Distractment

I recognized the man. How could I not? I had seen him a couple of times before. The man in clean and matching peasant clothes, a sword on his back, bright red hair and a casual but steady stride, was the vice-captain of the 6th royal battalion. I don't remember his name. But it was something like Ryker.

The royal family had 7 battalions. Totaling about 7500 soldiers. The 6th battalion was ranked 6th in terms of power. But that did not mean that the captains and vice-captains were weak. Overall, the top fighters of the 3rd to 7th battalion were evenly matched. The 1st and 2nd battalion were significantly more powerful, made up of only the best soldiers.

But what was Ryker doing here? This was the outer region of the city. There were few criminals and just a lot of unfortunate people here. Homeless people like the sweet Harin. Or disabled people like the old man who sat across the bakery he had seen just earlier. There should be patrol units in this area, but would the vice-captain himself be the one to patrol? I doubt it. There was something fishy.

"Harin, stay close," I told her and pulled her close enough that my arm wrapped around her small body. Then, I put the sword in the ground in front of us and activated one of the powers bestowed upon me...cursed upon me.

Ryker walked in front of us. As we got a better look, I could tell that he was paying a lot of attention to his surrounding. His gaze was scanning the whole area. Was he really out on patrol? But what Harin had said made me have second thoughts. This had to be investigated.

Ryker stared right at us for a moment but saw nothing and kept walking. Harin held her breath and was sweating nervously. She calmed down when Ryker had left.

"He...looked straight at us?" Harin exclaimed.

"But he didn't see us, Harin. I made us invisible," I said to reassure her. But the girl was still nervous. I put my hand on her head and tried to comfort her, but this was not something I was used to. "Let's get moving before he comes back."

My target location was Robus, an inner region of the city that was much better than the outer region. I would have come here with or without Harin. I took her to the first inn we saw and paid the innkeeper 2 gold coins. It was a substantial amount of money. I told the innkeeper to take care of Harin as if she were royalty. To listen to any of her demands and to not make any trouble for her. I also warned them in case they wanted to try anything funny.

"I'll be back to check on her later," I told the innkeeper. With a nervous face, the innkeeper nodded her head. I bid farewell to Harin, who was very happy to stay at inn where it was safe and there was food available.

The day was young, so I thought about my plan. There was the original plan, which is also the most important for me. The search for the black-hair man. It shouldn't be a hard task, since black hair stood out. This was simply because there was no one in this world with black hair.

Every person had colorful hair, be it the captain of the 1st battalion or a beggar. But black was not present in this. The closest hair color was dark blue. My own dark blue hair were on the lighter side of this spectrum. Someone with black hair would have stood out and someone would have seen him.

But my investigation yesterday lead to nothing. In the inner region, someone should have seen him, but I asked around all day and found nothing. I was going to continue my search in the outer region where people were awake long into the night and even until morning. There were more patrols and eyes from criminals. I expect someone to have seen something.

But now, a new objective has cropped up. Investigating the rumors on slave trading and its connection to vice-captain Ryker. Maybe I should just ignore it? Revenge is more important...but the thought of someone like Harin suffering just made my blood boil. I clicked my tongue and moved forward.

My goal was—wait, I don't need to go myself. I smiled at the idea. I just needed someone trustworthy to go instead of me. But who could I ask? For now, there was no one. I had...no friends or allies in this city. My smile faded. The brilliant realization was hit with a stop. If the vice-captain was involved, then even the 6th battalion he belonged to couldn't be trusted. I could seek out the 1st battalion, but my current circumstances made it difficult to contact them. And there was no knowing whether even they could be trusted.

I'll just have to go myself to check things out. Holding the sword, I moved out. The first thing was to trail Ryker. I headed back to the outer region, close to where we had encountered Ryker. The outer region had a continuous path around the whole city, except at the southern wall. That location was where nobles, and in general people with some wealth, would travel through to leave the city. Disgusting peasants couldn't be spotted there. I didn't know what would happen if lowly peasants went there, but my guess was that they were beaten and thrown back to the outer region.

If memory served me right, the patrol of the outer region was to just walk down this path. They should have been on the lookout for anything suspicious and stop troublemakers, but I doubt anything like that was happening given the state of the outer region.

With the power of the cursed black blade, my physical abilities had been enhanced. I was running along the roofs of the low story buildings as if I was flying. And finally, I spotted Ryker almost at the end of his shift.

I stopped on top of a building and peeked out.

"Hey! What's are you doing on my—" an old man shouted at me, but I held the black sword in my hand to his throat. I wasn't going to kill him. It was just to make him shut up. But the sword spoke to me and demanded I spill blood. The haunting voices of countless people emanated in my mind. The world became small and red, with only me and the old man. It took everything to snap out of it. My eyes, which had turned red, returned to normal. A pain like stab wounds remained.

The old man had fainted. Thankfully, he was on a makeshift chair so I had no need to catch him when he was falling. I shifted my attention back to Ryker. It was as Harin had said. Somewhere along the long dirt road and in the time we had been separated, he had found himself a child. A small child with bright red hair.

What was he doing with a child? If this was a normal patrol officer, I could have some guesses. But a vice-captain? It was already rare for lieutenants, who were the direct rank below captain, to go on patrol.

Around 30 minutes later, Ryker was reaching the end of the road. This was where the patrol would usually end. In the distance, I could see the patrol base which was on the two sides of the southern main street.

I had looked away for only a moment, but when I looked back at Ryker he was gone. Along with the child. I panicked and jumped down the buildings. I looked around where Ryker had just been. He was nowhere to be found. I almost gave up and blamed myself for looking away when I saw it. In the dark alleyway, a single momentary flash of red light. It had been so brief that anyone could have missed it. But the black sword had enhanced my eyes.

I rushed into the dark alleyway. But before I could go inside, a man blocked the path. It was several strong men. They made it look as if they just happened to walk by and block the entrance. At least they tried to. I simply jumped over them. But one of them grabbed my leg as I was jumping.

I was slammed into the dirt ground.

"You shouldn't go down random dark alleyways, kid," said a slim man. He had a hideous face, with scars and discoloration. The men laughed.

"Kid?" I rose up from the ground covered in dirt. I could see recent shoeprints and smaller footprints. This confirmed it. Ryker and the little kid had just gone through here. The roof was unnaturally covering the top, even though it was an alleyway. The further in you went, the less light there was. Only a few steps into this alleyway and it was already difficult to see.