Timmy. Forty-four years old, male, single — and a Demon Hunter!
Born a swordsman's son in a backwater village, he had chosen, once he came of age, to go out and make his own way in the world.
From the danger-ridden Northern regions all the way down to the Central Lands, where kingdoms large and small crowded shoulder to shoulder, the boy gradually became... a fairly capable young man.
What truly changed Timmy happened more than ten years ago, while he was wandering through a kingdom in the Central Lands called Ert.
Finding himself flat broke, Timmy had no choice but to hire himself out as a mercenary — clearing out monsters, or marching in somebody's war.
On second-rate swordsmanship and better-than-average luck, he earned a tidy sum and turned into a fine fighter.
Then, on his last commission before he took to the road again — a job involving the Demon Race — Timmy met the man he came within a hair of idolizing for the rest of his life.
Swordwork both dazzling and lethal. An elegant, unshakable stance. The easy air of a man who never had to try. A cold, arrogant, handsome face. One glance and your eyes stayed on him.
Two years as a mercenary had convinced Timmy that, while he might not be first-rate, he had at least left ordinary soldiers behind. Next to the man in front of him, he might as well have been a raw recruit fresh off the farm.
"That one's my prey. Hands off—"
In battle, the man was genuinely magnificent. Flawless, even. The only pity was that he came equipped with a mouth.
"F*ck! This Demon Race b*stard's actually got some f*cking bite. Oi, kid over there with your trousers slashed open — f*cking run already!"
And just like that, Timmy's idol shattered.
The memory ended.
"Yo, Timmy, practicing your sword alone again? F*ck's sake, you're this old and still single. Swinging a sword by yourself — how's that ever as good as swinging one with a partner?"
A high, straight nose. A face lean in exactly the right places. And above all those gemlike green eyes of his. Age had done nothing to Rolwen's looks, and less still to the trim, powerful build he somehow kept despite living on wine and women.
"Captain... a man who beds his way across half the continent doesn't get to lecture me."
Hawk-eyed Timmy lowered his sword and shook out his half-long hair, letting the sweat fly where it wanted.
"F*ck! That's a personal hobby, and you know it. You know the creed of our demon-hunting organization too — a Demon Hunter can die on any hunt, any moment. Humans are fragile things. So what if I f*cking enjoy myself while I can?"
"Then you've got even less right to make decisions for me."
"Timmy, honestly — you don't belong in the demon-hunting organization. Get out while you're not completely old yet. Find yourself a girl, start a family. Your old man would rest easier for it."
For once, Rolwen managed a whole sentence without swearing.
"And if I leave, who's going to be your vice-captain and clean up after you?"
Timmy had originally begged Rolwen to let him in on nothing more than a whim, then ground his way through round after round of vetting to join the demon-hunting organization. Mission after mission, he had come to love the place. Here he could grow stronger, and cut down the Demon Race that preyed on people everywhere.
"F*cking suit yourself, then. Still — we've known each other how long now, and a man your age has never once set foot in a brothel? What are you, frigid? Or... are you..."
Something seemed to strike Rolwen. He turned a look of profound pity on Timmy.
"Oi, Rolwen! I don't have any disease of that sort! I'm perfectly normal!"
Rolwen's mouth, Timmy decided, got more unbearable by the year.
"F*ck, that doesn't add up... unless — it's not women you're into. You! You f*cking— oh, that's rich. No wonder you were so desperate to join our outfit back then. Don't tell me you've got a thing for m—"
Rolwen's face filled with horror as he retreated a step at a time. "I treated you like a brother, and you—!"
"Captain. Truly. It's always that mouth of yours that starts the trouble, isn't it?"
Veins stood out on Timmy's temples. His hand crept toward the hilt, and with a sharp clack the blade came free of the scabbard. He had reached his limit.
"Whoa, Timmy, let's talk this out — what are you drawing steel for? F*ck! Did I actually call it? You've held it in all these years, and now you're going to take me by force?!"
That handsome face contorted. Rolwen groped for his waist and came up with nothing but air — he'd left the sword behind last night at the brothel where he'd slept.
"Hey! Timmy, I'm the captain of Squad Three of the Demon Hunters! Get a grip!"
"Captain? All I see is a member of the Demon Race who grew a mouth he had no business growing!"
He was already swinging the longsword as he said it.
"F*ck, you're serious!"
A long and fierce chase followed.
"F*ck — Timmy, all right, I misspoke. I felt it in how badly you wanted to cut me open, I really did. Let's stop and talk this through properly."
They had run from the woods east of the Kingdom of Ert clear through to the woods on its western side, and both of them were burning low on breath.
"Captain, I have absolutely no interest in you. None. Zero. And if that mouth of yours starts spreading it around, I won't mind cutting the thing off."
Timmy waved the blade again for emphasis. A rather delicate distance held between them.
Worried, perhaps, that Rolwen was only humoring him at swordpoint, Timmy finally sighed and came clean.
"Captain, since you want to know so badly, I'll tell you. The reason I left that backwater village and went out into the world at all — it started with a beautiful girl. An outsider. She stayed in the village a while to rest.
"While she was there she helped the villagers, and she told us all kinds of stories about the world outside. In the end she left, the way travelers do. And after that, I started longing for the world beyond..."
"Somewhere along the way it got so that whenever I saw a young girl walking down a street, I thought of her. Little by little I understood that the thing driving me onto the road was probably that girl, all those years ago. Joining the organization, taking missions everywhere — it wasn't only about honing myself. It was so I could become a warrior worthy of her."
By the end of it, the anger Rolwen had stoked in him had drained away into something much quieter.
"So you've kept yourself chaste all the way to this ripe old age, and you still haven't found her."
Rolwen's expression turned serious all at once. The man standing in front of him, he thought, was still that same boy.
Timmy said nothing more. Silence was answer enough.
Sorry, Timmy.
Rolwen thought him a fool, and brave, and utterly wrong for the demon-hunting organization. If anything, it was he who had stolen those years from the man.
To lighten the mood, he stepped closer and clapped Timmy on the shoulder.
"F*ck, who'd have guessed. A man your age, still that pure. Though how do I put it... why does it strike me as a little sad?"
Then he caught the murder returning to Timmy's eyes, reined in his lifelong habit of running his mouth, and hurried on to another subject.
"Actually, I came to find you for another reason. Word reached us recently — the captain of Squad One of the Demon Hunters... is dead."
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