-----Otto Pov-----
"Dammit, not AGAIN!"
It was evening, and drops of rain fell continuously from dark clouds. I was desperately looking for my young master.
"Adrien, you little…. Where are you!?"
I couldn't find him.
It's been a long time since I felt this emotion, just like the day when I lost the most important shining star in my entire life, Sophie.
I was just a filthy dog that worked as a mercenary for rich pigs. My whole life consisted in getting money from dirty jobs and then drinking whatever those blood-stained coins could buy me.
Then one day, I got the job of killing the young fiancé of the Holmes house that would pass through the city I was working in.
When the day arrived, I got my trusty long blade and my brownish overcoat. It was sunset, and the object of my mission was traveling on a carriage with a few guards. The sky was cloudy, and a few sun rays peeked through and colored what they touched with a mellow orange.
As I was walking towards the intersection, where the client indicated the carriage would pass through, I saw a murky pair of eyes looking at me. I immediately realized that something was wrong with this job.
While I was thinking, I saw the target pass by and decided to finish the job as fast as possible.
I immediately ran toward the carriage and threw two knives at the horses pulling the coach. They hit their mark, and as the horses were falling, I pulled my blade from its sheath, and as I almost got to the door to the carriage, I heard BANG!
"Assassins! Guards, GATHER!!"
Screams sounded around me, but that had nothing to do with me anymore. As I was falling in a pool of my own blood, I saw that gaze again. Dammit, those eyes, I hated them because they looked exactly like mine.
Deep down, I knew that a day like this would come. I was not tasked to kill the young lady but to be a piece on a board without even knowing who the players were.
As I hit the ground, I heard the door of the carriage open
"Lady Sophie! Get immediately inside. It's dangerous!"
But a girl that could be barely a woman pulled my body inside, and she chanted a strange spell that miraculously stopped my bleeding.
"Lady Sophie! Open the door!! That man is dangerous!"
A soft but gentle voice responded.
"What danger does even pose a dying man pose to me ?"
As my consciousness was fading, that foolish voice said to me
"Hey, old man, my name is Sophie. I have just saved your life and turned twenty yesterday, so you better prepare a gift for me when you wake up."
She ended that phrase with one of the most beautiful smiles I have ever seen. Even more beautiful than the statues of goddesses that those devout priests pray to.
But I wasn't fated to see her smile ever again since the same day she gave me that smile; she died.
When I woke up, I was barely alive in prison. The court had already decided to hang me, but I couldn't die. I had to see her, so I escaped.
I really wish that I hadn't broken out of my cell because of what I saw in the center of the town. A pyre stood in the plaza with a woman's body on it, Sophie. She was dead, and next to her was a crying month-old baby being held by a nanny.
Since that day, I promised to give the remaining of this life to that crying nuisance since I couldn't give Sophie the present I owed her.
Suddenly I hit someone, and I broke free from my reminiscing.
"Hey!"
"Piss off. I am looking for someone!"
"Please, please be alive, Adrien."
We just got to town, and while I entered the shop, Adrien got kidnapped.
I couldn't believe it. A moment of distraction caused me to lose my most important thing in this world.
"ADRIEN! Adrien, if you hear me, please answer me!'
As my voice got more hoarse and desperate, I decided that instead of looking in the commercial district where I had lost him, I should look for him in the slums. Where those kidnappers had probably brought him.
After running for a while, I reached the slums, and the rain finally stopped. Now that I could see a little better, I started searching around.
I was very familiar with these kinds of places. I had lived most of my life interacting with people from this area.
I looked around for hours. My boots were grimy, and my overcoat was soaked. I had long lost my hat, and my hair was dripping with water.
As every single step became heavier and heavier, my heart started dropping.
Finally, after turning a corner, I saw a bleeding figure lying in a ditch clad in a black coat. I wiped the water that got in my eyes and slowed down my steps.
The young man got slowly got on his feet and lifted his head. Dark red blood was dripping from his mouth, and his confused gaze landed on me. His Dark ruby eyes revealed to me his identity Adrien Holmes, the unwanted son of the Holmes family.
My beating heart finally calmed out, and I shouted
"Hey, BRAT! Are you still alive?"
Adrien, with a fatigued breath, spit out
"Dammit, Otto, I can barely stand … damn."
The relief I felt upon hearing his voice was something that mere mortal words couldn't express. I immediately roughly picked up the little shit that had worried me and started walking towards the only good doctor I knew in this whole town, Monique.
Adrien tried to say something, but I ignored him.
-----Adrien Pov-----
I was following Otto. We had just left our small house in the slums and were walking to the market.
I looked around but found it difficult to orient myself around this damn place. The small and dilapidated houses looked all like one another. You could see small and big tents with large and colorful patches on every corner we passed.
There were a lot of people around us. Some walked; others sat under the protruding roofs where the dirt was relatively dry. Their clothes were coarse and stained.
What shocked me more were the two things that united all of them, despair and filth. Not a single person, old or young, had some emotion in their eyes. They all looked dull, as if their will had been grounded to nothingness.
The sun was shining, but the current atmosphere created the illusion that eternal darkness shrouded this part of town
only one thing sparked some sort of movement in the stuffy and nauseous air that emanated from the slums, the playful little children and small cute animals. Their innocence had yet to confront the harsh reality of their situation.
As scenery entered my mind, one belief cemented itself in my heart.
[Once I ensure my survival and have a lot of power, I will use my resources to help every person in my sight.]
"Hey, brat, are you listening? We have arrived at the gate."
A big open wooden gate stood tall in front of me. From my point of view, you could see a stone wall that surrounded the rest of the town separating where the poor lived and where the ordinary people lived.
"Yeah, I am, old man."
As we were bickering with each other, one of the two guards guarding the door said to us.
"If you have five copper coins, you can enter Midtown Shremel. If you don't, then you can leave with your grandson."
Otto immediately took seven small coins from a pouch that he kept within his overcoat and handed them over.
The guard smirked, and his tone became more respectful
"Thanks for paying the entrance fee. Now you two gentlemen can pass."
We crossed the gate, and the environment got much better. The road was inlaid with big slabs of stones, and the houses now were made with a foundation made of rocks and an upper part of wood. Many of the habitations had at least one story.
"So, where is the market."
"We need to follow along this road, and before the inner wall that separates midtown from Upper Shremel, we turn left, young master."
"Oh, I am not a brat anymore?"
"Well, since we are out of the slums, I will need to use the proper honorific since I am your servant."
As Otto started walking faster, I said
"But you enjoyed calling me brat, right! Answer old man."
A stifled laugh escaped his lips, but he ignored my question, so I increased my pace.
....
We reached the market. It was vibrant and chaotic.
The marketplace occupied a large area and could be better described as a commercial district since It was composed of two main roads and many stone buildings.
It was very crowded, and to walk around, I had to stick very close to Otto until we reached a relatively less popular part of the place.
"We are here. An old friend of mine runs this shop. Here, we can buy most of what we need."
The shop was huge, but it had a problem.
"Hey, Otto, why isn't anyone walking near this shop? And why are all the windows closed?"
He shot me a provocative look while opening the door and said, "Ah, scared? Don't worry, young master. I will protect you with my life."
A bell rang while we entered, and I noticed that there was only one counter in the whole shop with only one bright oil lamp that revealed a hunched figure.
"Hmm ... who's there?"
With a big yawn, the middle-aged man lifted his head from the wooden counter and looked at us.
"Hey, Tony, it's me, Otto. I need a couple of things."
"You old thing, you are still alive, eh … follow me; I will bring you to the back."
As the man got up, I noticed a mark on the chair he was sitting on before.
In the novel, that was the symbol used by The Shadoworks company, a traffickers guild controlled by another villain. They sold everything especially enslaved people like the beast people from the Leolora.
In fact, we were currently staying in Shremer, a border-town of the Woflen empire on the Urone continent, while Leolora was an archipelago. Every single island was characterized by a different species of humanoid creature that could go from bear-people to lizard-man.
So many mercenaries captured slaves that were then sold to big merchant firms that would sell them to various parties legally or illegally. In the Woflen empire, demi-humans were legal, and the current princess Lydia was trying to change that but faced many backlashes.
We followed Tony downstairs, and what greeted us was a big underground warehouse.
A group of mercenaries was sitting around a table in a corner and drinking some liquor, so tony shouted to them.
"Hey guys, look who is here. Old Otto is here to purchase some merchandise."
The group mumbled a couple of curses and got up to stand around and pretend to guard the merchandise lying around.
"You have to forgive me, so what would you two need?"
Otto responded
"We need some dried food supplies, some better clothes to change into, and some weapons."
"Sure, sure, here it is, choose what you need."
I was getting bored watching Otto and Tony bargaining about the price of the supplies and clothes, so I wandered around the warehouse until I noticed a pile of garbage in a corner.
As I approached the stack of foul-smelling stuff, a DING sounded in my mind.
[Side mission: Get your first crew mate 0/1]
[reward: beginner swordsmanship mastery]
I immediately squinted my eyes and looked around. I noticed a cage within the pile and something moving in it. I immediately reached to dig it out of all the junk despite getting my hands dirty.
In the cage was a small green thing with long ears covered only with a blanket. I immediately recognized it was a goblin. It was curled up, clutching something in its hand.
A thought came up in my mind why would someone capture a goblin? Even in the story, they are just mentioned and not given much importance. Often, they are not even considered demi-humans, and they are depicted as monsters and used as practice for new adventures to gain experience.
While I was thinking, a small voice, a whisper, reached my hears
"cough.. human, help me. I will do anything."
I was shocked it could talk, which meant that goblins were probably sentient beings in this world and not just mindless monsters.
"Sure, but I don't have enough strength to free you and not a lot of money."
"Ke ke….. listen to me I … cough … am one of the best navigators of my race….. I can guide you to the archipelago of Leolora … please."
I know that goblins are always depicted as liars, but I need to complete the mission that just popped up, and since it could talk, I couldn't bear to see him die in a mound of junk."
"Hey, Tony! Come here! How much for this filthy thing?"
"Ah, mister, why would you even buy this goblin? It's old, and it can't even talk. We were about to dispose of it."
"Oh, it can't talk."
Very interesting this goblin pretended to be unable to speak. I am sure he has a story, and I may need a navigator after stealing a ship.
"It doesn't matter. I just want a dummy to practice the sword on"
"It's a great idea! So mister Otto, about the discount we were talking about earlier, what if I give you this thing and just a 10% discount instead of 15%
"No way! It's about to die, and you were just about t..."
I interrupted Otto and said
"Sure, Tony, we have a deal."
"Young master!"
"just listen to me for this one."
We took the stuff we bought, stuffed it in four large sacks that the greedy merchant provided, and left with the goblin following us.
Tony kindly provided a bath and some clothes for the old green thing, but he refused to wear them and instead put on a flamboyant purple vest and yellow trousers from the pile of garbage that he was in just a minute ago.
"So, Mr. goblin, do you have a name?"
I said as I was looking at the magic sigil imprinted on the back of my hand.
"Ke ke… I am called Zurkx, but you can call me handsome if you want … ke ke ke….. but what should I call you? Master?"
A vein popped on my forehead. I already had Otto, that loved making tasteless jokes, and now another irritating fellow got added.
"I'll pass and just call you Zurkx. My name is Adrien Holmes, but you can call me young master like Otto does, my butler."
Otto mumbled something that sounded like a curse followed by brat, but I couldn't hear him well because he was panting a lot. Of course, since I pay him …. usually …. He needs to carry the four heavy large bags of supplies.
"Sure thing, young master!"
Silence descended on us, and I thought about two things.
First, the side mission wasn't complete, which meant that for some reason, neither Otto nor Zurkx counted as a crew mate and to find out why I needed to arrive home.
Second, magic did really exist. The symbol on my hand proved that. It was the mark of a slavery contract. The master had a sigil, and the enslaved person had something that looked like a tattoo of a chain around their neck. This type of relationship made me uncomfortable, but it was necessary to take away the old goblin and not get too much attention. As soon as I had a free moment, I would free Zurkx.
While I was thinking, we arrived at the entrance of our house. Well, let's eat and then go to the red-light district in the evening to thank Monique.