Journey Period III: Aspiring Merchant and Orsted

[ ~ Chapter • Start ~ ]

In a wide plains spanning for miles, a caravan pulled by horses was being chased by bandits either riding top-tier horses trained well or even on foot running.

Despite how strange this might look, the bandits were very skilled and powerful, and all of them had a symbol of a maw biting a pouch on their clothing (bandana, shoulder pads, or even tattoo'd on their bodies).

Once this symbol was noticed by one of the knights guarding the carriages, he grimaced.

"Tsk! It's those members from that infamous gang again.... They usually go in smaller groups to pillage random carriages like this here inside the territory of the Merchant Alliance...." He spoke with dread on his face, before he worriedly glanced at a 17 year old boy who slowly clasped his hands together.

"Master Keith, please stay here. You are the Hoffeneunn house's only heir right now, and we are left with no choice but to defend you until our death...." The knight spoke solemnly, before unsheathing his sword and ordering the caravan to stop.

Once the carriages stopped, the bandits surrounded it with the intent to pillage whatever precious is inside them.

Knights and mages scurried out of the caravan and began to desperately defend it, suffering many injuries and casualties along with the bandits who suffered less due to the defending side's lack of skill and experience.

Only 7 knights were left, mortally wounded and about to surrender.

Technically they were going to die anyways, but something had just interrupted the bandit group's fun.

Something big. Massive. And definitely dangerous.

It was a juvenile red dragon, which definitely was a monster that is around high S-class if it matured.

"Damn it! Why does something as powerful as a red dragon have to come at this very moment?! This sucks!" Complained a bandit as he turned around and left. His allies followed him with the same amount of disappointment knowing their numbers and skill alone were not truly enough to fight such a powerful monster.

Another factor that greatly increased their chances of dying is the fact that they only have little people left.

The knights, even the boy named Keith did not think that they were saved, too as the dragon had approached their location and landed near them.

Curiously, Keith almost exited the carriage to take a glance at the dragon whom had just landed, despite the knights shouting at him to stay inside it.

He saw a boy younger than him hop out of the dragon and land to the ground softly. Though it seems like he had already noticed him from the start as they locked eyes for a moment.

"Those bandits surely did you worse, huh?" The boy spoke at the dying knights who were still clinging to life at this moment.

To them it sounded somewhat mocking, though as the boy approached, warm light converged around his fingers, forming into several orbs that shot towards the fallen knights and to their surprise, healed them instead of hurting them.

Something like this looked like a miracle- he might have been a godsend, too! Still, there's that dragon who was glaring at them, keeping them in place.

Keith immediately exited the carriage, going straight to the knights who have been healed.

"Uncle Kairen, are you okay?" Keith asked, worried about the older knight that gave him a confident grin, as if he forgor all the danger that was around them. The dragon isn't even looking like someone who would attack them if they were hostile.

"Never better! Thanks to that young lad over there." Kairen replied, pointing at the approaching Hans.

With a nod, Keith approached Hans with less confidence than he should have.

"Well, other things aside.... I'm Keith Silversafe, a merchant from a low-ranking noble house." He introduced himself, properly greeting the "child" who gave him an impression that he might be more older than him.

He looked so poor and pitiful with those heavily tattered clothes, damn it!

"I'm Hans Orsted. And the dragon behind me is Buddy, the dragon I tamed." Hans introduced himself, in a manner really feeling like he was someone from a Royal Family, despite his deceiving looks. "Nice to meet you!"

Everyone were merely awestruck at that fear alone, even Kairen couldn't really help but admit that he was a really talented boy himself.

The current time was at the beginning of night, so he decided to stay near the carriages to camp for a while, not before feeding the corpses of the dead bandits and unfortunately dead horses to Buddy.

He didn't hesitate to feed the other corpses to him, too, not before giving Keith and the other knights trinkets they can remember the sacrifice of their fellow knights.

Keith was asked of his aspirations and dreams by Hans, and his reply was that he dreamt of making the best merchandise and trading company of the Central Continent - possibly the whole world, starting from an ordinary building to one rivalling the neighboring kingdom's castle.

Then, Hans decided to just follow them to the nearest town, while having Buddy pull the carriages that were linked like a train with the help of his magic.

Seeing such an astounding feat, Karl and a female mage (who was close to him) asked Hans to teach the both of them his own magic, which he agreed upon the realization that he could spend some time to not get bored doing nothing but his own stuff.

At least he tried, though.

And by four days, they had reached the nearest town not without trouble near the gates as adventurers, including warriors and mages were ready for a long fight.

The fight that was about to go off was immediately put out by both Hans and Karl, the former explaining that he did tame the dragon and the latter successfully proving such as a fact.

Due to problems that might arise, Hans was forced to polymorph Buddy into an even smaller dragon the size of his arm and lie to the public that his tamed "familiar" can transform into this form.

He successfully watered the flames, now what would he do next?

Of course, it was to buy new clothing and gain a new job as an adventurer so he could gain expenses to get to the eastern continent, not matter how ridiculous it was.

[ ~ Chapter • End ~ ]

Fun Fact: The Gol DeSilva Alliance of Free Merchants is half as large as the (canon timeline's) "Strife Zone" , occupying the northern part of it rather than the whole zone.

Fun Fact #2: Young Orsted's VA is Killua's VA.

Extra Note: Sometime in this fanfiction, Hans Orsted will fully be referred to as just Hans. I have my ideas leaving you to be guessing them.