Assassin's Chronicle

After the grand funeral, Moramatch returned to calm. Unfortunately, people could not have peace in their heart. No matter whether mercenaries were carefree or ambitious, they all tried to practice as much as they could. They hoped they could improve and be able to survive the battle when death spirits attacked them next time. In Moramatch, training became a habit.

They did not expect the large body of death spirits to suddenly disappear for over a month. They could only see several zombies here and there, wandering outside of town. Every time they showed up, the mercenaries who had pent-up anger would rush out and killed the zombies like cutting melons to vent their anger.

Everybody knew the number of death spirits was enormous. Even though they were in a time of peace, everyone was still alert for any potential dangers.

One day, Anfey brought Suzanna and the Shadow mercenary couple to watch Kumaraghosha train his mercenaries. In fact, both parties suffered from this training. The mercenaries did not enjoyed the training. The formation training was boring. They did not think standing straight or walking in formation was helpful for real wars. Kumaraghosha suffered even more. He could not figure out why these mercenaries would be so stupid. They looked pretty smart, but they messed up the cavalry formation really bad in the training. The mercenaries looked like wild animals. Some went straight forward and knocked others down like bulls, while others jumped around like monkeys. Some mercenaries went out of formation and ran in either direction. They looked like two packs of wolves, running in different directions. Kumaraghosha knew in real battles it was necessary to surround the enemy, but it should be done by cavalries in formation. The mercenaries’ job was to hold the defense line and destroy the enemy’s strength.

Kumaraghosha was experienced in battle, but he was a little too old-fashioned. Mercenaries were good at fighting with a freer styles. Even when their formation was broken by magic beasts, they could form another formation with a few other mercenaries and start another strike. They had a main force, main defense and cooperation, but having hundreds of them repeat one move over and over again was too hard. Kumaraghosha was training them wrong. To motivate the mercenaries, he decided to reward the winners by allowing them to eat the losers’ food. Since the food was being rationed, the losers had to eat left-over soup and rice. In the first drill, the party in formation was defeated by the party with free-style fighting. After having no food for a day, these mercenaries realized there was no point to keeping in formation. They needed to use all the skills they had to fight for their lives.

The battle training was a real mess. The wood swords had lime powder on them. According to the rules, if they were hit and had lime on their bodies, this mercenary would be considered dead and needed to step of the battlefield. Some people simply did not follow the rules just for a good dinner. The opponents were angry when they saw these mercenaries not following the protocols. They copied them and stopped following the protocols as well. When there was one mercenary not following the rules, there would be more following that one. It should have been a hard-fought battle, but some did not leave the field after being hit with the wood sword, especially the strong ones. They would rush everywhere, with clothes turning white with lime, but they still swung their swords on the field. If this were a real battlefield, they would only be able to act this way if they were grandmaster swordsmen.

Long and Ling were laughing so hard that they could not keep themselves straight. This was not a fight drill. It was a fight between two groups of gangsters. Luckily, they were not allowed to use combat power, otherwise there would have been big casualties.

The Anfey broke into a smile after he took a look at that couple. He never asked them to join any group. He provided accommodations for free. The couple felt bad and asked to take on some tasks themselves. Anfey turned their offers down by pointing to their injuries. In fact, he was saving them for more important tasks. If they could hide next to zombies and not being noticed, it showed they had some special effect. They were the perfect candidates for scouts. Anfey currently had mage group to on patrol, so he did not need the couple to do anything yet. However, there would be a time when they would be needed.

Kumaraghosha looked defeated when he walked over. He had given up. At least he gave up for the day. He just let the mercenaries fight without any drilling. He walked up to Anfey and said in a low voice, "Master, they might be good mercenaries, but they would never be good soldiers. I am sorry that I let you down."

"Kumaraghosha, I think you misunderstood me," Anfey said. "I asked you to train them, but did not want you to train them to become something other than they are. I wanted you to make them better at what were good at."

"Their strength? This is their strength," Kumaraghosha said, pointing and smiling bitterly.

Anfey shook his head. You have been in the military for a long time and have a different way of doing things than they do. I have an idea. Let’s talk about it tonight."

"What a chaotic scene. Are they fighting again?" Alice walked over with a smile. There was a sparkling item in her hand.

"Alice, what do you have in your hand?" Anfey asked out of curiosity.

"It is a crossbow made by dwarves." Alice passed the crossbow to Anfey.

"When did dwarves learn to make crossbows?" Kumaraghosha asked in surprise. Crossbows had been existence for a long time but were not popular. People did not like them since they thought crossbows were shameless weapons. They had such power that a starving beggar could cause damage to knights, swordsmen and mages with crossbows. Kings in many countries liked this weapon a lot. Because of their support, they argued that crossbows did not be banned. The skill of making crossbows improved.

"Don’t underestimate dwarves. They are the smartest craftsmen," Alice said slowly. "Master, would you like to try it?"

Anfely looked around and picked a wall as his target. He was familiar with crossbows. Even though there was a big difference in how they were made in this world and his previous world, they had a lot in common. Anfey pulled the trigger. The arrow shot out with a sharp whooping sound and hit directly into the wall.

With a gust of white smoke, the arrow got visibly softer. It turned into bright red liquid and dripped down against the wall. Where the bright red liquid dripped, it made sizzling sounds.

"Is it a magic arrow?" Kumaraghosha said, wide-eyed. He felt a slight magic surge.

"Yes, unfortunately, Hagan is not here," Alice sighed. "We have so many mages. If we had Hagan’s help, we could make much better magic arrows. Dwarves only have very basic alchemy. This is the best they could do."

Anfey nodded. "This is not bad."

"Far from being good, master," Alice heaved a sigh. "Magic arrows have splashing shooting ability. This was a low-level one."

"Better than nothing." Anfey thought a moment and said, "Suzanna, if someone hit you with this kind of crossbow, could it cause any damage to you?"

Suzanna shook her head. Alice smiled. "Master, you are way underestimating senior swordsmen. Only well-made magic arrows could pose any threat to Ms. Suzanna."

"What if thousands of people attacked you with crossbows?" Anfey asked.

"I am not stupid. I would not stand there and wait for them to hit me," Suzanna said.

A dwarf excitedly ran toward them. When he was about a dozen yards away, he raised something high. "Master, we made it."

There was a crossbow in the dwarf’s hands. It looked a lot smaller, only as big as the hand. Alice nodded. "Bring it over and let master take a look."

The dwarf had only taken one step when some something flew over from the battlegrounds. A wood sword flew off in a fight. That wood sword arched through the air and hit the dwarf in the back of the head. That dwarf stumbled. With a sharp whooping sound, the crossbow in the dwarf’s hand shot out.

The dwarf had been walking toward Anfey, so the arrow shot in the direction of Anfey. Alice stepped forward, but she was not a swordswoman and was not good with magic either. A woman without any combat power or magic power could not react quickly. By the time she reacted, the arrow had passed her. Kumaraghosha tried to pull his sword out, but the sword was not there. He had taken it off at the drill. Only Suzanna reacted the fast. As her sword was already thrust half way, she paused because Anfey had grabbed that arrow with his bare hand.

Everybody looked stunned. It was not that a big deal for Anfey to catch an arrow with his bare hand. What shocked them was that the arrow quietly stayed on Anfey’s palm without any change. It did not make sense, since it was a magic arrow.

Anfey turned his hand over and let his fingers go. The arrow fell on the ground and turned into bright red liquid instantly. The ground, covered with hard yellow dirt, was burned with a long, deep ditch.

Everybody went silent. Long and Ling stood still, their mouths gaping. What Anfey had done did not make sense. It seemed to them that this could only happen in a legend. Suzanna still looked normal. She knew the secret between Anfey and little Shally. Anfey asked Shally to attack him with magic at the beginning, later he got bolder and tried to take control of Shally’s fireballs. Little Shally felt she was bullied, and told Suzanna on Anfey. Anfey actions showed his improved ability to control fireballs had helped him here.