Zich walked up a mountain. It was a deep forest where not even paths for mountain beasts existed, much less an organized road. A thick cluster of trees blocked his vision and every time he took a step, his foot flattened a bush. Occasionally, protruding tree roots or caved-in terrain tried to trip him but failed to hinder him. In this place where only hunters or herb gatherers might tread in besides beasts and monsters, Zich kept a steadfast pace. After all, Zich was someone who preferred to walk in a straight line on a map even if the terrain in front of him was a mountain or lake.
‘It’s quiet.’ Zich looked up at the sky. The moonlight quietly seeped from the small gap between the thicket of trees. Cries from numerous insects rang throughout the surroundings, and Zich heard the roar of a mysterious beast from some distance away. Yet, Zich felt an extreme sense of serenity.
‘Now that I think about it, how long has it been since I wandered around alone?’
Even before the regression, he gathered his underlings before fighting the world; after the regression, he traveled with Hans from the moment he left the Steelwalls. In other words, it had been a very long time ago since Zich traveled alone.
‘Hm, this is good in its own way, but it also has its drawbacks.’
When he traveled in a group, he tortured—no, trained Hans and Snoc while exchanging meaningless jokes with Lyla. And from now on, Elena would be included in this group.
‘Have I already become accustomed to the situation?’
If the people who loathed him before the regression saw Zich right now, they might have gasped in shock and denied the reality before them.
Crack!
While Zich was deep in his thoughts, he heard the sound of a tree branch snapping close by. Something was approaching him. Was it a beast? However, the presence he sensed suggested something else. Zich took out Windur from his back; it was still the stubborn sword that didn’t display its transformation abilities unless it determined it to be necessary. Its branch-like blades reflected the seeping moonlight.
Kurgh!
It was a cry that clearly didn’t belong to a human. While laying Windur flat, Zich scanned his surroundings. In the thicket of trees, there was nothing that caught his eyes. Yet, Zich managed to grasp their movements perfectly.
‘There’s seven of them in total.’
His opponents were orcs. They were monsters that he met whenever he crossed through the mountains. Although he usually made Hans and Snoc get rid of them, they weren’t with him right now.
‘Am I seriously missing those guys right now?’ Zich smirked. It was a truly funny situation. ‘Well, I was bored. This is good.’
Zich raised Windur slowly, and Windur looked as if it was growling while baring its fangs. ‘They would help get rid of my boredom.’
Crash!
Orcs burst out with their chilling shrieks. Zich’s arm muscles wavered as he swung Windur. A terrifying scream rang across the forest for a moment before it fell into a deep silence again.
* * *
A large path stretched out from the center of a big city in all directions. On flat land where there wasn’t a single mountain in sight, the towering city seemed to look down on the pedestrians passing by it because of the lack of tall natural landscapes in the surroundings. Many people traveled back and forth from this city: merchants dragged loaded carriages with the items they planned to sell while travelers walked busily with their staffs as support. Indeed, it was no exaggeration to say that Marquess Campbell’s territory was the center of logistics and commerce.
Zich was one of the people walking this path. He walked leisurely and surveyed his surroundings.
‘It really is going to be bothersome.’
Bandits tended to keep their hideouts inside the mountains since it was the best way to escape from subjugation armies. However, there was nothing that could be considered a mountain nearby—there were just a couple of small hills. There were several forests a bit of a distance away from the city that the bandits could possibly hide in, but they weren’t that big either. Thus, it was a wonder how bands of bandits were roaming around in a place like this.
However, it was clear that bandits were in this area. People walking on the center of the road backed away from both sides as troops passed by them. While heavily armored, the soldiers observed all their surroundings warily with piercing eyes. Their gazes shot more sharply to those holding weapons, and their eyes even lingered on Zich for a bit and disappeared.
They weren’t doing simple surveillance. It seemed like they were there to prevent bandits from ambushing the streets or entering the city, and the situation looked serious. A long line stretched across the road, starting from the castle walls. Security had been heightened around this checkpoint area because of the presence of bandits. Zich fumbled with the magic box in his belongings; inside, there was a plaque and certificate, which he got from Joachim, that could prove his identity. If he showed the guards these items, he would be able to pass through the walls immediately. However, Zich took his hands off the box.
‘I should move alone for now.’
If he approached the city’s administrators to report to them, they might end up trying to control his actions and behaviors. There was no one in this place like Joachim who could guarantee Zich the utmost level of freedom. For now, Zich planned to run all around the city’s surroundings with no specific area in mind and look for the bandits by searching for their presence.
Zich quietly stood behind a long line stretching from the entrance of the castle’s walls. He was tapping the ground with his feet while waiting in line when the castle walls suddenly burst open and troops rushed out. While riding on horses, soldiers sprinted across the road at a fast speed; in surprise, people scurried to the side.
Zich stared at them. ‘Did something happen?’
Perhaps, there was a bandit ambush. Zich quietly stepped out of the line and activated the invisibility artifact that Lyla had made for him. Thankfully, since people’s attention was focused on the troops that had just rushed past them, they didn’t notice Zich’s disappearance.
The troops went straight across the road and took a sharp right turn in front of a split path. Zich followed the soldiers and also ran towards the right path. He ran for a while until he saw people with frozen expressions. Some people’s faces were even pale with fear. Something was definitely up.
After a while, the soldiers reached their destination, and Zich hid near their surroundings. The place they reached was a path that cut through a small forest near Bambis. It seemed as if the city continuously took care of this path since it was quite wide. However, the path that had always acted as a wonderful guide to peacefully lead people to their next destination had changed into a horrific scene of carnage.
Even though most of the remains had seeped into the soil, people could see the horrors of the slaughter from the blackened road. There were bodies on the ground, but they had been mutilated to such an extent that it was difficult to identify them. The soldiers came down from their horses and began controlling the situation. The people walking on the road began to move to one side of the road or slowly moved along. The onlookers gazing at the horrifying scene also began to scatter.
Zich maintained a safe distance away from the commotion and climbed on top of a tree to secure a clear view. The gruesome scene on the road came into view.
‘Monsters didn’t do this.’
Even though the corpses were destroyed to the extent where one could barely tell they were human, Zich was sure of this. There were sharp knife marks on the corpses; it was definitely the work of humans. Moreover, the corpses were naked; no matter how poor someone was, nobody went around naked, so it was safe to assume that they had their clothes taken away from them.
‘It seems like the bandits did this.’
In reality, the soldiers looking at the scene also said that as well. It was impossible to identify the victims. Needless to say, they couldn’t determine the corpses’ statuses since they had been mutilated to unrecognizable shapes. People glanced at the terrifying scene as they walked by; their faces were filled with horror. However, Zich was indifferent. He had seen way too much blood in his life for this kind of event to stir his heart.
On the other hand, he even thought, ‘If I fix an extremely serious event like this, it would probably be very helpful to Joachim.’
Zich quietly moved away. There was nothing more he could learn from this place. He secretly removed the invisibility spell so that no one around the forest could notice him. Then, he blended in with the people walking on the road. After a while, he was able to enter Bambis.
* * *
Zich first found lodging to stay in and wandered around the city. As expected of the hub of Campbell estate’s trade and commerce, the streets in Bambis overflowed with people. Rare items were displayed in front of houses where people lived. People’s faces were vibrant and full of life, but there also seemed to be traces of nervousness in them.
‘It must be because of the bandits.’
Zich wandered around the city for a while, and then the sun began to set. He began to grow hungry. Zich decided to eat dinner and return back to his lodging for today. Rather than a fancy meal, Zich looked for places to eat a simple meal and have a glass of alcohol. Zich made a small smile because his situation was very different from a few days ago when he and his companions energetically moved around to find a place to eat.
‘Was I such a sentimental guy?’ Zich didn’t know if he should get angry that his heart had softened, or if he should be surprised that he had this kind of sentimentality.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter. If I like it, I should just live like that.’ Zich was about to go to a restaurant in front of him when he slightly moved to the side.
Crash!
The door of the restaurant roughly opened, and one person came flying out. The person rolled on the ground several times and stopped moving; it seemed as if they had lost consciousness. Passersby began murmuring to themselves at the sudden commotion. Zich went inside the store and saw a mess.
The tables and chairs were flipped over, and some of the chairs were also broken. Food and spilled drinks littered the floor and sullied the whole place. Among this mess, Zich also saw people collapsed on the floor. On one side of the store, there was a crowd of people that looked like customers; they looked angry, afraid, and horrified.
After Zich finished scanning his surroundings, he looked back to the center of the store. He saw three people surrounding one person. It looked like a group of people bullying one person, but surprisingly, the group of people looked scared instead.
“You bastard!” One person in the group began attacking the person in the middle. There was a small dagger in his hand. A few people let out screams when they saw the dagger. However, there was no sound of a sharp knife slicing through skin and muscle. Instead, the hard sound of bones breaking rang out in the store.
“Acck!” The person holding the dagger let out a painful scream and fell to the ground. The arm he was using to hold the dagger dropped and dangled to the side.
“Damn it!”
“Kill him!”
The remaining two people rushed towards the man in the middle, but the man did not even blink. Instead, he broke the bones of his two opponents at the speed of light. In an instant, the fight was over. Zich stared at the victor.
The man had long, unruly hair. He had a refreshing, handsome face, but his fierce expression made people reluctant to approach him. His aura was like that of a wild beast.