Carriage Jacking

A few weeks later Ray arrived at Harlington town. Nothing important happened along the way, just a couple bandit groups being exterminated here and there.

Since he didn't know the current situation in the town, he wouldn't do anything rash. Judging by the size of this town, they probably wouldn't let Ray in so easily without verification. But because of its big size, it also needed a lot of outside resources to keep up the internal stability. Therefore it wasn't uncommon to have a caravan group with supplies coming in. He decided to wait until a merchant or caravan shows up, then sneak inside the city in it.

Ray didn't have to wait long. A couple hours later, a large carriage which looked like it was storing many items headed towards Harlington. There were 4 guards standing outside the carriage, but this was no problem for Ray. When the horses pulling the cart came close, he sent out a bolt which seamlessly penetrated through two of the guard's heads.

The other two guards were on the opposite side of the carriage, so they didn't even hear the bodies thud to the ground over the sound of the horse. Ray jumped onto the ledge sticking out of the carriage and kicked the bodies off the carriage.

By now the other guards started to realize something wasn't right. "You good?" One of the guards called to the now dead guards.

Ray kept silent, waiting for the guards to come to him.

"I'll check on George and Zay." One of the guards said to other guards.

"HEY! Stop the carriage." The guard yelled to someone inside the carriage.

The horses slowly came to a stop. The guard who was telling for the carriage to stop started walking towards Ray and said, "Alright you took the joke too far, if you do this one more time you're fired for sure."

However, all that greeted him when he turned the corner was an unfamiliar teen in peasant clothing. Before the guard could react, Ray cut off his head with a swipe of his sword. The guard's head shot into the hair from the pure impact of Ray's sword.

"Hey, you okay back ther…" The other guard called before he noticed the head of his friend in the air. "What the fuck." He shouted while backing away from the carriage. 'What do I do? Should I run? No! I'll fight him." Thoughts were racing in the guard's head, but it was useless.

Ray appeared around the corner and decapitated the last guard. 'I need to get some invisibility spell, or a method to make it hard to detect me' Ray thought. All this work just to get into a town was really doing too much.

He opened the door to the carriage, revealing an old man holding the whip for the horse. "Wh-who are you?" The old man said in a frightened voice.

Ray wasn't paying any attention to him. Instead, his attention was on the items that the carriage was transporting. The items were covered by a tarp, but the tarp didn't stop Ray from feeling something strange from underneath it. He walked towards the tarp, ready to take it off when the old man desperately shouted, "No! Don't touch it!"

Ray kicked him in the face, caving his nose in. 'Foolish old man. You only made me more interested'. He took off the tarp with one swipe to unearth what was underneath. A vast amount of potions were revealed, rows upon rows of them were stacked at the back of the carriage. There were at least one hundred potions, each letting out a small amount of energy fluctuations which Ray sensed.

However, his excitement for the potions quickly dimmed down as he realized some facts. The aura the potions were giving off was small, and off. It was as if it was unfinished, or the materials were very low quality. He couldn't see what the effect was because he was not going to use himself as a guinea pig.

'But why are these being transported to Harlington. Could this be related to Adwykith, or am I overcomplicating it' Ray thought. He hadn't bean to too many towns, but as far as he remember he had never seen a potion before coming to Mythri.

'They seem to be useless anyways. I'll pocket a few and experiment on its use later' he thought while taking 2 potions and putting it in his pocket. Then he remembered the driver who he kicked to the floor. He picked him up by his collar and asked him with a threatening voice, " What are they for?"

"It's just… water!"

Ray laughed internally. 'Water? Do you think I'm that stupid?' Ray squeezed his neck until he could no longer breathe, and asked again, "What are these for? If you don't spit it out you will suffocate."

"I really don't know!" He desperately squeeled. "I was ordered to bring this to the mayor's residence and never let anyone other than the mayor see what's inside."

After thinking about it for a second Ray released him. He still needed him too get past the city gates, it would be stupid to kill him now.

'I'll find out later when I test it on people'.

"Now make the horses go forward again, don't say anything about me unless you want this sword to impale you." He warned the driver.

"Yes-yes." He said while gasping for air.

"If they ask about the guards; the guards were killed by bandits and you managed to escape while they fought."

After being frightened so badly, the driver had no ideas on betraying Ray. He valued his life, he had a family he worked for! Without any delay, he snapped the whip, making the horses start moving again.

While they passed through the gate Ray started thinking about what he should do now. 'There might be something going on in this town. I'll lay low and simply observe the situation before I make a move. They are suspected of colluding with the Adwykith kingdom, things can't be so simple. I have a lot of time anyways, it can't hurt to wait a bit.'

Before he left he threatened the driver one last time, "I left a tracker on you. If I find out you betrayed me, I will come and kill you myself. Worst case my friends who are trained assassins will track and murder your whole family." Ray lied with zero shame and hesitation. He wasn't worried about being betrayed, the driver was simply your average man who worked hard for his family. Combine that with the impression Ray left on him, there was almost no chance of betrayal. And even if he did get betrayed, most likely nothing will happen to him anyways.

He calmly walked out of the carriage as if he was a normal citizen of Harlington. For the next period of time at least, he will be a citizen of Harlington.