2 The Path to the Past

The City of Alentia, outskirt of Chaos Beast Forest.

The Black Tiger mercenary. One of the six A grade mercenary group of the city. The current mission was like a golden egg. But nothing is free in the life of the mercenary.

"Are you sure captain?" Kiria couldn't hide the joy.

Cikaya was cautious as always " Captain, are you sure that there is no catch?"

"If I would have been sure about that I would have accepted the mission a long time ago." The captain became agitated from the constant bickering of his team-mates. He then turned toward Grim and asked, "Did you get any news about them? Are they clean?"

"The girl has been brought up in the city, though there are rumours about her mother's disappearance. That is not a big deal at all."

"What type of rumour?" Cikaya asked.

"She just vanished one day and even the father of the girl didn't say a word. It's nothing new that a beautiful woman has vanished" Grim said nonchalantly.

Hearing the words, the captain thought for a moment. It was nothing new, human-beast trafficking, slavery was the common day thing in this type of forest-edge cities. There was nothing that didn't happen in this type of cities. But the captain felt that something was not right.

"That won't be of any problem, right?" Kiria asked sheepishly.

"I also have run a check on the event. It was Hi-catcher" Grim slowly added.

These words took the load off the captain. The Hi-Catcher was one of the biggest trafficking groups in the city. They were spread through multiple kingdoms. They sold humans to chaos beasts and beasts to humans. Although everybody knew about that, very few could touch them.

"Then??" Kiria asked.

********************

City of Alentia, south gate

"Only 7?" the captain was a little disheartened. He expected that he would see all of his former teammates. But to his surprise, two of his old members were absent whereas the newest member was present. The 10 men mercenary team became an 8 men team.

"Both of them are family guys. They have too much to risk" Grim said to the captain.

"Captain where is the beauty?" Kiria asked with a silly smile on his face. Other's eyes shined with the question. They were all men. The moral characters were of utmost importance for the captain while selecting the teammates. Although he didn't question his own judgement he still warned each and every one of them. "Behave yourself, we need to protect her with our best to earn."

"Don't worry captain, brother Kiria would be so shy that he would not be able to speak to her." The new guy said mockingly. Hearing the words all laughed happily.

"Excuse me..." It was a call from behind.

At the word, Grim was the first one to react. " Lady Mayumi??" the captain responded with a question.

The woman nodded. Rather than saying a woman it was better to say that she was still just a girl of 14 or 15. She was holding a girl of the age of 7-8. " This is Kisa. I am too fond of her to leave her alone." The little girl Kisa was looking at them with her big eyes. Silver bear's pelt armour, void turtle's shield, dragon tooth sword, black fang necklace all the things these mercenaries were wearing was new to her, so they became the objects of curiosity.

On the other hand, the mercenaries were stunned. There was no carriage, no horse, how these girls were going to travel with them? It was gonna be impossible for them to cover the distance of over 2000 kilometre.

An average man could walk up to 150 km per day, but even if they were to walk same distance day over a day without prior training it would be falling down to 115 to 120 km. And they couldn't even want to think about these girls' speed.

They thought that they might be able to come back to the city within 1 month. Now they would be lucky if they were able to reach Arianith within one month.

Kiria was the first to ask " Captain what is this?" with the question all of them looked towards the captain and Grim.

Captain smiled wryly and said" I know what you guys are thinking. but the client has assured us that these girls are stronger than the average persons"

"But wouldn't it be better to have a carriage?" the guy with the longbow asked" Captain if you want then I think I can get 2 good horses and a carriage from my brother. We can pay after coming back"

"It is not that captain didn't want to spend money on the carriage, it's just that the client didn't want us to attract unwanted attention with the carriage" Grim said slowly

"What does this Client want? To test us? or he doesn't have any worry about her safety? Are you sure he is not from the mercenary association?" one of them was curious.

"What type of enemies they have, who will be willing to attack us just because of the carriage?" the new one complained.

Grim smiled and said, " If I happened to be a bandit and saw 8 heavy armoured mercenaries protecting a carriage, I would definitely attack that". All the other laughed while the new one scratched his head.

" Jokes apart, I understand that he doesn't want us to attract any attention. These lengthy missions might also be the reason why he was willing to pay us so much money. But what I am worried about is that little girl, firstly even if Lady Mayumi is able to keep up with us there is no way that the little girl will be able to do the same. But the main question is who is she??" Cikaya asked seriously.

" I am Kisa." nobody noticed that the little girl was just beside them when they huddled together.

"Lady Mayumi, sorry to ask, but does this child's parents know that she is with you??" the captain asked in slowly.

"When father left me I was taken to the orphanage, and she is from that orphanage." Lady Mayumi looked at them with caution and added: " I asked the in-charge that I am taking her with me."

" And did he know that you are taking her to another city??" Grim asked

Mayumi looked down and shook her head. She hurriedly added " if you take both of us I will tell the person to give you more gold"

"Do you even know who that person is? or where to find him? Do you even know whether he is going to sell you as slaves? You don't even know what is going to happen to you, and you are dragging another innocent one with you." Kiria was really angry. This frightened Mayumi, as she clutched onto Kisa not letting her go, as she was afraid of all of them. Captain put his hand on Kiria's shoulder to calm him and Said with a smile "there is no need to fight over spilt milk."

**************

The way of the past. 4th day of the journey

"Captain it is already 4th day. We are only around 250 km away from the city of Alentia. At this rate, it will take more than a month to reach the city of Arianith." Grim said.

"That won't be a problem. The client had said that it will be ok if we are able to reach Arinith within one and half month." The captain said with a smile and looked towards the other " Just enjoy the ambience Grim and don't worry. It's been a long time that I have seen everybody laughed so much"

"But you know me, Captain, I don't like to enjoy on a mission. And.." Grim suddenly stopped, the captain looked towards Grim as Grim continued " Something doesn't feel right."

"If you are feeling then everything will be ok." the captain said with a smile.

"No captain, this time the feeling is different" Grim was sure about it. Captain put his hand on the shoulder around Grim and dragged him towards other…..

" Do you know what is this brother Kiria?" Kisa asked while pointing while pointing at the slab of some unknown material on the ground.

The place was full of trees with slim and high bodies, and the leaves were not that dense at the top. The forest floor was decorated with the mosaic of light and shadow. A light breeze was blowing.

Everyone was enjoying their well-deserved break on the lightly moist grass floor, all except Kisa. As she was riding on the back of different mercenaries through the journey she was the one with most energy. Of all the mercenaries Kiria is the one closest to Kisa. She rarely left his side if she was not with Mayumi.

"That is the path of destiny" Kiria was always proud of his knowledge of the outside world. So he boosted.

But surprising him, Kisa gave a hysterical laugh.

" What you don't believe me ?" Kiria was rather embarrassed." look here each of step is called destiny steps, our ancestor use this steps to discover others all around the continent that later changed our destiny" looking around Kiria came close to Kisa and said in low voice " I even heard that that is called Road of Budhha. Young monks have to walk on these steps day after day, without food or water, without looking back, in rain, in storm whatever come you have to continue until you find your answer."

Kisa was listening holding her breath and curiously asked: "and then??"

"Then you become Buddha, you will become so powerful that not even the great demon can't beat you."

Kisa thought for a moment then ran towards Mayumi and dragged her to the steps." Sister you lied to me, this is not the path the Great Iron Slither, it's the path of destiny, the path of Budhha. Brother Kiria told me everything"

Mayumi looked towards Kiria with hesitation then slowly said to Kisa " I told you to not to tell anybody"

Hearing this Kiria gave a hearty laugh "Probably your sister want you to be afraid that why she said the story about the IRON SLITHER" he ended with another laugh. This laughter also attracted all the other mercenaries.

Seeing all the mercenaries coming towards her Mayumi was angry. It was not that she intentionally lied to Kisa, it's the truth. She learnt from her father when she was a child. To prove her innocence she argued with Kiria "Don't believe him, what I have told you is the truth. I have learnt this from my father. I also read it in the book."

"In which book the story been written?" Kiria asked.

"It was my mother's books and my father gave it to me. My father reminded me that this book was from the ancient. He also said that not many people in the world know about the story"

Hearing this words Grim and captain looked at each other in surprise. While Kiria didn't know about the expression on the face of captain laughed loudly. "Did any of you heard about this story? I have never heard of this type of stories. Tell me what type of other stories did you read in that book?"

Mayumi, who was now angry to the extreme, said" This is the path of iron slither, they tend to go from one place to another caring people and luggage in their bellies. There were big fat birds who carried people through the sky from one place to another in their bellies, big fish who carry people in the depth of Blue Sea. Iron slithers were very dumb. So these tracks were used to guide them to their destination."

Hearing this the mercenaries couldn't stop the laugh. But the captain and Grim were different, they knew perfectly well who are these ancients were. They couldn't even imagine what type of background this girl hold to read this type of storybook at such a young age. It was clear to them why the client was intended to pay such a money for an escort mission.

"Break is over," The captain said with a serious face" Get ready guys, we may need to use our arms soon enough, be on high alert until we reach Arianith"

Though other didn't understand why the captain suddenly became so serious nonetheless they compiled