in the center of the village, slain like how they lived, like livestock. We didn’t lay a finger on the women younger than 30 winters since we were selling them, but how the older ones screamed and cried before we slipped a blade under their ribs-” I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t even think about it. My body just moved. What the fuck did I do? When I realize what I’ve done, my left hand hurts like it has never hurt before and the blond bandit’s nose is bleeding. Even the bloody streams gushing out of his nostrils couldn’t hide the look of exhilaration on his face and when he starts laughing, the blood colors his teeth a scarlet red, creating a ghoulish visage.

Wraine hasn’t moved a single step and the blond bandit’s arm is still wrapped around his shoulders. He’s frozen in place as he stares at me with wide eyes, stunned by what I did. I’m so sorry Wraine, I think I just got the two of us killed. Before I can think about anything else, the bandit who was sitting in the chair earlier grabs my left shoulder and turns me towards hi-! I’m on the ground before I realize it. The left side of my face hurts so fucking ba-! A kick to my ribs sends me rolling on the ground and forces the air out of my lungs. I’m coughing hard and gasping for air as I struggle to get on my hands and knees. When I turn my head to the left to see where he is, through my tears I see his foot coming right at m-!