Aiden didn't have the answer to Fjord's question. At least not the right one. He had an answer, but he wasn't so socially inept that he was willing to give it. Well… in all fairness, he had almost given it. His brain had only saved him a moment sooner.

Was Fjord really important to the team?

Aiden had spent too many years in the Order where the truth was far more important than it was to the outside world. In an organization that prized itself on information gathering and raising spies, lies were at the heart of their trade. The least you could do was tell your companions the truth.

No matter how harsh it was.

In a world like that, you grew thick skin and learnt to take the truth for what it was—the truth. It was not a slight against you. It was not an insult. In fact, you didn't even matter in the face of it. You took the truth and acted accordingly. There were hurt feelings, he was not saying that there weren't, but you took your feelings and swallowed them whole. They were not other people's problems in the face of the truth, they were yours.

The truth bettered you or it worsened you. The former was believed to be a testament to your strength. The latter was believed to be a sign that you still had a lot of work to do on yourself as a person. It was harsh, but it was real.

So, was Fjord important to the team?

Aiden sighed, shoulders drooping slightly. He had to navigate this carefully.

"I'm guessing you don't feel very important right now," he said in a soft tone. It was preceded by a painful thud and a heavy grunt. Zen had fumbled another step.

Fjord shook his head. "Not really."

Valdan and Ted clashed in a flurry of sword strikes in the corner. The clanging sounds of their clashes almost sounded like the dins of metal in a forge.

Aiden nodded, ignoring the sound of Ted and Valdan. He took a moment, however, to spare Zen a glance. His friend was picking himself off the floor and returning to his stance. He started the entire process afresh—from the top.

"Why?" Aiden asked Fjord. "There has to be something that has brought this on."

Fjord scratched the back of his head again, nervous. Feira remained behind him, an unmoving mountain. She was his courage.

She said nothing, did nothing. She simply stood.

"Zen," Fjord muttered under his breath. Aiden had almost missed it.

It was like talking to a sulking child.

He is a child, his mind reminded him. Not small but not a grown man.

"You'll have to speak up, Fjord," Aiden said. "Feira is not always right, but she is right about one thing. If you have something to say, you've got to say it. Look me in the eye and say it."

Fjord took a deep, steady breath, then looked him in the eye.

"Zen," he said clearly.

Feira had gotten an eye twitch when Aiden had said that she wasn't always right, but Fjord mentioning her brother's name as the reason for his worry got nothing out of her.

"He's not been with us long," Fjord continued, keeping his voice a little lower than necessary, "but you're already teaching him how to fight. Sword techniques and footwork."

Behind him, Feira nodded in encouragement even if he couldn't see her.

"I've been with the team for a month," he continued, then looked down, suddenly timid again. His voice dropped into something of a grumble again. "One month and not even how to defend myself."

Aiden would punch himself if he had a clone to do it for him. How had he completely neglected Fjord's training?

Because you were too busy growing Valdan and Ted.

But was that justification enough? Was it the answer? He could say that he didn't have the time, but that would be a lie. There had been time. And even if there hadn't been time, he would've been able to make time, even if it was in the middle of the night.

He didn't need to sleep often after all.

So, why?

Because he never asked?

That, too, was a lie. Aiden knew the truth. Oddly enough, he wouldn't have thought that he would hesitate to say it.

The truth was tied to the answer to Fjord's question.

He hadn't taught Fjord to fight because he hadn't truly thought about him. Fjord listened and answered and obeyed. Aiden did not take it for granted, but he did not look beyond it. Fjord had been a poacher which meant that he had some way to keep himself alive. And with his class being arguably overpowered, Aiden hadn't really thought much about it.

Now that he did, he could only imagine how Fjord had felt. Like a porter. And glorified bag carrier.

Aiden felt like shit. Why? Because that was how they had been treating him. He gathered wood even though they didn't ask him to and cooked before they could even begin to think about their meals.

You never even cared to check if the boy knew how to kill a monster, he thought disgusted with himself. Not even after he'd seen him running for his life in Dentis while everyone else was fighting off the invaders.

He had shown the boy the beauty of the potential of his class and hadn't taught him how to achieve it.

It was stupid of him, unacceptable to the human in him. It was insulting to the instructor of the Order in him.

"Would you like to learn how to defend yourself against people?" he asked sincerely. "Would you like to learn how to hunt and kill monsters?"

Feira gave Aiden an appalled look. Then she frowned like a stern mother. It puzzled Aiden for a moment, but he ignored her for now. Fjord needed his attention. He would deal with whatever was going through her head when he was done.

Fjord hesitated. "If it's not too much to ask."

Ever so polite and refusing to infringe. Aiden wondered how long the question had been plaguing him. At some point had he simply accepted his place as an errand boy? A glorified porter? If he had, he could only imagine how it had then felt for Zen to turn up and suddenly start receiving lessons.

"Alright," he said. "Then you will learn it all. You will be taught how to defend yourself and how to hunt monsters."

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Fjord brightened like a boy just rewarded with a toy he had always wanted. He fought back a smile but did a horrible job of suppressing it.

"I don't need to learn anything fancy," he said quickly. "I'll be happy with whatever I'm taught. I just want to be useful to the team, that's all."

"Oh, Fjord," Aiden placed a hand on his shoulder. "You've always been useful to the team. But I get what you mean. Now, you'll be able to give more like you want."

Fjord nodded enthusiastically.

"As for what you'll be learning, I have a very strong feeling that it just might be fancy," Aiden added. "After all, I'd be surprised if a knight has anything to teach that's not fancy."

Fjord's smile grew wider. This conversation really did feel like talking to a child. Aiden didn't miss the touch of disappointment that tried to claw at the edge of the boy's enthusiasm, though. It was there, hovering on the edge.

Fjord didn't give it any attention because he didn't want to impose more than he thought he already was.

"Go meet Valdan," Aiden told him. "Tell him what we talked about and see if he'll agree to teach you. Try not to get caught in their spar!" he called out as Fjord zipped off in their direction.

Zen stumbled through one of the steps again. This time, he did not fall.

Aiden watched Fjord until he got to Valdan and Ted. The knight and the potentially future [Demon King] stopped between meeting blades and looked at him. They did not have the expression of people being disturbed.

Fjord was not intruding.

"You must think you're slick, don't you?"

Aiden's head drooped and he rolled his eyes. Taking his attention from Fjord and the others, he looked at Feira.

"What have I done this time?"

Feira gestured discreetly in Fjord's direction. "You handled that quite well."

"If I didn't, then why am I about to get sass from you?"

"Sass?" Feira gasped. "I don't give sass."

Aiden was already nodding. "Yes, you don't. Why do you think I think I'm slick? Because I handled that quite well?"

"No." She shook her head. "Because you didn't answer his question. You brushed it aside in a classic case of misdirection and then gave him what he wanted without taking accountability for what you did wrong."

Aiden opened his mouth to answer, stopped, closed it. He leaned forward and squinted at her as if trying to figure something out.

Feira reddened slightly and she leaned away. "What? What is it?"

"Are you… secretly intelligent? For all the stress you cause, I could've sworn you were the less than intelligent sibling."

"And you're a saggy tit," she huffed, stomping away from him and towards her brother.

Aiden laughed, unable to help himself.

Feira stopped not too far from him and turned.

"You know," she said with a serious look, a softer look. "He wanted you to teach him."

Then she walked up to her brother and kicked him in the shin because she could. It threw his stance off balance, and he went falling.

…

The mercenaries waited for Aiden at the location he had agreed upon with the merchant. Aiden strolled into the area, hands in his pocket like a casual passerby. His coat had since repaired itself, returning it to its wondrous glory. Clad in it, he struck quite the visage if he was to judge from the looks he got.

People looked at him like a young lord, even if a pompous one.

"Please don't be you," one of the crew members, a lady of similar height with Feira and a ring piercing above her left eye groaned.

She had hair a deep red. It reminded Aiden of food coloring, or tomato stew if you almost burnt it. It was so deep and dark that it bordered on becoming brown.

Aiden cocked his head to the side as he approached them, suppressing a smile at her comment. Five in number, as the merchant had promised, they comprised of three ladies and two men.

One of the men was lithe, standing with an athletic build. He wore light armor and had a longbow strapped to his back.

Aiden guessed he had a class related to archery. He had long hair tied back in a ponytail and blue eyes that even now were scanning the open area and the people walking around. Beside him was a large man, more corpulent than hulking. He kept his head shaved clean except for one patch of hair in a small circle at the top. Cut low, it was as wide as Aiden's thumb was long.

He recognized the hairstyle as well as the green of the man's eyes. If he wasn't mistaken, he was from the Nenu tribe. They were a nomadic tribe with roots somewhere in the south. They were common for their violence and desire to die in battle.

You're far from home, aren't you, big guy?

The massive cleaver strapped to his back was not surprising to see. It reminded Aiden of Elaswit. He wondered how she was doing. The massive fishhook the size of Aiden's chest strapped to his hip, however, took him by surprise.

"Are you a thief?" Aiden asked, coming to a stop in front of the woman who had made the comment. While she was as short as Feira, she was significantly smaller in stature.

She glared at him with fire in her eyes. "Who's asking?"

Aiden moved his attention to the two other women in the group. Blonde and blue eyed, they stood almost as tall as he did. He was perhaps taller by an inch or two. They were twins.

"A good afternoon, ladies," he greeted.

They returned his greeting with a nod and nothing but silence.

"They won't sleep with you, pervert," the short girl snapped.

"And rightfully so. They really shouldn't." He still didn't look at her. He turned to the potential archer. "Are you inclined to ignore me, too?"

"No," he said simply. "They are just a little cranky because the pay is good, but they do not like having to deal with spoiled noble children."

Aiden pulled his coat open, hands still in his pockets, and looked down at it. I guess it worked too well if they are falling for it, too.

To the large man, he signed in greeting. May the land bring you blood.

The man hesitated, surprised to find someone who knew his tribe's language so far removed from his tribe.

And may yours nourish it in time, he signed back.

The second man looked between the both of them. "Now, that is something you don't see every day."

"Does he retain silence or does he speak?" Aiden asked him.

"Silence," the man answered.

"Speaking ol' dummy over here doesn't make you anything more than what you are," the short girl snapped.

One of the twins placed a hand on her shoulder to silence her.

"What?" she snapped at the woman. "I'm not wrong."

Aiden sighed. "Is this going to be one of those 'he's an irresponsible rich kid that will get us killed' type of thing?"

The girl continued to glare at him. She was like a child keeping malice.

"In her defense," the man with the ponytail said, "You've come to us, you did not introduce yourself, and you started asking random questions with no rights whatsoever. And knowing Oncot's language here just says that you have a penchant for exploring."

This is going to be troublesome.

"The fact that I'm still standing here with you says that you already know who I am." He ignored the glaring woman. "And I know for a fact that the merchant told you that I would be recognizable by my green coat. I made sure he knew how to describe it properly."

His green trench coat was not something another person would so simply be wearing. On Nastild, it stood out like a sore thumb.

"And knowing Oncot's language does not say I have a penchant for exploring, it says that I am quite knowledgeable and possibly connected on a level beyond money."

"Still a spoiled brat," the short woman snapped.

Aiden pressed his lips into a thin line to keep his temper. This was entirely his fault. He had forgotten what kind of place Trackback was. Lawless. In a land without laws, there was only one law. Power.

He looked down at the girl, made an obvious point that he was looking down at her.

"I'm going to be less gentle now."

"Do your wor—"

He slapped her.

The sound filled the air. Anyone close enough turned to look, to see what had made the sound.

The woman turned as crimson as her hair. "I'm going to kill YOU!"

She drew a short sword from her back and leapt at him. Aiden stepped into the swing. Her eyes widened at the speed. Her arm, instead of her sword, slammed into the side of his arm. Aiden shifted his weight, lowered his center of gravity.

With a little extra leverage, he threw her.

The woman hit the ground with a loud thud. Silence filled the space. Everyone waited quietly as the dust settled around the woman.

Aiden placed a foot on her neck and looked at the rest of the crew.

"I'm going to make this very simple. You are not guarding me. You are guiding me." He met the lithe man's gaze. "I do not leave today or tonight. If you do not want the job, I'll find someone else. The gods know the pay is good. If you want the job, then good. But this?" he pressed harder on the woman's neck. She groaned, struggling against the weight of his foot, but didn't try to attack him. "This, I will not tolerate."

"She apologizes," one of the twins said.

Aiden shook her head. "She does not. If she does, she would use her mouth to apologize, not yours."

The woman clamped her mouth shut and looked down at her companion still under Aiden's boot.

Aiden raised his foot a little.

"I'm sorry," the woman bit out.

"Good." He reapplied the pressure, silencing her. To the others, he added: "When the time comes, we will enter the cave together. We will either get along swimmingly or we'll try and kill each other in there. I'm fine with either."

"We will get along," the man with the bow said immediately. "You have my word."

Aiden kept his eyes on them a while longer, then he lit up in a simple smile.

"Good!" He took his foot off the woman's neck. "Here's to a fun explora…"

Words trailed off as Aiden caught a familiar face out of the corner of his eye. The person slipped behind a random passerby as he moved.

Aiden's attention sharpened.

A man walked, unaware of his presence. He wore a simple robe, blue with white lapels. One arm was in its sleeve, while the other sleeve dangled empty to his side. His other hand slipped out from between his lapel to rest on the hilt of his sword.

Why the fuck is he here?

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.