Chapter-1 The beginning

Bang!!!!

Bang!!!!

Bang!!!

The loud bang coming from the door woke me.

"Who is this??"I shouted from the bed.

"It's me Arlo Captain" Arlo yells from outside.

Arlo is 5'8 feet tall man with brown skin. He is a skilled fighter and uses his special staff while fighting.

I get up and get dress. Meanwhile,Arlo stops banging the door and tells me to come to the Castle chamber.

I woke up and get dress, then I strap my sword and start walking toward the castle chamber.

Loud noise is coming from the chamber,

"Agh!!!how could two grown up fight with one another early morning."

Arlo and Anna are quarrelling with each other, they are always like this. Quarrelling with one another even on slightest point, they often critics one another yet they work together.

After noticing me standing at the door waiting for them to notice him, Arlo immediately stops and greets me, after noticing Arlo Anna turns toward me and greets.

I walk upto them and sit on the chair. Both Arlo and Anna does the same, they both possessed disappointment looks.

I wait for a few second to chill their mood. Then I said, "What's wrong with both of you?"

Arlo is a spearman and a former member of the royal guard. Anne is a freelance fighter and a skilled duelist with the sword.

Arlo and Anne happened to be in the same mercenary company as me. The mercenary captain was rather inexperienced led his company right into an enemy trap. A bloody battle happened in which we three among the dozen or so that survived. After that day we all vowed to never fight under anyone else's mercenary flag unless it was our own.

Arlo and Anna had some epic disagreement over the year and often use me as an impartial tie breaker. Due to this,many clients started referring to me as the captain since I seemed to make all the decision for the group. Arlo and Anna didn't mind as long as they were getting paid. Over the year, they have even grown to respect my leadership.

"Well!!As always she is to be blamed"Arlo says

"What me?!!Your silly man,if you once again blame me I will beat you upto the point where you can't feel your own body"Anna responds out of anger.

"See captain, now say who is to be blamed?"

"Cut it off you two, you are the finest warrior in the entire kingdom yet you quarrel like a child"

Lucy stares sternly at Arlo. It gives Arlo slight cold chill.

Lucy is short tempered, while she is angry she doesn't even think about consequences, she just goes wild on her opponent, in past when Lucy lost her tempered she hit the king jester so freking hard that the king sends his personal bodyguard and put her in dungeon for a whole year.

"So what is this all about?"I said.

Vary and lucy both opens their mouth at the same time.

"Well"

"Well"

They both look toward each other and waits for a few second to let the other speak.After roughly waiting for a minute to let someone speak I said"Come on not again...Ok vary you tell me what it's all about"

"Well captain,it looks like we have two job offer today. First one is from a merchant who wishes us to escort him safely to the next town. And a lord wants us to collect tax from the farmland village."

Arlo hands me the job offer, I observe them closely and find that some necessary detail is missing.

I will personally check on the merchant meanwhile I will send Arlo and Anna to check on the lord.As I am thinking if they go together then the will start arguing, but wait why were they arguing about earlier.After thinking for a while I come to a conclusion to stop thinking rather than asking them directly.

"We lack some necessary detail here but will talk about it later. Now, let's get straight to the point shall we, whats were you two arguing about?"

Anna and Arlo both look at each other like a heavy rock directly hit them. After looking eachother for a brief moment Arlo hasitigately speaks."Well, Anna wants us to build our castle in the north. And I wants us to build our castle here in South. "

Over a year we have we have managed to save enough money to purchase some land and build a small castle.

"Yes, North is where are opportunities are."Anna hisses.

"Yes, but it is dangerous for us there, there is constant threats of demons and barbarians, beside people there are cutthroat and also North is rocky and full of the swamp I don't want to get bitten by swamp bugs."Arlo exclaimed.

"The more risk the higher the price. Besides I had enough of escorting lords,merchant and novelmen in the south."Anna yells.

"So you were arguing about this"I said rubbing my chin.

"So you decide captain, what should we do?"Arlo says in haze.

"Well, Neither of you are in favour of eachother, so its best for us to settle in the midking, where we can successfully operate both high risk task and low risk task."I said.

"Hum..nice one captain, if you settle there then we could land some job both in north and south. Perfect…"Anna exclaimed.

Arlo respond with node. It looks like the matter is slove for now. I know them they would again start to argue about city where we could build the castle.

"Now lets focus on your work shall we."I said looking at both Anna and Arlo.

"At first we will escort the merchant safely to his destination."I said.

"If this merchant treats us the same way asthe previous merchant then I cannot guarantee his life."Anna saysslammingg the table.

"Then next we would collect the lord tax"I said.

"I always wanted to be a tax collector."

"What?but you said you hate to work with merchant and lords?"Arlo exclaimed.

"Yeah, but collecting tax is different.Being tax collector I could carry pouch full of gold."Anna responds.

"Urghh!!! I thought I know you but just I think of it then your just right slips my mind."Arlo speaks.

Anna chuckles "Men will never understand female. Especially,me."

After some moments, a maid comes in and says"My lord, and my ladies the food is served."

Everyone burst into laugh. The maid gets in haze. Sweat starts to drop from her face,she looks terrified rather than embarrassed.

"We are not much of lords here. Just use the word sir and madam."Anne says

"Forgive me Madam"The servants apologies.

Finishing the dinner I instruct Arlo to go visit the lord.

Seeing Arlo vanish in the village crowd Anna and I begin to walk toward merchant inns.

"How much GP we have?"Anna askesrubbingg her chin.

"We have enough to build a small castle and hire some maids."I responded.

"Well,we also need to hire some guard and healer of course."Anna exclaimed.

"Yeah,we will hire them."I said.

Fora while she remain silents, perhaps she is thinking something.

"Tell me what are you thinking Anna?"

"I was thinking when will we begin to build a castle ?".

"Soon,To be precise we will after we finish these two work ."

" what are we waiting for?"Anna says looking toward me.

"We not only need to build a castle but we need to buy some furniture,hire an advisor and some weapons, armour for the guard. And for this thing, we don't have enough money. So after finishing this job I assume we will have enough of it to start our own mercenary company and enough reserve to cover our expense when we are out of a job for a while.Beside it is not always going to be three of us so better have more than enough. We also should consider the future of our company too."I sigh.

"Well if that what you have planned for then I will not bother you captain."Anna smiles.

After a few minutes of talk and walk we reached at the heart of town. From morning the town market is crowded.

Merchant are selling their products, town folks are engaged in their own work. The guard is checking the new merchant and patrolling the street.

"It seems like the merchant is quite late."I said

"Urgh!!!I hate waiting. It makes me impatience."Anna hisses.

"I agree, Its the worst part of the job."I responded to chill Anna mood.

At distance crowd startedgatheringg just right past the guard barrack.

"Look like the guard is troubling town flok."Anna smirk.

I look closely at the situation. After observing for some time I figured out that guard is troubling the merchant we were looking for. Noticing it we quickly run toward the crowd.

"Hey guard, this is my men."Anna says with anger.

The guard captain turns around to see the source of the sound.

"Look who we have today, the annoying mercenary."Guard captain hisses.

The guard is checking the merchant caravan,troubling the merchant. They are not much of checking rather destroying the goods.

Guard never check merchant unless they are being supervised,or someone must have bribe them to do so. Either way this is not a way to check someone goods. Out of rage I yelled,

"Stop it".

Hearing my word the other guard stops what they are doing and wait for their captain to speak.

The guard captain burst in laughter followed by his men.

"Mr Nobody here is saying something?,".Guard captain speaks in mocking tone.

Ohh!!Dear..Anna doesn't like someone mocking me.

"If the captain says stop then stop you dumbo."

" Who the heck are you to oder us? Beside We are doing our duty and you better not get in our way unless you want some trouble."The guard captain rebukes.

I can clearly see anger taking over Anna, now that she is angry, soon she will take sword out to finish this bastard.

I slowly approach near her and whisper"If you want to then we will together but not with sword"

That what I said to her.

Finishing my word as I turn to count the guard number but Anna was not in mood to wait so she strike the guard captain hard in his face. Her strike was so powerful with a single blow she knocks the guard captain.

As the captain falls on the ground,it catches the nearby guard eyes their seeing their captain knock down they immediately grabs the sword and march toward Anna.

While this was happening I managed to count the guards number, there are 5 guards here and 10 guard around the area.

The guards raise their sword and attack Anna, she manages to dodge the first strike but the other guard catches her off guard,fortunately there was enough time for me to pick the guard captain shield and block the guard strike.Then with the same shield I hit the guard in his face. The guard was not tough and well trained barely fit the criteria to serve as guard,so a single strike was enough for him.

"Two down three to go"I said.

The three guard surrounds us from three sides, then they start to move in a circle. The three guard raise their sword to strike at once.

I dodge the first guard strike, the other guard was too slow due to which I manage to get a nice blow in his abdomen. And Anna finishes the rest two-guard. Now all the guard lies unconscious in the ground.

Town guards are well-trained guards, most of the guard are supposed to be somekind of a retired warrior. But today it's different all the guard we just knock out could last a second. This is rather unusual, besides this town is the economic hub of midking since most of the merchant that comes from the south have to pass this Redwood first.

A guard from far sees all this happen,his fellow guard taken down with a single punch. He rushes toward the nearest group of the guard.

As I turned to notify Anna about a group of guard rushing toward us I see her grabs the guard captain from the ground and strike him right in his face.

"This is supposed to be your town guard captain? What a pussy, I knocked him with just a single punch."Anna shouts in loud looking at the crowd.

The crowd looks at the fallen guard and start laughing. Even though entire town folks are laughing there is some merchant in the crowd who have rather mysterious face.

Some people are leaving the scene, they enjoyed the fight for a while but now they start to leave the scene in hurray, perhaps they know something that other people don't know about. People who are fleeing from the scene were dressed up as a servant.

Bunch of guards comes in the scene with staff. They are around 10 of them. They surround us and demand to surrender.

The town guard doesn't carry staff they mostly are equipped with swords and wear light armour but this guard are different. They are carrying staff and are heavily armed, the must be some kind of elite guard of some lord or part of king army.

It's best for us to surrender"I said

"Surrender or else you will be captured brutally "One of the guard speaks.

"No way…we can clearly beat you up,let's see what your best moves are"Anna says

"No….this time we surrender"I whisper.

"What?????????????''Anna says in a surprised tone.

"Just follow me,"I said looking sternly into her eye.

Anna nodes and says"We surrender."