The border of the territory of Artenya
The road to the far north
The noise of horses walking on the little-used trail and the sound of the wheels of the metal wagon against the scattered rocks filled the area, irritating the guards charged with escorting the convoy to its destination.
The thirteen guards, already annoyed by this travel which will last for a long time, released their guards to discuss among themselves.
One of the guards approached his comrade and asked him a question.
"Do you know why we have to escort such a thing? I mean, no one uses such a wagon to get goods delivered, even on the busiest roads, so on such a little-known road? It's not as if any local thugs have any chance against us."
His comrade, just as annoyed as the others, answered him without any spirit.
"It's probably just that he's too cautious, you know nobles and commoners like us don't have the same concerns.
Taking an anxious tone, the grade continued with curiosity.
"Yes you're right, it's just that I think only the captain knows what's in the wagon. Who knows what he might be hiding from us."
The other guard held back from laughing at his friend's idiocy.
"You have a lot of imagination my friend, but don't worry too much, it's just a normal delivery for a prudent nobleman, no need to suspect everyone"
Their conversation ended like this, they returned to their posts and continued their travel.
A few hours later
As the guards began to tire from the long march, strange noises were heard around them.
The captain of the guards, dressed in impressive shining armor, immediately shouted at his soldiers.
"AMBUSH"
The guards immediately went around the wagon and put themselves on alert, ready to kill all the enemies.
About thirty armed bandits came out of the bushes, encircling the wagon, ready to kill and rob the guards and their merchandise.
The guards, although outnumbered, were not afraid, their job was to defend this wagon and they would do so until their last breath.
After a few seconds of tension, the battle began, some bandits charged the guards and the rest stayed behind, ready to finish off the guards at the slightest mistake.
The guards had much better training than the bandits, and this was evident in their skills, a bandit alone had no chance against a guard.
But as soon as a second bandit joins the equation, the balance is tipped and the guard is pushed back.
Furthermore, the bandits were not just bandits, but a renowned gang, their skills were far better than those of a common thief.
Most of the guards faced two bandits, some fought three, but at the front of the convoy, facing the captain of the guards, there were five bandits.
The captain, a brave and trained man, was of course not afraid of the bandits.
That is why as soon as one of them charged him, he remained calm and sent his sword straight to cut his waist.
The sword immediately cut a few inches off the bandit's flesh, not enough to be lethal, but enough to put him out of action.
Another bandit wanted to take advantage of the sword stuck in his comrade to attack the captain, but as he got a little too close, the captain pulled his sword out of the bandit's mouth with a sharp blow and slit his assailant's throat at the same time.
The other three bandits, seeing the captain fight their allies with such ease, decided to attack all three of them at the same time in different places.
The captain had a shield in one hand and a sword in the other, allowing him to attack without restraint most of the time, but faced with three attacks from three different sides, his shield could only parry one blow at most.
While the bandits were expecting a dodge, the captain pointed his sword at one bandit, who immediately stopped his charge to avoid impaling himself on the sword.
He then threw his shield at another bandit, causing him to fall to the ground.
The last bandit, seeing the captain's strength and realizing that he had no chance, turned and fled as quickly as he could.
But as soon as he turned his back on the guard, the guard threw his sword behind his back, not piercing it, but knocking him down anyway.
The captain walked toward the bandit, took his sword from the ground, and before the bandit could even get up, he impaled him with his sword on the ground.
After removing his sword, he saw that whoever he had thrown his shield to had already gone to fight other guards, so the captain looked at the battlefield, which he had taken his eyes off for a few minutes.
It was carnage.
Almost all the fighters were already cold corpses.
Only four bandits and one guard... rather two guards, were still alive.
The four bandits, including the one who had taken a shield throw, faced a trembling guard who could barely stand on his legs.
The reason the guard was still fighting was right behind him, his comrade who had asked him many questions a few hours earlier was sitting against the wagon, a large gash on his chest.
But as the captain saw this scene, something unthinkable happened.
The heads of the four bandits and the guard fell to the ground at the same time, and the wounded guard rose to his feet, his sword with some blood dripping from it.
The captain asked the guard a simple question.
"Why did you kill him?"
Turning to the captain, the wounded guard replied emotionlessly.
"This conversation must be kept secret."
As soon as he finished talking, the guard's whole body started to get weird and, after a few seconds, his whole body became a multitude of butterflies.
The butterflies flew for a few seconds before taking human form again, but this time it was not a guard, but a strange man with a rather juvenile face and runic tattoos.
Seeing the whole process unfold before his eyes, the captain stayed in marble, and at the end of it, he made an arm movement as if he was telling something to go.
For a few seconds, nothing happened.
But after a short wait, the world began to melt, as if a layer of make-up was falling from the world itself, revealing its true nature.
Once this "make-up" was removed, the captain was no longer there.
In his place was a white-haired, fair-skinned man dressed in black.
His appearance resembled nothing more than the disciple of death itself.
After the two showed themselves in their true form, a cloud of butterflies flew in, coming to a halt right in front of the strange man, dissipating shortly afterwards and revealing the severed head of a man.
"Baron Vandar"
Says the strange man, confirming the identity of the head to the person in front of him.
The pale man, taking a few seconds to be sure of the head's identity, asked a question.
"Why are you showing me his head, Akira?"
The strange man, with the name finally revealed, played a few seconds with the head in his hands before answering.
"Why would an influential nobleman need to seek something outside his own country?"
Smiling at the question used in answer, the man dressed in black continued the guided conversation.
"There could be any number of reasons, such as scarce resources."
Throwing his head to the ground, Akira took a serious look.
"And of all these reasons, which would cause the master of Mad Hope to act?"
After throwing his head to the ground, he went behind the wagon, and, waiting for the other man to come and see, he opened the doors to let him see the merchandise.
Inside the wagon there was... nothing.
Or almost nothing. On the floor of the wagon, open chains were scattered.
"Slaves."
Akira finished his monologue and looked at the Mad Hope master.
"You guessed right, Akira, now that the introduction is done, we can start the real conversation."
At the end of his sentence, he pointed to a hill a few hundred meters away, which, if memory serves, was certainly not here during the fight.
"In that hill there is a cave, and in that cave there is a monster corpse."
Akira, observing the hill strangely, nodded his head before speaking.
"Well, I certainly need it, however my coming here is not for that purpose."
Frowning, the pale man then asked a simple question.
"And what is the reason for your coming here?"
Stopping completely to play with all that passed under the hand, Akira looked seriously in front of him, with a resolute glance.
"I came to warn you. To warn you of the end. To warn you... of the Demons."