CHAPTER ONE.

Banon trudged along the snowy mass of land, snow speckled,huge trees stood all around, constituting a snowy yet forestine façade, he sighed heavily as he stretched the tight raggy jacket more to himself , a bid to perhaps restrict the excess cold wafting through his body, the latch of weapons hung as a loose belt on his lower torso, he walked on, suddenly he perceived another presence and with speed of light, retrieved a dagger from his latch and lunged himself towards the presence "Woah, woah, woah easy there" the boy chuckled "I'm human", Banon frowned as he recoiled and after he helped the teenager up, he promptly began to walk away "Hey…hey why don't you and I work together?" the boy suggested as he nervously ran his hands through his fiery red hair "I work alone" Banon spat at him without turning, the boy folded his arms "What an attitude…" he pondered, he saw Banon's figure far away already, and he instantly bounded up to tag along "The name's Fenice…nice to meet you…you're pretty anti-social aren't you?, well nevermind…you see, I just newly escaped from the Governor of Montane's household were I was supposed to be working as a farm hand…" he chuckled slightly before intoning bitterly, "Turns out I was even lower than a slave, so I decided I'd rather die of the Lava illness than to…" at mention of Lava illness Banon instantly turned and grabbed the boy by the scruff of his neck "Don't ever wish to be a victim of that illness" he snapped before disengaging, the boy -Fenice was startled, "You seem like you're one of them…" he mumbled simply, Banon paid no heed rather his senses were alert, as he heard and his feet felt steady rumbling of the ground like a loop of quake prepping, but this huge force was no earthquake "What's wrong?" Fenice questioned obliviously "Do me a favor kid…" Banon intoned as he swiftly retrieved a series of weapons from his latch"Shut up and run!", the force, a huge monstrosity approached in steady steps, it vaguely resembled an extremely mutated human, just one as huge as a storey building, a pair of horns were on its glob of a head, plus a dozen eyes covered the rest of its face, on its tree trunk thick neck was a spherical plate- a beast card, Banon's eyes glimmered when he saw this, he jumped up and skillfully struggled to clamber upon the beast Fenice was greatly alarmed, he stood rooted on the spot, foolishly struck to the bones on seeing the horrible being "This is bigger than I've ever seen" he muttered, the beast continuously rammed it's rather distinct boulder sized fists into Banon, but Banon climbed on unrelenting, now the beast opened its mouth and spat out an amount of saliva, Banon swayed in bid to avoid contact with the fluid and barely held on with one hand, he used his knife to stab at the nearest eye he could see and the beast screeched in agony, Banon capitalized on this and regained his footing on the beast and climbing on made sure to stab at every eye he saw, the beast swayed in a pained frenzy and blindly attacked at anything before it, Fenice finally snapped out of his delirious state and started running, but the beast reached out and grabbed him, it was just about to pounce on Fenice, whose current expression was ghostly when, it was interrupted by Banon who sliced through it's neck, the beast dropped Fenice and crashed down, Banon barely landed on his feet -silence- Banon limped to the fallen body, sliced off a mass of it's arm and then stuck his hand into the hole created by the split neck,where he retrieved the beast card, afterwards he fell sitting on the floor in exhaustion, he gazed at the card thoughtfully, presently a steady applause broke into his reminisce "That was absolutely ARTFUL!" he looked around to see a small party of people approaching, they were led by a tall, blonde, young man, he was heavily clad in apparently expensive looking black furcoat, his hair was a rich shade of blonde that still somewhat beautifully contrasted with the blackness of his attire, his face was agreeable to look upon, his eyes were heterochromic, with one a deep forest green, and the other a light blue, he walked to Banon and gave him a hand, Banon took it suspiciously and stood up "You ARE strong" the man remarked as he inconspicuously accessed Banon "Its folks like you I need on my ship" Banon's expression was quizzical "Allow me to introduce myself…I am Aklov Von Mait…king of sultry wanderers…" he gave a steady bow, " My base is Rogure but I came to Montagne for some business" he paused "I head back tomorrow, would you like to follow along?" Banon began to walk away "No…" he answered simply Aklov chuckled "Its beast cards you want right? I can assure you Rogure is crawling with more card beasts than you could ever imagine…" Banon stopped in his tracks "Still no…" Aklov mused "We're at the seaport…what's left of it…" he called out to Banon, Banon shrugged indifferently and walked on.

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"You know, there is a man who should be best called a psycho, he leaves at the far end of town barely a few feet away from the broken seaport, he's tall, muscular, and his body, the few who have seen it say it's almost entirely covered with scars, infact his face has a thick slashline running from his left ear through to the other side of his face", the storyteller a teenager emphasized by lining out an imaginary scar on his face to his audience of a group of younger children , "He also, reportedly lives with a witch who's sight is horrid enough to kill…" the boy paused, "So anyways if you guys don't figure out how to fix my broken leaf boat then it's simple, I'll throw you into their shack house so you'll be their dessert " the boy smiled deviously satisfied as the children shuddered in fear "Does he ever come out?" a small voice shivered as it asked "Of course, infact… he's called a psycho because once every unlucky day, you see his bulk of a figure trudging through the streets with a deal of raw meat, raw abominable meat shamelessly breaking the sacred laws attacking the beasts and capturing their beast cards and get this, he also has the audacity to eat their meat" there was a short silence -an alarmed silence-, "So… wait, he attacks them without being attacked first?" another child asked unbelievably "That's what I'm saying…" he responded, another silence ensued "How do you know all of this?" some other kid quizzed him, he gave a coy smile, "I'm Kutra son of Bayes of course" came his confident response, a little girl shyly nudged Kutra "Do you have an idea how he looks?" Kutra smiled at her warmly "You'll see him wearing raggy, black clothes, a green-black colored jacket and a belt of weapons, his boots have extremely solid soles…that pound the snow of whatever path he takes…" at that moment steady footsteps resembling Kutra's description were perceived approaching steadily "About now…" Kutra whispered to the others in fright "Anyone should know what to do when they see him…" as if on cue the children simultaneously mumbled "run" as they scampered away clearing the path for Banon who walked on indifferently, Banon steadied the meat on his shoulder as he increased his footsteps in order to quickly escape the prying eyes of the townspeople preparing themselves for nighttime, soon he reached the the deserted outskirts of the town, he relaxed as he cheerily waved to an old man who commitedly busied himself in with weaving animal fur into clothes, however instead of waving back, the man expressed a somewhat forlorn expression "Hurry…there's trouble" the man intoned, Banon's eyes glinted with worry as he increased his pace to lightening speed, as he approached his house he clearly saw a small crowd of townspeople, he ran over but on drawing nearer, he composed himself, "Well if it isn't Bayes…" he stated to the leader of the crowd "Its been a while…" Banon's expression was blank and his words unfeeling, on the other hand, Bayes had a rather bright smile "The Governor has ordered for you to leave, youre a foreigner and yet have lived here for over a year…time is up and anyway, as it is…" Banon stepped into his house greeted by dismembered body parts hanging upon the doorpost, he nearly cried out on recognizing the head as Kiku's "…you really have no excuse to stay back anymore…your wife is dead and so…" Bayes was interrupted as Banon ceized him, the other men instantly pounced upon him, however in an instance, they all lay around…dead, Banon turned squarely to face Bayes who was still sprawled on the floor, Bayes tried to run and failed, Banon dragged him from his lenghty beard "Hey, hey, we met her dead I swear and it's only tradition to immediately dismember the body of the dead…" Banon viciously slit his throat, "But I'm a foreigner…you said so yourself…" he released Bayes' dead body contemptuosly, as he turned to the body parts still hanging, a tear dropped, then another as he very delicately pulled down each chunk, he dropped each part in a sack, sealed it up neatly and proceeded to dig a small grave where he dropped the sack into and covered up with snow, when he was through, he found the small dress Kiku had been knitting and wrapped it around his neck as a scarf, he sighed heavily as he looked upon the grave with guilt "I'm sorry Kiku… I had to bury you in foreign land", another tear dropped before he trudged away, the old man looked up as he walked past "Where to now?" the man asked with concern, Banon sighed "I'm off to the broken down seaport…I'll be leaving to Rogure to hunt more beast cards" he intoned as he walked on "And your wife…?" the man asked caringly, "…Is dead" Banon stated matter-of-factly, the old man gasped "So…what are you getting more beast cards for if she's dead…?" Banon waved without turning back "I'll do what I originally wanted to do with them…", the man gave a small smile "Good luck then"

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"His skills were simply incredible!" the blonde man-Aklov, intoned excitedly, it was a dinner table arrangement,and four individuals carried on eating, however he was oblivious to their indifference , "Bottom point is…you couldn't get him to join us Aklov" a woman, having an extremely stern disposition, stated simply, before swallowing a spoon of soup, Aklov sighed as he took his seat "That's true Yuya…rather I added one more mouth to the table" he motioned carelessly at a boy, this boy happened to be Fenice, Fenice grit his teeth "I'll be sure to prove my worth to you sir" he undertoned confidently, a silence ensued and this was shattered by steady knocks "A late night visitor…" Yuya reasoned, Aklov smiled coyly, "Get your weapons ready…" a black suited man intoned seriously, they had all already sprung into action by assuming offence positions, all except Fenice, Aklov turned to Fenice and instructed "Get the door", Fenice sighed heavily as he pondered on the series of monstrosities that could be behind the door, he stood up from the table and only managed to take slow,steady steps towards the door, another round of knocks rammed the door, this served to thoroughly frighen Fenice who stood dumbfounded before the door "What sort of slow idiot is this?" a boy who happened to appear only a little older than Fenice spat in disgust, Fenice took a deep breath and reached out to the handle, he pulled it open and there standing before him was Banon, "Hey it's ANTISOCIAL dude!" he yelled excitedly, Aklov walked to the door, he smiled pleasantly on seeing Banon, "Welcome" he said simply, Banon shrugged expressionlessly.