01 THE LOWLY KNIGHT

Going through the Dandakaranya forest, a man who looks like he just entered in his thirties with black clour hair and eyes, which are pretty common in the kingdom Rudra.

He is six foot tall with an athletic body and ripped muscles which arent either small or big. He is wearing a sky blue colour armour, which doesnt have any shapes or signs on it.

On back of his hand he has there are ten small bar arranged in a pyramid type structure. The bar at the knuckle is largest one while the 10th bar which is just above the wrist is the smallest.

Out of these 10 bars, nine are filled completly to the brim and the last one is empty. Its like a tatoo that is drawn on a person using mana. It is to indicate the rank of a person.

In all the 68 years of his service under his king, the number of times he went on a mission out of his kingdom didn't exceed double digits, but all of them are determinal in the survival of his kingdom.

While the old man is a high level ranker almost close to the topmost level, rank 10, he didnt hold any noble title not atleast a baron title. He is just another knight in the king's army.

Its not like there aren't any commoners who got noble title, they were just a bunch of boot lickers for the 'real' nobles to keep their title safe, since they are atmost rank 3 to rank 4 only.

All said and done he never regretted his decision of not to turn into a potential boot licker, and since then these so called nobles started targeting him.

Alfred discovered that he has talent in magic in his early days and with the help of people from his village, he moved to the capital and joined in army.

There he worked hard and dedicated all his time to improve himself, whether he is lucky or unlucky, he is getting recognized. Most of the nobles tried to get him under their wing, but they got rejected, but the King Porus recognized him and helped him with everything he wanted to reach his full potential.

Later he realised that no matter what his growth in military is stagnated, so he left military at the age of 43 and started an guild called "The Outcasts" blatantly displaying his frustrations.

He started recruiting commoners and discarded people like him, but all he managed to get are weak rankers ranging from rank 1 to rank 3. But he didn't mind since he is still working for the King in shadows.

The guild now consists of 65 members most of them are above 50 and most of them are rank 1 to rank 2, they mostly run small errands for the guild in their power.

There are couple of high rankers, not exactly high rankers, but the place they are in, they are higher than others below Alfred and these are the spies who work for the nobles.

Alfred has 4 kids, 2 boys and 2 girls, they are also talented in magic and can atleast reach rank 8 or rank 9 if they are lucky. Technically he is not their biological father, but he raised them as his own and want to pass down the guild to them.

Well coming back to the forest that Alfred is in, its almost as big as his country, and will take a month to travel across it for normal people, not that normal people can travel through it and live.

Its home to dangerous beasts and monsters, being a high ranker, Alfred can travel at unimaginable speeds

for extended periods of time with little to no rest for days or even months.

But this night Alfred decided to camp outside and get some rest, since he got very tired from his mission. Then he set up a campfire and a tent and erected a barrier around it.

Normally the barrier wont be of any help in facing against the strongest beasts of the Dandakaranya forest but he is in outer range that is home to weaker beasts, which cant even put a scratch on his barrier.

After finishing the dinner and stretching, he decided to sleep... but then he heard rustling of leaves all around him and his face got serious... because he know that this is going to be a long night.