Solsday, 5th of Maia, 470th Year of the Fifth Era

The sun was setting on the horizon as its reddened rays painted the skies over the Northern Halaklands. It was a good time for some to call it a day and head in to rest. But for some others, it was also a good time to start a hunt.

Josias was mounted atop his tiger-beast as he held his musket close to him while his eyes were trained on his target. However, unlike all his previous hunts, his target this time was an actual human being. It was a bandit riding on top of a horse followed by several other riders. How did he know they were bandits? Putting aside the earlier intel he and his party were granted, the men on horseback were all foreigners armed with all sorts of dangerous weapons and while their armor was decent-looking, they lacked any sort of cohesive signifier that marked any formal discipline. Also, they just had that distasteful aura around them that Josias just couldn't quite explain well enough.

The joint Gorian-Hutangali expedition led by Parulian and King Tagam had set off early yesterday towards the small village of Hosniari on the foot of the Ulutano mountain ranges just outside the Patni valley. When they had arrived at the village, many of the villagers had welcomed them with cheer and open arms. The Hosniari clan itself were direct vassals to the Simarhosa clan so when the village chief had seen the banners of Goria and Hutangali arrive, he had practically thrown himself upon the ground at their feet in tears.

The village head explained how a large bandit group of a hundred or so warriors under the banner of the so-called 'King of Palmerton' had made camp not far from the village and had sent envoys the morning before the expedition's arrival. The bandits had given the Hosniari two days to come to a decision of whether or not they would submit and swear fealty to the bandit king or have their village razed to the ground.

Greatly incensed by the blatant provocation and dismissal of his authority, King Tagam was half a mind to just straight-up march upon the bandit encampment but Lord Parulian managed to dissuade him from taking such an action. Instead, to minimise the chance of any losses and to maximise the gains of victory, Parulian had sent out scouting forces through the forest areas to find the most covert path towards the bandit position.

If what the village head said was true then it would be reasonable that the bandits would once more send a delegation to demand an answer from him. And it was so that when the bandits would send this delegation to retrieve the Hosniari clan's answer, the joint expedition's forces would be lying in wait to ambush them.

And that was the situation where Josias had now found himself. He was chosen along with his trusted companions to launch the first ambush which would cause the bandits to send in more of their forces to investigate. Josias had given signals to the others on who would target which bandit. There were about six bandits within the delegation while Josias had a total of five sharpshooters along with him. They each aimed to isolate the single bandit who rode alone at the front of their formation.

It was a nerve-wracking experience to be sure as Josias' heart was racing the entire time he had his sight on his target. It wasn't the first time he would pull the trigger of his gun but it was the first time that the bullet flying from it would hit a human person. It was stupid really how he was acting. Josias could only quietly chuckle and shake his head as he found himself so worried. If he were to be a leader and a king to his people, he would need to do much more difficult things than just 'merely' killing a person. To calm himself, he decided to take a deep breath and blow out a sigh.

With all of his turbulent thoughts as if escaping his body along with his breath, it was as if his mind had been cleared of a fog that was obfuscating his vision. Now fully focused onto his target, Josias muttered out a small prayer under his breath before he adjusted his aim to account for the distance and the speed at which his target was moving. When he felt the aim was just right, he pulled the trigger of his musket.

Immediately a thunderous cacophony of gunshots were unleashed from the trees surrounding the dirt road towards the bandits. With all five shots hitting their targets, immediately the delegation was incapacitated. The leader of the bandit delegation instinctively turned around to look at what was happening, but it was an unfortunate thing indeed.

Not even giving the bandit the chance to fully gather what was happening, Josias had immediately taken out his saber and snapped on the reins of his tiger mount to lounge at the poor bastard. It didn't take even three seconds for Josias's tiger to have pinned the bandit to the ground - taking him off his horse - and immediately slashing the bandit's neck, the blood splattering from the gash towards him.

He had taken a life. The slash of his blade had struck down another human being who couldn't even scream out in agony as his throat had been slashed. The bandit's eyes bulged out, as if cursing Josias with a thousand curses, his mouth moving as if to speak but only gurgles could be heard as the blood was rushing out of him like a waterfall. It didn't take long for the man to start convulsing and dropping forward to his knees before falling down completely.

Though his mask was hiding it, Josias was breathing restlessly as he saw what was unfolding in front of him. His hands were shaking as if trying to rid themselves of the weapons he was holding as his own heart was beating. It wasn't a minute after all that did the bandit finally stop moving as the pungent iron-smell of blood assaulted Josias' sense of smell. It had truly dawned on him. He had killed a man.

Josias felt his stomach somewhat churning as his own mind was racing. He had tried to calm himself down but with each breath he took, the smell of blood invaded his sense of smell as it only served to make him feel worse about himself. As he didn't know what he was feeling, his body shaking, Josias finally felt a tap on his shoulder. He flinched at first, holding tight to the grip on his sabre but when he saw his father holding his shoulder and looking at him with a forlorn smile, he couldn't help but feel tears coming from his eyes. He wasn't sobbing, but the emotions felt real to him.

Without even saying anything prior, his father had pulled him in for a hug.

"...It's alright, boy, you did good…" his father said to him to reassure him before he pulled himself back a few moments after "The life of a warrior is a hard one. Never forget that your sword is a tool for war. It is something you use, not something you live by. There will be many more, much harsher situations you will find yourself in and I won't be there for you like I am now, my son… But in those hard times, always remember my words here. When you fight righteously, if God is with us, who can be against us?"

With those words from his father, Josias could only nod before taking off his mask and wiping away the tears that had formed. He could only chuckle as he sighed and patted his father's shoulders. "Mauliate da amang… (Thank you, father…)" Josias said "I'll keep that in mind… I'm sorry for that absolute embarrassment of a show father… Had it been a real fight, losing my focus like that…"

"Don't worry about it, son. I chose this as your first task for a reason." Parulian had affectionately slapped Josias on his cheek "Besides, I'd actually be a tad more worried if you didn't have any reaction. At least I didn't raise a monster… But sometimes war makes a monster out of even the best of us. And sometimes to protect the ones you love, a monster is what you need to be."

Josias saw his father narrowing his eyes as he said that whilst examining the bandit corpses on the ground. Soon enough, with a heavy yet determined expression, his father had instructed him and the other young warriors to strip the bandits of any useful weapons or armor. Once the bodies were looted, his father then continued to instruct some of the other warriors to find some rope to tie the corpses on to the larger tree branches along the road towards Hosniari.

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It was an unnerving order to have been carried out and Josias would be lying if he said it wasn't somewhat disturbing, yet one thing would be made clear. A message was about to be given to the bandits who would come later on. A message that would signal their days of tyranny to be over.

As the sun was almost completely set upon the village of Hosniari and its surrounding areas, Lord Parulian had placed the joint expeditionary forces within strategic locations within the forest surrounding the road. This time around, he was looking for a quick and overwhelming victory against the bandits and after dispatching the next group of bandits, they would move on to the main bandit encampment under the cover night.

Surely enough, not long after they had set up their positions, a second group of about two dozen bandits had trailed along the road towards the village. About five or six of the bandits were mounted while the rest of them were on foot, armed mostly with arquebuses and halberds.

Unlike the earlier group of bandits, these ones tread the road with far more caution as they had somewhat of a formation of cavalry at the front, halberdiers protecting the perimeter, and the arquebusiers marching at the center location. However, all of that was for naught for it seemed that despite having operated around the area for over a year, the foreigners still looked like they were still unaccustomed towards the terrain and environment of the forest lands. They didn't even bother really observing between the trees for any potential attack.

Well, it wasn't like that would have done them any better. The Halak warriors who had been truly trained in the art of jungle warfare were leaps and bounds ahead of the barbarian foreigners when it came to clandestine guerilla fighting. They were naturals at using their home-field advantage and environment to conceal their presence from their enemies. Even when it came to the use of aura, the Halak warriors were skilled enough in utilising their innate mana to enhance their visual capabilities especially during the night.

Using this to their full advantage, the Gorian and Hutangali warriors - many of whom were equipped with firelocks - unleashed an absolutely devastating volley of gunshots as they thundered throughout the forest underneath the darkened evening sky. In less than but a small moment of time, even this second group of bandits had been torn to shreds for the most part.

A few of the bandits who were obviously warriors capable of wielding aura had managed to survive the initial volley. However, judging from how they were severely injured and were already losing their grip on the situation, they mustn't have been any higher than two star warriors. There were about three warriors still standing among the bandits with the rest either dead or wishing they were. Swords and halberds in hand, the three survivors had appeared to have heightened their senses as they started frantically scanning the area to see where the attack was coming from.

Regardless of what they were doing, there was no longer a point in trying to do anything as in a split second, Lord Parulian and his lieutenants had rushed in on the backs of their tigers and made quick work of the disoriented bandits. The speed of the five star warriors was something else that even Josias had to focus his eyes trying to catch a clear trail of their attack trajectories. The bandits didn't even have the chance to react before blood spurted out of their throats and they fell, with one of them even having been decapitated entirely.

With the second group of bandits having been utterly annihilated, Lord Parulian wasted no time instructing the joint expeditionary forces to quickly make a move and march upon the hostile bandit encampment. They were to hit the bandits quickly and deal a blow to them as hard as they could. If what the information the expeditionary forces was privy to were genuine, then destroying the hundred bandits within the area would deal a significant blow towards the bandit king's train of thought.

The bandits were about to have a rude awakening as it was apparent that they had little in the way of preparation when it came to facing properly trained and equipped warriors. A combined force of four hundred warriors were now closing in upon the bandit stronghold. A force that was by all accounts out for the blood of the wretched bandits who had dared threaten their safety and sovereignty.

***

The sun had set as the evening moon had shone in its place upon the encampment of the bandit warriors of Palmerton. Within the encampment was a large tent erected in the central area where Gregory had been staying. The inside of the tent was brightened by a couple of oil lamps, one of which was put upon a table where two people were playing chess. Gregory had spent the last few hours indulging himself in the game as it helped to ease off his anxiety of the two groups of warriors he had sent as envoys to the Hallack village.

"And that would be checkmate, hahaha…" Gregory laughed as he had placed his white queen chess piece in a position that had locked in his opponent's king, winning him the match.

The Hallack girl that was sitting in front of him could only pout adorably as she had been beaten for what could be the tenth time. Despite all the lopsided victories for him and not a single one from Lasta, the girl had an unyielding tenacity as she repeatedly asked for rematches one after the other. However, despite her lack of ability in beating him, Gregory noticed how the girl had a natural knack for the game as on the times he tried to go easy on her - purposefully blundering winning moves or making a mistake and the like - she had caught on to it and sulked even more for being treated like an 'idiot'.

Gregory, having nothing better to do, had indulged her the entire time. He could only slouch on the table as he rested his chin on his hand while he observed Lasta. Her focused expression as she kept on looking at the chessboard, analysing each and every mistake she had made, was incredibly adorable to him.

But Gregory had to give credit where credit was due as Lasta had indeed shown a marked level of improvement in the game compared to when she first was introduced to it by him months ago. She had a natural talent for these things and perhaps if he were to introduce her to the concept of war tactics and strategy, she would excel in them too.

Regardless, playing chess with Lasta had given him something to take his mind off his incessant worries. It had been hours since he had dispatched his envoys and neither of the two groups had returned. He was starting to fear that the worst had happened though if that were the case, it had terrible implications of what that could mean. Assuming his envoys were wiped out, it would mean the village had a military force capable of dealing with his forces that had quite a number of starred aura warriors among them.

However, judging from what he had seen of the village yesterday, they didn't look like they had enough able-bodied men to pull off a defence like that. Even though the men he had sent as envoys were mostly from the newer blood who had joined his brother's group later than the rest of them, they were still relatively powerful and bloodthirsty marauders.

With all these thoughts clouding up his mind once more, he didn't notice that Lasta was calling out to him until she had her face in front of him with puffed up cheeks.

"Gregory, are you listening to me?" She asked with determination "I want a rematch!"

Gregory couldn't help but laugh before he nodded and decided to give in for another round, shaking his head clear of his worrying thoughts. He'd probably start really worrying if the envoys didn't return after two more games. But even while he forced himself to calm down and enjoy another game as he helped Lasta to reset the board, he still couldn't help but shake off this sense of foreboding that he was feeling.

It was only when the board was set and he was about to let Lasta make her first move with the white pieces did his feelings seem to have been proven too. From inside the tent, he heard the sounds of a horn being blown accompanied by what sounded like the howls of the Homang demon-beast that would sometimes harass the native Hallack people. Even Lasta had dropped her chess piece as she heard the sounds.

The two had exchanged glances before they headed towards the entrance of the tent. Just before they had exited, the flaps to the tent had been opened as a bandit guardsmen relayed a message to Gregory with a frightened expression.

"Captain…!" The bandit had called out desperately. He looked like he was about to say more before he shook his head and straight back towards an elevated platform behind the encampment's simple palisade.

Gregory didn't quite know what's going on, but judging from the bandit's troubled expression coupled with the sound of running from outside, Gregory could only curse inwardly as he followed the man outside.

Walking up to the platform to observe what was causing such an amount of panic, even though he couldn't do much of anything in that kind of situation.

Finally when he had made it to the top of the platform, Gregory could only feel his heart drop further down his chest at what he was seeing. It was absolutely a nightmare waiting to unfold.

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