"Hey~! Did you guys put everything on the wagons already?" Zarba called out as he and the grumbling Nadia, who was following behind him while she casually carried a wrapped bundle of her newly purchased armor that weighed more than forty kilos in her arms, finally returned to the wagons from the smithy after the reincarnated prince personally made sure that the muscular woman didn't pick anything outrageous for her armor.
In front of Zarba and Nadia, they could see that Xin was already waiting for them beside Mormon, who was humming a lively tune, sorting through sacks of various herbs and bottles of cheap liquor inside the wagon while the Zar-Bros stood guard around the wagons like statues with their hands resting on the pommels of their swords to deter any nosy people from getting close.
"Yes, yes, I got everything we might need just like you asked, my husband..." Xin turned to face the two approaching people and said with a little pout at Zarba since she saw something that interested her in some stores while she was shopping for supplies but couldn't buy it because of him.
"You can feast your lovely eyes upon them here..." The half-elf said with a little sass as she gestured lazily toward the two wagons now piled high with provisions and conspicuously absent of anything that shouldn't be there, such as new dresses and dubious books...
"How nice of you..." Zarba smiled wryly at his slave-wife's antics as he got close to the displeased half-elf and bent forward to kiss her soft lips with a little peck to pacify the cranky mood of hers, and that is all it takes for the half-elf, who hums with satisfaction.
"Hey, I also got enough ingredients to produce us a fair amount of useful potions as well!" Mormon seemed to bounce in place with excitement as she stuck her head out from the wagon to chime in with her hand waving around one of the sacks of crushed herbs in the air. "My student even found me a cool white powder that I can use for a courage potion!"
'White powder that can make a courage potion...? Why does it sound similar to a certain magical white powder from my previous world?' Zarba smiled wryly while wondering how his slave-wife even found such a thing around here as he patted the goblin girl on her head just like she obviously wanted him to.
'Ah~ so easy to please...' Zarba thought with a relaxed expression as he saw the goblin girl smile shyly like an actual little girl despite being so ancient inside.
"Well, since everything is in order, let's leave then!" Decided not to think too much about anything else, Zarba just urged the women to get going while Nadia tossed a bundle of armor into the back of a wagon with a heavy thud.
'Better get out of the town while we still can...' Zarba thought, as he still didn't forget about the earlier bad premonition about the trouble that was probably coming toward him, and if they still remained inside the town when trouble arrived, then they couldn't really count on Xin's large-scale magic to mow down the enemies quickly for obvious reasons.
Right now the sun had dipped below the horizon, leaving the streets bathed in the soft glow of magic lanterns from the streetlights along the streets, but then, before the group could get on the wagon and get going, the distant clatter of armored footsteps could be heard faintly around them as the sound gradually became louder and louder.
"..." Zarba's lips twitch as he hears too many pairs of footsteps coming from their surroundings; he knows that it's definitely not something like patrol guards currently going about their evening rounds but a hostile force.
"Huh, seems like we got a lot of company..." Nadia muttered with a grin, her fingers already reaching toward the hilt of her greatsword behind her. She can have fun fighting soon.
And the system also confirms the incoming threat...
÷×÷×÷
[ System Alert! ]
—Quest triggered!
—Quest: Tartaro Guards Attack!
—Objective: Escape from the town of [ Tartaro ] and cross a distance of at least 10 kilometers from the towb or defeat the town guards and the town ruler [ Veznik ].
—Reward: [ Shinobi Template ]
÷×÷×÷
"Damn it, guess there's no choice; we have to fight here..." Zarba frowned with an annoyed expression as the SSS also issued the quest while he looked around them and summoned twenty of the veteran legionaries to protect the wagons and Mormon, who had already hidden in the wagon.
"The ruler of this town is pretty bold, huh, to actually try something here..." Zarba is somewhat amazed at the audacity of the guy who ordered this undeniable treason act against the crown prince of their own empire in broad daylight.
'Well, at least the reward is very interesting this time and might be worth the trouble this time. I wonder what kind of ninja it's going to be...' While he feels it is troublesome, Zarba still feels great anticipation for the new summon unit template as he readies his bow and arrow while summoning twenty more Zar-bros behind the line of the legionaries.
"Oh my, that's quite a number..." While Zarba commanded his summons to get in formation, Xin's long ears twitched from how many guards were rushing to their location as she pursed her lavender-shaded lips in annoyance since she also realized that she couldn't use too many destructive magic spells here in the middle of the town to end their enemies quickly and could only use some single-target spell of hexes and curses this time, so it'll take quite a while before the battle can conclude.
"I'll definitely use the testicle twister curse on someone..." With some ominous grumbling, Xin got up on the wagon driver's seat with the Zar-bro's help so that she would have a higher vantage point to shoot her spells at the enemy without the line of summoned units blocking her line of fire.
While Zarba's group was ready for battle, the clatter of armored boots grew louder as the town guards got close to the market square where Zarba's group was. Their objective is without a doubt the reincarnated prince and his companions.
Zarba didn't bother hiding behind his summon, and instead, he stood out of the formation with Nadia beside him while he waited for the enemies to make their appearance as the first line of town guards came out from the corner of the junctions in front of them. Their spears cast shadows across the streets as they poured out from all directions to the market to surround Zarba and his group.
"There should be at least hundreds of them..." Zarba murmured, counting all the guards he could see roughly as the guards fanned out in a crescent formation and encircled their group. Their leader—a man with a mustache—stepped forward, his hand resting on a sheathed sword. Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the evening chill. His eyes look quite wary.
"You brought quite a number of people here... What might your business with us be?" Zarba asked lazily, tapping his foot onto the cobblestones in a steady rhythm. Zarba wants to make sure that they all are on the same page so he can carry out his retaliation appropriately.
"We are here..." The man's mustache twitched slightly after hearing Zarba's question, but not out of irritation, Zarba noted, as the man looked anxious and uncertain for some reason.
"By order of Count Veznik, you are to be detained for questioning regarding..." The guard commander's eyes darted to a scrap of parchment in his offhand. "...suspected smuggling of imperial artifacts that you have stolen!"
"Stolen... Imperial artifacts...?" Zarba and his group looked at each other with an amused expression, then the reincarnated prince looked back at the guards with derision. Zarba really wants to laugh at the guard, as he has just been accused of stealing his own family's items, but the amusement ended rather quickly as the desire to beat them up wins.
"No, I don't think I will be going anywhere with you idiots." Zarba's blunt yet laced with a warning edge of a reply seemed to make the front row of guards instinctively tighten their grips on their spears. The commander's mustache quivered as he opened his mouth to bark an order, but Zarba was already moving, his hand flicking outward in a dismissive arc toward the guard commander as a signal for Xin to draw the first blood.
"You shouldn't have come here..." Zarba muttered as Xin hit the guard commander immediately with a testicular torsion curse spell that she had already prepared in advance, which was quite different from what the reincarnated prince had in mind for her to do.
"Ayeeeehyiiii!!?!!" The effect was instantaneous and horrifyingly spectacular, with a strangled, high-pitched scream that no grown man should ever produce exploding from the guard commander's throat as his knees buckled inward as if someone had yanked both femurs out at once while his torso bent forward one hundred twenty degrees.
"Oh...!! Oooooooh—!?!?!! OH GOOOD—!!!!" His face is confused and terrified as he howls in pain while his sword slides out and drops to the ground with a clang from the sheath, while both of his hands move—not to his weapon—but straight to his groin in a universally understood gesture of pure, male suffering.
"Gkkargh—! Ggggaaaahhh—!!" The guard commander's face turned an alarming shade of purple in under two seconds as the sensation of pain became clearer to his brain the more time passed. He eventually collapsed to the ground while he was screaming like a madman, holding his magical spinning and twisting testicles.
The suffering voice of Krolik was so intense that all the males in the hearing range flinched at the noise.
Seeing such horror, the front line of guards froze, spears wavering, mouths hanging open beneath their helmets. Several visibly winced in sympathetic agony. A few actually took an involuntary step backward from instinctive fear.
"What the..." Zarba mutters in horror, seeing such suffering as he turns to look at his slave-wife, who looks rather smug about it behind him...