The last sliver of sunlight had sunk below the horizon, its dying glow swallowed entirely by the heavy, dark clouds that pressed low against the sky. The clouds hung so close to the earth they seemed to be gathering themselves for a storm capable of devouring the world whole, and the air was thick with a suffocating, oppressive weight.
Beneath the towering walls of Blackwater Town, a steady stream of people flowed through the wide gates. Under the watchful eyes of four alert soldiers, the bustling crowd moved in orderly fashion into the town.
At the edge of the wall's shadow stood a man with a menacing face, wearing a grimy leather jerkin. Every so often he would raise his head, his gaze sweeping over the young men and women passing by with the sharp, predatory quickness of a hunting hawk, searching for his mark.
The moment he spotted a young traveler with naive, inexperienced eyes — someone clearly green to the world — who happened to be carrying a sword or a cleaver at their hip, he would instantly plaster on a false smile and sidle over to make his pitch:
"Hey there! I'm Pike, captain of the Lion Squad. We're currently looking for one more member — interested in joining?"
Half an hour passed. Only a handful of young men had paused out of idle curiosity to ask a few questions, but in the end, not a single one had agreed on the spot, and none had shown any real willingness to join Pike's crew.
Watching the crowd hurry past him, Pike clicked his tongue in impatient irritation and cursed under his breath:
Hmph. These damned greenhorns get harder to con every day.
In recent days, the goblin infestation in the Misty Forest had surged out of control. Low-rank commissions had flooded the market as a result, and the number of novice adventurers pouring into Blackwater Town had risen noticeably along with them.
Most of these so-called novice adventurers were young men barely past twenty. Inflamed by the generous monster bounties on offer, they'd come of age and wasted no time charging headlong into Blackwater Town — a dangerous place surrounded on all sides by monsters — clutching their dreams of striking it rich overnight.
They arrived with the meager allowances pressed into their hands by their parents, having said goodbye to their home villages.
They'd buy a battered old cleaver or a bloodstained secondhand leather jerkin — likely stripped from some poor unfortunate predecessor — and then rush to sign on with whatever squad looked halfway reliable, hearts full of hope as they prepared to plunge into the Misty Forest and hunt monsters.
What they didn't know was that the "squad leaders" guiding these recruits, though they thumped their chests and boasted of countless monster-hunting exploits, had in reality barely bloodied their blades a handful of times.
They lured newcomers into their teams for one purpose only: to have a few cheap bodies to draw a monster's attention when things went sideways.
Outfits like these — where human lives were treated as consumable resources, where monster hunts were won purely by luck, and where every outing ended with fewer members than it began — only needed to fool a rookie once. Anyone who survived it once wouldn't fall for the same trick again.
But that didn't matter, because fresh recruits kept sprouting up like weeds that couldn't be pulled fast enough.
There was always someone new who'd be taken in by a squad leader's honeyed words and promises of "low risk, high reward" — only to discover in sheer desperation, when the monster was right in front of them, that they'd been shoved into the most dangerous position in the group.
Pike was a textbook example of exactly that kind of "captain."
Frauds like Pike had no real ability to speak of. They hadn't mastered even a single combat technique. They got by entirely on the small informational edge they had over those even greener than themselves, and that was enough to make them the leaders of a squad of rookies.
Because of his squad's poor quality, Pike's income was nowhere near what the captains of legitimate adventuring teams made — but it still put him several rungs above the common laboring class of Blackwater Town.
Of course, being an adventurer, Pike had inevitably picked up the habit of spending money as fast as it came in. Whatever he earned from commissions vanished almost immediately on food, drink, women, and gambling.
Which was precisely why he was stationed at the town gate today, this urgent and hollow look on his face, angling for fresh "cannon fodder" to fill his roster.
A cool night breeze threaded through the gaps in his leather jerkin, and Pike's body gave an involuntary shudder.
The sun had already gone under. The deep curtain of night had fallen.
"Damn it all. What a rotten day."
Pike tugged his clothes tighter around himself with irritable muttering and turned to leave, intending to head to the tavern and knock back a stiff drink to warm his bones.
Just as he turned away, two young men called out to him from behind:
"Excuse me, sir! You're an adventuring captain looking to recruit, aren't you?"
Pike spun around, a flash of delighted surprise lighting up his face. "That's right! I'm Pike, captain of the Lion Squad, and I am recruiting!"
The two young men both had brand-new cleavers strapped to their backs. They were handsome, solid-built lads — the kind of physique that came from growing up in at least a prosperous farming household, well-fed and hale.
"My name is Marcus. His is Grayford. We're both new. Would you be willing to have us in your squad?"
"Absolutely!" Pike agreed without a moment's hesitation. Then, collecting himself with an exaggerated clearing of his throat, he put on a grave, authoritative expression and said:
"The Lion Squad operates under military discipline. The rules are strict. Once you join, you follow my orders without question, without hesitation, and without complaint. Is that something you can commit to?"
"Yes, Captain!" Marcus nodded. He exchanged a glance with Grayford, then leaned slightly toward Pike and lowered his voice. "But… there is one thing—"
"Captain, is there any way the two of us could skip registering our identities at the Adventurers' Hall?"
"Skip registration?" Pike blinked. The request gave him pause, and his mind immediately began turning over possibilities. Fugitives who'd killed someone, perhaps. Or people mixed up in some other manner of trouble.
But when he looked at Marcus and Grayford and saw the closed-off look in their eyes — the kind that said don't ask — Pike wisely shelved any curiosity about their secrets.
It didn't matter, in the end. As long as they joined his squad and helped him make money, that was all he needed.
So what if they'd killed someone? Could they possibly have more blood on their hands than Pike did from all the rookies he'd gotten killed?
Just as Pike and Marcus were deep in warm conversation, on the verge of heading to the tavern to hash out the details of joining up—
A long, resonant blast of a horn rang out from somewhere high on the city walls, sudden and powerful enough to shake the air itself.
"Wuuuu—"
The sound was like the war horn of the legendary dwarven armies from old stories — ancient and stirring, carrying with it an emotion that was fierce and primal.
Every person who heard it felt their blood surge and their courage kindle, as though strength was flooding into their very limbs.
Every passerby on the road stopped and turned. Pike himself — who had barely taken a step — froze and spun around, his eyes igniting with blazing excitement.
"Captain, what does that horn mean?" Marcus and Grayford asked, puzzled.
"That horn means triumph!" Pike said, his eyes alight with excitement and the faintest trace of envy. "It means an adventurer has successfully slain a Tier-One Elite monster or higher, and is returning in triumph right now!"
Pike turned to look, and there at the far end of the road, a magnificent procession came slowly into view. Under the gaze of every onlooker, an ornately decorated carriage rolled forward, its banner — the Ice Hawk — snapping and billowing in the night air.
At the very front of the procession marched several fully armored soldiers, their steps measured and heavy.
Their plate armor gleamed mirror-bright in the torchlight, and with every stride came the ringing clash of metal on metal, filling the air with a formidable, martial din as they led the way.
Behind the soldiers came more than a dozen children, each carrying a flower basket brimming with blooms of every color, every petal vivid and fresh.
These children, who came from the church, sang a solemn hymn as they walked, while four skilled musicians marching behind them played a rousing melody that transformed the entire street into something resembling a grand festival.
And behind the musicians came the true heart of the procession — the part that drew every eye.
Where once there had been an ordinary, unremarkable traveling carriage, there now rolled three wide, open-topped floats, each one lavishly decorated. Their color scheme was twofold: the pure white of sanctity and the vivid crimson of holy war. The side panels of each float were inlaid with golden reliefs of sacred swords and holy shields.
Even with night fully fallen, the three floats blazed with brilliance beneath the light of countless torches, radiant and spectacular.
The adventurers lining the road looked up — and their eyes went wild.
Mounted at the very front of the first float was a massive, grotesque monster's head.
It bore enormous bovine horns. The stench of blood rolling off it was overwhelming, thick as a tide.
Occasionally a not-quite-dead muscle would twitch and shudder, giving bystanders the unsettling impression that those savage eyes might snap open again at any second — that the head might simply decide to come back to life.
This was no juvenile Minotaur. Ronald's reading of the ritual had been off after all. Those con artists from the "Absurd Poetry Society" had layered trap after trap into the Tablet of Truth, just as everyone should have suspected.
This was a young adult Minotaur.
A powerful monster officially classified by the Kingdom as a Tier-One Elite.
The Ice Hawks Company had actually managed to kill something like this?!
Standing tall on the second float were Ice Hawks Company's captain Felix, vice-captain Raygore, and the celebrated artificer Miti, who was well-known throughout Blackwater Town.
Felix's expression was cool and detached, his entire bearing radiating a cold aura that warned others to keep their distance — which, as it happened, perfectly matched everyone's mental image of the Ice Hawks' leader as someone remote and formidably strong.
This grand triumphal entry ceremony had been organized at considerable personal expense by Felix, with the explicit goal of dramatically boosting the Ice Hawks' reputation and laying the groundwork for their future growth.
So even though Felix had no particular taste for being stared at by crowds, he chose to endure it — to play his part, and play it well.
Beside Felix stood vice-captain Raygore.
Raygore was at this moment wrapped head to toe in thick bandages, one fractured arm encased in a heavy plaster cast.
During the fierce battle that had just passed, Raygore had sustained injuries severe enough to kill an ordinary man several times over.
Ronald had very nearly assumed he was dead — but this stubborn half-orc was still alive, and after treatment had even managed to stand and walk on his own.
Although Ronald's healing benedictions could mend wounds entirely, the flames the Minotaur had wielded carried within them a powerful cursed energy. Remnants of that abyssal curse still lingered inside Raygore's body and would require time and purification before they could be fully expelled.
As for the arm in the cast — that was a complication from the healing process itself. The bone had knit back together at a slight angle, growing crooked. It would need to be broken again and reset before it could return to its proper form.
On the third float stood Orum, Ronald, and a wide-eyed Nia, who was busy looking around at everything with unconcealed curiosity.
Watching the radiant figures on the floats, the rough-faced Pike stared with stunned eyes and couldn't help letting out a sharp intake of breath.
"Absolutely terrifying."
Marcus, catching the intensity of Pike's reaction, asked nervously: "What's wrong, Captain? Are these people adventurers?"
Pike's eyes were practically shining. He pointed at the float procession ahead and said with barely contained excitement: "Of course they're adventurers! And every single one of them is a legendary figure in Blackwater Town!"
"Look at the second float — those two are the twin pillars of the Ice Hawks Company: the Frostborn Noble, Felix, and the Iron-Faced Demon, Raygore! And beside them, that's Demolition Doll Miti — she controls a full quarter of Blackwater Town's black market in explosives!"
"On the float behind that one — that's Iron-Clad Priest Ronald and Sharp-Tongued Seer Nia. Every single one of them has an earned epithet and a name that rings through this town!"
Swept up in Pike's impassioned introduction, Marcus and Grayford were thoroughly awestruck. Cries escaped them involuntarily: "By the saints above—"
The two novice adventurers gaped up at the luminous elite team atop the floats, faces full of reverence and longing, drinking in every detail:
"When will we ever have our own legend in Blackwater Town like they do?"
Then their eyes fell on the second float — on the upright young man standing between Ronald and Nia, a longsword slung across his back — and they pointed at him, puzzled.
"Captain — who's that young man on the second float? You didn't mention his epithet."
Pike fixed his gaze on Orum, studying the young man's striking features for a moment. A flicker of thought crossed his eyes, and he said with a trace of uncertainty: "This is a face I don't recognize… Could he be a new member of the Ice Hawks? He's remarkably young!"
"Still — any swordsman who rode alongside the Ice Hawks Company and helped bring down a Minotaur is no ordinary person, whatever his age. I'd stake money on it: someday the bards will write new verses about him too. They'll sing of whatever legend he goes on to make."
Orum himself had no idea. Tonight, carried along by this unexpected triumphal ceremony, he had already been quietly given a new epithet by the adventurers of Blackwater Town — Stormwind Swordsman — and fresh waves of talk were rippling outward in all directions, with his name at the center.
---
Note:
The Kingdom's monster threat classification system is as follows:
Tier Zero / Tier Zero Elite
Tier One / Tier One Elite
Tier Two / Tier Two Elite
Tier Three / Tier Three Elite
Tier Four / Tier Four Elite
…and so on.
(Each Tier corresponds to four levels of professional rank — for example, Tier One corresponds to professional levels one through four.)
(A Tier Zero monster is defined as one that a single adventurer with basic combat experience but no professional level can kill alone without sustaining serious injury.)
(A Tier Zero Elite monster is defined as one that typically requires a squad of four adventurers with basic combat experience but no professional level to defeat together without any of them sustaining serious injury.)
(Each subsequent tier follows the same logic.)