As the guards were about to take Black out of the room. A shout was suddenly heard by all people inside.

"Wait!"

It was White who said that.

All we're shocked at his declaration that everyone wasn't able to help themselves but look in his direction.

"What?"

The Captain instinctively asks as, like the others, he was also shocked.

"You left with me no choice Captain."

White answered as he move his left hand towards the shoulder bag on his right.

All soldiers including the Captain watch White as he took a piece of paper inside his bag.

White smiling secretly and full of confidence didn't even look at the contents of the rolled paper and immediately put it on the table in front of the captain hoping for him to read it.

The Captain fulfilling that hope, reached for the paper then look at the face of the young scout and noticed the confident look on his face.

After taking the letter using his right hand, he opened it to look at its content and found out something that incurred his interest.

"A map?"

Question of the Captain as he looks at the lines drawn on the paper.

Trying to understand the content of the paper, the Captain moves the paper closer to his face. He tried several times to understand the meaning of the thing he is looking for but miserably failed each.

Clueless, he looks at the face of the young scout again and unlike his initial look, the Scout suddenly has this look that is like that of a doll. His face is that devoid of emotion.

'What is this guy thinking?'

The Captain thinks to himself.

Suddenly, the Scout reached for his bag again. Moving his hand inside the bag for some seconds, the Scout reached for another roll of paper and put it on the desk of the Captain like what he did earlier.

"This is actually the letter that I want you to see."

Said the young scout with a monotone voice.

The Captain hearing what the scout said, dropped the map on his table and reached for the other paper on the table.

Small laughs can be heard coming from their back.

As what he has done to the map, he opened the other letter, the same way as earlier to view its contents.

Having a glimpse of the letter. What he saw was a completely different content than what he saw on the other one. And it even seems that the appearance of the letter itself feels like something that is familiar to him.

Trying to recall when did he ever saw such paper, he was able to remember the letters that is being sent to his Lord.

'It was definitely something like this..'

He surveyed the content of the letter more and was able to see something that made the letter look more serious than what he initially thought.

With just having seen it for a single time, he now thinks of the letter as not just something like the letters sent to his lord but as something that is even more valuable than that.

One of the things that give that impression is what he has seen on the lower left of the paper where a mark can be seen which would definitely raise any item's value more than gold.

It was a mark of the King's seal. The symbol of the Kingdom's most powerful family.

After seeing that, he immediately read the contents of the letter. At the end of it, he saw words that made him question if he should have ever even read the contents of the letter.

"Confidential?"

He asked as he look at the scout who took out the letter.

His thoughts now about the two suddenly change. From two suspicious people to two VIPs of the Kingdom.

"I'm glad that you know how to read Captain."

Said the scout with a mocking tone as he look at the Captain with a smug look on his face.

"Please don't make light of me. I was in this career for most of my life. I at least would have learned how to read."

Said the Captain as he try to defend himself. This time though, he was speaking more carefully than he was before reading the letter on his hand.

Inside the letter is a statement about letting the owner of the letter to be able to pass without being questioned as they are on a special mission.

In normal cases, this would be taken as a joke. But with the seal of the King on the letter. There's no way for him to be able to take the letter lightly.

Although he still has the option to detain the two and just ask for confirmation if the letter is indeed fake. The fact that there's the King's seal on the paper means that if the latter is indeed true, chances of him getting beheaded or assassinated will skyrocket for impending the possible mission that they are doing.

The Captain tried to think for a second before speaking up again.

"Does your mission involve being inside Orene?"

The Captain asks as he wanted to know if the two would stay inside his city for long.

Because he was still a person who is scared of death. No matter what their answer is, he would still let them pass. But as the one tasked by his Lord to manage the safety of Orene, he would at least inform his Lord if the two decided to stay inside.

"Don't worry Captain, I promise you that we will leave this city before the night came."

To the confident answer of the scout, the Captain felt assured. Though he was kinda surprised that the two won't even stay for at least a single day.

After all, even though Orene is the closest city to the battlefield. It's still quite far if you have to travel on foot. And even now as they speak, it's already just some hours before it turned dark.

Even kids know how dangerous the night can be for everyone outside the walls.

"That early?"

"You don't have to worry about that Captain. You also don't have to be wary of us anymore right? It's a win-win for both of us."

To the statement of the young scout, the Captain was finally able to relax fully.

As the tension between the two sides get lighter, a question formed up inside the head of the Captain.

"I have a question."

"What is it, Captain?"

"Are you two part of the Sacred Army?"

...

"Finally that's over!"

Said a man named White as he ride his horse on a street inside the city of Orene.

"Why didn't you just use the letter from the start?"

Asked with a slight tone of anger by Black as he rides his horse alongside White.

"All could have been much faster if you use that paper."

"I was being careful okay! If we can pass as messengers then that would be much safer."

"You're too careful, that's what I'm saying. Your plan almost failed already if not for that paper you know."

"But we didn't right? You're too noisy old man!"

"What are you even afraid of? I don't believe that someone could still think you're alive after all that set-up."

The set-up that Black is talking about is the set-up of White to fake his death.

"Did you just forget that Diez guy that we just met? That guy was a way too observant, old man."

"That Captain? Do you think that you could get into trouble if he reported us?"

Even if no one recognizes them of their true identity, their movements have already been registered as an abnormality thus being reported to the higher-ups could still get them in trouble. Although this is highly unlikely even for White. It's still enough threat to his plan to just not consider.

"Not like I don't understand where you are coming from but you really do have a problem within your head kid."

Black is once the superior of White. And even when White still wasn't part of the army, both of them still interact and heard news about each other as part of their jobs. This is why he knew and understand so many things about White.

Suddenly, Black decided to change the theme of the conversation.

"So are we really going to participate in that caravan?"

When the Captain asked the two about their relationship with the Sacred Army. White decided to lie in hopes that things would get faster. But contrary to his expectations, the Captain has other reasons as to why he asked the question.

After the next sunset, there is going to be a caravan of merchants that would be traveling domain to domain till they reach the border of the kingdom.

The Captain thinking that they're both parts of the most famous elite army of the kingdom, tried to hire them as guards for the said caravan.

Normally, a caravan would be provided safety through the lord of the domain they are in but the security in the kingdom isn't perfect and some merchants who know that wouldn't want to wait for a slip up on the security and thus would hire guards to protect them.

As one of the biggest cities in the Kingdom, Merchants would flock into Orene seeking that protection to which the city happily obliges by offering some soldiers to protect them in exchange for benefits like money or an exchange of benefits.

Since White lied that the two of them are part of the Sacred Army, the Captain tried to talk them out about joining the caravan.

The Captain even offered the two the position of being the leader of the caravan itself when the Captain was able to confirm the seal on the letter is real.

"Yes. This is also beneficial for us since we don't need to change our disguise again."

White at first didn't want to participate in the caravan. After all, they were going covert. Being in a caravan will just increase their presence. Plus, White didn't want to change his plan too much as it might cause problems later on. But when the Captain described where the caravan is traveling, White easily changes his mind.

The direction to which the caravan is going after all is towards the same direction that both of them are trying to go. And as he heard more details about the caravan, White decided that it would just be better to join.

Black that is listening to him understood what he is planning and agreed to it. Though because he still have something on his mind, he asked another question.

"But why do we have to take the lead? I don't understand the benefit of it if you're being careful"

"I am being careful."

To the answer of White, the old man look at him in doubt.

"I was informed that it is going to be a small caravan."

"So?"

"You're really going senile now old man."

"Cheh, don't mock me, kid."

Because of the sudden insult was thrown at him by his companion. He was forced to think fast.

It's not like it's important whether or not he knows the reason. It's just that he was mocked by White which Black heavily disliked.

'Hmmm.'

A normal person would think that a small caravan shouldn't be that ideal of a target of bandits because of the small rewards they could get for the trouble but Black easily understood that it was the best target for bandits. Small caravan after all will most of the time, have fewer people and fewer people means easier target.

What he doesn't understand though is why White wanted to take the lead for the security of that caravan.

Being the leader of anything will only raise their profile, as leaders tend to stand out. But somehow, White wanted that position.

'is it the size of the caravan?'

As the old man was trying to connect the dots, he discovered some things worth noting. The Caravan is small, yet the caravan managed to secure guards from Orene. The case isn't really impossible but it should be rare.

"How small is the caravan?"

"Oh, I forgot that you didn't listen to the talk. My bad."

As they were discussing about the caravan. Black only listened till White accepted the offer. In his mind, he didn't think that White would do something crazy because of his careful nature so he just goes outside the office and wait for it to finish. Because of that, the information that Black has can be said to be only half of what's been discussed between White and Captain Diez.

"There's like 30 people on the caravan itself including also the 10 guards as said by that shady Captain."

"That's really small."

'So it's that.'

Usually, merchants would try to travel together and would wait until they were able to form a big group before leaving. Grouping themselves up enables them to form an intimidating force that is enough to repel a group of bandits who would only want to attack a target smaller than them.

In case that such a group of bandits still chose to attack, Merchants themselves use weapons to protect themselves. Weapons like sticks which can be used as clubs, knives which are normally used for daily activities as sharp weapons, and stones that they can find anywhere for projectile weapons can be used. This form of defense is what enables most merchants to travel safely in most of their travels.

In terms of the beings of the wild, this form of defense is also effective most of the time.

But somehow this caravan didn't do that and will go with such a small group. In the mind of Black, there could only be a few amounts of reasons why this is done and Black is thinking most of what he could think off.

'It could be that they were hurrying up to flee in case of the war reaching this place. It could also not be about the war itself but some completely other reason.'

'But all that wouldn't make White take the leading position that easily. There should be another reason.....'

'The amount of guards is high for the amount of civilians!'

The number of the guards might not look high but that is already 1/3 of the people in the caravan itself. Although the merchants hire guards to protect them, merchants themselves would participate in a fight in case it happens. So having that much guard is impractical.

There's also the price to which that amount of guards should be costly for the amount of people in the caravan.

'That amount of professional fighters plus those civilians could already raid an entire village if they want to.'

Although a big caravan could also do the same, their movements would be slow enough for a punitive force to catch up and beat them as big groups tends to move slower. This is opposite to the small caravan they are joining which have a lot of time to evacuate.

'Though that is unlikely as they wouldn't hire us if that is the case. That Captain should've at least hired us with defense as his main priority... Wait."

When Black figured out what's on the head of White, he decided to talk to White again.

"Do you think it is related to the Lord of this land?"

"I'm counting on you when it comes to commanding them in battle okay?"

"Cheh."

'So he wants to be able to do something at least in case something happens huh.'

Black believes that the captain is expecting an attack on the caravan. Not just an ordinary bandit attack but a politically motivated attack. And White who has read that accepted the leading position as he thinks that both of them will be able to react better than the original leader of the guards.

'It would definitely turn bad if this caravan is politically involved with a big territory like this. I probably would've made the same decision if it was me.'

As the highest general of Colis, he knows about some stuff about their neighbors. One of such is that even though Numero is a country that has experienced relative peace for a long period, its territory isn't free from problems such as banditry.

The feudal lords which made up the ruling class of the Kingdom's society are also in a constant dispute amongst themselves although not to the level of the past chaotic Colis.

For Black though, even that is enough threat with the level of security that they have in their travel. At worst, they could get wiped out if they got ambushed by soldiers faking themselves as bandits.

"What a harsh world I live in."

As White talks to himself as they travel through the streets of Orene, the Old Man man rides alongside him.

'I told you many times that you don't belong here. You reap what you sow.'

As they continue to pass through the streets, they look out for their companion Isa.