10 From Zero To Hero

The Mora Village was your typical small and remote hamlet.

It was surrounded by fields and wasn't too much far from a forest. The habitations were made mostly in wood, with only a couple of structure that stood out for being at least partially made with large rock slabs. Most of the buildings were recently built, and there were also some new in construction on the north side of the village.

Contrary to most places like this, Mora was quite heavily defended: the village was surrounded by a double layered palisade with a single large entrance on the southern region. Drenches had been dug outside a long wall made of spear-looking pales and the only entrance to the village was defended by massive iron doors. A tall watch tower surmounted the entrance, equipped with large plates of copper that could be used to alert the entire community in case of attack.

More than a small village, Mora looked like a small fortress, at least from the outside.

These defensive measures weren't always there. There was a time when the hamlet didn't even have wall, nor an actual entrance. There were no watchtowers and everyone could leave and enter from every side of the village.

It all changed when less than a year ago a bandit raid had put the entire community on their knees.

Almost half of Mora's population died in that bloody attack, many survived only to perish shortly after from the wounds that they received. Most of the structures had been put on fire after being searched for valuable items. Many girls had been kidnapped, and almost all those who remained were abused in some way.

To avoid this happening again, Mora's people requested some help from the local Lord, Knight Feng, but he didn't seem to care much about such a small hamlet. The noble said that he felt that sending his forces to hunt the bandit that attacked the village would be a complete waste of time.

The village bordered with the Iryona Forest, an immense wild region that spanned also in the territory of several other nobles. If the bandits hid in another lord's territory, he would have no way to reach them/

Even if he didn't help, he sent word to the village, allowing the fortification of the community. Without his express approval, creating walls and other defenses would have been a direct offense against his authority and the people there could have been declared traitorous.

The people of the village worked very hard creating a defensive system that would allow to protect themselves against another attack of the bandit group.

They even made a new rule that stated that at least one person should always be on top of the watchtower. No matter what was happening, no matter if it was day or night. Someone needed to stay in the tower to make sure that nobody tried to sneak in the village.

On the day of the marriage that someone was Rob. Rob was a tall and well built man. He was always clean shaved and wore large working clothes all the time. He had been a soldier, serving for a few years in Lord Feng's army before settling down in the village and using all his money to pay for an apprenticeship to the local blacksmith.

He stood there, on the top of the watchtower, looking inside the village, towards one of the stone structures that stood out between the wooden ones.

"Ah, the ceremony should have already started" he said, talking to himself with a sad smile. He really wanted to be there, but someone needed to stay on guard.

"Maybe it was a bad idea volunteering for this" he continued, remorse appearing in his eyes. This wasn't his turn to be on duty after all. Normally, it should have been old Kruth's turn, however he had asked to take his place.

This was the day when Kurth's gran-daughter would finally marry his teacher's son after all. How could the old man miss the marriage of his only remaining family member? It felt the right thing to do, taking his place on guard duty.

Rob was only a couple of years older than the son of his teacher, Darius, and he didn't know the guy that well. However, he knew how much hard the young man had worked to get that girl to accept his proposal.

Even when she finally accepted, he had basically forced her hand. Everybody knew that if it wasn't for crazy-Sif she wouldn't have agreed. She needed someone that could help her care for her retarded friend, because she wasn't able to do so alone anymore. When Darius heard that, he offered her a deal: she had to marry him and he would take care of crazy-Sif for the rest of his miserable life.

"???"

The man looked down, his attention attracted by a loud scream. He saw a couple of people running out from the blacksmith's house.

The person running on the front was surely Syndra. Her flaming hair was something very easy to identify. Rob was pretty confused: was the ceremony already ended and the newly wed couple running to their new house? No, that seemed a little bit far fetched. The ceremony would last for a couple of hours at least.

Plus, even if Darius had been waiting for that moment for long, Syndra didn't seem the type of girl that would run towards the place where marriage would be consumed.

"Wait a moment, that's not Darius!" exclaimed the man in the tower, noticing that the guy that she was dragging along with her was too meager to be the son of the blacksmith. When he saw that he had only one arm, he immediately knew who he was: Sif, Syndra's crazy friend.

Sif had been a silent strange guy for most of his life, even before he went insane. Before they called him the hunter mania, because he could only think of hunting and training his archery skills.

However after the attack of the bandits, the guy completely changed: not only he lost all his family, he lost even an arm, becoming a cripple at such a young age. Something snapped in him and now he was a retard, a completely crazy person that couldn't even talk.

"What are they doing?" Rob noticed that the two of them had surpassed the wooden house that Darius's parents had rapidly built for the marriage of their son. They kept running in direction of...the doors!

"They're running away!" he finally understood.

A grin appeared on his face, as he started to move down the watchtower. From his side, he took out an old looking mace, his weapon from his day as a soldier that he brought with him everywhere he went. Then, he put himself in the very middle of the road that lead outside the village.

This was his chance to make his teacher fall in debt with him! He didn't feel that bad for Syndra at all, even knowing that she was basically being forced into the marriage. Darius was a good man, she should just stop being such a nuisance and just go with it.

Plus, where she thought she was going to go? Maybe alone she could manage to survive outside Mora for some time, but with that retard with her? She had no chance at all. He was sure that once she calmed down and matured a bit she would even thank him for stopping her for making such a big mistake.

With a severe expression on his face, Rob stood there, waiting.

Not too far from where the blacksmith's apprentice was waiting, a young couple of friends was running as fast as they could.

Prometheus felt his hand hurt from Syndra's grip, but each time he tried to free himself she only closed it even more.

'Dammit, I can run all alone! I don't need help to follow you, I'm not a child!' he wanted to scream, cursing at her but at the same time he didn't want to start an argument in such a precarious situation.

"No" exclaimed out of the blue the redhead that was running before him. The woman stopped suddenly, without giving poor Prometheus any indication that she was going to do so. Obviously, the guy crashed into her, and they both ended rolling on the ground.

Prometheus wailed in pain as he got up, frowning towards the girl that was still on the ground next to him. If it wasn't for the fact that she just revealed to him that she saved his life, he surely would have beaten her to a pulp.

"Stay down kid" Ordered a severe voice that made him jump in his place.

Prometheus moved his eyes beyond the body of the woman before him. A dozen meters from his position there was a big metal door. In the very middle of that metal door stood a tall man that was pointing a mace towards him.

He naturally ignored his order, his brow knitting in displeasure. Kid? That man didn't seem that old. Even if he was, he surely wasn't as old as him. Moreover why was he giving him orders and menacing him with a weapon?

"I said stay down, don't let me come there to spank you kid" laughed the man, rotating the iron weapon in his hand.

Prometheus's face fell. Did that guy just menaced him of spanking? And why was he playing with that hideous looking mace? Was he planning to spank him with that?

This Mora Village was truly a nest of despicable degenerates.

"Fuck off weirdo" said the one armed guy with anger, while patting the dust out of his clothes. He wasn't scared of a guy with mace.

"Oh did you grow a tongue? Hahaha, Syndra you thought your pet a new trick?" said the man that was blocking their escape, giving very inappropriate looks at Syndra's exposed thighs.

The red haired girl got also on her feet. Her right knee hurt like hell, probably it was dislocated.

"Dammit!" she cussed. Trying to outrun the man was now out of the picture: probably now she needed to beat him in a fight! Syndra took out the long hunting knife that she had used before to escape from the white marriage tent.

"Let us pass Rob, this doesn't concern you!" she said, slowly moving around the man, trying to get to the other side of the gate.

"Mph, of course it does. Did you forget who's apprentice am I?" he responded the man, not seeming concerned at all about the blade that she had on her hands.

"STOP THEM" furious screams came from far away. Syndra glanced back, only to see a large group of people running towards them. They were still far away, but she knew that if they managed to reach them, it was all over for her. She would be forced to marry Darius. Her dreams of chasing after the most beautiful women in the world would end before even beginning.

"MOVE NOW" she roared, readying herself to fight. There was a mad fire burning in her eyes that made even the experienced ex soldier feeling uncomfortable.

"Ahaha, stand down little girl. I'm not a dear or a rabbit, you won't win a fight against me!" Rob tried to scare her off. "You should stay here and wait until your husband comes to get you. Your place is-"

Prometheus, already trembling with rage for the insults taken from the tall man, exploded in fury listening to what the guy was saying to the person that saved his life.

He never was a very calm and poised guy, so his first reaction was to go there and beat that man to a bloody pulp. He didn't have any weapon, but he still attacked. Taking advantage of the fact that he was completely ignoring him and was focused on Syndra, the one armed guy flashed towards the mace wielding man.

In the moment he started moving, Prometheus realized something strange: he was too much fast! Before he could even realize it he crashed into the tall man, tackling him like he was in a rugby game. They both ended up on the ground.

The one armed man immediately got on his knees, eyeing the mace that was still in the other man's hand. Rob, instead was paralyzed by the pain for a moment: he felt like if he just had an impact with a solid piece of rock.

He couldn't believe his eyes: was that really crazy-Sif? When did he become so fast and strong?

However soon his fighting experience made him recover from the stupor and with a loud scream he forced his body to move. He swung his mace towards the young man's head, not hesitating to try to deal a mortal strike against him.

Syndra's eyes almost gouged out of her eye-sockets. One moment Rob was teasing her while playing around with his mace and the next one he was wrestling on the ground with Sif. Before she could join the fight, helping her friend, she noted that Rob was striking with his iron mace towards Sif's head.

"Sif, no!" she screamed, darting towards the attacker with her large knife.

Prometheus looked at the approaching seven bladed iron mace. He didn't feel any panic at all. Why would he? That mace seemed to travel with an insanely slow speed.

He moved his hand, and closed it around the wrist of the man that was trying to kill him. It was something that he learned in a self defense class when he was in high school, but he never thought it would be so easy to do it in a real life and death combat.

'Maybe this is adrenaline?' he though dubiously. He tightened his grip on his enemy's hand, and the air was filled by the cracking sounds of broken bones.

Rob screamed, he was in disbelief and pain. He, a trained veteran that served for years had been so easily subdued by the madman of the village? How come he was so insanely strong?