“Boss. I’d like it if you’d snap out of it already,” Sarjay told me as he dragged me along the paved road. He was holding me by my temple as my feet slid across the smooth stone.

“But what’s the point of dwarves when they're not insulting you every 5 seconds?!” I cried and moaned mimicking a mother wolf losing all of her cubs. If I could shed tears, I would’ve drained all my fluids trying to pump out tears.

“I’m surprised you guys follow him around,” Asha remarked. I had nearly forgotten about Asha’s existence until she spoke. No, in fact, I had forgotten the meaning to life.

I stood up with great resolve and asked her, “Asha, are you sure the dwarves are all pompous and posh?” My hands latched unto her shoulders.

“Yes. I am sure! Every single dwarven city are recorded with great detail, every single nation and race knows they’re all the epitome of chivalrous gentlemen!” Asha explained erratically as she struggled to talk because I was shaking her.

“Enough, Boss. You’ll scramble her brains, then who will lead us around?” Sarjay took my hands off Asha.

I sighed. What does it mean that an entire race had suddenly gone through a cultural change in just a thousand years? Was it a civil war? Realizing that insulting the opposing party will not in fact improve relationship, but worsen it? Or had they figured out that 80% of all dwarven death was directly or indirectly caused by extreme alcohol consumption? Which one it it?

“Besides, why does all of it matter? Aren’t you pompous, as well?” Asha said.

“What? Why are we pompous?” I asked.

That’s weird. I thought we were pretty humble. I looked onto my robes and found that except for a pair of metal shoulder blades and an amulet, I appeared to be a simple man.

“Who wears extremely well-made clean pure white robes and expects them to be a bunch of barbaric serfs? Aren’t you all nobility? In addition to those, the way you speak already throws you off!” Asha exclaimed.

“What’s wrong with the way we speak?” Sarjay asked.

My companions and I also questioned ourselves in our minds. What’s wrong with the way we spoke? I thought it was the people in the city spoke weirdly!

“You all speak in a heavy accent. To make matters worse, you all keep using harder words!” Asha elaborated, “Haven’t you listening to yourselves? For example, Sarjay’s question just now. He just said to me, ‘May I inquire as to what the problem is with the way we communicate?’ If you all weren’t so tall, I would’ve mistook you all for dwarves!”

Was that the reason the people we talked to looked like they were trying to suck on a sour lemon the entire time? During my talk with the Grand Cardinal, I found out that the Commons I knew was dead. Long gone.

“Asha, what do the people here speak in?” I inquired her.

“The same as everyone in the western part of the continent. Western Commons,” Asha answered.

I took out some ink and parchment and gave it to Asha before asking her to write a character. Asha looked at me with doubt. Nevertheless, she wrote the first thing that came into mind. I took the parchment and studied the alphabets clearly.

“What...what does this say?” I asked her. She looked as confused as I do.

“You know how to speak like noblemen but not read basic words? Are you all actually idiots?

Anyway, this means ‘forest’. Why? How do you write ‘forest’, then?” Asha asked back.

I wrote ‘forest’ onto the parchment and showed it to Asha. She strained her eyes trying to identify what the word meant.

“Is your handwriting that bad? I can’t read this,” Asha commented. I took the parchment off her hands and showed it to Sarjay.

“I don’t know what’s the problem here. In fact, I think Boss has the best handwriting out of the entire group except for that one delusional writer back in the stronghold,” Sarjay said. He was staring at the parchment blankly before it clicked to him.

“Wait! I mean stronghold back in our country! Disregarding that, why is that we can’t read these alphabets? These letters looks so alien to us.” Sarjay pointed at the differences between my ‘forest’ and her ‘forest’. In fact, it was more like Sarjay was trying to point out any similarities. They both looked so different, they might as well be two different languages.

I had come to the conclusion that Western Commons only sounded similar, but the alphabets were entirely different. I asked Asha if she knew any other language but she only knew Western Commons. I sighed.

I had Asha teach us some Western Commons as we travelled down the road. Azkator was at least a week from Aon if we moved fast, so that should be enough time to at least learn the basics. I’m a 1000-year old lich, learning the ABCs shouldn’t be too hard for a genius like me.

.

.

.

‘THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE.’ I screamed inside my head.

It’s been a day and Asha had been teaching my group the letters and some basic words. We camped near the road, just by a dirt patch inside the forest. From what I could tell, this place was sometimes used by travellers. The moon was up at the sky and the darkness encompassed the area, only to be stopped by the campfire we started.

I was blankly staring at the words that Asha had drawn onto the dirt with a stick. While Sarjay and the others managed to do fine learning the words, the words simply leave my memories as soon as they entered.

How could I, an Archlich, not know the basics of a commonly used language? I was sitting down with my hands on my knees. I simply froze on the spot. Even Daggerless managed to remember more words than I did.

“Boss, could it be you’re actually an idiot?” Sarjay asked me with a chuckle.

Asha commented on my sorry state, “Why is he even your leader?”

“Wait! No! These things tend to happen! I am extremely fluent in Commons, at least the Commons I knew! Not this bastardized nonsense!” I tried to defend myself.

“Like I said multiple times, what kind of Commons are we talking about? And bastardized? Aren’t your alphabets so unnecessarily complex? Western Commons is so much simpler. I bet even learning Lycan is easier than your Commons. That’s saying something because Lycan is just a bunch of scratches and piss marks,” Asha asked.

How dare she insult my language by comparing it with piss! I wanted to get angry but I couldn’t muster the energy. Recently, it’s been nothing but depression. The dwarves I knew were gone, the language I knew was gone, the respect (if any) I had from my companions was also gone.

Here, I laid, crying my tears out. That was until I heard some rustling among the bushes. My cook, Maven, crouched in front of me and whispered, “Boss, there’s some people coming towards us.”

Maven was not only my cook, but was also the one with best sight and hearing. She developed them because she would be able to tell when her cooking had reached its peak. As such, she had become one of my best scouts in the stronghold. But because we’re all terrible at the whole sight and hearing business, Maven was probably just a decent scout in the outside world.

“How close are they?” I asked Maven.

“They’re already here. I think they’re just discussing who to send out,” Maven replied.

I stood up and fixed myself. My companions could feel no threat so they did not moved into formation yet. Maven pointed at a bunch of foliage to show me where some of the bandits are.

Asha was about to ask what we were discussing when a hooded man came out of the bush. He had a sword and a buckler ready, geared with leather armor that had seen many battles.

“Let’s make this as simple as we can,” The man threatened as he pointed his sword at me. I could sense that his allies were nearby, ready to strike at us. However, we simply went about our business, not minding them.

“Hello,” I simply greeted. The man was perplexed by my greeting. He took a moment to think before answering back, “This is not a joke. Give us all your valuables or each of you will have an arrow through your skulls. We’re the infamous Bloodied Rags, you wouldn’t want to mess with us.”

I turned to Asha and asked her, “Who are these dorks?”

“They’re the Bloodied Rags, they’re a well-known bandit group that travels in groups separately throughout the Western Continent. One of their groups must’ve stumbled upon us. This is bad. I heard they’re very skilled. They even ambushed one of the western nation’s kings for ransom,” Asha explained as her legs could barely keep her up. She was obviously scared, but I didn't they were dangerous at all.

I studied the man once more. His leather armor was well-made and thick. In the dark, I could still see that he had many pouches and trinkets, as well as the magically enchanted steel sword that was pointed at me. Undead night vision was truly convenient. Although he had a hood, he did not bother to cover his face, showing a shaven man in his thirties.

“We don’t want trouble. So you want gold? I can give you gold,” I said as I raised my hands. My companions sighed and formed formation as they understood what I was trying to do. I explained to the bandit that I had a large pouch of gold that would make them set for life.

The man moved his sight onto my waist. Surely enough, there was a pouch hanging by my belt. He licked his lips and ordered me to unstrap the pouch.

I slowly reached for the pouch and jiggled it, causing enough sound to notify the bandit that it was indeed a lot of coins.

“Now, throw that bag at me. Also your friends, tell your friends to give me their weapons and armor. They look very valuable to me,” He said with a mischievous smile.

“Well, you asked for it,” I said as I arched my back to prepare to throw for it. The bandit patiently awaited for me to throw the bag.

Well, since he wanted me to throw the bag at him, I did what he told me to do. I suddenly threw the bag of coins with great force. The bag flew so fast that the air it passed through was pushed away, leaving a small smoke trail. The bandit's object of greed slammed hard onto his face, and his body was thrown off balance, doing a flip in the air before kissing the ground.

His now-unconscious body stayed still onto the ground, face down on the coin pouch. It took a second for the other bandits to process what happened. Once they realized what was going on, they attacked.

Arrows got shot out of the bushes and shadowy figured leapt towards our camp. My companions blocked, deflected or dodged the arrows before engaging in melee with the intruders.

“Maven, protect Asha. I’ll handle these ragtags,” I said as I started my conductor-like hand movements once more. Random bright lights started to appear all over the camp, seemingly appearing from the ground.

“Stop that mage before he cast a spell!” One of the bandits ordered. A bandit ran through my companions, trying to get to me. I ignored my surroundings and continued to orchestrate my spell. I cleared the first phase of the spell, I scanned the area around the camp with my spell and found there’s no one else but this group of bandits.

It seemed that when Asha mentioned that the bandits traveled in groups, she probably meant that they moved independently from each other. Perhaps Bloodied Rag could be called a guild of mixed-match bandits working together by agreeing not to kill each other?

In my thought, I did not realize that a bandit was behind me. But what could a mere bandit do to me? I decided to make imaginary bets, counting from stabbing me in the back to using a spell to blast me from behind.

Instead, everything went out of the window. The bandit grabbed my head and with a twist, she snapped my neck. It was all unexpected. The fighting suddenly stopped and everyone turned to us. Now that my head was fully turned towards my assailant, I could clearly see the bandit.

From the top was a typical black hood with a cloth covering the face. I could barely see the person’s face, but I could see the beautiful green eyes. With narrows shoulders and thin waist, the person was clad in black armor. I could not tell what the material it was made from. But what I could tell was that this person was a woman.

On her left hand was a dagger. Why she opted to snap my neck, I wouldn’t know. Perhaps she thought I was wearing armor and that she doesn’t think she had enough time to figure out where the gaps are. She looked at me for a moment, then tried to gently push me with her fingers. She had probably expected that I would fall but I simply stood there.

“Hey. Stop touching my back,” I warned her. She yelped and took some distance from me. My companions started to fight the bandits once more, and they slowly push the bandits around.

Eventually, the bandits were forced to give up their ground and our group managed to encircle them. I, with my head facing the wrong way, finished orchestrating my spell and snapped my fingers.

From the ground below the bandits, cracks appeared and hands made from stone spontaneously came out of the dirt then started to grab the bandits’ feet. The bandits tried to destroy the hands, but it was all futile.

They were powerless and they started to panic among themselves as we encircled them. We started to look menacing. Wait, why does this look like we ambushed them instead of the other way around?

I fixed my head and tossed the first bandit with the rest of them and started my evil laugh. I did a pose by putting my hands on my hips and swayed my chin upwards, giving an impression that I was looking down on them triumphantly.

“I lied earlier. I wanted trouble. Let’s start from the beginning - Let’s make this as simple as we can.” I laughed as I mocked the first bandit who was still knocked out. “Who is the leader among you?” I demanded.

The bandits all turned to the same person who assaulted me. The woman in black clicked her tongue and began speaking, “I am. What will you do to us? Kill us all? What do you want from us?”

I gave a low chuckle. “Even better, we’re robbing you!” I declared.

Sarjay grabbed me and pulled him to me, “Wait, Boss. Are you serious? Shouldn’t we kill them to avoid any problems in the future?”

“I don’t know, I’ll let my future me handle that. What could go wrong anyways? I’m a genius Archlich,” I responded.

“You can’t even learn the ABCs of a language commonly spoken by everyone,” Sarjay responded back.

“Hey! I believe that the literacy rate isn’t high enough for every peasant to be literate enough to write or else there would be mass production of information.” I walked with Sarjay towards Asha.

“Hey, little girl, how is the literacy rate of the continent right now? Can the common man read and write?” I asked Asha.

“Forget about that, wasn’t your neck twisted?!” Asha was erratically pointing at me, mostly at my neck. “I even heard a clear snap!”

Hmm...I pondered what sort of lie should I conjure this time. But I couldn’t really think of a good lie right now. “It’s neck magic.” I shrugged.

Asha looked at me with doubt. She placed her hand at her chin. With a tilted head, she said, “I am neither an experienced mage, nor do I claim that I have an amazing background in magic. But what I do know is that you can’t simply explain and do everything with magic.”

I slowly turned my head to Sarjay but my face was stopped by his finger. “Don’t turn to me,” He warned. I started sweating hard. Was my jig up?

“Well, I suppose that you all are already extraordinary enough. I would guess that neck magic is just a very specific spell branch of healing magic.” She sighed as she plopped down onto the grass to rest as she simply moaned, ‘I simply can’t understand these people!’

I went back up to the group of bandits to make my demands. Sarjay gave up trying to convince me to kill them so he decided to just go along with the flow, as his usual carefree self does.

“Once again, we are going to rob you,” I declared to the bandits.

“So, you’re demanding for our armors and weapons?” The leader of the bandits asked.

“Oh no, you all must have a temporary camp somewhere here, perhaps a hideout,” I said. The bandit leader looked to her companions and had a silent discussion. Most of them nodded.

“We won’t show you our hideout. Sorry to bust your dreams, but there’s no way we could endanger our brothers-in-arms.” She shook her head and asked, “How are you still alive after I snapped your neck? Are you an owlman?”

What the hell is an owlman? “I’m the one that questions and makes demands here. Know your place! If you won’t tell me the location of your hideout, we can do this the hard way.”

I signalled my spymaster forward. He was holding a jar with black liquid inside it. As he moved closer to the bandits, the black liquid in it jiggled hard. The bandits were trying to move backwards but to no avail. It seemed that they could sense the danger from what was inside the jar.

Maven ran up to me and whispered with a nervous tone at me, “Boss, is that what I think it is?! I thought my history was wiped out! How many more of those do you have?!”

The spymaster removed the lid and a foul stench burst from the jar. One of the bandits fell unconscious after smelling the odor.

Maven had guessed correctly; Inside the jar the spymaster was holding was one of Maven’s ‘histories’.

The spymaster, being the dick he was, tried to find a use out of everything to get answers. He could make a dragon spill the beans with a handful of dirt. But the scary part of him was that he was...a bit...sadistic.

He swiftly scooped the goo with a silver spoon and grabbed one of the bandit’s faces. The bandit struggled with the sadistic monster, his hands were clawing at the gloves that clutched onto him and his body was shaking hard.

The spymaster forced the bandit’s mouth open and turned the spoon, letting the goop drop. The goo touched the bandit’s tongue and his eyes went wide. The spymaster made him swallow the vile thing and let go of him.

The bandit clenched his throat, coughing and hacking real hard as he attempted to flush out the horror product. Not only was the bandit crying, Maven was also crying on the dirt as the embarrassment was also stabbing her hard.

“Mama! Mama! Is...Is that you?!” The bandit gargled as foam started to appear on his mouth. His body was aching from every fiber within his body, his every breath was a coarse and ragged.

“Mama...mama….Forgive your son...a failure…”

Silence.