Bandage Maniac

On the outskirts of Nagar forest, two men dressed in unique attire which gave of the reminiscent of some ancient clothing walked as they chatted.

"Did you really double-check if that sense of yours is guiding you in the right direction?"

"What are you doubting me for? For someone who doesn't even sense trail left by mana, you sure slander me a lot." The man with a baby face said.

The baby faced guy was but ahead short than the man with a scar on his face. The scar was deeply edged on his face so much that he looked very creepy to even look at.

The man then said, "Just shut up and lead the way, 93."

"What? Did that hit a sore spot? That's why you'll never be better than me. You and your temper aren't suitable for a warrior. You just get ticked off easily." 93 solemnly said as he looked at 94.

"Do you want to have a go at it? Is that why you're ticking me off too much right now?" 94 said as he clenched his fist and blue veins bulged on his forehead like earthworms. He still owed this bastard for ruining his face with that scar. And because of that, no Lady even looked at it.

93, this bastard. If they were to fight it out now, he was sure that he was going to win and now he could surpass this baby faced bastard.

"Nah, I'll pass." 93 said as he walked forward following the trail.

"What? You scared now? Did this baby 93 got scared of his daddy?" 94 said so as to trigger 93 even more, "Hah, you and your whole family is filled with cowards with no guts to fight with others."

"Just because I didn't say something..." 93 said as he shot a cold glance towards 94 as he felt a chill run down his spine. 94's blood ran cold.

"That doesn't mean, I'll tolerate every garbage that comes out of your trashy mouth. Know your limits otherwise next time it will be your neck that gets a deep scar."

"Haha, you sure take jokes too seriously, 93, you need to be a bit of a handler." 94 said as cold sweat dripped down his forehead.

"Oh, it was a joke." 93 said, "I'm sorry for just now. I'm a little bad with jokes. If you hadn't told me just now, I would have let your head fly in the air just now. Since its a joke, hahahaha, I guess. But...don't drag down my family in other jokes okay."

"If you again drag them...your head really will fly."

It was on this side. It was this side...94 hated this side of 93 to the core. This dude didn't take anything too seriously unless it was related to his family. If he had then he would already have been promoted above 50.

He was a fool to even think that he could beat him now that he had grown a bit stronger. This guy was still strong enough to make him shiver with just some words. Traveling with him made 94 proud as well as gave him the feeling of being punished.

This dude was just unpredictable!

"See, I told you my senses never lie." 93 said as he pointed at the stone which laid in the middle of the forest in front of some ruined house. The stone was actually a gravestone that was above the ground where a person was buried.

"Even if one is dead, I can trace their mana unless they had been dead for decades or someone just dissipated the mana."

"Now let's see," 93 stood in front of the grave and pierced through the ground with his hand and pulled out a corpse from the tomb.

"Is this the bastard young master talked about?"

The face was so damaged that he could barely recognize if this was indeed the person they were chasing after.

"But...what's with this? Who did this to this bastard before we even got to him?" 93 was confused because except for them, no one was ordered to chase after this person. Or, did the young master sent others since we were taking too much time? But it was impossible.

93 then looked at 94 who was frowning before the gravestone with an excited look, "Did somebody found out that we were chasing after him and finished off this person before we even got to him?"

"Hey, why don't you answer me? Is some gravestone that interesting to you in comparison to my question?" 93 asked.

"The gravestone is not interesting... but the texts written in it are." 94 replied, "I have never seen this sort of text before in my whole life. 93, do you think that this text belongs to some ancient clan we don't know of?"

"Text that is interesting than target?" Let me see." 93 left the corpse and looked at the texts carved in the gravestone and frowned,

"Indeed, I, myself, as well haven't seen this sort of text before. Maybe they really are some ancient texts. We have failed to get to our target first, so what do you think of taking this gravestone to our young master? I'm sure he'll reward us and if he becomes too happy then I will ask him to reward me with the vacation of one year from the work. This stone sure will make my life easier."

"You thinking of taking all the rewards? Dream on! I'm the one who found this so I'll also ask the young master to give me a vacation from the work. I'm sure that these texts aren't the ones we know of, I wonder who wrote it?" 94 said.

"Wanna find out?" 93 asked with his eyes glimmering with excitement, "If we find out who carved these then we might also find out the person who killed first. There's still a trail of the mana here, want to trail it?"

"No, we shouldn't do it." 94 shook his head and said, "For all we know, this person might be some powerful genius and don't forget that he is able to carve these texts. If the person is very powerful as I am imagining then we'll be in big trouble...yes, huge trouble indeed."

"That's a bummer." 93 blew his cheeks and looked at the texts carved in the gravestone like a baby.

While they were talking to each other, a girl happened to pass by the grave and seeing the body out of the tomb and two people chatting beside the grave, she shouted,

"You two, Why have you dug out the body. Are you trying to rob the grave?"

Both of them looked at the girl who had a dog by her side. From how it looked, she was taking a dog for a walk and happened to stumble upon them but man, the dog was huge for the lady to take it for the walk. Nevertheless, they were weak as an ant so they didn't mind her words that much.

Why would they? Why would a lion listen to what an ant had to say?

It was the grave Oslo had prepared after the battle and seeing two strangers rummage through it as if robbing, it made Marie mad. What about respect for the dead?

"Didn't you listen to what I said?" Marie shouted again looking at the people who ignored her words.

"Well, little girl-" Just as 94 was about to lose his temper, 93 interrupted and said,

"Actually, this is the body of my brother who had run away from the clan a long time ago. We searched for him for months but he was nowhere to be found. But now that we found him, he was dead...Do you know which powerful senior did this?"

"Powerful? Well, if you are talking about his strength then it wasn't that good. But he still managed to defeat him anyway." Marie said.

"Oh, not powerful?" 93 frowned.

If he was not that big of a deal then how was he able to kill William? Was that expert hiding his strength in front of her?

93 then again asked, "Did he have something that represented his clan?"

"Why do ask that? And, even if he had..." Marie didn't know these two grave robbers but seeing them asking one question after another, she was on guard, "Why will I say that to you?"

"Grrrr..." The mother dog was also ready to tale them anytime.

93 then smiled and said, "Well, if he was troubled by our big brother then we have to apologize for all the trouble he had to go through."

He then turned his body facing his back against Marie and lifted up his upper cloth,

"Did he have some mark like this or of anything else that represented his clan?"

Seeing his back, Marie gasped. There were hundreds of scars and burn marks on his back and there was that too. A tattoo that was similar to what Oslo had in his hand. Although the tattoo on his back was that of a dragon, it was little different than what Oslo had...it was purple in color.

She then guessed that they too belonged to Oslo's clan because last time when William had mentioned about the tattoo, he had mentioned about the tattoo with purple color as well. She was now sure that, Oslo also belonged to their clan.

"Well, he had the same tattoo as yours but..." Marie paused.

Same tattoo? The words caught their attention and they perked their ears to listen carefully. Were others deployed after the target after they took too much time? They thought as sweat dripped down their forehead.

"But what?" 94 asked in an impatient tone.

"But he had the tattoo on his hand and it was black in color which is a bit different than the tattoo he has." She replied.

Black in color? Both of them opened their eyes wide as if shocked. A higher-up was involved? 94's eyes immediately lit up as he looked at 93 and said,

"Black color, did you listen? It's black in color. I've never met higher-ups, not even one. 93, forget what I had said before and let's trail that guy with the black tattoo in hand. What do you think? You can trail him can't you?"

But 93 didn't reply and was silent. He then fixed his clothing and said looking at 94,

"We'll be leaving with the gravestone and body, now!"

"Why? Weren't you excited just before about chasing the guy?" 94 was confused, "Don't you want to know too? Besides, didn't she say that he wasn't that strong? So, what gives?"

"Shut up and let's go back." 93 said as he gritted his teeth,

"Listen! No matter what you do, don't get involved with the higher-ups. It'll do you no good."

93 saying that waved his hand which was covered in blue mana, "I've now erased every traces of the mana that would help one trail to the higher up, so, let's forget that we ever heard he say that and take that stone."

94 didn't know why but since he was a position lower than 93, he had to follow his order. He then picked up the corpse of William in one hand and the gravestone in another as he disappeared alongside 93 without a trace.

Marie and the mother dig seeing them vanish just like that were left behind with a confused expression on their face. Everything happened so fast that she couldn't react on time. She didn't even know what to think of them anymore.

***

While Oslo was walking towards the direction of the central plaza, he halted on his feet when he heard a voice coming from his back.

"You there, why do you wear those bandages?"

When Oslo heard that phrase, a grin appeared in his face. He knew that since he also wore bandages in his right hand, it was but a matter of time before he got targeted as well. He then said while turning towards the person who was in the talk of the whole city,

"So, have you come for my bandages as well?"

"Bandage Maniac!"