Cardinal Rule Number One: Always get paid up front.
It's not just good business. It's survival.
Getting paid first means both sides are serious—it's a gesture of trust wrapped in gold. Even half payment counts. You pay, I believe. That's how it works. That's how you live long enough to make a second rule.
I wrote all ten rules myself. My own personal creed, built from five long, bloody years as a mercenary. No one knows them but me and my best friend, Alverd—and even then, he breaks half of them before breakfast.
Alverd's the trusting kind. I've told him trust gets you killed, but he just smiles that knightly smile and says, "A man must have faith." I call that having holes. Still, I respect him. He sees things I don't. Things I've long since stopped believing in.
If ever a man looked like a walking fairy tale, it's Alverd.
Tall, lean, tousled brown hair, blue eyes that shine even when the world doesn't deserve them. Armor polished to a mirror sheen. Sword and shield marked with an eagle's wings outstretched. A crimson cape fluttering like a banner of misplaced optimism. The kind of man bards write songs about and every tavern girl sighs over.
And the bastard earns it.
He's got the training—ten years of it. Sword, lance, joust, fist. He fights like a man born with steel in his veins. Strategy, though? That's where I come in. Alverd's the hero; I'm the one who keeps him alive long enough to play the part.
We've been at it for five years now. Mercenaries. He calls himself a knight errant—sounds nobler, I guess. But at the end of the day, a knight errant's just a merc with a fancy title. You take jobs. You do the work. You get paid. And if you're lucky, you live to complain about it.
Name's Kuro.
Scholar. Mage. Professional cynic.
If you saw me on the street, you'd never peg me as a merc.
My hair's black and unkempt no matter how much I wash it. My eyes—dark purple, like fresh bruises—make me look perpetually sleep-deprived. My arms? Noodles. My stamina? Worse. And I'm short enough that people mistake me for an apprentice instead of a partner.
But I've got brains, a sharp tongue, and a sense for danger. And that's enough.
Alverd and I are opposites in everything that matters. He's light. I'm shadow. Together, we somehow make a whole. In a trade this bloody and unpredictable, it's the only reason we've lasted.
We've got bounties on our heads in Kiret—"various disagreements with established authorities," the posters say. Which is a polite way of saying I blew up the villa of a slave-trading noble. In my defense, the explosion was spectacular.
We'd fled to Guilford after that—a country buried in snow and self-importance. The capital, Bertweld, was freezing even by Guilford standards. We had just enough coin for two bowls of lukewarm soup (with "meat" of questionable origin) and a room above a tavern that smelled like despair. We earned our stay by washing dishes after closing. Glorious life, mercenary work.
That night, I asked Alverd, "Remind me why we're in this icy wasteland again?"
He yawned, setting his shield by the bed. "Because I like not being hunted, and Kiret's full of bounty hunters who'd love your head on a pike."
He flopped onto the mattress, armor clinking softly. "You went too far, Kuro. Freeing those slaves was good. Blowing up the merchant's villa? That's what got us chased halfway across the continent."
I couldn't help smiling, remembering the fireball—how it pulsed like a heartbeat before I sealed it inside the cart and sent it rolling through his front gates. The explosion lit up the night like a second sun. Worth every second.
"He had it coming," I said. "When you profit off chains, you earn every bit of bad luck that follows. I just made sure it arrived on time."
Alverd sighed. "You can't defeat evil by using its tactics."
"Maybe not," I said, "but it's faster."
He gave me that disappointed look of his—the one that said he wished I believed in the same things he did. He held his sword against his chest, another of his old habits. I turned over and muttered, "Get some sleep. Tomorrow we find work before we freeze to death."
---
Morning came too soon. My eyes felt like sandpaper. I shuffled downstairs to the tavern's bounty board and scanned the postings. Slim pickings.
Then I saw it.
"Reward: 2,000 Gold for the Safe Return of Baron Everetti's Missing Daughter."
Finally. A job worth our time.
I grabbed the flyer, showed it to Alverd, and within the hour, we were trudging through Bertweld's icy streets toward the noble quarter.
---
Guilford's cold runs deep. The air bites, but the people bite harder. The guards sneered as we passed. The merchants stared like we were vermin. Even the common folk gave us that hollow-eyed glare of those who've long since stopped hoping for spring.
The capital sat cradled between two mountain ranges—snowed in, prideful, and stubbornly miserable. They called themselves the toughest people on Selarune. I called them idiots for staying in a place where crops froze overnight. But whatever.
As we crossed the market, I saw how bad things were. Vendors with half-rotten produce. Fishmongers glaring at empty barrels. A butcher hacking uselessly at a stringy slab of something that might once have been meat. When he slammed the cleaver down in frustration, I leaned close to Alverd and muttered,
"Guess he's not the sharpest knife in the set."
Alverd didn't even smile. "You know why they're starving, Kuro. Don't mock them."
I snorted. "These people chose this. Their misery's their own fault."
He didn't argue. He just walked on—and I noticed, a moment later, a ragged woman crying tears of gratitude behind us. Alverd must've slipped her a coin when I wasn't looking. Typical.
Bleeding heart.
And damn it, I admired him for it.
---
The noble quarter looked like a different world. Stone walls, imported wood, patrolling guards with sharp eyes and sharper spears. Every house screamed money. One estate stood out even among the rest—Baron Yanos Everetti's. His front garden glittered with crystal flowers that somehow didn't wilt in the cold. Pretty, in that tasteless, expensive way nobles like.
A servant in fine clothes met us at the door, eyes sharp but polite. He ushered us inside, announced us, and moments later the Baron himself appeared.
He was… sharp. In every sense of the word.
Tall, thin, with features so severe I thought he might cut glass by frowning. His skin was pale, his ears long and pointed adorned with silver rings. Elf. Of course he was. They always are.
Elves are graceful, intelligent, beautiful, and endlessly smug. The kind of people who make humans look plain and beastmen look savage. They live forever and never let you forget it.
I shook his hand anyway, resisting the urge to count how many bones I felt through his skin. His expression never changed. Maybe it couldn't.
That's when I knew this job wasn't going to be simple.
Nothing involving elves ever is.