3 The First Target

It was high noon, and even though the bright sun and the wide green plains made it the perfect time and place for a picnic, the mood inside the wooden cage was anything but merry.

Walter kept his calm while simulating the plan in his mind. Even after he decided to get out of captivity, any tricks or plays will always carry certain risks and require a number of chances.

'If staying or escaping is gonna be a gamble either way, I'll at least be the one to throw the dice!'

Inside the wooden cage, a crowd of people can be seen gathering on one side to look at the condition of the man whose arm was broken.

Even with their hands tied and limited movement, one or two people who were close to the injured man tried to take care of him. A middle-aged woman could be seen sobbing at his side.

As Krelian witnessed the scene, a sense of helplessness filled him to the brim. He of course knew the broken-armed man, he was one of the guards of Rosen branch's Ristoria Firm.

The day the kidnapping took place was supposed to be his day off, but he had come to the store for a chat while taking his wife shopping on the street. What happened next was nothing short of a nightmare.

"Hey."

Just when Krelian was about to stand up and check on the man's condition, a low voice resounded beside him.

It was the man he talked to just a couple minutes ago, yet to him presently, it seemed like he was talking to a completely different person.

The harmless and polite air that the man had put on seemed like a lie and had been replaced with a sharp edge, a pair of emotionless eyes looked back at him with hints of coldness.

"Do you want to get them out?" He spoke.

"I... What? What do you mean?" Krelian was confused at the question.

"That guilt. On your face. You know that guy huh?" Asked Walter with his chin pointed towards the broken-armed man.

Krelian was surprised, although he had interacted with some of the other captives, it was mostly with the store clerks and other store's merchants since he was not acquainted with any of the guards personally.

When he realized that he hadn't responded to the question, he quickly tried to gather back his composure.

"Ah, yeah, he..."

"It was rhetorical." Walter shook his head and continued, "Listen to me."

"I may be able provide all of you a chance to escape out of this cage, of course with both your hands and feet freed from the rope."

"!!" Krelian had no choice but to gaped at the statement.

"BUT." He piled on.

"The plan does carry certain risks from your side and mine. So, once again, do you want to get them out?" He elaborated.

"But, how...??"

"Please answer the question."

"Well, yea, of course! But... why are you asking me?" For the second time, Krelian felt that he couldn't keep his composure when facing the man in front of him.

"Because you're the one with the highest societal position in this cage." Walter replied.

"!"

"...Right, I've told you about me being the branch manager's son." Krelian almost couldn't maintain his calm anymore, but then he realized that he had told his identity to the man during their previous conversation.

"...Sure, let's go with that." Walter gave a slight nod to the question.

Truthfully, Walter had already observed all the captives inside the cage aside from himself the moment he first conversed with Krelian. Even though the guy looked relatively young, the quality of the fabrics he wore was different than the majority of the people there.

There were two other older men with clothes of the same quality, but Walter could see through the subtle interactions and glances that most of the people here had a level of familiarity with Krelian but not with the other two.

If he were to take a guess, Walter would say that the two should be some kind of business partners of Ristoria which happened to be at the scene when the kidnapping took place, but it didn't matter. What he needed was someone with the most persuasive power in this little community of captives.

"Well then, we should get busy." Walter declared with an almost innocent-like grin on his face.

***

Bork was someone who didn't really like politics, but he did know that to be able to get by in this world, you can't rely on raw power alone. Humanity had long forsook the law of the jungle, at least to some extent.

And that's exactly why he chose to follow his childhood friend Gunther, who was more intelligent, but still as lawless as he is.

For a while, it felt like he had found his place in this world together with him. They'd cause chaos and mischief everywhere, building their own place to stand without being bound by the system in place.

Along the way, as they grew more and more reputable for their distaste towards the law, more and more like-minded people started to gather around them and even revere them, Bork always thought that this was the highest point of his life.

But as the band of people grew ever so larger under the banner known as the Freedom Troupe, he started to realize that the looks of admiration and respect from the people around him were not directed towards him. Only towards Gunther.

It became even clearer when the guys started to informally assign ranks to each other and the people around him called him 'lieutenant' as naturally as it can be, while Gunther took on the initiative to lead the people as 'captain' of the troupe.

At first, it was only a slight irk.

A sort of itchy feeling at the back of his mind. After all, from his point of view, he had as much to do with the creation of the Freedom Troupe as Gunther.

However, since he believed in his heart that every member of the Troupe respected and followed his orders as much as the captain, the days went by without any conflicts within this particular band of bandits.

They'd rob, pillage, and steal from any passing caravans and carts. Sometimes they'd even burn a small village as soon as they realize that the population of the village is not large enough for the central governments to make a move. They're cautious enough such that no one weaker would be able to lift their heads under their banner of freedom, while no one stronger would put too much attention towards them.

But one day, specifically several weeks ago, the captain Gunther came back from his errands carrying blueprints of a plan.

The plan itself were the largest they'd ever anticipate, and carried a type of risks that they might not be able to back away from should the plan failed.

The plan required the Troupe to make a move on one of the branches of the largest firm on the kingdom, Ristoria. And this branch was not a small one, located in the center of one of the kingdom's large commercial hub city.

Seeing the unrest of the members overlooking the blueprint, Bork, feeling that he should represent the voices of the Troupe as its lieutenant, stepped up and disagreed with Gunther's decision in regards to the plan.

He voiced his concerns on the risks involved with the operation and asked Gunther if he would reconsider executing the plan, to which Gunther replied with a condescending smile.

That moment was one of the few rare times that Bork tried to reconsider and follow through with his reasons to step up for his subordinates of the Troupe, as usually he had full confidence on his childhood friend's meticulous plans.

But unfortunately for him, Gunther saw that as an act of undermining his intelligence in front of the Troupe members and losing confidence in him. Which he took to be ironic considering the intelligence of this muscle brained childhood friend of his.

With a look of contempt, he then proceeded to explain his plans in its entirety, including the safety measures and backups that were already in-place to help them succeed the operation with relative ease. But, because of Bork's previous remark, the captain also didn't forget to mix in one or two lines of mild insults toward him during his explanation.

After the entirety of the plan had been unveiled. The members of the Freedom Troupe's looks of unease slowly changed into one of awe, especially towards the captain.

It was not a strange turn of event considering what they've heard. The conspiracies and powerful figures that overlooked this particular plan was on the scale that they wouldn't dare to even imagine in normal circumstances.

The fact that their captain was even involved with a machination of this scale was proof enough that they were levels above a group of common thugs. And these thoughts made the hearts of the people of the Troupe beats faster than normal.

Unfortunately, these events left Bork with an image of the fool of the party.

Truth be told, although Bork was not the brightest guy around, he have a perfectly sound reasoning and logic in his actions, especially added with his years of experience being an outlaw, he was not a guy who's all brawn and no brain. His previous statement questioning the plan was also a normal response considering they hadn't been revealed to the entire plan.

Alas, because Bork's remark somehow hurt the pride and ego of Gunther, he made his revelation of the plan specifically geared towards undermining Bork's previous remark in front of the members, saying something along the lines of: "Don't randomly point out stupid cautions when you haven't heard the whole plan." And adding: "Bork, I respect your power and contributions to this Troupe, but there's a reason why I'm the one planning the course of our future, please trust in me."

With everyone focusing on the plan, these sorts of remarks from Gunther went by smoothly amongst the group and nobody took it as an insult towards the lieutenant or noticed any raising tensions in the room.

But still, with how the briefing of the operation took place, either consciously or subconsciously, this lowered the social standing of Bork in their mind while their view on their captain raises drastically.

Bork himself, faced with those kinds of remarks, were barely holding back his anger over the course of the briefing.

In the end, everybody decided to give the big plan a run. As even with all the risks taken into consideration, their score if the operation were to be successful could allow them to retire early and enjoy the rest of their life in luxury.

And with that, a plan is in place.

Although that should've been the end of it, during one of the nights of their preparation, Bork happened to overheard two of the members talking to one another.

"What do you think you're gonna do with your share of the loot once we've accomplished this plan?" One of the members asked.

He then continued, "Damn, just thinking about the good life we'll have made my mouth waters..."

"Don't get your hopes up too much, what we're doing is for the captain's ambitions and the Troupe, not for personal greed. As long as we follow the captain, he'll take us higher in life." The other member spoke.

If Walter were to watch this scene he'll recognize the voice as one of the people who spoke when he first awoken. The one the lieutenant called Dio.

"What a boring man..." The first guy spoke under his breath.

The lieutenant, Bork, was about to turn his back on the conversation when the mention of the captain halted his step forward. It bothers him a lot that there were a lot of young members with blind devotion towards the captain when there were practically none who stood up for him.

With what happened during the briefing, he slowly felt the place he thought he belonged to becoming more and more foreign to him.

Even though he felt that he needed to somehow interrupt the conversation, he didn't know what he'd say in response to the member's statement.

And just when he decided to walk away and turn in for the night, their conversation continued.

"So you're thinking of being here forever huh?" The first guy muttered.

"I believe in the captain, I'll follow him as long as he requires me to." Dio firmly replied.

He then asked, "Were you thinking of leaving?"

Although Dio had complete faith in the captain and the Troupe, he knew that not all of the members had the same mindset as him, so he wasn't planning on blaming anyone who thought of quitting. He would just leave the decision to the captain.

"Well, you know, I'm not planning on quitting now, nor have I ever planned to quit on the future. But you must know that I joined this Troupe out of necessity rather than ideology." The man crouched down from his position and continued.

"So if I see a sign pointing to an exit for a better life, I didn't think I would ever hesitate to take it." He concluded while looking up towards the starry night.

The conversation made Bork, who was standing not far away from them thought a lot about his future for the first time.

"But you though." The first guy unexpectedly continued. "I can see you becoming the troupe's third-in-command in the future!"

When he heard this, Dio tilted his head in a bit and replied, "Don't you mean second-in-command?"

"I mean, no disrespect to the lieutenant, and I don't really mean that I'm the only one qualified to be the captain's right-hand man, but..." Dio thought for a bit more and open his mouth.

"The lieutenant doesn't really add any significant value to the Troupe as a whole. He's strong, sure, but there's also power in number and we're not lacking in that either."

"If not for the fact that he's the captain's friend even before the Troupe was established, do you think he'd even be in charge? Even right now there are one or two guys among us with strength close to him."

Upon hearing Dio's thoughts the man almost burst out laughing. "Pft, you just said that the lieutenant is a dumb ox in the most respectful way possible!"

Dio let out a light laugh in response to the man's oversimplification to his statement. In his defense, the man only said that to lighten up the mood around them, but...

*SNAP*

At that moment, Bork truly felt something snapped inside his head.

***

Back on the wooden cage, Walter stayed silent after he finished explaining his plan to Krelian. Even after Krelian finished informing the rest of the captives, Walter stayed muted without saying a word.

Krelian who saw him just looking around and not doing anything grew impatient as time slowly passed.

"What are you doing, I thought you have a plan!" He exclaimed in as low voice as possible.

Walter just replied without turning his head to the side and kept looking around, "I do, I'm looking for someone for the other role."

"What?" Krelian felt that he never understood half the things this person in front of him had talked about during their time together. Even when he explained the plan to him, he only gave them the bare minimum to prepare.

Just when Krelian was about to ask him to elaborate, Walter saw the lieutenant coming out of his camp wearing an antagonistic expression on his face.

In contrast to that, Walter's face showed delight as he saw the figure of Bork coming out.

'He came out! I thought I need to revise my plan if he kept staying in his camp. Frankly, there's no one better for the role.' Walter gave a sigh of relief in his mind.

As Krelian at the side followed Walter's line of sight towards the lieutenant and saw him licking his upper lip side to side, the bad premonition he had in his heart grew ever stronger.