Freedom Card

Chapter 1: Anger And Frustration With Apologies As Dessert

His eyes opened. His blue eyes stared at a dark blue sky. The moon, accompanied by the stars were, aside from the blue sky, the only things in his eyesight. Why the moon? Why was he outside? Everything suddenly came back to him. Wait... he just woke up. Was it all a dream? He hoped it had been a dream! He lifted up his head and looked around. He was lying at the very same place again as in that dream. Left of him was the Gimbikki Forest again and in front of him was the hill. But to his right was no tree... just a tree stump. And just beside it sat six people, around a small campfire. He stood up and walked over to the group of people. Before he reached the group, the ones who sat on the other side of the campfire noticed that he had awakened.
“He's awake,” one said to warn the rest.
As he closed in on the group he recognized one of the persons sitting around the campfire! It was the little green-haired girl! So it hadn't been a dream! Okino Village was destroyed and his life had taken a turn for the worst. He stood still as he realized that. The six people watched him as he stood there, a few meters away from the group. One of the persons stood up and walked the few necessary meters towards him. He extended his hand towards him and said:
“My name is Xyle Hirco. Nice to meet ya.”
A little dazed by the sudden move of this man and the current situation he was in, it took him a few seconds for him to realize that this extended hand was meant to shake his. He took the hand and let Xyle do the shaking, because he was still too dazed to give his limbs such insignifant tasks as shaking a hand. Xyle seemed to be waiting for him to tell him his name as well, but he said nothing. When that didn't happen, Xyle smiled and asked:
“And your name is?”
“Caylos... it's Caylos May,” he answered. His name was finally revealed, “Do you... do you guys know what happened to my village?”
Xyle looked at him for a few seconds and then said:
“Didn't Mini tell you about that?”
Caylos looked confused at the mention of Mini. He never knew anyone called Mini.
“Mini? Who is Mini?”
“That's me,” the little girl with the bright green hair said enthusiastically, as she turned her head around (she sat with her back toward Xyle and Caylos), throwing an arm into the air, so Caylos would see her. He saw a half-devoured drumstick in her hand. She turned her head back and resumed eating.
It was true... Mini had indeed told her what had happened. A guy called Yichigo, or something, had destroyed the village.
“But... why did Yichigo do that? And why don't I remember anything of it?”
“It's Yigixo, not Yichigo,” Xyle corrected him, “I suggest we first sit down before telling you what we know. I suppose that's okay with you, unless you're xenophobic.”
Caylos nodded. The dark-haired Xyle sat back down where he had sat one or two minutes ago and allowed Caylos to sit down right next to him. Caylos looked at the group of six people. Aside from the small Mini, there was one other girl in the group, which he sat right next to. She had a gruff expression on her face and he felt that, to that girl, his company was unwelcome.
Next to her sat a guy that looked like he was around 20 years old. The cap that covered his grey hair, sitting backwards on his head, made him look younger than Caylos guessed he really was.
Next to that guy, almost right across Caylos, sat the small Mini. The Mini that managed to take him down so easily. He wondered how that kid could have so much power. She looked totally innocent, biting the last bits of flesh from the drumstick. He then wondered whether she really was on his side... and whether this whole group was on his side. She had tried to kill him, after all... why should he trust them right away?
He moved on to the one to Mini's right. The first thing that Caylos noticed was that he had a rather plain appearance. He had a bowl hair cut and resting on his nose were thick, dimmed glPenderses. He had a slight tan, which was probably the only thing that didn't make him look like people would say a nerd would look like nowadays.
Next to him sat a guy that looked like he came right from a rich family. His small glPenderses made him look intelligent and his neatly combed hair only amplified that image. He was staring into the fire, probably thinking hard about a problem he was trying to solve. He was also the last one in the circle, for next to him sat Xyle.
“Let me introduce you to the others first,” said Xyle, “The girl right beside you is Herene. Next to her, with the cap, is Dergez. You know Mini already, I think. Next to her sits Lepodes and the last one is called Qualoppe.”
As their names were called by Xyle, Caylos looked at each one of them once again. Xyle paused for a few seconds before he started speaking again.
“Where to start...? Hmm... well... let's start like this... there are a lot of weapons in this world... and part of those weapons have strange powers attached to them, like magic.”
Caylos knew that. This was common sense in Tennetri. There were maybe a few thousand weapons on Tennetri with extraordinary powers. He had even held one himself, once. In the church had laid a large golden cross, which enabled wielders to manipulate gold on a small level. Seeing as there wasn't much gold to manipulate, however, the weapon was not that convenient and was usually showcased behind glass in the church. That weapon might still be there, actually!
“From the many magic weapons in this world,” Xyle continued, “there are twenty that are even more extraordinary then the rest. The things one can do with those weapons sometimes go beyond anything a normal human could imagine. They are called the Elemental Weapons, because every weapon has a certain element attached to it. It's a bit of a hassle to name all of them.”
Xyle chuckled.
“I don't even think I can name all of them from the top of my head...”
“I can,” Qualoppe, the intelligent looking guy, said, without showing any further interest in the conversation around him.
“We know that, Qual...” Xyle said. The others looked like they would've said the same if Xyle hadn't.
“Anyway, those weapons are extremely dangerous in the hands of the wrong people. This planet's history is littered with mass murders that were committed with the use of those powerful weapons. We belong to an organization called Freedom Card, that has but one goal: get our hands on all of the Elemental Weapons and make sure they will be used only for just purposes!”
It was silent for a moment. Xyle had stood up during his explanation and was now posing epicly as he finished the word “purposes”. Everyone was looking at him with a bored expression.
“You're emberrPendersing yourself, Xyle,” Herene said.
He turned to Herene and replied:
“Sssssh! He doesn't know!”
Herene rolled her eyes and asked herself why she was in this group again. The others said nothing. They were used to Xyle acting like this. Xyle coughed before sitting down again.
“So... what does this have to do with-”
Caylos was interrupted by Xyle right away.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk... patience, my friend,” he said at a reprimanding tone. But Caylos had a hard time staying patient.
“I just want to know-”
Xyle's silly tone disappeared when he interrupted Xyle again.
“Keep quiet and listen until I'm ready!”
It almost sounded like an order. The authority that sounded through Xyle's voice was enough to shut Caylos up immediately, even though Xyle hadn't even yelled those words. It was only for a moment, though. The next moment, his smile was back on his face.
“Now then, let me explain you everything about Freedom Card first. Of all the people here, I am probably the only official member of Freedom Card.”
Xyle looked at Caylos for his reaction. After a moment he moved his head toward Caylos' and with only a few centimeters between their heads, he said:
“Come on, Caylos! This is the moment where you ask me “WHY?!” with an extremely confused face, y'know.”
“But I thought you said-” Caylos began.
“You shouldn't take me so serious, you dummy,” was Xyle's response. He had a grin on his face that ran from ear to ear. Caylos moved his head back a bit and looked at the others. They were staring at the two, with exception of Qualoppe, whom still didn't seem very interesting in the conversation. Lepodes, the guy with the bowl haircut held up a note with the words “just play along” written on it. Caylos grunted. This was their leader, yet he's so silly! Besides, can't he read the situation! Acting like that, while something awful had happened to him only a few hours ago. Caylos was irritated. But he had no choice but to play along to get all the answers he wanted from this idiot.
“W-Why?” he asked reluctantly.
“Ooooh. I'm glad you asked,” Xyle immediately said. Caylos sighed and had the urge to facepalm. Xyle either didn't notice or didn't care, since he continued enthusiastically.
“I am one of the 52 official members that Freedom Card desires to gather. Not all spots have been filled, but we're close. Every official member is called a “Card” and all those cards together form one “Deck” as we call it. In other words, I am one of the Cards in Freedom Card's Deck. Aside from that, every official member has a codename. Mine is “Ace of Diamonds”. Sounds cool, doesn't it? I know, you like it too, don't you? Don't you?”
Xyle waited for Caylos to respond.
“Y-Yeah... it's a really... epic... nickname... codename” Caylos hesitantly said. Where was this crazy guy going?
Xyle's grin grew even bigger.
“I knew you'd like it! Everyone here likes it! But I shouldn't deviate from what I should be telling you. We'll talk more about my codename later, okay?”
“O... Okay,” Caylos said. He sighed. How long was this going to continue?
“I'll tell you another time the story about when I joined Freedom Card. It was quite an adventure. I'm sure you'll love it! I'll tell it with all I have.”
“Yeah, yeah... what happened to not deviating from telling me what I want to have answered?” Caylos said. He was tired of this guy already.
“Ah, yeah... thank you for reminding me. Now, where was I?”
“Codenames,” was Caylos' direct answer.
“Ah, yeah! I completely forgot!”
“How stupid is this guy?”
“Codenames, codenames... oh, yeah. The higher your codename is, the earlier you have been recruited.”
“So,” Caylos said, not waiting for Xyle to force him to ask it,” you were one of the earliest who joined Freedom Card?”
“Exactly. You're a smart boy.”
Caylos grumbled, but refrained from sarcastic comments. Xyle didn't seem to notice and just continued:
“I was the fourth that was recruited.”
“So... what's the difference between the official and unofficial members?”
“Oh, good that you're asking. Well, basically, the official members are the ones that are personally invited by the Jokers, the two leaders of Freedom Card. Unofficial members usually travel with an official member to aid him in his task. A Card's followers are usually called a Card's “Hand”.
“So what does this-.”
“Didn't I tell you to be patient?”
“Yes, but-.”
“Then why are you not listening?!”
That angered Caylos. Why would he care about some strange organization?! He wanted to know what happened! And now this guy was acting like he was obliged to listen!
“WHY AM I NOT LISTENING?!” he yelled as he stood up. “What do you think the reason could be?! I just lost everything in my life and you start talking about a strange organization! Do you not know how much pain I have right now?! If I were alone, I would cry all day long! Think a little before you start telling stupid stories!”
The next moment, he felt someone forcefully turning him around and slapping him right across the face. It was the grumpy girl that had been sitting right next to him.
“You really are a jerk! You think you're special, eh?! You think you have the right to act all hurt and in pain, just because something bad happened to you?!”
“What's she going on about?! How else am I supposed to act then?!”
“Oh, so what do you think I should do? Do you think I can live my life happily after what happened to me?! My life has been ruined forever! And now you start whining about it. Are you heartless?!”
“When someone tries to help you, you shouldn't yell at them and whine about your misery when they already know you're in misery!”
“You call this helping?! I think your definition of help greatly differs from what I understand by “help”!”
“You insolent... We were just going to offer taking you along with us! But you won't listen! No, you'd rather be by yourself sulking in your own misery until you get so depressed you'll kill yourself! If that's what you want, go ahead and walk away! I'm done with you!”
Herene turned around and walked toward the hill angrily.
“Selfish jerk!” she yelled before she disappeared to the other side of the hill.
Caylos didn't know what to say. Had he been wrong? Had he been right? Still, these guys were going to offer him help... shelter... a place to be... He looked at the rest of the group, whom were breathlessly looking at him, waiting for what he was going to do next.
“I... I'm s-sorry,” he apologized, “I-I didn't mean to-.”
He was interrupted by Xyle, still with a smile on his face.
“It's alright. Don't worry about Herene. Things like that happen,” he tried to calm Caylos down.
“But...”
“Just sit down and listen,” Xyle said with a friendly tone.
Caylos nodded and obeyed to Xyle's words.
“As Herene told you, we would like to offer you to travel with us and search for the man that did this. The reason we are here is because of that man, in the first place. We've been following him for a few months now and have finally gotten close to him. I know it's hard to decide right now, so we'll save the final decision for tomorrow. For now, catch a little sleep and think hard about everything.”
After he said that, he turned to the rest of the group.
“That also counts for you guys. We need to get up early tomorrow and leave around ten o'clock so we won't lose his trail.”
With those words he stood up and stretched his arms in the air to get them a little bit loose, like anyone would do after sitting in the same spot and position for a long time.
“Sounds like a good plan,” Dergez, the guy with the cap, said, as he followed Xyle's example and stood up. The rest stood up as well without saying anything. Xyle started to walk towards the hill, followed by the rest.
“Can you put out the campfire, Caylos?” Xyle asked.
“We're not sleeping here?”
“No. We're sleeping in the church. It hasn't been completely burned down. It's much safer there than out here in the open.”
True. While the upper parts of the church were made out of wood, the lower parts were made entirely out of stone, Caylos remembered.
“I see... makes sense.”
“I take you know where the church is. We'll see you there when you have put out the fire,” Xyle said, just before he disappeared behind the hill.
“Okay,” Caylos said back at him.
He turned around and looked at the fire and the dancing pyros. He sighed and looked for a way to put it out. There wasn't really anything near that could be used to put out the small campfire. Caylos stood there for two minutes, pondering what he should do. But after those two minutes, nature itself solved the problem for him. He first thought he was just imagining it, like a lot of people do, when they think they feel a rain drop falling on their skin. But when he looked up at the sky and saw the dark grey clouds above him, he was sure it was going to pour. Which also meant the rain would put out the fire! Caylos was about to leave the fire alone for the rain to extinguish it when he thought that maybe, just maybe, the fire wouldn't be extinguished by the rain!
“What if this was just a small rain. What if the rain lasted just a few minutes? If I went now and that was actually true, the fire might keep burning! No, wait, if the wood was wet, a fire wouldn't keep burning, right? No, wait... I've never seen a fire being extinguished by the rain, what if I am wrong? Oh, what should I do?! Why do I need to be so indecisive!”

“Man, it's pouring down!” Xyle said, as he looked outside a small window in the strange stone house that was standing in the church.
“Where is that guy? It's been five minutes now since it started pouring!” Dergez said.
“I think he's coming!” Xyle said, extending his hand outside of the window, pointing at a vague figure that came running at the church. And indeed it was Caylos. When he arrived he stood still in awe and looked at the little house inside the church.
“What... why is this here? This hadn't been here before!”
“Oh, that? I made it,” Xyle replied.
“You made it? How...?”
“Oh, did I forget to tell you? I have the Spear Of Earth.”
“Spear Of Earth?”
“One of the Legendary Weapons. Did you forget already? You should listen a little better, y'know.”
“You have a Legendary Weapon!?” Caylos said in surprise.
“Yeah. For five or six years now,” Xyle replied.
“That explains,” Caylos said, looking at the house. After a few seconds, he said:
“How... how do I get in?”
“Oh, just climb in through the window.”
It took him only a few seconds to do just that. When he stood inside he noticed how soaked he was.
“What took you so long?” Dergez asked, wondering just why Caylos had taken so long to come over to the church when it started to rain.
“I didn't know whether the rain would put out the fire, so I stayed until it was completely extinguished,” Caylos said, as waterdrops dripped onto the floor from Caylos' nose, chin, clothes, hand and hair. The answer caused a few seconds silence before Dergez and Xyle started laughing.
“D-Don't laugh!” Caylos said, embarrassed.
“You're an interesting guy,” Xyle commented.
“Huh?” was Caylos' reaction to that.
“Let's go to sleep, now we're complete,” Xyle said.
Caylos looked around and only saw Dergez, Xyle, Lepodes, Mini and Qualoppe.
“Where was Herene?”
“But... Herene is not here. Where is Herene?”
“Herene? Oh, yeah. She wanted to sleep somewhere else, so she asked me to make a small house near the church. She's probably sleeping right now.”
Caylos looked at the ground with a guilty expression.
“Is that my fault? Because she doesn't want to see me?”
He felt a hand on top of his head and looked up into Xyle's face.
“Don't blame yourself, son. Your angry performance from ten minutes ago isn't the only reason she's that angry.”
“What do you mean?”
“I'll let Herene explain that when you have the guts to ask her,” Xyle said, raising his hand from Caylos' head.
“Now, let's go to sleep,” he said, shaking his hand to get the water that was transported from Caylos' head to Xyle's hand when the two touched, off.

The bed that Xyle had spoken of was nothing more than a thin sheet and the cold stone floor. As Caylos tried to get some sleep, he started thinking.
“Well... a lot happened today. Maybe I should apologize to Herene tomorrow. I mean, I really was a jerk to her, in hindsight. Though, then again, I wasn't wrong either, was I? No, no... forgiveness starts with yourself, not with another. I should apologize to her first thing in the morning!”

Caylos didn't sleep much that night. Not really because of what had happened the previous day, but because he'd slept a lot that day already. He'd been out cold twice that day for a long time. He may have slept two more hours before Xyle woke him up and even then, Caylos was convinced that he hadn't slept at all. The first thing he did was step to Xyle.
“Xyle, I have a question...”
“You want to know where Herene is, right?”
“Y-Yeah...”
“Take a left as soon as you leave the church and just keep walking. You'll eventually see it.”
Caylos nodded.
“Thanks.”
He ran toward the window and with one swift movement, he jumped outside. He didn't what he was going to say, but he should at least go to see her. He'd figure out what to say when he was there. Before he knew it, he'd arrived at the house Xyle was speaking of. It was truly hard to miss, since it was built in the middle of the road, or at least, what was left of the road. He stood still, admiring the small house from a distance of around ten meters.
“How should I approach her?”
He walked over to the house, but couldn't discover an entrance. Neither did he find one after circling around it.
“How was she supposed to get out?! Was this a prank from Xyle?”
Just as he was about to yell Herene's name, a vibration went through the wall and his body. A strong one at that. Huge cracks showed in the wall. Another shock and the wall broke to pieces. Caylos, whom was still standing right in front of the wall, fell to the floor when parts of the wall hit him. The hole in the wall was big enough to let a person through. A loud yawn came from the opening and Herene stepped out and looked surprised at Caylos, burried underneath a load of rubble.
“What are you doing here, you idiot,” she asked him.
Caylos quickly stood up and immediately tried to apologize.
“I-I... I want to-.”
Herene stuck out her hand toward Caylos.
“Save yourself the embarrasment,” she interrupted him, “We were both at fault yesterday.”
“Ah...”
Caylos didn't really know how to react to that.
“More importantly,” Herene said, “Will you take up our offer and travel with us?”
“I-Is that okay with you?” Caylos asked.
“Of course. You think I'd leave a helpless guy like you behind? Think again. I'm not that heartless,” she replied.
“Ah, I'm sorry,” Caylos apologized.
“Well...?”
“I haven't decided yet, actually...”
“You haven't decided?! What other choice do you have then to travel with us?”
“Well... I could stay here and-.”
He was interrupted by Herene.
“You really consider that an option?”
“Maybe there's still someone alive and-.”
“We already searched for survivors... you're the only one.”
“Still...”
Herene sighed and said.
“Y'know what! I'll decide for you. You will go with us, whether you like it or not!”
Caylos couldn't find an answer to that, but Herene continued before he could say anything.
“And we should hurry up,” she said, pausing to look up at the sun, “It's almost ten o'clock. The rest is probably waiting for us!”
She started running back to the church.
“Hey, wait for me!” Caylos yelled, before he followed her.
And so, Caylos' adventures started. There was a lot ahead of him, that if he'd known what was ahead of him, he would probably have stayed home instead of joining Xyle's Hand. But he could impossibly know what laid waiting for him in the future.

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Whoo... finally done... Please tell me what you think!

Chapter 3: Taking Care Of Robbers



A slight wind had started to blow since Xyle's Hand left Okino Village and it was now rustling the leaves of the trees softly.

“So, uhm, Xyle?” Caylos said.

Xyle turned to Caylos.

“Yeah, what is it?”

“What is it that drives Yigixo to do all of this?”

Xyle was silent for a moment, a troubled look on his face.

“Is it okay to tell him? Maybe it's a little too early. But what to tell him otherwise? He has the right to know... right? Let's hope the conversation doesn't go “that” way.”

“He's looking for an Elemental Weapon, or so we have heard.”

Caylos was quiet for a moment and then asked:

“Why is he looking for it here? If there's any place I wouldn't expect such a dangerous weapon, it's in this area.”

“We have no idea about that either. We don't know what sources led him here. The only thing we know is that he's after something we also want.”

Caylos was silent for a moment and Xyle was almost convinced the conversation had ended when Caylos started talking again.

“So... how long have you been following him now?”

“This conversation is definitely going the wrong way! How am I going to answer that question without raising questions?!”

Dergez, Herene, Lepodes and Qualoppe felt that Xyle wouldn't be able to get out of this and had to tell Caylos everything. But just as Xyle had given up on hiding it and telling him, Mini, whom was walking in front of everyone else, interrupted their conversation.

“Hey, look, someone just jumped out of the bushes onto the path,” she said, pointing her finger at the person. Everyone stopped walking and directed their attention to the figure that was quickly coming their way.

“He looks all hairy,” Dergez commented, as the figure came closer. It had quite a big posture, at least thrice as big as Mini. The beast-like figure didn't slow down, even as it came closer.

“He looks kind of creepy,” Mini said.

“Look who's talking!” Dergez yelled at her.

“Guys, it's attacking us!” Herene yelled, as it was only ten meters away from the group. She had barely ended the sentence when the beast-like creature jumped at Mini yelling:

“I'm HUNGRY! I WANT THOSE DELICIOUS EYEBALLS!”

“MINI!” Caylos yelled, as he ran at Mini to push her away in time.

And that's when a lot happened in just a few split seconds. Mini looked at the incoming Oglip with emotionless eyes, until the two were less than a meter away from each other, when a small grin appeared on her face. A scythe suddenly materialized in her hands. But it wasn't a normal scythe. The handle had a blood-red color, while the blade was completely black. That wasn't the weirdest thing. The scythe had one more attribute that surprised Caylos. Along the cutting edges of the scythe were spikes that were rotating at high volume. We'd call it a chainsaw nowadays. Only the tip of the blade wasn't covered by these spikes as the spikes went into blade right before the tip. The thing made a whizzing sound that Caylos had never heard before. Caylos didn't believe his eyes as he watched what happened next. With one swift motion, Mini lashed out with the scythe at the incoming Oglip. The scythe cut Oglip in two pieces, from right to left, like a hot knife through butter, ending Oglip's life. Blood spat everywhere, mostly covering Mini. She wasn't done, however. Before the two parts of Oglip's dead body could properly separate, she turned her scythe around and cut through him again, this time from left to right. And once more, this time vertically.



Oglip's body parts fell amongst the group, covering everyone in blood.

“Mini! Look what you have done! Now we have to go wash these! Aha! What a bother!” Xyle said as he admired his bloodied clothes. Mini wasn't listening. She was licking her blood-covered hands.

“HEY! Stop that disgusting habit of yours! Don't lick other people's blood!” Dergez yelled.

Mini turned around and looked at him with a satisfied look on her face.

“But it tastes so goooooood!” she responded.

Caylos couldn't say anything. He felt like he was petrified to the ground.

“What... what did I just see?! WHAT DID MINI JUST DO?!”

“That's one of the reasons why you'll never have a boyfriend,” Dergez yelled at Mini.

“Oh, but I don't need one! After all, I already have you, don't I?”

“That's a lie. You're making that up!”

“Deeeergeeeez!” Mini yelled as she ran at him. Her scythe automatically disappeared with a “poof”.

“WHAAA!” Dergez yelled, as he started to run away from Mini, “Stay away! You're covered in blood! ”

“Oh, but you are too! We look so much alike, don't you think!?”

“Mini! Dergez! That guy wasn't the only one!” Xyle warned them. Mini and Dergez stopped their shenanigans and look beyond the trees right beside the narrow path they were standing on. Multiple figures were hidden in between the trees.

“Robbers!” Dergez said.

Xyle nodded.

“We don't have time for this, dangit!” Dergez said annoyed by the situation.

“What are we going to do?” Caylos asked.

“I don't know,” Xyle said, looking around him, keeping an eye on the shady people hidden between the trees, “Let's keep walking for now.”

“We're not going to fight?” Caylos asked, slightly surprised by Xyle's decision.

With his eyes on the robbers, Xyle answered:

“Unless they attack us, we won't. Let's keep walking, but keep an eye on them and don't lose any of them out of your sight.”



And so started a rather awkward situation. Stained with Oglip's blood (more or less), Xyle's Hand started walking again. But the shady people between the trees followed them. After ten minutes, Caylos asked Xyle:

“Why aren't they attacking us?”

Qualoppe, whom was walking behind the two, answered the question before Xyle could.

“Isn't that obvious!? Do you think they'd be happy to fight us after she showed what she's capable of?” he said, pointing his thumb at Mini. She looked up when the thumb was pointed at her.

“Are you guys talking about me?”

“Caylos thinks you're frightening,” Qualoppe quickly answered.

“Wait, why me?!” Caylos said, afraid that Mini would get angry.

“Oh, thank you. It was my intention,” Mini said with a smile, that strangely fit her.

“Well, I can't say she ISN'T frightening. More like, she scares me to the point where I wish I wouldn't have started traveling with this group!”

Caylos turned to Qualoppe and replied:

“Well, that's true. But if they're scared of Mini, why are they still following us?”

“I don't know exactly,” was Qualoppe's reply, “There are multiple reasons why they are still following us.”

“Multiple reasons?” Caylos wondered out loud.

“Yes. 124 to be exact.”

Caylos opened his mouth to say something but couldn't find any word to say.

“THAT'S TOO MUCH! HOW MANY REASONS DID YOU COME UP WITH?!”

“A reason I personally like is that, as soon as they saw me, they fell in lo-”

“AS IF!” Dergez yelled, “I'm sure they're coming after me!”

“Why would you want men to chase after you?!”

Qualoppe scraped his throat.

“Anyway, the most likely scenario is that they are not sure what to do as well, “Qualoppe explained, “They probably live in the woods from what they find and rob. They might even have families somewhere. These robbers had planned this robbery for some merchants, is what I think. Merchants that came from Okino Village.”

“Okino Village... my village... but it's destroyed!”

“Yes... and because of that, they have been waiting since morning. But no merchants. They won't be able to make a living now, unless they move away.”

“Whoa... Yigixo's actions even affected people's lives that were never affiliated with my village.”

Caylos paused for a moment.

“Wait, we're making these guys sound like saints right now! They're still robbers!”

“Poor souls,” Xyle said, while the tears flowed down his cheeks. He turned to Mini, “Mini, why did you have to kill that guy? That poor soul.”

“That guy was trying to eat us!”

“He was all hairy. I wanted to kill him,” Mini gave her reason.

“Are we even paying attention to the robbers?!”

As that thought went through Caylos' mind, a robber suddenly jumped out of the bushes and lashed out his sword at Caylos. Caylos gave a yell in fright, closed his eyes and lifted up his arms in defense. But the expected sword cutting him didn't come. Instead, there was a sound of metal clashing at metal right next to his ear. Opening his eyes again, he saw the robber's sword only inches away from his face. But something else was there between him and the sword. It was a cap... or no, a sharp, small blade, like a knife's extending from the bill of the cap. That's when Caylos realized this cap was Dergez'.

“Going straight for the new guy this time? You sure know how to pick your victims,” Dergez said to the surprised bandit. Caylos fell to the ground from fright and slowly crawled backwards, away from the dangerous bandit.

“Well done, Dergez,” Xyle complimented, as a weapon materialized in his hands: a spear... the Elementary Weapon, the Spear of Earth. Despite the mighty name, the spear looked very simple. A wooden stick with a sharp, crenated stone attached to it with rope at one end. Almost like a spear from ancient times. Like cavemen from the prehistory made them. Xyle did one step toward the bandit and stabbed at him, but the robber was too attentive to be hit by the move and was able to jump backwards, before the hit could connect. But with the next motion from Xyle's Spear of Earth, the robber was done. Xyle swung the weapon up from the ground. At the same moment, a pillar of earth, shut out of the earth right underneath the robber's feet, launching the man five meters into the air. With a loud yell, the bandit fell back to the earth, into the forest. Some yells came from the forest and the group witnessed how the bandits ran away yelling, frightened of this group of strange, powerful people.

“COWARDS!” Mini yelled.

“Well... that's dealt with as well...” Herene, whom had been carrying the luggage ever since Qualoppe had collapsed underneath it, said.



After changing clothes, it was back to traveling again. It was half past two and the sun stood high in the sky, shining its warmth down to earth. Maybe a little too much, as it was wearing down the travelers.

“Man, who'd think it'd get this warm after that rain from yesterday,” Dergez whined.

“It's always like that, y'know. When you roll with a dice, after rolling a six, you will most likely roll a one or two,” Xyle replied, “There's only so much luck one person can get.”

“That's completely different!”Dergez said, “In the first place, that logic is completely based on superstition. And don't talk about luck. Mini absorbs all our luck for her gambling.”

Dergez waved his hand up and down to give his head some cool wind, but it didn't help much.

“Maybe you could take off your cap. That might help,” Caylos suggested.

Everyone looked Caylos' direction. It was unusual for him to mix himself into such a casual a conversation.

“I can't do that, y'know. If I take this cap from my head, the blade automatically comes out of the bill,” Dergez replied.

“Oh...”

“That was a stupid suggestion! That definitely was a stupid suggestion, wasn't it!?”

Dergez saw the emberrassment on Caylos' face and smiled.

“It's a magical weapon,” Dergez said, to keep the conversation going.

“A magical weapon? That cap?”Caylos said in surprise. He looked at the cap. It looked just any other... ordinary. It was just a brown cap.

“Yeah, it doesn't look like one, doesn't it?” Dergez said.

Caylos nodded.

“Where did you get it from?”

“Hmm... there's not really a story behind it. I bought it at a normal convenience store in my home-town,” Dergez told him.

“They sell magical weapons in your home town?”Caylos asked surprised.

“Haha, no... It seems you still don't know. Magical weapons aren't made by humans, y'know.”

“They aren't? I always thought they were somehow made by humans.”

“Well, yeah... the item itself is made by humans, but the magical power bestowed upon the weapon is not from humans. Humans don't have influence on whether an item becomes a magical weapon or not.”

“Then who decides which weapon becomes magical?” Caylos asked next.

Dergez shrugged.

“I don't know. No-one knows. Some strange, invisible force appoints certain items with magical powers.”

“Oh, I see,” Caylos said, a little disappointed. He really wanted to know the mystery behind the magic weapons, “What does your cap do?”

“You saw just a while ago, didn't you? A blade extends from the bill as soon as I take it from my head.”

As to set an example, Dergez took the cap from his head and indeed, a blade the length of the bill extended out of the bill.

“Is that all it can do?” Caylos said, looking at the extended blade.

“Hmm... watch the blade,” Dergez said. Caylos hadn't been doing anything else.

“If I give the cap a little more magical power,” Dergez paused and suddenly, the blade extended even more, “the blade grows.”

“It's a sword now,” Caylos described the weapon.

Dergez nodded.

“Still,” Caylos continued, “it doesn't do much.”

Dergez chuckled.

“This isn't all that this weapon can do. It's just that I can't do any more,” Dergez explain, while he put the cap back on his head. The blade automatically disappeared into the bill.

Caylos looked at Dergez with a confused expression.

“What... do you mean with that?”

“I don't have enough magic power to get the most out of this weapon. I don't know how powerful it is at its best, but I think what you see now is only ten percent of what it can really do.”

“Just ten percent?”

Dergez nodded and looked down as he went on to explain:

“You may already know, but all magical weapons know several stages they go through, each one of them makes the weapon and its wielder stronger. How many stages there are, is different everytime. There are weapons with so much as twenty different stages and some don't have any stages at all...”

“Oh, I see...”

Dergez turned to Caylos.

“You didn't know any of that?”

Caylos nodded.

“I don't know much about magical weapons and stuff. The only thing I knew about them before this all happened is that they existed and had strange powers.”

“Hmm... So, that means that you also don't know that not all magical items are necessarily used as weapons.”

Caylos shook his head.

“No, I didn't.”

“You really don't know much, do you?!” Herene added herself into their conversation at a fierce tone.

“I'm sorry,” Caylos immediately apologized.

Herene was surprised. Why did he apologize?

“You don't have to apologize!” she said loudly.

“I'm sorry. I thought I was disappointing you.”

“D-Disappionting... what are you saying?! Why would I be disappointed in you?!”

“You sounded like you were,” Caylos replied.

“I... I wasn't! Y-You're good just the way you are!” she said with a slight blush.

“Wait, why am I blushing?! I shouldn't be blushing over this?!”

“Oooooh?” Dergez said, with a smug smile on his face, “Words like that don't come from your mouth very much.”

Xyle laughed.

“Hahaha. I was about to say that. You two are amusing together.”

“How dare he imply...”

“Do you want a fist in your face!”

“Why are you getting so worked up?” Xyle asked, “It's not like I implied anything or something. What are you thinking?”

“I...”

“Calm down! They're teasing you!”

“I am not! It's nothing! Just shut your trap.”

Xyle chuckled. Caylos was a great new member.



It took them another seven hours to reach Dicarpio. And they found it completely unscathed.

“We're in time!” Caylos said happily as he saw the houses of Dicarpio through the trees.

Dergez looked at Xyle when Caylos said that. A worried look decorated Dergez' face for a split second.

“Let's search for a hotel to get some rest. I'm getting tired,” Herene proposed.

“What?! Shouldn't we wait for Yigixo to arrive and stop him before he enters the village? He could get here at any moment!” Caylos protested loudly.

Xyle turned around.

“No, we're looking for a hotel first.”

“But...”

“No buts... we still have our luggage. Do you expect Herene to fight with that backpack on her back? Aside from that, everyone's worn out.”

Caylos hesitated for a moment, sighed and said:

“Sure.”



A hotel was quickly found. Dicarpio was not a big village. As they were checking in, Dergez walked up to Xyle.

“Xyle, can I speak to you outside for a moment?”

A look that spoke urgence was readable from Dergez' face. Xyle sighed and nodded. Dergez turned around immediately and walked towards the entrance.

“I'll take a walk around the village with Dergez, guys. I'll see you later!” Xyle cared to explain to the others.

Mini didn't care. Lepodes, Qualoppe and Herene looked at the two leave the hotel. They knew what that conversation going to be about.

Once outside, Xyle started the conversation as they started to walk around the village.

“I can guess what this is going to be about.”

“You bet you can! How long are you going to keep it hidden from him?!” Dergez asked loudly. It bordered yelling.

“All in due time, Dergez. There is no need to rush it.”

“Rush? Oh, please. There shouldn't have been a need to “rush” this. You should've told him the moment he joined. Like you did with Herene. And she didn't particularly care,” Dergez replied.

Xyle turned to Dergez.

“Every person is different, y'know. Herene had a completely different reaction to it than how I think Caylos would react to it.”

He pointed his index finger up.

“If I would've told it right away, there'd be much less of a chance that Caylos would've joined. And that would be such a pity.”

“I still think...”

“Everyone needs another approach. If you tell him now, we'll lose him. Don't you think of telling him, Dergez. He'll leave us and go somewhere on his own... the world out there is hard for guys like him. We need to keep him with us at all costs.”

Dergez looked at his friend for some time and eventually sighed in defeat.

“At least you seem to know what you're doing. I'm hoping everything will be alright in the end.”

Xyle smiled.

“Hasn't it always ended up alright in the end? Our story is a success-story. Caylos won't bring any change to that.”

“I hope so,” as he looked at the sky and witnessed red clouds, colored by the setting sun. What were Dergez and Xyle talking about? Will everything really be alright in the end? And what will happen to Dicarpio? All of that might just be revealed in the next chapter.

Chapter 5: Rings Shouldn't Be Removed During A Wedding



“Dangit! What is happening! Who are those people! Why me?!” Mufil thought as he was still sitting on his knees in the same spot as when the strange guy attacked the three.

Mufil looked down, at his pants. A stain between between his legs made him feel rather uneasy.

“Wet myself! Dangit!”

He moved his view a little further forward and saw the slit that the axe had made. He shivered at the thought of that weapon splitting his body in two. He looked to his right. Dergez seemed to be having some trouble with the Axe-guy. He stood on of the benches, panting, leaning with his hands on his knees. Blood trickled down the right side of his face. The Axe-guy stood a few meters away from him, in a state that equalled Dergez'. He had blood on his face also and was panting as well. He wasn't standing on a bench however. All the benches around him were all shattered in hundreds of pieces. The Axe guy smiled.

“Aren't you going to help your friend?”

Dergez looked over at Xyle, whom was lying on the ground.

“Idiot,” he said to the Axe guy with little emotion, “If I let my guard down and go there, you'll split me in two.”

He looked at Xyle again.

“Hang in there, Xyle! I'll be right there!”



The woman squatted down right in front of Xyle.

“Pathetic. And you didn't even get to use your magic weapon.”

She laughed for a moment.

“It's funny. You can be the best magician in all of the world, but one knife through your heart and you're dead on the spot.”

She grabbed Xyle's head and lifted it so, that she could look straight in his eyes.

“Magic might enhance your body, but you're still human. Your body is still fragile. Heh heh. Magic is for the people that don't want to admit they are weak.”

She brought their heads even closer to each other than they already were and continued:

“Sorry to break it to you, but you're still weak.”

She let go of Xyle's head. It landed painfully on the floor.

“Now, let's get those rings off those fingers, or they'll be dirtied by your blood,” she said as she grabbed his right hand and looked at the rings shining in the dim moonlight.

“They all look so expensive. I wonder how much they're worth!”

She looked at the emotionless face of Xyle. He hadn't said a thing for a few minutes.

“Aren't you mad?” she asked, trying to provoke him into saying something or pulling an interesting face. No reaction from Xyle.

“Hmph... you're boring.”

She took one of the rings and started to slide them of his finger, but it was hard to do that. It seemed to be pretty tight around his finger. After putting some strength behind it, it finally slid from Xyle's finger. For a second, she was delighted to finally have the ring, but the next moment, it felt like a hard wind blew right in her face. Her hair was wildly moving around along the wind. But that was all that was moving of her body. She felt petrified, as if every single feature of her body was tightly tied down to the ground. She couldn't move. Her glPenderses, that could detect any kind of magic power, even in complete darkness, detected a huge red aura around Xyle.

“Did he have this much magic power?”

She stared at the ring in her hand.

“Wait... could it be... are those rings all magic limiters?”

The ring in her hand fell to the ground. She stared at Xyle as he slowly rose up with slight difficulty.

“Hmm. So you noticed the moment you took it from my finger,” Xyle said as he stood up, “is it those glPenderses? You said you had an ocular magical item. Those are usually sensory type weapons.”

He walked over to his spear and picked it up. All that time, the woman sat motionless in the same position.

“True, I might just be human with a body that normally can't do anything a normal human can't, but enough magic can force one to do things a normal body can't. Just for example, magic can force muscles to move, even if they are poisoned or paralyzed. “Magic is for the weak”. Didn't you say something like that?”

Xyle walked over at the woman. She was quivering. The amount of magic power coming from Xyle had struck so much fear in her heart that she wasn't even able to move, let alone defeat Xyle.

“You're really overthinking this, y'know. Magic is magic. That's all there is to it. It was made for humanity to have fun with.”

He squatted down in front of the shocked woman and gave her a flick on the forehead. There wasn't much force behind it, but it was enough to make the stunned and shocked woman fall backwards, unconscious. He picked up his ring and slid it back on his finger, much easier this time.

“I'd almost pity you,” Xyle said as he stood up.



In the meantime, Dergez was fighting the Axe Guy.

“We keep clashing our weapons, but if this goes on, one of us will eventually lose due to fatigue. And I'm worried about me being the first. Dangit!”

He looked at the woman and Xyle... at that time, they were still talking. He would love to help Xyle, but Mr. Axe stood between them. He couldn't leave and leave his side and back open to Mr. Axe. That would cost him his life... He grinded his teeth, a habit he had when things started to get difficult. He tightened the grip and dashed forward at Mr. Axe again.

“Trying again? You and I both know how this battle is going to end!” Mr. Axe said as he jumped aside and swung his axe right over Dergez' head. With the axe still swinging around and Dergez with speed in Mr. Axe's reach, he lashed out at Mr. Axe with his sword.

“SHI-”

Mr. Axe jumped away, but wasn't able to avoid a cut right across his chest, towards his right shoulder. Dergez didn't stop there. He had finally managed to cut Mr. Axe and he wasn't going to stop and let his enemy take a break. He lashed out at Mr. Axe again, trying to decapitate him. But that almost backfired when Mr. Axe blocked the sword with his axe and slid that weapon alongside Dergez' sword, creating that typical sound of two metal edges grinding against each other. The axe then left the sword and went straight for Dergez' head, trying to split it horizontally in two. Thanks to Dergez' good reflexes, the blade missed his head and only shallowly cut through the top of his left shoulder. This time, Dergez decided to jump back a few times, to get out of Mr. Axe's range. He couldn't be cautious enough of this guy.

“Still not done yet?” came a question in Xyle's voice.

Dergez turned to where the pulpit stood and saw Xyle standing there with the Spear Of Earth in his hand.

“Hmmm... Megane was taken care of? Good lesson for that bi-”

Mr. Axe was interrupted by Xyle.

“Say, Dergez, tell me... Where is Bob?”

“Bob?” Dergez looked around, “Oh, Bob.”

“Oi, I'm still here, y'know!” Mr. Axe yelled.

Xyle turned to Mr. Axe.

“What's your name?”

That question came so out of the blue for Mr. Axe, that it took him a few seconds to respond.

“I asked-”

“Kendon... why?”

Xyle turned his head back to Dergez.

“Bob was such a great guy too... Too bad he ran away.”

That annoyed Kendon.

“Why did you even ask for my name?!”

Xyle seemed annoyed when he turned around and replied:

“Could you please shut up? I'm trying to have a conversation with my friend here.”

“The only annoying one here is you!” Kendon replied to that.

“Whatever, talk to the hand,” Xyle said as he stretched out his hand at Kendon for a few seconds.

Kendon noticed how Xyle smiled for a second.

“Tch... stop acting like you're stupid!”

“Oooooh... so you actually know I'm just acting like I'm stupid and air-headed? Then I have a more serious question for you: Why did you even bother replying to me then?”

Kendon didn't know the answer to that. All he did was scowling.

“Doesn't that make you a genuine idiot?”

Kendon slowly started getting angry.

“You really I'm sorry Raiden me off, whether you are acting or not!”

“Are you getting angry? I guess I succeeded then.”

“Oh, could you please SHUT YOUR DANG MOUTH!” Kendon yelled as he dashed at Xyle.

“Xyle!” Dergez yelled.

“I'll be alright,” Xyle said as he showed Dergez his hand with one ring removed.

“Aha... that explains everything.”

“Your opponent is here!” Kendon screamed as he jumped at Xyle, his axe over his head.

Xyle stood still and glanced over at Kendon as he brought his axe down. Xyle swung his spear upwards and with that, a stone wall rose up right in front of him. Right after that, he jumped away sideways. A second later, Kendon crashed right through the wall, hit the ground and rolled on until the benches stopped him. He stood up immediately with a furious look in his eyes.

“That weapon... it's power is tremendous! You're hugely suppressing its full potential! No wonder Megane lost,” Kendon deducted.

“You flatter me,” Xyle said with a grin, “How'd you know?”

“Why would I reveal such a thing to you?! Are you stupid?”

Xyle's grin widened.

“Seems like you're not that stupid. But if you realize that I'm this strong, why aren't you running?”

“Hmph... do I look like the guy that would run from a fight?”

Xyle looked at the muscular, masculine body of his opponent.

“Your appearance gives me the impression you wouldn't. Too bad. You seem like an interesting guy.”

Xyle turned to Dergez.

“Hey, Dergy Boy... Don't just stand there. I'm not going to do this on my own. That's what they call wasting manpower.”

Dergez smiled.

“Even though you could easily handle this guy yourself?”

“I'm just being considerate of you,” Xyle said as he smiled.

“Hey, your enemy is here!” Kendon said as he charged at Xyle. Xyle jumped away in time to avoid his axe.

“I'll give you some advice, my man,” Xyle said, while he kept avoiding Kendon's axe,” shouting right before you attack isn't a good idea. It gives you away right away. You'll lose the advantage of the surprise that way. Take Dergez as an example. He was able to sneak up right behind you without you noticing.”

Kendon turned around and saw Dergez only a meter away from him, just about to strike him in his back. He managed to jump away just in time, but was out of balance by the sudden movement. Xyle, seeing many openings in Kendon now, tried to stab him in his head. An undescribable pain went through his body as he felt how the spear cut his left ear from his body. A scream was well fitting this situation, but Kendon didn't say anything, though it was easy to read from his face that he was trying to suppress that scream. He jumped back even further, trying to regain his balance. Now Dergez came charging at him again, not giving him a break. Cause, y'know, not giving your opponent the time to catch his breath is one way to victory. Kendon had regained his balance however and blocked Dergez' sword, ducked and tried to cut away Dergez' legs, but Dergez saw that coming and had already stepped away. Kendon did the same and just in time as Xyle's spear pierced the air that had been occupied by Kendon's body just a second ago.

“Two against one... isn't that a little unfair?!” Kendon said.

“Let me make this clear,” Xyle immediately answered, “If I were to fight “fair”, you'd be long dead. I'm surpressing my power to make this an interesting fight. And to give Dergez here some excitement too.”

“How should I take that comment?” Dergez said, glaring at Xyle.

“However you like!” Xyle said, as he dashed at Kendon once more, swinging his spear at Kendon's head. Kendon ducked and tried to kick Xyle, but Xyle was already not there anymore. From his right, he saw Xyle's spear coming at him again, which he quickly blocked with his axe, but in this little fight with Xyle, Kendon had completely lost any attention for Dergez and when Dergez suddenly appeared on his left, Kendon said a few words I'd rather not describe here. He tried to jump back, but was too late to properly finish that move. Dergez' sword was too fast and before he even made the jump, his sword cut through his abdomen from right to left, leaving a rather painful and gruesome looking cut, where all kinds of things starting gushing out, which I won't describe here. Kendon coughed up blood and as he came down to the ground from his jump, his legs were unable to support his weakened body and he fell backwards to the floor, coughing up more blood as he went. Kendon lay almost dead on the floor and Xyle and Dergez stood next to him as victors, looking at his bloodied body. The fight was over. Kendon look with half-closed, tired eyes at Dergez. It was already hard to keep them opened. He opened his mouth and coughed up some more blood before he began speaking.

“Your name.”

More blood was coughed up.

“Please tell me your name.”

“Dergez. Yours is?”

“Kendon,” his enemy said with a smile on his face. His eyes closed. Kendon had died.

Almost right away, his body started sinking into the floor. Dergez looked at Xyle.

“Every human needs a proper burial, even the villains,” Xyle said.

“So, what are we going to do with the other one?”

“Oh, the woman they called... what was she called again?”

“Megala, I think.”

“Ah, yeah, Megala.”

“Are we going to kill her as well?”

Xyle shook his head.

“No, we'll bring her along with us for investigation.”

“I see... yeah, that's a logical thing to do. Still, though, I started panicing when you were lying on the ground defeated,” Dergez said.

“You think I didn't panic when that happened?! I thought I was a goner for sure! I totally wasn't expecting a poisoned needle from Megara.”

“I think it was Magana.”

“Magana then. Does it matter? In any case, I had the extreme luck that she started removing my rings, because she didn't want them to be bloodied when she killed me.”

“Oh, yeah, now I see how you broke free from that poison. But that sounds like some deus ex machina they'd use in books,” Dergez said.

“Like a writer would even use something like this in a book. His readers would lose interest in the story immediately,” Xyle said, “I mean-”

Xyle stopped halfway and turned to Dergez.

“I have this feeling that someone wants us to shut up and change the subject.”

“Say, where did Bob go?” Dergez wondered.

“Bob? Who is Bob?”

“Y'know... Bob...”

“Uuuuhm... I... I'm here...” a small voice came from their right, where they saw Mufil's head rising above one of the few benches that were not destroyed during the fight.

“Who's that?” Xyle asked.

“That's Bob.”

“Oh, I see...”

Bob climbed over the bench and started walking towards the other two.

“Oh, wait, THAT Bob!” Xyle suddenly said, when Bob came closer, “Hey, Bob, what were you doing?”

“I was hiding! What else did you think I was doing?! And my name is not Bob! It's Mufil!”

“Bob Mufil?” Xyle said.

“NO! JUST MUFIL! STOP JOKING AROUND!”

Xyle started laughing.

“Teasing people like you is always fun,” he said.

Mufil gave Xyle a death-glare.

“Why did you bring me here in the first place? To make fun of me?”

“Yep,” Xyle said.

“And as a last resort if something goes horribly wrong,” Dergez reminded himself.

“Well thanks for dragging me into this mess for nothing! Who are you guys anyways? And what's going on here?”

“I don't feel obligated to tell you that,”

For a moment, Mufil wanted to insist on knowing what had happened, but realized soon that it would get him nowhere.

“Hmph. I hope I'll never see you again,” he said again as he turned around and walked out of the church.

“Bye, Bob!” Xyle yelled.

“MY NAME IS MUFIL!” he yelled back, right before slamming the church's doors shut.

“Alright, Xyle, let's get Modjana and head back as well.”

“Wasn't she called Mohana?”

“Oh, yeah, Mohana.”



While this all played in the church, some interesting conversations between the other Cards in Xyle's Hand were held in the hotel. The group was walking up the stairs to their rooms.

“Y'know,” Caylos said, to the surprise of the others, as Caylos was starting up a conversation all by himself, “I wonder why I can't remember anything about that one night. It's just that one night that I have no memory of. I remember going to bed and after that waking up the next morning. I wonder why I don't remember anything of my town being destroyed.”

Qualloppe was the one replying to that.

“My theory is that the experience was so much of a shock that your mind purposely erased it from your memory. You should be glad your mind did that. It's really hard having pictures in your mind of your loved ones dying.”

The subject was done with. No-one, including Caylos, wanted to continue this conversation. Caylos felt that this subject was very painful for all that were present. He didn't know their pasts, but if Xyle only tried to help people that had lost everything in their lives, then everyone in Xyle's Hand had had a troubled and scarred past that they'd rather not be reminded of. When they reached the four two-person rooms they had hired, they started discussing who was going to sleep with who.

“I'll sleep with Mini here.”

“Of course,” Qualoppe said, “that goes without saying. I'll go sleep alone. Caylos and Lepodes will take a room together as well.”

Qualoppe turned to Mini.

“You have the keys, right?”

Mini nodded. Mini was the one that administered the money, after all, so she was also the one that paid their rooms, to the great surprise of the one on the other side of the counter.

“I want room 66,” she said, claiming the room because she liked the number, “you guys take 68 and Qualoppe takes 70. Xyle and Dergez'll take 64.”

No-one had any objections and half a minute later, Lepodes and Caylos stood in front of room 68. Caylos opened the door and as soon as he had opened the door, his mouth fell open of astonishment. There, right in front of him, was a dead man, hanging from a rope. Probably a suicide. Without saying anything, Lepodes, whom couldn't talk anyways, walked over to the man, took a knife out of his pocket, cut the rope and let the body fall to the ground. He put the knife back where it came from, grabbed the arms of the man and started dragging him towards the window.

“Uhm, what are you doing?” Caylos asked, still standing in the dooropening.

Lepodes didn't answer, but checked whether the window could be opened. When that was not the case, Lepodes thrusted his elbow through the window, causing glass to fly down to the street below.

“HEY! That's property of the hotel! You shouldn't do that! And why are you...”

He stopped when he saw how Lepodes grabbed the man, lifted him up and skillfully threw him out of the window.

“W-What are you doing!?”

Lepodes turned around and a noteblock plus pen appeared out of nowhere (they were both magical items), and Lepodes started writing.

“Every bedroom I enter automatically has a dead body inside it... either that, or someone will die in it during my stay.”

“What kind of bad luck is that?! And how many people haven't already died already of that bad omen?!”

“My mother, when I was born, her friend when I was 12 and after that, I slept outside... until I met Xyle,” Lepodes wrote on his noteblock.

“O-oh... I'm sorry,” Caylos apologized, ”You must've had a terrible past.”

Lepodes started writing again.

“Meh, I'm not that overly attached to the past, unlike the others. Besides, my past is the least tragic of all of us, if you ask me.”

“He's talking rather casually about the pasts of others.”

“I see.”

Lepodes' next note read:

“Let's sleep for now, until Xyle and Dergez come back.”

“Aren't they just talking for a bit outside?”

Lepodes shook his head.

“I don't think so. I think it'll take some time until they're back. Probably gathering intel on Yigixo. Without them, we can't do anything productive, so it's best we catch some sleep for now,” read Lepodes' next note.

Caylos saw that this was indeed the best action to take and so, the two went to bed to catch some sleep.



"It's cold in here! Lepodes, why did you have to smash the window!"

Chapter 7: Dangerous Things Sometimes Taste So Delicious!



Oi, oi,” Dergez said, when that all played right before his eyes, “Xyle, did you snap?”

Xyle straightened himself again and sighed.

“Now look what you made me do,” he said to Megane. The dangerous tone was gone. It almost looked like he seemed to regret what he just did.

Caylos had witnessed everything as well, with rising astonishment.

“W-What are you doing?!” he said to Xyle. He was quite shocked that Xyle was actually capable of doing things like that without a second thought.

“Can't you see? Obtaining information,” Xyle said as if the actions he'd just performed were most normal things in existance.

“But... aren't we...”

“...the good guys? Freedom Card?”

Xyle did two steps in Caylos' direction.

“I think that you got it wrong right from the moment you joined us. Freedom Card's members aren't what most people call “good guys”. There are only two rules that all Cards of Freedom Card, and with that their Hand as well, must obey at all times. Firstly, if you encounter a Magical Weapon, try to obtain it in the most efficient way possible. Secondly, do not ever harm another Card, or their Hand, with malicious intent. If one is in a situation where the two rules clash with each other, the first rule overrules the second.”

Xyle paused for a moment, turned ninety degrees to his left and looked up before continuing.

“In other words, Freedom Card aren't always the good guys. You were trying to make us play the good guys when you heard Yigixo was going to destroy another town and we listened to your selfish request. Yigixo is going after the Staff of Gravity. We gathered a lot of intel on him and have several people in his group on our side as a matter of fact to give us intel on his search for that magical weapon.”

He turned his head back to Caylos.

““So why leave Yigixo searching for that Legendary Weapon?”, you might wonder.”

He looked at Caylos. Xyle knew that Caylos wanted to ask him that question.

“Not all Legendary Weapons are in hands of bandits. The Staff of Gravity is said to be kept by a small town somewhere in this area. And a lot of the other Legendary Weapons are kept in museums or are seen as national treasure and kept inside palaces. Is that Legendary Weapon being used for evil? No! And yet, we have to obtain it. There are two choices. Steal it yourself or have someone else steal it for you. Not stealing it is out of the question! If you steal it yourself, the government will very likely put a bounty on your head and chase you around until they have you. That's a pain in the Penders, so we always go for the second choice. We ask someone to steal it for us, usually for money. After that, we usually eliminate them, cause in case they are caught, they might spill information about us. We don't want anything tracing back to us.”

“But that's...” Caylos said surprised.

“Cruel? Oh, come on. It's one evil exterminating another. The world's always been like that.”

Caylos was confused.

“What do I do now? I really don't like the way Xyle did things. And his view on the world too! And... he's kind of scary.”

Caylos stood there with wide open eyes, contemplating what to do... and since making decisions wasn't something he was really good at, that took him quite long.

“Am I supposed to run away? Am I supposed to say something?”

All was solved by Xyle however.

“Listen, I know you don't agree with that. You're that kind of human with a heroic soul that won't change whatever happens. And I doubt that part of you will ever change. And thank God for that. You're not alone either. Dergez here doesn't like to fight either. Qualoppe neither. But that's because he can't fight.”

“That sentence wasn't necessary!” Qualoppe yelled annoyed.

Xyle ignored Qualoppe and continued his speech.

“We all have very differing personalities. We're all different. But by having both heroes and anti-heroes in our group, we maintain a healthy balance. And if you don't like things I do, tell me, stop me, change me. That's a challenge. But to take that challenge, you'll have to stay with us.”

Xyle stepped closer, within Caylos' range, and extended his hand.

“Let me ask you again. Would you like to join my Hand?”

Caylos was still hesitant to take that hand.

“You could always run away, because you don't like it here. Let me tell you, that's the way cowards deal with things. If you keep running away from things you don't like, you'll keep running for the rest of your life. Courage is to stay and try to change the things you don't like into things you DO like.”

Xyle paused for a moment, before continuing again.

“So, what do you say? Wanna join my Hand?”

Caylos hesitantly extended his hand at Xyle, but before Caylos could grab Xyle's Hand, Xyle grabbed Caylos' hand and shook it.

“Welcome in my Hand, Caylos,” Xyle said, smiling, “It'll be a blast having you on board.”

Caylos nodded, still not sure whether this was the right decision to make... then again, where else could he go?



“Now then, let's get back at what we were doing just now,” Xyle said, as he turned around. Megane was still heavily panting and holding back loud cries from the pain. Tears streamed down her face.

“You told me you were going to tell me where to find Yigixo.”

Megane sniffed and nodded.

“W-we came from Okino Village. There's an open place not covered by trees in the forest just next to the path from Okino Village to Dicarpio. Yigixo is staying there for now and is waiting for us to come back.”

“Oh, I know that place!” Caylos said, “me and my cousins from my aunt used to play there when we came over!”

Xyle smiled.

“Very good. That works in our favor.”

“It also proves she's not lying,” Qualoppe said. Xyle nodded.

“So, what are we going to do with her?” Dergez asked.

“Can I kill her?!” Mini asked, summoning her scythe. Megane looked with fearful eyes from Xyle to Mini.

“No. There's no need in killing her.”

“But leaving her here might as well kill her as well,” Caylos said, worried about.

“I never said anything about leaving her, now did I?” Xyle said, as he turned to Herene.

“Can you take care of her again?”

Herene nodded, walked over to Megane, and took her on her back, without care for the dislocated finger, which was hurt quite a few times in shoving Megane on Herene's back, causing Megane to cry out loud from the pain. As soon as Herene took her upon her back, she noticed how she was shivering. Herene started to pity her a bit. Xyle didn't just break her finger, but also her soul. Twice even, but Herene didn't know of the first time.

As they started walking, Xyle asked her some more questions:

“Say, Megane,” Xyle started, “how big is that group of Yigixo anyway?”

“Big?” she said, still in a confused state.

“Y'know... how many people travel along with Yigixo?” Xyle reworded his question.

“Oh,” she said, “fifteen.”

“How many magical items does he carry around?”

“Don't know. A lot,” was her short answer.

“That'll be a problem,” Dergez said.

Xyle nodded.

“What's the weapon he uses the most?”

“Yari.”

“Yari?” Xyle asked, as he turned to Qualoppe, who was the most knowledgeable of the group.

“A cross-shaped spear with cutting edges.”

“How do I imagine that thing to look like?” Xyle asked.

“Take a normal sword and make the handle, along with the guards, the blade and vice versa. And make it bigger and longer. That's a yari.”

“Interesting. So he's also got a spear. This is getting me excited!” Xyle exclaimed.



When they got out of the forest, Xyle commanded Herene.

“That's as far as she goes.”

Herene nodded and let her slide of her back, again without care for her finger, which caused Megane to scream out loud again. They placed her against a tree, facing the church some hundred meters away and the lights of Dicarpio just behind it.

“We'll leave you here,” Xyle said, as he stretched out his arm into the air and his spear materialized. He held the spear's tip close to the ground and moved the spear up. A sharp stone rose from the ground.

“Use this to get free of the ropes binding you. And don't ever appear before my face again. I will kill you if you ever do. Go find a doctor, get healed and travel some more. Have a fun life. See ya!”

With that, Xyle's spear poofed away and turned around.

“Caylos, lead us to that place.”

Caylos nodded, as they started to walk away from Megane. Caylos looked around one more time. Megane didn't move. She was motionlessly sitting against the tree. He sighed and turned his head around.

“She'll make it,” Xyle said, “she'll get over it eventually.”

“Hmm,” was all that Caylos answered those words with.

Caylos felt like a part of his life was about to conclude. One chapter was about to end and a next one was just around the corner. He looked around at the group that was following him: Xyle, Dergez, Lepodes, Mini, Herene and Qualoppe. He was going to travel with them from now on.



“Is it close?” Xyle asked.

“It's close. I don't have clear memories of those days, since I was still quite young when I used to play here, but I believe this open place is around here,” Caylos answered.

Just then, someone tapped on the back of Xyle's shoulder. Xyle turned around and saw Lepodes holding a note in front of his face.

“I see a light there,” it read.

Xyle's eyes followed Lepodes' other arm, which was pointed to his right and discovered the light as well.

“Good job, Lepodes!” Xyle praised him, “Let's go!”

Xyle changed course. Caylos, whom hadn't really been paying attention to Lepodes' and Xyle's conversation, but more to his surroundings, was confused about where the rest was suddenly going.

“Hey, wait! What are you doing?! Where are you going!?” he yelled as he ran after the group. But as Herene and Qualoppe proved earlier that evening, running through forests wasn't a very good idea and within ten seconds, Caylos fell to the ground with a loud yell. He heard some laughing and someone walking towards him. Caylos lifted up his head and spit out two leaves and some earth that had made it's way into his mouth and then saw Xyle's smiling face and extended hand.

“You never cease to amuse, now do you?” he said laughing.

Caylos quietly took the hand and Xyle helped him stand up. They had to walk another five minutes until they finally reached the open place that Megane spoke of. The open place was like a field of grass in the midst of a forest and had a circular shape and was around 100 meters wide in diameter. A few tents stood in the middle of the field. Most notable was the big tent in the middle.

“Typical,” Qualoppe commented on that.

There was one campfire, on the south side of the camp, which was on their side of the camp. A few people, about seven, were sitting around that campfire. Some were eating meat, others were talking and one was playing on his guitar. Xyle and his Hand watched and observed this all for a few minutes before Dergez started talking.

“So, what are we going to do now?”

Xyle turned to Dergez. Dergez continued:

“Are we just going to storm into their camp take those guys all out?”

“Hmm... that'll be a bit hard,” Xyle replied.

“Hard? HA! Don't make me laugh,” Dergez replied, “if you were serious, you'd open a giant hole in the earth right beneath that camp.”

“Yeah, but there's no fun in that,” Xyle said, “for now, let's split up. We'll take positions around the camp and when I give the sign, we'll attack them from multiple sides. A simple plan. Nonetheless still effective. We'll have both the advantage of surprise and confusion. No protests coming from his members, so Xyle just continued.

“I'll go to the other side of the camp. Qualoppe and Mini stay here. As always, Qualoppe, you won't have to fight... just stay hidden. Fighting is not your thing. Lepodes and Dergez take the left side. Herene and Caylos take the right side.”

Xyle turned to Caylos.

“Now I've been wondering something. Can you fight, Caylos? Do you even want to fight? We won't be forcing you to fight, but it'd be better if we'd be able to fight with six man instead of five.”

“I... I never really fought before.”

“I see...”

“But I really want to! I really want to! But... I'd probably be in the way anyways... so I guess I'll just stay silent.”

“Well... you don't need to, but if you ever feel the urge to suddenly jump into the fight...”

Xyle stopped in the middle of his sentence and stretched his arm into the sky. His spear materialized again. He moved the tip of the spear over the ground and then up again. From the ground rose two objects, that, as soon as they popped out of the ground, proved to be knives of some sorts, but then with longer blades. Though the blades were still too short to be called a sword.

“...take those... they are made of compressed stone, so they're quite sturdy. They won't fall apart that easy like normal stone.”

“Are those for me?” Caylos asked in surprise.

“I just told you, didn't I?” Xyle replied smiling.

Caylos stared at the two knives lying on a bed of leaves. He picked them up and weighed them in his hand. They were much heavier than he initially thought they'd be, probably because they were compressed stone.

“Thanks,” Caylos said, admiring the weapons. He wondered if he'd actually be able to do something with those things. Nonetheless, the fact that they were so close to Yigixo made him excited. He could finally pay him back for what they did...”

“Alright, if anyone didn't forget what I just told them, let's split up,” Xyle said.

And so they did. Mini and Qualoppe stayed where they were, Dergez and Lepodes went left and Caylos, Herene and Xyle went right.



It was after five minutes, when Herene and Caylos had almost reached their position, when a loud voice suddenly come from the north side of the camp.

“BOOOOSS! BOOOOOSS! We've got it!”

Everyone in the camp looked up from what they were doing and several tents opened and people curiously peeked outside to see what was going on. A huge man exited the tent and looked north to see what all this commotion was all about.

“Don't yell so much!” the low voice of the man said, “what's going on?”

“We found it! The Staff of Gravity!”

That shocked everyone, including Xyle and his Hand.

Yigixo, the huge man with the low voice, laughed for a bit.

“So Asyou Village had it. It's about time we found it. Where is it?!”

“We have it here!” was the answer.

“Well, this is an unexpected development,” Xyle said.

“What are we going to do now?” Caylos asked.

“You're not going to do anything. This needs speed and stealth. I'll be the one doing things for now,” Xyle replied, as he smiled. He summoned his spear and dashed forward onto the grass field with speed. Yigixo was still standing in the camp, while the one with the Staff of Gravity was still 25 meters away from the nearest tent, even though the two were approaching each other and closing that distance with every second. Xyle had to reach that man with the Staff before he could give it Yigixo. Luckily, the man was holding it, not keeping it in his personal hammerspace. He'd have to kill to get all the weapons of that man's hammerspace, seeing as, when killed, all items in one's hammerspace are automatically transferred to the nearest person.

He was going to make it. Only another 10 meters!

“HEY! Who's that!?” someone yelled. Someone had noticed him. Everyone, including Yigixo and the man with the Staff of Gravity, turned their heads to discover Xyle running at full speed toward the man with the recently obtained Legendary Weapon. That man did the one thing that Xyle did not want him to do. Xyle had almost reached him when the man swung the staff around, as if he tried to hit Xyle, even though Xyle was still not in reach. But that didn't matter, as Xyle immediately felt himself being pushed away. He flew backwards and was thrown onto the ground a few meters back from where he first was.

“DANGIT!” Xyle cursed.

“Give that thing here right away!” Yigixo said, as he ran at the man and snatched the weapon out of his hands. He turned to Xyle and asked.

“Who are you!?”

Xyle had no intention in answering him. Instead, he screamed:

“CHARGE!”

As soon as he yelled that, chaos broke loose. Mini was the first to storm out of the forest onto the grass field and with maniacal laughter, running at the nearest person she saw. That nearest person spotted her quite quickly.

“Hey, there's a kid here!” he yelled to alert the rest.

He and a mate stood up in surprise as they saw her running towards them. But only after she suddenly summoned her giant scythe did they realize something was not quite alright. He tried to draw his sword, but before he could properly unsheath his sword, Mini'd reached him and with one swing of her scythe, his life was ended. His mate drew his sword and dashed at Mini, but hesitated too much to actually attack her. And you couldn't blame him, as Mini was a child and a child isn't exactly something most people want to hurt. And that lead to that man's demise, as Mini cut right through him without hesitation. Right then, her third victim appeared. A man stuck his head out of his tent and stared right at Mini, whom was about five meters away from him. Mini happily dashed at him, but before she could cut through him, he jumped out of his tent. If he'd been a second slower, he would've died, as Mini cut right through his tent. The man quickly drew a sword of his own and blocked Mini's next attack just in time. But with spikes rotating around the cutting edges of the blade, blocking wasn't a very wise thing to do. Cause, what happens when something rotates at high speed and you place something against it? That's right. It's automatically swept away by the force of that which rotates. The same happened here. As soon as the man tried to block Mini's chainsaw scythe, one of the spikes caught onto the blade and the force behind the rotation yanked away the sword, despite the man's efforts to keep hold of it. With nothing to block the scythe with, Mini decapitated this man as well. Blood sprayed all around as her eyes searched for a fourth victim, but what she didn't expect was for the fourth victim to attack her. A sound behind her alerted her of someone's presence behind her back and she immediately jumped forward. She didn't look back, as many would've done. She knew that looking around would be wasting precious seconds to escape death. With her enemy still not in view, she ran around in a full circle and spotted her attacker, a bald, large man, with a sword with a size fitting the man's own size. Mini kept running, keeping her eyes on the man, whom was simply standing still, following Mini closely with his eyes. She suddenly turned left, towards the man and dashed at him. The man showed no intent of evading the attack, but instead simply lifted up his arm, with the sword in it. A second later, the two weapons clashed. Once again, the spikes caught the weapon, but as soon as that happened, the spikes stopped rotating. The man single-handedly stopped the rotation.

“You stopped them?!” Mini said with a huge grin, staring right into the man's eyes, “You stopped them! You're not weak! Hey, hey... can I play with you for a bit? That'll be alright, right? Come on!”

“Sure, why not,” the man said with emotionless eyes.

Mini started laughing like a maniac.

“This'll be so much fun!”



Meanwhile, Lepodes and Dergez hadn't been doing nothing either. As soon as Xyle yelled “Charge”, Lepodes had picked a thick branch from the ground and ran into the open grass field, looking around, taking notion of the position of the enemy. Lepodes remembered that Megane had said that there were about fifteen people with Yigixo, but hadn't been correct. There were considerably more people than she'd said. Did she lie? Or was she so confused that she'd just said a random number. Either way, this was going to take some time. Not counting the ones in their tents, there were a lot of people on the north side because of what just had happened. Only five people were on their side and on the other side weren't many people either. Mini's side was really dark as the only illumination of this battlefield was the campfire, which was located on the north side of the large tent. The shadow of the tent fell over Mini's part of the grass field, and thus, was barely visible for the rest. Lepodes focused on the five before him, who'd already noticed him and had drawn their weapons to welcome him. One of them decided he couldn't wait and ran at Lepodes. His enemy, whom was a woman, swung with her sword to cut him in two as soon as he came in her reach, but she wasn't very skilled in fighting with swords. Lepodes easily evaded the girl's attack and then jabbed the stick with force into her stomach. The girl's face turned purple as the impact forced all the air out of her lungs. She collapsed to the ground, while Lepodes continued to run to the others, not concerning himself with her anymore, convinced that she was out and uncunscious. The second one Lepodes encountered shared a similar fate, but instead of being jabbed in his stomach, he was hit by the branch in his face.

“Pretty strong branch!”

The third one managed to cut the branch in half with what look like a giant hook with a cutting edge on the outside.

“Not so fast!” Mr. Hook said, as he did so, “You're stupid to come at us without a weapon!”

He lashed out at Lepodes. The hook caught cut a hole through his clothes and Mr. Hook's next move was to pull Lepodes at him, while with his other hand, he drew a knife, ready to cut Lepodes in his face, abdomen and chest, but Lepodes wasn't as helpless as he appeared. In a lightning quick move, Lepodes grabbed the fist of Mr. Hook that was holding the knife and evaded the attack of said weapon. He freed himself from the hook at the very same time by ripping the hook through his clothes. Before Mr. Hook could respond, Lepodes had moved Mr. Hook's arm behind his own back and pushed the arm further than physically possible. Mr. Hook gave a loud scream as the arm was dislocated. Mr. Hook lost the power in his hand and involuntarily let go of the knife, but Lepodes caught it before it fell to the ground. Now behind Mr. Hook, Lepodes put the knife against Mr. Hook's throat and slit it through. As Lepodes continued, a note fell down on the dead body of Mr. Hook, reading:

“Sorry... P.S. Thank you for the knife.”

Lepodes was about to attack the fourth, when suddenly, there was a flash and a man appeared on his path.

“That's as far as you go!”

The next moment, he disappeared and the next moment, Lepodes felt a hand grabbing his face and as soon as that happened, it felt like time stopped. He then felt how he was pushed back all the way from where he came and into the forest, until a tree came in his path and his back was slammed right into it. Only then did it feel like time resumed. The hand covering his face belonged to the body of a guy with scars all over his face and head, which affected the way his hair grew, meaning there were some places on his head where hair didn't grow.

“I don't like people like you who do whatever they want!” he said, “Listen to your superior humans, boy.”



The average swordsman that Dergez was, the very first person he encountered gave him a hard time. Dergez always had that. On multiple occassions had he stated that he wished his weapon would be a little more special. But alas. His cap was the only weapon he had and there were still his skills to improve. Still, his fighting had been a bit rusty since the last time he'd fought was a long time ago. But he'd come loose at the fight with Kenton! Rushing at his first enemy, he took the cap of his head and it immediately transformed into a sword. The swords clashed a moment later.

“Nice to meet you,” said his enemy as they were trying to overpower the other by pushing their enemy's sword back to create an opening, “my name is Rimmin. It is a pleasure to duel with you.”

The words were polite and seemed to be spoken by a calm voice of a guy somewhere in his fifties or sixties. The light only barely lit his face, so he couldn't really discern the man's facial features so much he could read the age of his face.

“Likewise,” Dergez said, “My name is Dergez.”

“How nice of you to state your name,” Rimmin said. Rimmin suddenly jumped back, then moved to the right and tried to attack Dergez from there, but Dergez had seen him coming and stepped back and blocked Rimmin's sword as his attacker seemed to fly by. Rimmin kept attack that way, everytime, moving to Dergez' side and trying to catch him off-guard, which didn't happen.

“Peculiar fighting style, you have,” Dergez commented, as Rimmin once again stood in front of him, about to jump away to his left.

“Is that really so?” the polite voice came, as Rimmin suddenly attacked from his front. Dergez, making the mistake of thinking the man wouldn't attack in any other way than he'd done up to now, totally didn't expect it and only barely avoided a fatal injury by moving his head out of the sword's path. Instead, his left shoulder was cut... AGAIN! It hurt as heck, since Kendon had cut him there earlier that night. He screamed as the sword cut through his flesh. Dergez immediately jumped back, but Rimmin didn't give him a second to rest and calmly evaluate his situation and followed him, trying to stab him in the very same spot. Dergez blocked the attack and dodged another swing from Rimmin's sword.

“There was already a wound there, wasn't there?” Rimmin asked in his polite voice as they tried to push each other's swords away from themselves again.

“I'm rather distressed by the fact you're aiming for that spot instead of my head. You sure have a sadistic nature for a person with such a polite voice.”

“You're not the first to tell me that,” Rimmin said as he smiled. He then suddenly let go of his sword in an unexpected move and ducked, before plunging his fist with tremendous force into the abdomen of the unsuspecting Dergez. There are two kinds of blows into that area that makes you feel like all the air in your lungs is being sucked out. The first one is the most common and makes one feel like, as described just before, the air in your lungs are sucked away, giving you the need for some to catch your breath and disabling you to do anything else. The second kind feels like a jumbo jet hits you in that area with a velocity of mach 3. Dergez felt his diner gradually rising up like a volcano's lava or magma gradually rise to the surface to get the volcano to erupt. And an eruption Dergez couldn't avoid. Rimmin got away barely in time to avoid getting Dergez' diner all over him. Rimmin rushed towards his sword, grabbed it and turned around to finish Dergez when he saw his enemy already standing again, although wambling and about to fall to the ground and puke some more. Dergez swallowed the diner that so much desired to escape the way it came in. Rimmin grinned.

“You're a tough guy, I'll give you that!”



Herene and Caylos had the best look at Xyle's failed attempt to get the Staff of Gravity. When Xyle had yelled “CHARGE!”, Herene turned to Caylos and advised him:

“You stay here! If you were to go onto the battlefield right now, you'd just get killed right away and we're trying to avoid that! Stay here until all has been dealt with, alright?!”

Caylos reluctantly nodded. He was sad it was going to turn out like this, but he understood the logic. He was a total rookie when it came to fighting, while the enemy had a lot of experience in fighting. It was thus almost impossible for Caylos to win a fight... but, sitting there while looking at others fight for him made him feel so useless!

Meanwhile, Herene had run at Xyle as he stood up. But instead of comforting him and helping him stand up, Herene passed him without giving him a look and instead went for Yigixo at full speed.

“YIGIXOOOOOOOOOO!” she yelled angrily as she was about to punch him in the face. But Herene suffered the same fate as Xyle and landed not far away from him after getting hit by a “gravity-wave”.

“Calm down, Herene,” Xyle said, “just because he's the one who killed your family doesn't mean you should freak out like that! You should take care of the rest. Let me deal with him!”

Herene angrily turned her head towards Xyle.

“You expect me to stay silent when he's right in front of me and with your permission to attack him?!”

“I never gave you permission! He's got a freaking Legendary Weapon! You have nothing! How do you plan to beat that guy?!”

Herene had no answer to that.

Just then, Yigixo started yelling:

“Minjo! MINJO!”

“I'm right here, boss,” a guy with sunglPenderses and a sleek face, said, standin almost next to Yigixo.

“We're under attack! Do what you're supposed to do!” Yigixo commanded him.

Minjo grinned.

“Aye, aye!”

And with those words, Minjo started running towards the forest on the east-side, where Xyle had come from... and Herene...

“AND WHERE CAYLOS WAS STILL SITTING!” Herene realised with a shock.

“HE'S GOING AFTER CAYLOS!” Herene yelled, as she stood up and went after Minjo.

“CAYLOS! GET AWAY FROM THERE!” she warned him with a loud yell.

Chapter 9: Mud Sticking To Your Shoes Is Annoying



Both Yigixo and Xyle were surprised to see a woman interfering in their fight. And a beautiful at that, Xyle saw. Beautiful, except for the huge, smoking cigar in between her teeth. That cigar really destroyed her whole image. She looked at Yigixo sternly, ignoring Xyle altogether, whom couldn’t manage to free his Spear from Miriya’s hands.

“You’re still an idiot, Yiggy.”

“I… I am very sorry, Madam!”

“That’s better. Now, who is this savage?”

“I haven’t asked for his name yet, Madam!”

Miriya moved her eyes to Xyle and asked him.

“Well, young man? What is your name?”

Xyle was slightly surprised by that question, then smiled and said:

“The name is Xyle, Madam. And if it’s not too much asked, would you please release your grip on my spear, Madam?”

“Oh?” Miriya reacted surprised. She smiled and laughed a little. She turned to Yigixo and said:

“Observe, Yigixo. You could learn from this man.”

She then turned her head back at Xyle.

“I wouldn’t mind at all, young man,” she said, releasing her grip on the spear. Yigixo, cautious of Xyle having full control over his Spear again, jumped back, but Xyle did nothing out of the ordinary. He stuck the spear into the ground, with no side-effects whatsoever, and started leaning on it. Miriya smiled.

“Well, then, young boy,” she said, “I would like to know what business you and your companions have here.”

“Of course, Madam. You see, I’m part of an organization called “Freedom Card”. You might have heard of it.”

“Can’t remember ever hearing of it.”

“Basically, we collect the Legendary Weapons.”

“Ohohoho,” Miriya said smiling, “Now that’s a troublesome objective. That would make us rivals, young boy. But that’s strange. You didn’t seem like the kind of person to attack us when we hadn’t obtained the weapon already.”

“About that, Madam,” Yigixo suddenly interrupted, “We obtained one tonight.”

That surprised Miriya and it was clearly readable from her face.

“This is another one,” Xyle said, as he held up his Spear.

Her face turned even more surprised. After a few seconds, her smile came back onto her face.

“Well, well, so much surprises tonight. This will be fun. But I see… that explains a lot. Yiggy, hand it to me.”

Yiggy held out his other hand and the Staff of Gravity appeared in his hands.

“I’m sorry, Madam,” Xyle said, “but would you mind if I were to ask you one question out of curiosity.”

Miriya took the Staff and turned to Xyle.

“I’ll grant you that right.”

“What’s the relation between the two of you?”

That made Miriya laugh.

“You’re a bold one, aren’t you, young boy. We’re married.”

Miriya looked at the Staff she’d been given.

“Oh… my…! Another surprise. It’s been a long time since I last saw this one! The Staff of Gravity. Welcome back, old friend.”

“One other question,” Xyle said, “You’re not human, are you?”

Miriya turned around with a smile and said:

“I don’t think I granted you a second question.”

“Fine, fine… I’ll try to find out myself, then.”



As soon as Lepodes’ opponent had smashed his head into the tree, he took his hand away from Lepodes head. Lepodes seemed to fall forwards, unconscious, but right before gravity could pull to the ground, he put one foot forward, and did so again with his other foot, kind of stumbling forward. As he was still hunched over as he these weird movements, he grabbed a stick from the ground, stopped and turned around with the stick in front of him. Well timed, because his opponent was already behind him, trying to knock Lepodes unconscious this time. His fist collided with the stick, which broke on impact. A second try by Lepodes’ opponent, whom was called Flag, was also blocked by the small piece of wood left in Lepodes’ hand. Flag immediately threw a fist at Lepodes’ stomach. Lepodes’ saw it coming, however, and grabbed Flag’s wrist. He then pulled Flag closer to himself and hit Flag with his elbow in the chin and then kicked him in the stomach with his knee. Lepodes let him go and Flag stumbled backwards, seemingly gasping for air, as Lepodes knee had forced all the air out of his lungs… or so he made Lepodes believe, because the next moment, just as Lepodes had dashed at Flag, Flag disappeared and the next moment, Lepodes felt how a hand grabbed his face just like last time and time seemed to stop, until he felt himself being pushed into a tree again. Flag’s hand didn’t leave his face this time, but instead, pulled him back and then smacked him into the tree once more. Not willing to get smacked continuously into the tree, Lepodes threw a kick at Flag, which was consequently blocked and grabbed by Flag’s other hand. Lepodes was now locked in a rather difficult position, standing on one leg and having his head grabbed tightly by his opponent. Flag knew this as well and smartly kicked Lepodes’ other leg from the ground, causing Lepodes to lose balance and fall backwards, against the tree and then sliding downwards. Flag let go of Lepodes completely, but then planted his knee in Lepodes’ face. Flag did so once more, but this time, placing his hands on the tree to pull himself towards the tree, to create an even bigger force behind his knee. But Lepodes caught Flag’s knee and immediately followed up with a fist in Flag’s stomach, which made the latter stumble backwards. Lepodes pushed himself forward, towards Flag, and hit him in the face with his fist. A second hit also connected and Flag fell to the ground. But Flag was not out yet. He grabbed a branch from the ground and threw it at Lepodes, whom could easily avoid it, but lost time due to that and was too late to stop Flag from getting up.

“I’m not going down so easily,” Flag said, as he stood up and jumped to the right.

Lepodes turned only his head towards Flag, opened his mouth and said:

“We’ll see about that!”

Flag felt uneasy… Something was not right. He didn’t know what, but he had this feeling that something just happened that was unreal.

“But that’s weird… nothing weird happened just now… right?”

Lepodes ran at Flag and threw a kick at his head. Flag ducked and then threw a punch at Lepodes’ face, which was caught by one of Lepodes’ hands. Lepodes’ leg, which was still in the air, was thrust forward, towards Flag’s face. Flag pushed the leg aside, so it only barely missed his head. And like that, they were locked in those positions. Both were thinking how to get out without giving the opponent the chance to hit them. Lepodes was the first to react after a second. He brought his leg back and pulled Flag closer to him, following that move with a knee right into Flag’s face. Lepodes didn’t let go and prepared to do the same move again, but Flag had recovered quicker than Lepodes had thought and head-butted Lepodes in the stomach with full force. All the air inside Lepodes’ lungs disappeared in that second. He opened his mouth wide open in a desperate reflex to get some air. Spit flew out of his mouth onto Flag, who couldn’t care less about that and instead threw a punch at Lepodes’ chin, which connected perfectly. Lepodes stumbled backwards, tripped over a branch on the ground and fell down. Still without air, Lepodes couldn’t do a single thing. Before he reached the ground, however, Flag grabbed Lepodes by his head and planted his knee in Lepodes’ face. Blood spattered around. Lepodes’ nose seemed to be the cause of it. Flag let go of Lepodes. He fell to the ground and didn’t get up. He lay there motionless…

“Ah, that was fun,” Flag said, smiling as he cracked his knuckles, “Hmm… now, should I kill you or should I not?”

Flag stood there for a moment, contemplating about that and eventually came to a conclusion.

“I’d like to fight you again… maybe we’ll meet again… yeah, I’ll let you live for now,” he said, as he smiled.

He turned around, did one step and froze. He felt something tightening around his neck.

“That dastard! He was still conscious?!” Flag thought, “No, wait… this is not a hand… this feels like rope… a noose!”

His eyesight started to blur all of a sudden. After ten seconds, his eyesight became normal again, but he didn’t see the same he saw before his eyesight began blurring. He was hanging from a rope bound to a tree branch. In front of him stood Lepodes, smiling.

“What… how…”

Lepodes took out his pen and noteblock and starting writing. After a few seconds, he showed Flag the note:

“I’m mute, you idiot,” it said.

Flag saw Lepodes smile getting bigger. Along with white sparks and balls that seemed to erupt in front of him. His eyesight started blurring once more, and the white balls turned darker and darker, until everything before his eyes became dark. His body became limp and the color in his skin started to disappear. Flag had died by suffocation. Lepodes put his hands together, closed his eyes and slightly bowed, the motions usually done to pay respect to the dead.

“May Fwoosh's yard treat you well.”

Lepodes then turned around, grabbed a branch from the ground and walked towards the open place, where the others were fighting.



Now, this might be a bit confusing to you… You’re probably just as confused as Flag… cause, what happened just now? What’s with the noose out of nowhere? Since Lepodes probably won’t explain it for you, I, the almighty writer, will personally explain it for you. Y’see, the moment Flag grabbed Lepodes in the face the first time, he’d already lost. The notebook and pen aren’t Lepodes’ only magical items. Lepodes uses a small blowpipe, which he can, at all times, summon in his mouth. Thus, when Flag grabbed Lepodes in his face, the first thing he did was summon his blowpipe and shoot a poisoned in Flag’s hand. A poison that puts one in a sleep-like state, projecting a dream with the currently greatest desire of the person it’s used on. It was child’s play from that moment on. Lepodes took the rope he had always tied around his waist and hang Flag. The fight was all playing in Flag’s mind.



Meanwhile, between the tents of Yigixo’s camp, two other people were fighting, this time for real, swinging huge weapons around. Mini with her scythe and her opponent, Eyato, with his huge sword. Both weapons weren’t easy to wield, Especially scythes are hard to use in combat, because one must, at all times, keep swinging the scythe. Attacking is swinging, defending is swinging with such force that the weapon of your opponent flinches. In other words, to keep swinging that thing around with such force, Eyato knew Mini was not your average little girl… Her never-changing smile was kind of unsettling as she tried to kill him with her outrageous skill, cutting through tents when they were in the way.

“Can’t let this go on forever. Need to pressure her a bit,” Eyato thought.

Eyato blocked another incoming attack from the right. Aside from her skill, her size was also troublesome. No, not the fact that she was so young, but the fact that ducking was impossible, as she swung that scythe around waist-height. As soon as the scythe was blocked, Mini jumped back, prepared her scythe to strike from the left and jumped bacl at Eyato, swinging her scythe at him, cutting through a tent. Eyato came running at her with the huge sword in his hand, however, with Mini striking from left to right, he had to dodge to the right, to not get cut in two by her scythe, putting his sword in between himself and the scythe. The two weapons clashed and sparks flew up. Eyato went along with Mini’s swing, until he was exactly to Mini’s right. Right then, he turned around and suddenly managed to get close to Mini, without fearing for her scythe, since it was still in full swing and had to be brought back in front of Mini without losing and momentum or force. In other words, Mini was open to any kind of attack. In a lightning quick momevent, Eyato swung his sword horizontally at Mini, almost sure he’d strike and cut her, but he was still underestimating Mini. She immediately let go of her scythe, which disappeared into her hammerspace and bent backwards so as to avoid the sword from striking her. But as the sword passed over her, she already bent forwards again and launched herself at Eyato, taking a small knife out of her left sock. Her first move was trying to slash Eyato’s throat, which failed, since Eyato was too cautious about it to get caught by a move like that. He instead retreated, by jumping backwards. Mini immediately followed by jumping forwards and tried to slash Eyato’s stomach this time, once again failing, this time because she was blocked by Eyato’s sword, which he then immediately used to push her back, before attacking her with a strike downwards from the left to the right, which Mini evaded by jumping back. But in that same move, she skillfully threw her dagger at Eyato. The aim was a little off and the knife instead only cut shallowly through Eyato’s left ear. In a late reflex, Eyato moved his body to his right and immediately felt a knife piercing his right shoulder, which Mini had thrown at Eyato right after the first knife. Mini grinned.

“Seventy points,” she said, before her scythe materialized in her hands.

She jumped at Eyato, but once again, her scythe found Eyato’s sword.

“Come on! Give me an opening already! Lemme cut you!” Mini exclaimed, starting to get a little irritated. Her aggravated face left no impression on Eyato’s, which only angered her more. Mini expected her victims to let themselves get cut up by her. True, she loved a good, fight, but it was no fun if she could only barely make her victim spill any blood… it wouldn’t be a victim anymore. She started gritting her teeth and gave her movements more speed and power on instinct, rather than by will of mind. The next blow Eyato had to receive with his large sword was several times bigger than the last one and surprised him greatly.

“She wasn’t using her full power yet just now?!” it went through his mind, as the little spikes of the chain blade once again had caught Eyato’s blade. Along with physical strength, her magic had also surged. The chainsaw blade had even more power than before.

“This is bad!” Eyato thought, “that wound is a bother to the strength in my right arm! I need to get out of this deadlock. I won’t be able to last longer than this.”

Eyato let go of his weapon and at that very moment, it disappeared, into Eyato’s hammerspace. He jumped back as well and as soon as he hit the ground again, he made his sword appear again. He looked in front of him… but Mini was gone. He looked around him frantically.

“Where did she go! Left?! Right?!”

He looked both ways but couldn’t find her there. It was too late. Before Eyato could realize, he felt something writhing around in his back. The feeling of a chainsaw scythe roaring around in his flesh went through his body and made him scream in pain, as he felt his spine break. He lost the feeling in his legs and fell forward into the grass, as blood sprayed out of the large cut into his back, onto Mini, who was heavily underestimated by Eyato and had moved to Eyato’s back in the very second he averted his eyes from the little green-haired girl. A big grin appeared on Mini’s face.

“Finally!” she yelled, “FINALLY! I cut you! I can see your blood! I can smell it!”

She licked Eyato’s blood from her own face.

“I CAN TASTE IT! How awesome! Your blood is delicious. The mosquitos must have loved you! I wanna cut you more! More blood! More!” Mini screamed as Eyato slowly turned himself around on the ground, unable to fight back anymore. His normally emotionless eyes showed fear now.

“Don’t you die quickly, Eyato. A man like you is very useful to me,” words of Miriya came to him, as he saw how Mini’s scythe disappeared.

“I… I can’t die yet!” he almost whispered. The words were immediately followed by coughing of blood, which was shot into the air and then fell back onto his face, “I made a promise! I can’t die yet!”

“Promise? What the heck are you talking about?” Mini said looking at Eyato like a lion looking at its prey right before devouring it, “Would you shut up? You’re someone that attacked one of my love’s friends! I don’t like you!”

She licked her lips, taking a few more drops of blood onto her tongue.

“Do you know what happens with people I don’t like?”

“I promise. You can count on me to do whatever you want me to. My life is all yours. I don’t die easily, so I’m sure I can be of use to you.”

“They die! I drink their blood. I eat their flesh. That’s all you’re good for. You exist for my pleasure, and my pleasure only! You don’t need that voice of yours anymore. I’ll remove it!”

She drew two knives from her clothes. Where from, Eyato couldn’t see. The movements Mini made were too quick.

“No!”

“Stay still!”

“I can’t!”

Eyato lifted his hands up to stop Mini from what she was about to do, but it didn’t stop Mini one bit. It angered her though.

“What are you lifting your arm up for? It’s in the way! Get it away!”

Mini waited two seconds, but the arm didn’t go away. It was still aimed at her, as a sign of Eyato’s will to fight for his life.

“Didn’t I tell you…,” Mini said, as she let her two knives fall to the ground and grabbed Eyato’s weak arm, “…to put it AWAY!”

She stamped on the upper part of the arm with her foot with enough power to pulverize the bones. As soon as she let it go, it feel to the ground, limp and unable to move. Eyato couldn’t keep in loud screams as he felt one more pain added to the painful and miserable state his body was in. It angered Mini even more.

“Shut up, I told you! You’re not good at listening! You need to learn how to listen!”

She picked up the knives, lifted one up and was about to bring it down into Eyato’s throat, when her arm was grabbed by an arm: Eyato’s injured, right arm. It seemed to surprise Mini for a bit.

“I… can’t die… yet…”

Mini snapped. Eyato had pushed her over her limit.

“I hate you!” she said. She tightened the grip on the knives in both her fists.

“I HATE YOU!” she screamed, as she pierced Eyato’s right arm with the knife in her free hand… once… twice… thrice… she kept plunging the knife into his arm, but the grip on Mini’s left arm wouldn’t go away. It was weak, but it wouldn’t disappear.

“Grrrr… RAAAAH!” she yelled as she shook her own arm free from Eyato’s grip. She stood up and started stamping on Eyato’s arm. But not a single scream came from Eyato. In all her anger, Mini hadn’t noticed that Eyato’s previous words were the last words to ever come out of his mouth. He had bled to death. It took Mini a full minute to realize this. A full minute of trampling Eyato’s right arm.

“Dead,” Mini said as she realized it, panting heavily from anger. She looked down at Eyato’s abused corpse. Impressively, his hand was still weakily clenched into a fist. She stared at him for a while, now and then looking up to see whether someone was near. She noticed two of Yigixo’s men cowering in fear in one tent, looking at her. She didn’t bother with them. She had been surprised too much by Eyato’s persistance. Normally she would have eaten him… drank his blood. But for some reason, she didn’t want to.

“I hate him! I should eat him! I should! Yet, why?!”

She couldn’t understand. She didn’t know what she was feeling. What she didn’t know was that this feeling is described by most people as respect.

“He never did anything! He was just like all the others I cut up! He begged for his life too! He struggled too!”

Mini remembered the look in Eyato’s eyes. True, fear was written in them. But so was determination. She had never seen those eyes on the face of a dying man before. Frankly, this feeling made her angry. She looked at the clenched fist of the dead Eyato one more time, before turning around and walking away from the corpse. She summoned her scythe once more.

“I need to find Dergez”



While Mini had been fighting and winning, Dergez had been fighting with the feeling that he could lose at any moment. This polite guy was a tough nut. Rimmin surpassed Dergez in both skill and physical strength. Dergez started to think this Rimmin wasn’t an average swordsman like Dergez had assumed when he had first started crossing swords with him. The way Rimmin kept zig-zagging… and with that speed… it showed experience and a lot of training, which had almost perfected the technique. Movements like that didn’t waste any unneeded movement, were above Dergez’ skill. Aside from the bad situation Dergez was in, with every move he did, he felt his own diner rising from his stomach to his mouth again. That blow he got from Rimmin was one he would never forget again. The two were facing each other. Dergez with a painful face, Rimmin with the face of a butler. Emotionless, yet one you would trust in a second… a strong expression. The sword he held in his hand was pointed slightly at Dergez, but mostly at the sky.

“You impress me, sir Dergez,” Rimmin said, with the same face.

“Leave your sarcastic remarks for some other time,” Dergez said angrily, grabbing his sword tighter. With a loud yell, he attacked Rimmin. Their swords clashed twice, before Rimmin managed once more to hit Dergez’ stomach, this time through a kick. Another load of puke came out of Dergez mouth as the kick disabled him to keep it all in. He collapsed backwards to the ground, holding his hand over the place where he’d been kicked, as if it would ease his pain. Rimmin didn’t attack any further and allowed Dergez to stand up, however. He let a great chance to kill Dergez go away. Somehow, it made Dergez furious.

“You could’ve killed me there! You could’ve killed me more than twenty times before that, I think.

“Hmm,” Rimmin said, smiling, as he witnessed Dergez trying to hold in the puke and standing up with difficulty, “y’see, I have this strange hobby. I collect human body parts. It is my goal to assemble body parts from every nationality in this world, to make one human for each nationality. Each part from another human. Hmm… I’ve got most of the Dervinian body assembled already. I think I only needed two toes, the left arm and… oh, yeah… the brain and left eye.”

Dergez listened to this in awe and confusion.

“What is this guy talking about? Assembling bodies?! Why is he telling me this in the first place?”

“Hmm… let’s make a deal! I’ll let you live, sir Dergez. In exchange, I want one of the body parts I don’t have yet… of course, taken from your body.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not Dervinian.”

That seemed to surprise Rimmin a little.

“Oh? How convenient. Then what nationality are you?”

The expression on Dergez’ face turned grim.

“That is none of your business.”

“What’s with the sudden change of mood, sir Dergez?” Rimmin asked, “Did the question perhaps remind you of something unpleasant, perhaps?”

“Shut up!” Dergez yelled, as he charged at Rimmin once more.

“Hmm… maybe I should try to find out for myself,” Rimmin mumbled to himself. He stepped aside in a quick motion to avoid Dergez’ first strike. He did so a few more times, before mumbling to himself:

“I guess I need to cut you after all to make sure.”

He let his sword go, while evading one more attack. He stretched his arm into the air and a completely purple, double-edged sword appeared in his hand. He ducked for one more of Dergez’ strikes.

“I’m going ahead and collect your right arm, sir Dergez,” Rimmin said, before he skillfully evaded yet another strike of Dergez and cut right through Dergez arm. The arm, cut from the main body right under the shoulder, fell right to the ground. The sword in his severed hand fell the ground right next to the hand. Dergez fell backwards to the ground with a scream, but then noticed something strange. There was no blood… no pain… in fact, he could still feel his arm. He could even move it… just like how he could normally move it… this was beyond freaky.

“There we go,” Rimmin said, as he grabbed the arm from the floor,” this is a nice sample. Now let’s see your nationality.”

It was silent for five seconds. After those five seconds, Rimmin started smiling.

“How lucky I am today. How utterly lucky! You are a Dorbobian! It surprises me to even find a Dorbobian here! Do you know how much of a unique person you are?!”

Dergez just looked at Rimmin with wide eyes and an expression that told Rimmin he was utterly shocked that Rimmin found out.

“How… how did he know!?”

“But that’s strange. I heard that most Dorbobians were wiped out by the Yugihalgara. You truly are rare. I’m never gonna get my hands on a great sample like you ever again. I’m gonna cut you up more! I have to get all your parts!”

Just as he said that, he felt a presence behind him, looked around him and saw a blade coming right at his head. Just in time, Rimmin bent backwards and the blade went right over his head.

“What… WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO DERGEZ!”

A little, green-haired girl stood in front of him holding a giant scythe.

“This is gonna be a little harder, it seems.”

The arm disappeared, just like a magical weapon would disappear when it was being brought back in one’s personal hammerspace.

“There will be nothing left of you when I’m done with you!” the green-haired girl screamed angrily.



“Oh, how nostalgic,” Miriya said, as she was floating in mid-air, at least a hundred particles of earth floating around her. The little pieces of rock changed shape and turned into small, long needles. Miriya then moved her hand, with the Staff of Gravity in it, at Xyle, who was standing about ten meters away from here, on the ground. The pieces of stone flew at high speed at Xyle. Xyle didn’t move however, but instead pointed his spear at the incoming needles. At once, the needles fell apart and instead of being pierced by rock needles, sand rained down on him. But Xyle had no time to pay attention to the sand. He moved his spear backwards right away and lifted it up behind his back, making a rock shield come up from the ground behind his back. And that was just in time, as, the second after it had been created, the wall cracked and fell apart into small stones.

“You’re too predictable!” Xyle said, as he had already moved aside, away from the pieces of rock that fell onto the ground on the place where Xyle had stood, “a child could have known that you would appear behind me.”

“Now you’re exaggerating,” Miriya said, “are you saying a child is stronger than me?”

“That depends on what child we’re talking about.”

“If you’re not stronger than me, than a child isn’t either,” Miriya said, smiling.

“We’ll see about that.”

Xyle started spinning his spear above his head. Around Miriya, rock started to rise up and tried to trap her in some kind of sphere.

“Too slow!” Miriya yelled as she moved the staff around her and the stone walls trying to envelop her cracked and then fell backwards in pieces by the strong gravity wave Miriya sent.

“You’re not taking this serious enough, young lad! Come at me with attacks that might actually work or you’ll die!”

Miriya aimed her staff at Xyle. Xyle got an ominous feeling and jumped aside… just in time, as the earth split open where he had stood.

“How did she do that?!”

Miriya aimed once more for Xyle, but Xyle didn’t obediently stand still and once again jumped aside. This time a tree right behind Xyle was split in two.

“I see now. She establishes a magnetic force of both either pluses or minuses, creating two forces pushing away from each other. If such a force were to be established inside my body, it would be ripped apart!”

“Fine!”

“I’m gonna die if I don’t release more than 3 rings in this whole fight anyways...”

Xyle lifted his left, free hand up to eye-hight and said:

“Two more will be more than enough for you.”

He let his hand fall down and two more rings fell of his hand. Now his complete left hand was without rings.

“Oh? Rings?” Miriya said interested, “Power limiters… I see... This could be fun.”

She touched the ground with her staff and immediately shot up. Underneath her, spikes of earth shot up. She tried to find Xyle, but he had already left his spot and had disappeared somewhere between the spikes, which were following her through the sky. She sent a gravity wave at the spikes, which were following her, crushing them, but the spikes continued from another point that wasn’t crushed and continued following her.

“So this time, it won’t help, huh?” Miriya said, smiling, “Let’s try another approach shall we…”

She pointed her staff at the spikes which were coming dangerously close to her. However, the spikes went down and pierced the ground, before shattering into pieces. Miriya had simply heavily increased the gravity pull right underneath the spikes, so they would go down. However, before the spikes had even reached the ground, new spikes continued where the previous ones left off…

“This is not helping a thing. I’m just defending here and I’m not doing a very great job at it. What’s Yigixo doing! The preparations should be complete by now!”

Miriya sent another gravity wave at the spikes pursuing her and shattered them.

“I need to find that guy! Only then can I switch to the attack.”

She looked around but couldn’t find him, until her eyes fell onto the forest.

“You coward,” she smiled, “hiding in the forest, aren’t you?”

Right at that moment, a set of pillars underneath her shot up to hit her. She was barely able to avoid them and shattered them before those too, would pursue her. The next moment, she felt something piercing her neck. The blade had entered right underneath her neck and went on to pierce several of her organs.

“From above! So he sent himself upwards on one of those pillars out of my eyesight. Hid himself in the sand. DANGIT!”

She reached her hands behind her back and discovered that the blade piercing her was a spear.

“His spear?! Maybe this is my lucky day after all!”

She grabbed it and pulled it out in one motion and one long scream of pain. As soon as she saw the spear, she let it fall down the earth. It was just a spear made of normal rock. Blood streamed down her back in abundance, but she didn’t mind. Slowly, the wound started regenerating.

“Like I thought,” Miriya heard a voice behind her. She turned around and saw Xyle standing on another pillar, “You’re a vampire, alright. To think I’d meet one here.”

Miriya smiled.

“And… what are you gonna do now? Gonna freak out? Call me disgusting?”

Xyle sighed.

“You truly think I’m a guy like that? I don’t discriminate against other species.”

“Oh, you can be honest. I couldn’t care less… I heard too many bad things from humans to really care at this point,” Miriya said.

“No, I was actually honest just now. I don’t discriminate against vampires like the majority of humanity does.”

Miriya started laughing.

“Oh, how I wish I could make you into one of my subordinates. However, your last hour has come. The preparations are complete.”

She paused for a second, before she yelled:

“Yiggy! Go ahead!”

Immediately, Xyle felt the pillar he was standing on collapse and… turning into liquid.

“What’s going on?!”

He fell onto the ground… or at least, he was expecting the ground. Instead, he fell into some kind of tough liquid. He looked around him and realized what exactly was going on! The whole ground had become muddy… not just a little muddy… It was like a lake of mud. As far as Xyle could see, the ground had turned into mud. Mud which he was slowly sinking into.

“Curse you, Yigixo!”



Extra:



The Almighty Writer: Wait, what? Extra? What’s this?

Flag: Extra indeed! I have to tell you something, you scum!

The Almighty Writer: Hey! Be a little polite to your creator!

Flag: Like Fwoosh's yard I will! Don’t you think you offed me far too quickly!

The Almighty Writer: You were an expendable character. Not all that important. Now, let me end the chapter already

Flag: You shall not end this chapter! Not before you have explained to the audience what my power was. You didn’t even explain that! You’re confusing your audience, you idiot!

The Almighty Writer: Hey! Don’t tell me how to write!

Flag: You cannot end this chapter without explaining my power

The Almighty Writer: *sigh* Fine, fine… Basically, it’s Flag’s shoes. They’re magical items that make him reach unusual high speeds. Now, are you satisfied?

Flag: Like Fwoosh's yard I am! I’m dead! How could I be satisfied. Maybe you could bring me back to life.

The Almighty Writer: As if! There’s not even a single reason to bring you back to life. Not to say, it’s impossible in your world! Now, can I end this chapter!

Flag: Fine, fine… Go ahead… end it!

The Almighty Writer: Good… well… one last word to you, my dear reader. Thanks for reading this chapter. I hope you enjoyed. Tell me what you think about it! All reactions are appreciated!

Chapter 10: Virus! Use Hydra Pump!



"This really isn't working… we're never going to find him like this. Wouldn't it be far better to go back to where the battles are playing? We might actually be useful there."

"Say, Herene, shouldn't we just-"

"Shut your mouth for a moment!" Herene said, as she continued to bring down any trees she saw with the big tree in her hand, "He'll hear us…"

"You little…!"

"But, uhm… aren't you making more noise right now?"

"I'm not," Herene said stubbornly.

"This girl… honestly…!"

"I think you are," Caylos said, starting to mix his emotion of annoyance in his voice.

"You're wrong."

Caylos was angry now.

"Stop that," he said, "stop that right now!"

"I told you to…" Herene started. Someone grabbed her arm however, which made her shut up in surprise.

"I said stop."

Caylos had a determined expression on his face.

"W-What do you think you're doing, touching me!"

She let the tree fall to the ground with a muffled "bam". She turned around and hit Caylos in the face, whom flew three meters backwards, before hitting the ground. He stood up right away and angrily walked over to Herene once more, who was confused by Caylos' behaviour.

"What do YOU think you're doing!"

"Y-You touched me! Of course I would hit you!" Herene yelled back.

"That's not the point! You're not listening to me!"

Herene didn't say anything back. She just stared at Caylos angrily, waiting for him to continue.

"I propose we go back," Caylos said.

"We can't, you idiot! We can't leave this guy here alone!"

"We're leaving him alone as we speak!" Caylos yelled, "Whether we go back or continue this, doesn't matter. We won't be able to find him either way!"

"We need to keep pressuring him, Caylos! We can't let him send those clones to the open field!"

"He's already doing that!"

"He isn't! He should be concentrating on not being found by us!"

"You're wrong! Think for a second! What's the chance of us finding him? And don't give me one of your stubborn answers, or I'll hit you!"

"I'm a girl, you can't-"

"Zero! Zero procent! Not a chance!"

"That…" Herene said, a little taken aback, "We don't know that for sure… I'm sure there's a little chance-"

"You're too stubborn! You're not thinking realistically! The chance is never zero, but it's so close to it, that we don't need to bother distinguishing between zero and the chance of us finding him."

"W-What's with you! You're quite bossy all of a sudden!"

"If I'm not, we'll never achieve anything!"

Herene tried to hold her anger and urge to hit Caylos in…

"T-Then what do you propose?"

"Go back, of course. Slamming down trees is the last we should do!"

Herene said nothing for ten seconds and then moved her head away from Caylos.

"Fine! Have it your way."

"Good. Now let's get going."

Caylos tried to move his leg, but for some reason, the ground was sucking at it, trying to keep it on the ground.

"Huh?"

Surprised, Caylos looked down… and saw that his feet and part of his legs had already sunk into mud. Herene had also realized what was going on.

"W-What's happened all of a sudden! Where did this mud come from!"

Caylos managed to get one foot out, but because of that, the weight of his body was put all on the other leg and he fell backwards into the mud. Luckily, the mud was still composed of enough sand that he could work himself up without sinking into the mud too much. Herene had managed to free herself without falling and was now walking around, because standing still would result in sinking into the mud again.

"Something happened! This wasn't here before," Caylos said, as he turned around and looked at where the other fights were taking place. Suddenly a sound came from behind him. He knew that sound! Caylos looked back and saw a tree slowly falling down.

"Herene! Look out!" Caylos yelled immediately.

"What the heck are you yelling for, you idiot! I'm not even near that tree!" Herene's voice sounded behind him.

"Oh, you're there," he said, as he turned around, "Sorry, I was worried about you."

Herene blushed as she held up her fist.

"Do you want me to hit you again!"

"You're forbidden to do that," Caylos told her. It only made Herene want to hit Caylos more. Caylos turned around as the tree fell into the mud. More trees around them were starting to lean to one side, slowly falling.

"They're all falling," Caylos said.

"You're completely right, Sherlock! I hadn't noticed yet!" Herene said.

"You can't say a single nice thing, can you?" Caylos said, glaring back at Herene.

"Shut up, you're saying stupid things. I'm not blind, I can see those trees falling as well. You don't have to tell me."

"I wasn't talking to you!"

Herene snorted.

"Who were you talking to then? That tree?"

"N-No… I…" Caylos realized how pointless this conversation was, "Oh, forget it! We need to go back…"

He wanted to turn around, when he realized it…

"Wait… if the trees are falling…"

He turned to Herene, who apparently hadn't realized yet what Caylos had.

"Herene, if there are no trees anymore, then that guy won't be able to hide anymore! It'll be easier to find him."

"Do you think I can fight with all this mud?"

"Do you think he can? Besides, we have the trees to walk on."

"It's still tricky!" Herene said.

"Do we have a choice?"

Herene sighed.

"First you want me to go back and now you want me to search again?"

As more trees slowly fell, Herene and Caylos started searching for Minjo. It was indeed a stroke of luck for Herene and Caylos… and at the same time, it would cause them more trouble then they could have ever imagined. And the first signs of this trouble started soon after they started searching for Minjo.

Herene and Caylos were mostly walking on the fallen trees, so they wouldn't get sucked into the mud all the time. Almost all trees had fallen onto the ground… only a few kept standing stubbornly against the dimly-lit night sky.

"This still isn't easy," Caylos said, looking around for a shadow that might indicate Minjo's presence.

"Uh-huh."

Herene knew what Caylos was talking about.

"We still don't know where exactly to search."

"You don't have to explain that to me!" Herene said, jumping from one fallen tree to another. Caylos stood still for a moment and looked at the place where the rest was fighting. It was not completely visible, but Caylos could see people walking around and fighting. Now and then, he saw stone pillars rise up.

"It seems Xyle is having a hard time… not surprisingly. He can control earth and this whole element is now mixed with water."

"Oi!"

Caylos looked around and saw that Herene had already passed him.

"Move on, you idiot!"

"Y-yes!"

But just as Caylos started walking, Herene stopped.

"Do you hear that?"

Caylos stood still once more and listened carefully… he only faintly heard sounds coming from the fights in Yigixo's camp.

"Nothing special."

"I can't put my finger on it… I think it's underneath us."

"What are you hearing? I can't hear a thing, aside from the sound coming from Yigixo's camp."

Herene didn't say anything for a few seconds, focusing her hearing on this faint sound she picked up from underneath her.

"It's like… something insanely big is burrowing through the mud underneath us."

"That would be bad," Caylos thought.

Caylos knew that now was not the time the doubt Herene's words.

"If that's true, then shouldn't we go away? If it's big, it might be hostile!"

Herene turned to Caylos and nodded and then started running away, on the fallen trees. That wasn't easy, since trees, even when lying on the ground, aren't made for running upon. Especially when they're lying in mud.

"Do you still hear it?"

"I do… It's like it's following us! And I think it's coming closer. No wait! It's already passed us!" Herene suddenly thought of something it might be.

"Caylos! TURN AROUND! WE NEED TO GET-"

Her words were cut off, because she was too surprised to say anything else. A monster had risen from the mud. A snake like creature with too many heads to count. It was at least as wide as 50 trees bound together… if not more! It was dripping with some kind of weird liquid and the creature itself looked and smelled disgusting… Especially the smell gave both Herene and Caylos the urge to throw up. It was staring right at the two humans in front of him. All of the heads!

"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap!" Herene exclaimed, with wide-open eyes, with fear visibly present.

"W-What is that?!" Caylos yelled in surprise.

"A Hydra Virus! We need to get away!" Herene yelled back.

Herene started running away, Caylos followed her immediately. The Virus, a quite rare, but extremely dangerous monster-like creature, didn't move… well… that's how it seemed. Herene and Caylos hadn't even walked more than ten meters, when something else rose up in front of them…

"The tail!"

The movements of the Virus were quick as lightning and before either could react, they were both hit hard by the tail and the impact made them fly through the air. Caylos landed head-first into the mud. If it had been solid ground, his neck would have undoubtedly broken. Herene managed to somehow land on her feet, but she came down hard, and was buried in the mud till her waist.

"No, no, no! Why?!"

The heads of the Hydra Virus closed in on her, as she desperately tried to get herself out of the mud, pulling herself up on a tree.

"One leg out!"

But the Virus wasn't waiting for her to get her other leg out. The head that had been slowly moving in on her, suddenly went for the kill in a very quick movement. But before Herene could be eaten, she grabbed the tree she was pulling herself up from, swung it around and hit the Virus in the attacking head, which granted her extra time to pull herself up on another tree. The virus shrieked from all its heads… it was a sound that sent a chill through your spine and every other part of your body.

"Finally got the other one out."

She quickly stood on the tree she pulled herself up from and jumped away. The Virus had tried yet another attack. Just as she came down from her jump, she jumped aside one more time, as another head, came dangerously close to her. The Virus didn't wait for its next attack. Unlike what you see in tv-shows, this monster didn't give Herene any chance to escape from it. Herene jumped again, reinforcing her jump with magic so she jumped higher. This was so she would land on top of the head that tried to eat her. Immediately, the Virus started shaking its head, to get Herene off, but Herene had grabbed one of the beasts scales and was determined not to let go. When this didn't help, the Virus used another tactic. It kept the head with Herene on top still, and had the other heads attack Herene. Herene had extreme difficulty with avoiding the continuous attacks. Unlike what you read in books or see on the tv, this monster wasn't so stupid as to bite off its own head.

"I've been too positive to expect that!" Herene thought to herself. Yet another head attacked and Herene jumped up, reinforcing it with magic once again, to jump on top of this attacking head. She grabbed a scale once more, while she drew back her other arm and turned her hand into a fist. The next second, the Virus felt that it wasn't the only powerful creature in this fight. It might be a gigantic creature, but a clean hit from Herene was still very powerful… like, imagine a one hundred kilograms heavy boulder falling on top of you. Magic is a very good tool to make yourself stronger and Herene was an expert in applying magic to hits, jumps and running, enabling her to do things a normal human would never be able to do.

"So hitting you DOES work!"

The head that she hit, shrieked and right after that, the others followed and started attacking Herene furiously.

"Tough dastard!" Herene yelled at the Virus, while she started running and jumping away from the attacking heads again. Soon enough, she reached the place where the head connected with the main body. However, as she stepped onto the main body, the Virus started moving it's whole body, but this was within Herene's expectations. This didn't work however, as once more, Herene grabbed one of the monster's scales and held on to it for dear life. Herene had underestimated the intelligence of this Virus, however. It stopped shaking. Instead of needlessly trying to shake her off or biting her with one of the many heads, the virus dove right into the mud and obviously, the main body followed after the heads. The movement was so quick and unexpected that Herene wasn't fast enough to avoid getting smacked quite deep into the mud. Before she could even stand up and work herself out of the mud, the heads had already risen from the mud again and were hovering in front of Herene. This time, there was no tree that could help her get out… and she was still hopelessly stuck!

"Dangiiiiiiit!"

The Virus decided to not hesitate any longer, moved one head a little closer to Herene than the others and then, with a move as quick as lightning, went for the kill. Herene closed her eyes in her last moment, when she heard a loud shriek that pained her ears, followed by more shrieks from the other heads. Herene quickly opened her eyes to see what had happened. What she saw surprised her. Only a few meters above her was the head of the Virus. It had an axe in its eye and desperately trying to hold on to that axe was Caylos, as the Virus was trying to shake him off.

"C-Caylos…"

Herene had already seen that the other heads had stopped targeting her and instead started targeting Caylos. One head had already launched an attack on Caylos, whom was still clinging onto the axe. However, the shaking of the injured head made it impossible to aim.

"Strange," Herene thought as she tried to free herself from the mud as quick as possible, "I thought the Virus was more intelligent than that… if it would just hold its head still for a moment, Caylos would be an acquired prey."

Then the answer came to Herene.

"I see! Those heads all have their own brain and as such, even though they can normally cooperate very efficiently with each other, the injured one seems to have forgotten all about cooperation, due to the injury!"

Indeed. Compare this with a group of friends, when one of the arms of one of those friends is blown off or lost due to another reason, the last thing he would do is listen quietly and without movement to the others, even though they might be very good in cooperating. A human is automatically driven to somehow try to ease the pain, stop the bleeding, even though, with just a hand, neither of that could be done. The friend would be rolling on the ground, screaming, barely able to listen to others. It's the same with this Virus.

"But dangit, I should've noticed this earlier! The reason why, when hit, first only the head that was hit screams and only after that, the others follow, is because every head has its own brain and feels its own pain. Head number 1 won't feel the pain afflicted on head number 2. They'll probably all feel pain afflicted to the main body, though."

By the end of that thought, Herene had freed herself from the mud.

"It's time I score a few points!"

"First things first… I need to get Caylos down!"

She jumped onto a tree and from there made a jump, reinforced with magic, so she could reach the Virus' head. She sent a powerful kick to the head, making it bend backwards together with the neck through her force.

"Dangit!" she heard Caylos yell! "Isn't the eye always the weak spot?! Why is it not disappearing in a puff of smoke?!"

"Like heck it will, you idiot! Do you want me to hit you?!"

"Sure! And while you're at it, please GET ME DOOOooooown!"

A sudden movement from the head had Caylos lose grip on the handle of the axe and was launched in the air. Right before impact, Caylos realized that the mud was to his rescue this time. Had this been normal ground, he wouldn't survive this without breaking at least a few bones. But instead of breaking bones, Caylos landed in the mud with his back without breaking anything.

"Well… at least Herene is safe… for now…"

Caylos quickly tried to get out from the mud.

"Herene! Hang in there!"

"That axe might be the best weapon we have to defeat this huge thing!" Herene thought as she looked at the Hydra Virus. The injured head looked for a moment at the place where Caylos had landed, but then lost attention and turned to Herene instead

"I need to get away!"

Herene ran away to her right, while keeping an eye on the head with the injury. Strangely, the bloody eye seemed to slowly… regenerate?

"Is it regenerating? Wait! Those things can regenerate?! I need that axe! If I don't hurry, it'll fall out of its eye and fall into the mud! I won't be able to reach it anymore if that happens!"

The Virus started to get impatient and instead of launching just one head at Herene, launched its whole body at Herene.

"WHOA!"

In the split second, Herene saw that running away wouldn't help. The Virus wasn't going to hit the ground, if she just jumped away and ran. The heads would never actually hit the ground, bend and then grab her. No, her only chance was to evade those heads. And while evading 15 heads sounds hard, at most three would be able to reach her if they would all attack. She had to get between two of those heads, to get out of reach of the other heads. But this needed perfect timing and good coordination… Cause those heads weren't coming straight at her. They moved and they would also move towards Herene if she were to step away from the path of one head. There was no more time to think! The heads came at her with full speed. In the same moment, Herene ran towards the heads, looked at a certain spot, between the heads and jumped. As expected, two heads moved towards each other, both wanting to eat Herene. There was no gap left… or was there? At first sight, there wasn't. However, Only the fronts of the open mouths touched each other. To describe it better, just put your two thumbs and pointer fingers together at a 45 degree angle, there's still a gap, even though it feels like jumping into the mouths of both snakes… and if you don't aim carefully and go a little more to the right or left, you WOULD end up in the mouths of one of the two heads. However, Herene managed to pull off this move correctly and landed on the neck of another snake. She quickly pulled herself up on the scales of another neck, repeating the move until she saw the head with the axe in its eye. She was shocked to see that it was almost falling out of the eye.

"Dangit! Gotta hurry!"

But that was easier said than done. The virus was still furious and wouldn't let Herene just walk over it. Once again, it tried to eat Herene, but every single time, Herene managed to evade the attacks as she came closer and closer to the head with the axe in its eye… but it was also getting looser and looser.

Closer.

Looser.

Closer!

Looser!

Herene had finally reached the injured head and jumped at the axe, as the regenerative powers of the virus pushed it out of its eye completely. But Herene managed to grab the axe just before it became out of reach. The problem was that she was now falling back towards the mud. But just before she could hit the ground, someone snatched her out of the air. This someone being Caylos again, of course. Instead of Herene getting stuck in the mud, it was Caylos, while Herene, whom fell on top of him, kind of, could stand up right away.

"Oh, perfect, Caylos. It surprises me that you can be this useful," she said with a smile.

Some grumbles came from the place where Caylos mouth probably was, smacked into a load of mud. Herene chuckled as she turned around and faced the Hydra Virus with a huge smirk, balancing the heavy axe on her left shoulder, while she held its handle with her right arm.

"Time for the counterattack, you monster!"

Extra:

Herene: *punches Speedy*

Speedy: Hey! What was that for!

Herene: You're late! This chapter should've been finished ages ago! Why didn't you finish it earlier!

Speedy: Well, that's because, uh… uhm… Ah, it's because I-

Herene: …you're lazy.

Speedy: No, that's not what I was going to say.

Herene: You were going to feed the readers with more of your lies, weren't you.

Speedy: N-no, of course not! ¬¬

Herene: *hits Speedy again* I don't care anyways… continue this!

Speedy: Yes, ma'am!