The warriors decided to meet at a village near the mountains at the border of the provinces the next day, we started preparing the equipment and necessities and I was in my room packing up when Irin came to my room and sat beside me and she looked a bit worried. I knew she was worried about me and I said “no need to worry, I will return back safe for sure” She said “please come back soon and write me letters” just as she said that I hugged her and gave her a kiss, she blushed and said “why did you do that!” “sorry I couldn’t keep myself did you not like it?” “no I still like it but do not do it so suddenly I get surprised” just then she heard her father calling for her and she got up and just as she was about to leave she turned back and kissed me on the cheek and said “that was payback for earlier” and I smiled and thought “that’s why I love her”

The next day we had to head out to meet with the other warriors, we went with around 400 soldiers as backup and the other provinces would also bring soldiers so we would have around 1200 soldiers to fight, as we were about to leave Irin came and asked the king to let her go as well, the king as expected said it would be way too dangerous but Irin insisted as she specialized in healing magic, she kept insisting and seeing her that determined the king had no choice but to let her go. She would be in the backup forces and would help if the battle got too fierce to heal the soldiers. I bid everyone farewell and we got on our horses and headed towards the village we decided to meet at. We headed there and many hours later we reached there. The other members of the team had already reached there as they were closer to the meeting spot.

The soldiers had gone ahead to the border to the sasta empire to prepare and be ready to attack. We went in the house we had planned. There were 4 warriors accompanying us. We started with the introductions, the warriors were the general of the traton province Caltis and his subordinate Signa, and the metruid province had sent two of their most skilled knights Brooke and Drester. Telentus Gadreel and Ryuu also introduced themselves and I introduced myself as Argos Chileever and said I was a human, hearing that Brooke was displeased and said “what is a mere human doing here! This isn’t a place for him humans are prohibited here he should have been executed! Just then Telentus said “calm down, he is no mere human, after all he can learn and use magic even we would have problems with” Brooke looked shocked and said “that’s impossible! He can’t learn magic of other races” “then why don’t you just see for yourself” said Telentus. Brooke said “then why don’t you show me” Brooke ridiculing me had made me a little mad so I shot a blast spell near his feet missing him on purpose and Brooke got shocked and jumped away. “then now do you believe me?” said Telentus. Brooke had a very annoyed look on his face and then sat back down.

We then decided to head out to the sasta province after discussing our plans for a while. We headed around the mountains over hills and rocky terrain, we reached the border to sasta after a while we were able to see a small village near the border when we went to check the villagers were being looted by two demons, the demons stole all their belongings and threatened to kill them if they resisted, three people had already been killed, they took barrels of alcohol they had kept in store to take to Nova, the village was famous for the alcohol produced there and so it was their main income but the demons seized all of it. They headed out of the village gate and were about to get away with the villagers possessions but we decided to stop them.

I went in front of them and they got mad and asked “who are you?! Do you have a death wish?!” I didn’t bother to answer them so one of them attacked me and I slashed through him with my sword and killed him the other demon saw that and panicked for a moment and rushed in front to kill me. I didn’t kill him but I stabbed his leg so he wouldn’t be able to run away, we captured him for interrogation but the demon refused to know anything and said “even if I did know anything I wouldn’t tell you!” so we had no other choice than to cast ‘flames of the abyss’ flames that burned but didn’t kill, it was used for interrogation like this

The demon finally agreed to tell us, Caltis asked “is the royal family still alive?” the demon replied “they are still alive and they are imprisoned in a cell to be used as hostages” I asked “why does Nova want the spheres from the provinces?” “I don’t know anything about that” he said, no matter what we did he wouldn’t answer. The demon said “I’ve told you everything I know cant you let me go now?” he tried to escape with the alcohol but Brooke stabbed him from behind and killed him as he said “demons don’t deserve to live they should all die!” it was a cruel thing to do but we did what had to be done. They burned the bodies of the demons and returned the items to the villagers and moved forward.

At the castle Nova was getting annoyed because his alcohol hadn’t arrived, and he summoned one of his minions to investigate and when he returned he found out the demons were killed and the bodies were found burnt, Nova was confused as the villagers couldn’t be able to kill them so someone used to combat must be involved, his minion said “the other provinces have probably sent forces to kill you my lord and Valt was probably unsuccessful in obtaining the sphere and he probably told the king about us” Nova said “so they decided to act huh, they have some guts to come face me, lets see what they can do”

Meanwhile when we were on the way we saw a city and the people there were very cheerful so we knew the news of the capital wasn’t public yet. Signa said “it is probably because this is still far from the capital the demons probably use some alternate route or means of transport, at the time night had started to fall so we thought it would be good to spend the night here and rest until morning.

We looked around the town and we found an inn with available rooms. While booking the rooms something felt unusual like someone was watching us but I looked around and didn’t find anything so I thought I was probably mistaken. I went to my room and unpacked my bag to take out my clothes, the inn had a bathhouse so I thought of going there, when I went into the bath I met Telentus and the others, while we were talking I again had the same strange feeling that we were being watched and this time when I turned around I saw a vague silhouette of a person. The steam there made it hard to see him, I asked Telentus if he saw anything but he said he didn’t. I told him “I have been having a strange feeling since we came here that we were being watched.”

Telentus said “I haven’t noticed anything strange but if we are being watched then we must be careful, we should look around to find him” after the bath everybody started to look all over the inn but we couldn’t find anything, as we started to look outside we suddenly heard a loud scream from an alley. We rushed there but we were too late, there was a dead body of a man and a woman who was shivering with fear

The man had been stabbed in the heart and died on the spot, the killer was running away and we chased him swinging our swords and we were almost able to get a strike in but we missed and he got away, the woman was still terrified we tried to comfort her and asked her what happened the woman still in tears said “my husband and I were on our way home and my husband was drunk and all of a sudden we saw a shadowy figure approaching us, he had an enormous body and looked dangerous, my husband being drunk went closer to him and started talking in a drunken voice. I tried to stop him because the man looked very scary. He didn’t listen to me and when he went towards the man he drew an enormous blade and stabbed him, I fell down to my knees and screamed and my husband died a few seconds later”

Caltis asked “do you know who that man was and why he would kill your husband” the woman said “when he came closer I don’t think he was a man at all he looked like the demons that were heard about in books and stories. We were shocked and confused why there was a demon there. Telentus realized it was probably because we killed those two demons before coming here and nova sent demons here to investigate. Caltis said “this place isn’t safe we should get going from here as soon as its morning tomorrow. We went back to the inn.

That night all of a sudden there was a loud noise from Brooke’s room. We went to see what had happened and we saw a demon on the floor and Brooke had slashed it with his sword. Brooke said “this demon broke in from the window and tried to attack me but I noticed him and slashed him. I asked what do we do the body now, Signa replied “not to worry I’ll take care of it” he then used a spell and the body disappeared in an instant. I asked him what that spell was he said “ it is a special teleportation spell called 'Transundis' I teleported the body to a lake nearby and I am able to use spatial magic so I am able to use this spell” Gadreel asked “if there are teleportation spells then why don’t we just teleport to the capital?” Signa replied “this spell only works to teleport to a place I’ve been to and to a short distance, I visited the lake earlier today so I could use the spell, I have never been to capital of this province so this spell can’t be used” “oh that explains it” said Gadreel.

We then went back to our rooms and went to sleep. In the morning when I woke up I saw Brooke looking through my bags and he saw I had woken up and said “oh I lost a necklace I was wearing and thought it might have been mixed up in your bag when we were at the bathhouse so I was came to check but you were asleep so I didn’t want to disturb you so I was looking for it myself.” I replied “oh that’s okay ill go and freshen up and we can get ready to leave” he agreed and when I came back he was gone. I packed my things and headed to the lobby everyone was there already so I apologized for being late. I asked Brooke if he found his necklace. He said “no, unfortunately but it’s okay” then we paid our fees and then prepared to head out.