The Village Square Chase

What had happened was that the two hooded men had crashed into the carriage while running out of the church, sideswiping Paulo in the process and knocking him down to the ground. The two men fell backwards after hitting the wheels at full speed, dazed and confused as the driver of the carriage stopped and the two men in the back got out. All of them seemed to recognize each other, with the driver yelling to the two hooded men, “John! Reiner! Is that you?!”

Maxim ran out, screaming, “NO!” As he did, he caught up to Paulo and helped him up on his feet, asking him, “Paulo, are you okay?!”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he replied. “I just got fucking knocked over by these two assholes, though.”

Maxim then turned to the five men as they all stood opposite of him, “What do you guys want?! I saw you following my friend!” He of course knew exactly what they were after: Paulo himself.

The driver exclaimed to Maxim, “Give us the boy and we won’t harm you!”

“Hell no!”

Kana then told the duo as a red-colored bow and arrow made from light emerged from her hands, “Stand back! I got this!” She then pulled back and fired two energy arrows at the five men, striking one of them and killing him instantly. “These men aren’t to be negotiated with! Now go away if you want to live!”

“Holy shit,” Paulo yelled out. “She killed him!”

“Come on,” Maxim then told him as he took his ham and led him away. “Let’s get out of here before shit gets worse! You’re not safe here!”

The driver of the carriage yelled to Kana, “You bitch! We should have known you’d be here!”

“I won’t let you leave alive!” Kana then fired another arrow, which struck the carriage and set it on fire, startling the horse and causing it to flee with the burning carriage still attached with reins. In response, the two hooded men each pulled out small wooden staffs and fired off two bright rocket-like beams at Kana, who barely dodged them before she returned fire and struck one of the men, killing him.

Villagers and visitors alike fled the scene as the three remaining men began to run in the direction of the burning carriage, Kana closely following behind them. The driver said to the other two men, “We can’t let that carriage get away! We have our first two sacrifices inside it! Even if they’re burned, we can still use them!”

The horse erratically ran through the streets before finally escaping the village and running onto a road leading out of it, still pulling the burning carriage that now was beginning to fall apart at the seams. As the three men ran after it, the horse began to get tired out just as the reins burned off, freeing the carriage from the panicked horse as it finally began to slow down, stopping for a moment to catch its breath before it then began to run at a full gallop away from the scene, no longer tied down by the weight of the carriage. The carriage stopped in the middle of the road, now fully engulfed in flames and billowing black smoke into the sky, as the three men finally caught up. The remaining hooded man, the one named Reiner, yelled in frustration, “Shit! We can’t get close to it! The fire’s too intense!”

“You got powers,” the driver replied. “Do something, for God’s sa-!”

Kana then killed the driver with an arrow beam to the head, instantly causing it to explode into many pieces and coat the other two men in his blood as he fell over. Reiner then aimed his staff at Kana again, firing off two more rocket beams at her that she managed to dodge before she fired off two arrows at once from her bow, striking and killing him as well. The last man, out of options, pulled out a revolver and fired off a shot at Kana before he too was hit with an arrow in the abdomen.

The man, still alive but bleeding out, looked up at Kana as she approached him, shivering in fear as he stammered out, “Please… Please… D- Do- D- Don’t kill me! Let me go! Let m- m- m- me go!”

“I can’t,” Kana explained before taking his gun from his weakened hands and aimed it at his forehead. “Every one of you has to be killed. Now, say hi to your Grand Master for me.” She then pulled the trigger, and a shot echoed through the air as she ended his life right on the side of the road.

With this done, she dropped the gun on the ground and looked around, her bow now gone as the carriage continued to burn intensely near her. She stretched her arms and yawned, seemingly nonchalant about the five lives she had taken. As she did, Maxim and Paulo finally managed to catch up with her, having chosen to follow behind her despite her warning. Maxim called out to her as he caught his breath, “There you are! Finally, we found you!”

Kana sternly told them, “What are you two still doing here? I thought I told you to go away if you wanted to live.”

“I want answers,” Paulo demanded from her. “Who the fuck were those guys and why were they after me, Kana?!”

“They’re part of a cult,” Kana explained. “The Order of the Shining Light, to be exact. They’ve been kidnapping people for several years now, and I suspect they may be behind a variety of murders and disappearances in the Chanan Metropolitan Area, of which Rimnan is right on the edge of.”

Maxim knew all about what she was explaining. “I know who they are,” he told her. “Trust me, Kana.”

“How would you know? Someone like you isn’t a target for them. Someone like Paulo, on the other hand… The son of a noble family would be a prime target.”

Paulo, now realizing why they were after him, replied, “So they were after me for my status…”

“Exactly,” Kana nodded. She then began to walk back down to the village, telling the duo, “You two shouldn’t really get involved. You have no idea what the stakes are in this battle. Besides, neither of you have a way to defend yourselves from magical attacks.”

“But I can learn,” Maxim pointed out. “You know I have untapped magical potential, right?”

“You shouldn’t get involved,” Kana then turned around and firmly warned him. “You will only bring yourself pain and cause others around you to suffer, Maxim. Do I make myself clear?”

“Do I have to listen to you?”

“I can make you,” Kana then said as she formed a bow in her right hand again. “Do you want to play that game?”

Paulo, not wanting to see the two fight, yelled, “Guys, calm the Hell down! Don’t do this shit! Not now, not here!”

Kana looked at Paulo and sighed, her bow fading away as she told Maxim, “He’s right. Still, I’d advise you to stay away from the business of monster hunters, especially when it comes to the Order of the Shining Light. All you’ll do is invite trouble.”

As she walked back to the village, Maxim sighed and turned to Paulo. “Thanks for that, man. I got pretty scared when she pulled out that bow on me.”

Paulo asked him, “What do you know about the Order of the Shining Light?”

Trying to formulate an answer that did not give away why he really knew about them, he stuttered, “Well, uh… It’s hard to explain…”

“Tell me. Considering I almost got my ass kidnapped and killed by them, I’m owed an explanation.”

“Alright, alright.” Maxim came up with a plausible explanation in his head, and then began to tell Paulo some, but not all, of what he knew. “The Order of the Shining Light wants to resurrect a monster that was sealed over two centuries ago by Emperor Allen the Third of Tamara. They’ve been active as an underground group for about twenty years now. I know this because my uncle is a member of the Imperial Tamaran Military Police, and he’s done investigations on their activities. Individual monster hunters have also done investigations, but given the dangerous nature of that work and the fact most of them are essentially freelancers, many of those who get deep into investigating the cult get killed by them or by a monster before they complete their investigations and reveal their results.”

“I see… But why would they go after someone from the nobility like me?”

“To attract attention to their cause,” Maxim further explained. “The kidnapping and murder of a nobleman or a member of his family generates a lot of attention. Besides trying to resurrect the monster sealed away by Emperor Allen the Third, they also want to overthrow the entire government and society of Tamara, and build a whole new one based on their own values and beliefs. They’ve been able to attract a lot of commoners and even some lower-ranked noble family members to their cause, since they say they offer a better world where such things like noble titles and poverty won’t exist. They exploit their fears and their grievances with the elite to draw them in and commit unspeakable acts of brutality.”

“So that’s the whole story, huh?”

“Yes.” Maxim knew it was not, but could not reveal any more lest he bring suspicion onto him. “That’s the whole truth, at least to my knowledge, Paulo.”

…

17 Mensis Aprilis, Year 704

“I didn’t get back to the dorms until around midnight,” Paulo was telling Maxim and Yuna during a break between classes. “The military police took all of my statements, but they asked so many damn questions. At least they gave me a ride back to the school.”

Yuna asked him, “How so?”

“They recently purchased some motor cars for rural police patrol out here,” he explained. “So I got to ride in the back of one. It was pretty cool, honestly. It’s not often you see a motor car out here.”

“Wow. My family has one, but they cost a lot of money, so most people haven’t ridden in one.”

“I wonder how Kana’s doing after all of that,” Maxim then said. “She was really quiet at homeroom. I’m honestly surprised she wasn’t held by the military police for anything.”

“She must have got away,” Paulo replied. “They never mentioned bringing in a girl for questioning.”

“I can’t believe Kana really did all of that,” Yuna then added, shocked by her behavior. “I know the cult isn’t good, but… That just feels too brutal.”

“I don’t know,” Maxim debated. “From what I know, the Order of the Shining Light is pretty horrible. They were gonna do some awful things to Paulo if he got caught by them. Honestly, I’m surprised you went to school today. Do your parents know about this?”

“They were told by the military police,” Paulo explained. “They’re coming over tonight to visit me and see how I’m doing. Honestly, I’m fine now. I never thought I’d say this, but going to school was a relief, if anything.”

“I bet it was nice to return to normalcy,” Yuna theorized. “After such an event, doing something that’s normal must help… Or something like that.” She then blushed slightly, feeling that she may have overstepped her bounds with such a comment. “Pardon me. Did I say too much?”

“No, no, no,” Paulo assured her. “You’re fine, Yuna, and you’re probably right.”

…

Later on, right as school had let out, Maxim happened to run into Lena, who was walking down the stairs from the fourth floor of the castle when they bumped into each other. Dropping two books she was carrying, Lena said to Maxim, “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he replied. “What about you?” He then picked up both books and handed them off her. “Here you go.”

“Thank you, Maxim,” she replied. “I’m heading out for a patrol in Tamara tonight, actually.”

“By yourself?”

“This time, yeah,” she nodded. “Victoria has a meeting with a teacher over some work she missed, Sarah’s meeting up with Yuna’s brother Werner, and Yuna is meeting up with Kana.”

“With Kana?” Maxim, a bit concerned, asked, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“I was concerned, too,” Lena agreed. “Hence why I’m going to the city, because they’re going there, too.”

“Ah, I see. So you’re gonna follow them… Can I tag along so you won’t go alone?”

Lena shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I mean, I don’t want you to feel like you have to, Maxim.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” he assured her. “I got time. Besides, I got a lot of my homework done already.” Maxim knew that Lena would follow Yuna and Kana into the city, which would lead to a confrontation between the three of them. He hoped that he would at least be able to observe said confrontation, or maybe to even get involved in it.

“Sounds good to me, then. Follow me. We’ll take the 4:45 train, or the 4:30 train if we make it in time. It’s usually empty since all the commuters are coming the other way.” Lena and Maxim then began to walk together to the entrance, hoping to get to the train station in the village soon enough to make the 4:30 train, but also prepared to take the 4:45 train if needed.

As they made their way out of the school, Paulo happened to notice them walking together and waved over. “Hey guys!”

“Hi, Paulo,” Lena waved over to him as well.

“So, what are you two up to?”

“We’re going to the city for the evening.”

Playfully teasing Maxim, he asked him, “To the city, eh? Are you taking the one and only Lena Vale out on a date, Max?”

“No, no,” he insisted. “It’s not a date, man.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, Paulo.”

“Don’t worry, I’m just fucking with you, man. Have fun in the city, guys.”

“See you later,” Lena then said as they walked away. She then turned to Maxim and asked him, “Did he really think we were out on a date?”

“He’s just messing with me,” Maxim assured her. “Don’t worry, Lena. He wasn’t being serious.”