"We have been given a very special mission from the Cardinals."
A tall man, wearing some sort of black and white robe, with blonde hair and black eyes, and a scar engraved on the left cheek of his face, spoke to a group of people.
His name was Nigun Grid Luin, the Captain of the Sunlight Scripture of the Slane Theocracy.
This group of people in front of him, all wore the same green and white robes, a short white cape hanging over their backs and a strange flat and round white helmet with cloth hanging around it covering their faces.
These were the people of the sunlight scripture under Nigun's leadership.
"The Knights of our Sacred Order are still laying out more bait, but the target has already left the capital and reached E-Rantel."
"So it won't be too long until we will finally confront him."
The man paused and then took something out of his robes, it was a blue crystal emanating a strange blue light and radiating a feeling of power.
"The Cardinals even gave us one of our Country's treasures, all so that we can successfully complete this most important mission!"
His gaze grew stern and then he looked around, "So no one is allowed any slip up..."
Holding the Crystal to the sky he shouted, "For Humanity and for our great God!"
"For Humanity!!" "For our God!!"
The people shouted alongside him, fervently expressing their desire to do, what was in their minds God's quest for them.
These people seemed like a bunch of religious fanatics and calling them as such wouldn't be wrong, but those who would call them as such would probably draw the ire of all of them.
Taking the Crystal down closer to himself, his gaze lingered on it as he mumbled to himself, "With this, your life is already forfeited Gazef Stronof..."
.
.
.
In the Outskirts of E-Rantel, a band of Warriors on horseback were riding across the plains, towards a rising smoke in the distance.
This band of warriors looked like a group of mercenaries, each wearing a different armor, but their main weapon was a sword hanging on their waists, their secondary weapons on the other side were for each of them different.
Some had axes, some had spears, and others bows.
Some wore simple leather armor, some had their leather armor reinforced with parts of plate armor or chainmail.
Some held onto swords, others had maces or war axes, and bows were fastened on each of the horses.
The only thing making them truly recognizable as more than a simple band of mercenaries was the Crest embedded in their saddles.
At the head of the band of warriors rode a very peculiar man, he wore a chest plate made of plate armor and a broadsword hung at his waist.
He had a muscular appearance and seemed around thirty years old, with a sunbathed dark face with noticeable wrinkles, short, trimmed, black hair, and black eyes that were as sharp as a sword.
This man was known throughout the whole Re-Estize Kingdom and even beyond people have heard of his mighty skills with the sword.
His name was Gazef Stronoff and he was the head Warrior of the Re-Estize Kingdom ever since he won the Grand Tournament.
Because in the kingdom, only nobles could become Knights, he took it upon himself to build a troop of warriors with the blessing of the King.
These troops were under his command and were trained by himself.
After he had won in the Grand Tournament final against Brain Unglaus, the King offered him a place at his side, which he gladly accepted serving him now mostly as a personal Bodyguard.
But now the King was forced to send Gazef and his Warrior troops out of the capital.
The reason was very simple, the Village in the Outskirts of E-Rantel, a domain directly under the governance of the royal family, was attacked and destroyed by Knight's.
The rumors said that these were the Knights of the Baharut Empire, one of the Neighbors of the Re-Estize Kingdom.
The problem was, that through the interference of the Noble faction, an opposing faction, in the court of the King, to the royal faction, his gear which he regularly used on such missions couldn't be taken with him now.
This made all this a bit fishy in the eyes of Gazef, but for him, the most important thing was to save the people, he was a man of Honor and someone born in one such village.
It made him more concerned about what could happen to the villagers than what could happen to him.
And so he had set out, with his Warrior troop at his side, to help those people who needed him.
Looking at the smoke rising in the distance, he shouted at his people, "Hurry up! We need to get there faster!"
"Heya!!" Gazef gave his horse the spurs and galloped as fast as he could towards the direction where the smoke was rising, his Warrior band of course didn't lag behind and did the same.
Soon they spotted the remains of a village in the distance, smoke continuously rose from the charred buildings.
It didn't take long to get to it from there on and what greeted them there was a truly mortifying scene.
The houses were burned to the ground, corpses lay everywhere and the ground was dyed in a deep crimson color.
No matter what gender or age, they had killed them without the slightest mercy.
Gazef dismounted his horse and called out to the Warrior troop behind him, "Go and search for any survivors!"
He then slowly started to walk into the village, while the people behind him did the same.
They all wore dignified and heavy expressions on their faces, much like Gazef himself, this was simply a Slaughter.
Gazef looked around and saw the charred corpses of men, women, and children, there were even infants burned to charcoal among them.
The more his gaze wandered around the heavier his heart became and the more he wanted to help to stop such a tragedy from happening again.
This wasn't the first Village that was raided, but it was the first Village he had seen with his own eyes.
Although he had seen a lot when he was still working as a mercenary, before the Grand Tournament, it wasn't like he was numb to such scenes.
"Captain, we have found a couple of Survivors." the vice-captain came behind him.
"How many are there?" Gazef was relieved that at least some people had survived.
"Just a few... Captain, this whole thing isn't right..." The vice-captain continued.
"I want you to take some of the men and bring the survivors to E-Rantel." Gazef ignored the vice-captain's small implication and simply ordered him.
"Captain! There is something wrong with all this and why were you not allowed to take your gear with you?"
Gazef wanted to continue to ignore the words spoken by his vice-captain but the following words made him silent.
"Tell me the truth, Captain! Was it because of the Nobles?!"
Gazef couldn't answer this, simply because it was the truth. It was because of the interference of the nobles that he wasn't allowed to take his gear with him.
"So it is true... damn nobles!!" The vice-captain could understand the truth even without an answer and made his frustration known.
Gazef shook his head, "Not all nobles..."
"Yeah, maybe there are some decent nobles, like the Golden Princess, but most of them are worse than the garbage. If the King could just take their power for himself like the Emperor next door. Then he could finally focus on the people..."
Gazef didn't approve of those words but rebuked him, "That is enough. Such behavior might very well split the kingdom..."
Splitting the Kingdom with an expansionist empire next door would not be a good thing at all and may even make more people suffer.
"You will take half of the man and take the survivors to E-Rantel," Gazef ordered again, and this time more sternly.
But the vice-captain wasn't one to back down easily, "Captain this is without a doubt a trap, I even believe that they let the survivors live just so that we would need to split our forces..."
"This is the King's land and those are the King's people, in his stead, I need to protect them..." Gazef explained his own stance.
"Then let's all go back to E-Rantel and set out again afterward..."
"No, they might destroy another village or even more until then."
"Then let's all go together after them..."
"No, if we can't protect the king's people then the nobles will take this as an opportunity to attack the King..."
They went back and forth for a while until Gazef suddenly asked something, which the vice-captain didn't expect.
"Say, were you born in a village?"
"Yes, I aspired to the King's selection because I admired you..."
"I also came from a village, when you live in a village death is always around you and monsters can attack at any time." Gazef paused and then continued, "You need to wait for adventures to help, but it is rare for Villagers to be able to hire them..."
"Yes, I remember this very well, the noble who our village belonged to never sent any money to help hire adventures..." There was resentment in the vice-captain's voice as he clenched his fists.
"I want to help those people. I want to let them see that there are strong people who will risk their lives to help them..." Gazef spoke as he gazed at the setting sun in the distance.
"Captain..." The vice-captain didn't know what to say anymore.
"So please, can you take them to E-Rantel?"
"I will select the man to follow me..." The vice-captain finally gave up persuading his captain and started to select the people who would go with him.
The two groups then split up, one leaving for E-Rantel, while the other followed the trail to the probable next target.
Just as the two groups disappeared from view, in the field close to the burned Village, a group of people appeared out of thin air.
These people were the men from the sunlight scripture and in front stood Nigun Grid Luin, their Captain.
"Too late..."
"We missed him..."
The two people closest to him spoke, but he didn't care that they were late.
"He is already trapped in our net, he does not have his gear on him and half of his men have left him. The next time we see him will be the last."
One of the two behind him nodded and then spoke up, "But I don't understand these people of the Kingdom, his life is 100 times more worth than all the villagers of the Villages we have destroyed..."
"Yeah, he should just go away after knowing it is a trap and let the people die." the other one also agreed.
Nigun nodded and touched the scar on his face, "I agree, the people of the kingdom are all strange."
The scar on his face was from an encounter with another strong person coming from the kingdom.
When they were exterminating another of the Demi-Human enclaves, they met an adventurer party called Blue Rose. They clashed as the adventures decided to help the Demi-Humans.
Something he found even more stupid than what Gazef Stronoff was doing right now. Gazef at least fought for his own people, but those adventurers...
In the end, their Leader Lakyus Alvein Dale Aindra gave him this scar and they couldn't complete their mission.
"Prepare to move to the next ambush point! There our hunt will finally come to an end."