Making his way closer to the group, Chan counted 16 individuals, all with the same outfit and carrying a sword by their hips.
Laughing and cheering, the group of men was sitting around a campfire before one man got up.
The man was tall and muscular, he was about 6'4. He was also bald with no facial hair. Almost everyone in the group was pretty well built.
"Men! We will march all over the world to see who wants to buy the loyalty of the Crimson Reapers. After collecting a lot of money we would retire and start a family with a smoking hot wife!" said the big bald guy.
"Yea!" shouted the guys near him
"There you go again, squad leader. Sit down, you're drunk." said a man sitting right beside the bald guy. The man sitting by the bald guy had short hair brushed to his right side.
"Shut up Ken! You don't know what it is like to sleep with a lady with a hot body. Their skin so smooth and their breast so sof– Blaargh!" the bald guy mid-sentence threw up.
"Haha, and you wonder why only the sl*ts that hang around the inns would have s*x with you. Any normal girl would be scared and disgusted by you, hahaha." said the Ken guy.
( Rustling! )
Ken grabbed the sword on his hip as he shouted in the direction that he heard the rustling of bushes, "Who is it! Crimson Reapers arm yourselves and be ready for anything!"
Everyone in the group stood up and drew their swords except for the bald guy as he was still bending over to puke.
Chan before coming out of the bushes put his knife in his bag and walked out with his hand and the bag up. "I mean no harm, I'm lost," Chan said as he came out of the bushes.
"Hahaha, Ken was scared of a little boy." said the bald guy as he was wiping the saliva off his mouth.
The group put away their weapons and Ken asked Chan a question, "Why are you out in the wood at a time like this?"
Chan explained his made-up story of how he ended up there. During his story, he tried his best to act as sad as he could, even shedding some fake tears.
Tossing out the knife "his mother couldn't use to kill him" onto the ground. Chan wanted to get rid of any threat he could possibly show, as the group of men was his last chance of trying to get back to civilization.
The bald guy walked up to Chan, picking up the knife off the ground. He stood only 2 feet away from Chan.
( Pat! Pat! )
The bald guy bent down patting Chan on his head before telling him, "That's so sad that you had to go through that, you can stay with us for the time being.". The man handed back the knife to Chan.
"What is your name kid?" the bald guy asked Chan.
"Chan," replied Chan as he knew Chan was a common name.
The bald guy got up and looked around the campfire and said, "I, Mo Li, the leader of the Crimson Reaper invites Chan to be a part of us until he wants out. Anyone who disagrees speak now!"
No one said anything back.
The group then started cheering.
"We finally got a new member!" a man shouted.
"I'm finally not the new recruit!" shouted another man.
Celebrating, the bald guy shouted, "Let us pour ourselves another cup to celebrate a new member!".
"Yea!" shouted the others.
Ken signaled Chan to come over to him. "Would you like some water?" he asked Chan before handing him a cup of water.
Chan receiving the cup took a whiff of the water before being interrupted by Ken's comment, "Smart not to trust a person you just meet, but I wouldn't poison a little kid."
( Gulp! )
Quickly quenching his thirst, Chan chugged down his cup of water before asking Ken, "Who are you guys?"
"We're the Crimson Reapers, we go around looking to see who will pay us, then we fight for the person who paid us," Ken answered Chan's question.
"Oh," said Chan as he realized the Crimson Reapers were a mercenary group.
"Where are we going?" asked Chan.
"We're heading down south to Biyou as we heard they were looking for experienced mercenaries" answered Ken.
"Biyou?" asked Chan, acting confused.
"Biyou kingdom," Ken told Chan.
Chan puts on his best confused face while looking at Ken who then explained all of the kingdoms to Chan. Chan knew he had to play the character of an ignorant boy.
The Crimson Reapers drank until they passed out only leaving some sober, as they were on night watching duties.
( Chirp! Chirp! )
"Chan, Chan, wake up," Ken trying his best to wake Chan up.
Shaking Chan, he finally woke up as the group had already packed up and were untying their horses off their posts. The Crimson reapers after fetching water continued their march down south.
Asking questions on the way there, Chan was able to find out that Mo Li the bald guy was the leader and that Ken was the vice-leader of the Crimson Reapers. They also originated from the far east of Mi. Chan also found out he washed down towards the north of the Mi kingdom.
Chan wondered if Yan Mi received or had known about the obliteration of the Ibu family. Not wanting to know if the Mi royalty was part of the false accusation he decide not to write to Yan.
2 days go by and an uproar had hit the Mi royalty palace. Yan finding out the news about the death of all the Ibu family members ran straight to her father asking why the king of Kan would lie after Lord Ibu's accomplishments on the battlefield were that of fairy tales.
Receiving an answer she didn't like, Yan locked herself in her room not eating or seeing anyone.
Back to Chan and the Crimson Reaper. During those two days, they spent one day sleeping outside and the other at an inn. The daytime consists of marching forward while the night was eating and drinking.
On the third night of Chan being with the Crimson Reapers, they stopped in a town to stay at another inn. The inns they stayed at were not some of the best in town as they were budgeting their remaining money. The Crimson Reaper on the road made money by picking up herbs and selling the fur of the animals they hunted.
"Since we are in Toyo let's get some beef noodle soup as they are known for having the best beef noodle soup," said Mo as they sat down in the dining area of the inn.
Mo ordered one of the servers to make a bowl of beef noodle soup for everyone. The server came around asking one by one if they wanted spicy or mild. Everyone including Chan ordered the spicy as it was the best flavor and was recommended by the server.
While waiting for his bowl of noodles Chan could overhear the other patron in the inn talking about something.
"Did you hear the news of the Ibu family committing treason and all of them were killed in one night by the army led by Yu Lo, the Kan King's right-hand man," said a man to another.
Chan tried his best to hold in his emotions as he didn't want to blow his cover. Faking a yawn and wiping the tear that came out, Chan heard Mo comment after he also heard the news, "That is why we can't show loyalty to one king as we are just a pawn in their game. They will get rid of us the second they want to."
"Beef noodles for table 9," said a girl carrying a plate full of noodle bowls.
The girl looked pretty cute, the girl was skinny with her black hair tied up in a ponytail. She kept coming in and out of the kitchen returning with a plate full of noodle bowls.
Almost everyone had a bowl in front of them except Chan and a few members of the Crimson Reaper. The girl carrying the last batch of noodles tripped before getting close to the table.
( Thump! Splash! Crack! )
The bowls holding the noodles shatter as they hit the ground and noodles with bits of beef landed on the ground near the girl.
"What was that!" shouted a man as he came out of the kitchen.
"Damn it, girl, I bought you for 20 coppers and this is how you work," Shouted the man as he walked towards the girl.
( Bam! Bam! Bam! )
The man whaled the girl as she balled up and covered herself.
Chan was visibly getting angry as he see the man beating up the girl.
"Don't look too much, we can't help even if we wanted to as that's his right as her master," Ken told everyone in the Crimson Reaper group who had an angry look on their faces.
Eventually, the guy stopped and went back into the kitchen. After a few minutes, the girl went and fetched the remaining bowl of noodles for Chan's table.
The bowl of noodles had thick yellow noodles with a red soup, sprinkled in with some cuts of beef.
The beef noodle soup tasted delicious as the soup was spicy and oily but in a good way. Chan thought to himself how could a sh*tty guy make such a good bowl of noodles.
After finishing their bowls of noodles, the Crimson Reapers headed to their rooms to catch some needed sleep. They rented out 4 rooms for 17 people and Chan couldn't sleep just because of the snoring from others in his room but also from what he had just seen earlier. He couldn't get the scene out of his head.
Slowly becoming too tired, Chan's mind finally shuts down.