- How touchingly sentimental you are, I fell in love with you even more, - Alita commented on his act. But Claude paid no attention to her words. She did not live like this, she does not understand. Each of them had their own childhood, which gave them memorable lessons. It only depended on them what they took out of them.- He earned his money! - suddenly stood up for Claude Daisyre, to which the man only smiled: "Children."In the meantime, they had already crossed two streets and reached a small house, over the door of which hung a signboard, faded from the sun, depicting a bucking donkey. Which is quite consistent with the name - "Not an obedient donkey" engraved on it. However, despite the funny name, the food here was very good and relatively inexpensive, although the contingent was still the same, but it was time for his companions to learn to defend themselves, although he was not particularly worried about one member of their company. No sooner had they entered the semi-dark
Among the mercenaries, there was such a tradition as "taking an obligation", that is, to perform a service in return for the one rendered to them. Mercenaries did not like to take obligations, and even more so to remain in debt. This event was always fraught with risk, if the mercenary did not fulfill this word, he immediately fell into the list of mercenaries with a bad reputation as a debtor and a dishonest monster hunter, and this was fraught with the fact that orders stopped coming. Therefore, everyone tried to follow the fulfillment of obligations very carefully. Perhaps this was the only moment in the work of the monster slayer when the mercenary was shackled by rules and requirements.- What's the matter? - Rolk suddenly came to life, - after all, you are going to the capital through Vogra, and the Trollgin just sat down near this tract. So, whether you like it or not, you're going to have to face him, but you see, the two of us will quickly deal with him.Claude was in no hurr
- Already pinned down, early bird. - Instead of a greeting, the old man muttered, but moved aside, letting the guest inside. - Well, come on, you've come.Claude did not force himself to be persuaded, deftly slipping past the old man into the room, which turned out to be surprisingly brightly lit by a multitude of candles, framed in skillfully made lamps, clearly coming out from under the owner's hand. The house consisted of two floors, but judging by the bed, table, and pile of clothes, the old man preferred not to use the top floor. However, the bed was not straightened and not even crumpled, as Claude realized, the master did not lie down at all that night.- Dear, Obran, is my order ready? - finally asked Claude, unable to bear the expectation. He was already terribly eager to get his blade, the very one that he had been dreaming of for several years, and which any self-respecting mercenary would wish to possess. It was no joke to have almost the strongest blade, which meant a lot
- Claude, we surround. Shooters, aim better, there may not be a third chance! - Rolk commanded, having intercepted the leadership of their group in this battle. - Caer, don't poke your nose.Claude did not really like the policy of his friend, since the repetition of the strategy did not always lead to a good result, and the guy who remained on the periphery of the battle now played the role of a useless ballast, without wasting even half of his capabilities, but he decided to wait, maybe he was wrong. Meanwhile, the monster, having finally woken up, began to move, huge paws flashed from side to side in an awkward attempt to catch nimble mercenaries, stones were crushed into crumbs under crushing blows, and the men had already almost circled around the slow creature, the rope entangled thick paws with a flexible snake, obediently swaddling him according to the plan.Trollgin froze in surprise, trying to take at least a step, but it was useless, his paws did not obey, but this did not
. The coast... "The coast is it!" Suddenly, a flash of insight came to mind.- Let's push him down! - issued a new strategy Claude. The idea was not the best, but there was something in it. Thoughts frantically swirled in my head, processing various options on how best to do this, and the hands kept on and on throwing stones at the monster, the knives did not cause him any harm, but Claude did not want to lose them in vain. He must find another way out, and Rolk was already beckoning the monster behind him by throwing his darts and constantly keeping the attention of the creature on him, getting closer and closer to the cliff. "Crazy, what is he doing! You can't do it alone!" - the mercenary got angry, outraged by the carelessness of his friend, he did not want to lose people on a mission.- Alita, try to call on the local snakes, let them twist his legs!But they will die!"Would it be better if we died?" the man said irritably, no longer trying to look patient and kind. Everything p
After enduring a few more micro bites, whoever was there, he was not big, Claude noted with satisfaction that his freedom was already close. When the cut on the paw reached twenty centimeters, he dodged, pushing the incised limb with all his strength, which, unable to withstand the load, came off, dousing the mercenary with red-green blood that did not have time to coagulate in the stiffened body. And the man himself, having lost his support with a slight cry, fell down, right towards the small creatures, which turned out to be some kind of modified fish, which he had never seen before. Frantically waving a knife to scare away the predators who were delighted with such a gift, he was confused for a few seconds. A pulse roared in my ears, and as far as the muddy water allowed me to see, there was a trolgin, or what was left of it, small creatures managed to work on it too. But now all their attention turned to Claude, apparently they liked live food more. Raking his arms and legs, he w
- I'm Claude - a free mercenary. In your places aisle. - The man introduced himself, confidently looking at the owner of the house. - I wanted to ask you to stay for this night, with dinner and bed, and of course not for free.The man thoughtfully scratched his chin without taking his eyes off the guest, trying to see in his face only he knows what.- My name is Eli. You can even stay overnight for free. There are rarely guests in our area, especially mercenaries."Nice to meet you," Claude replied politely, bowing his head slightly. Something strained him in this stranger, although he did nothing suspicious, and intuition was already calling and pushing him in the other direction from this house. But he didn’t want to go anywhere, he was very tired, so advising to be on guard himself, he followed Eli.Inside, the house was not very different from hundreds of others he had seen before. The same walls, windows, wooden furniture, household items, only a huge full-length mirror hanging o
- This is electricity, - the man said almost in syllables, not particularly accustomed to such complex words. - We inherited this miracle from our ancestors.- Unusual. - Only the guy could pronounce, continuing to follow the lights.- There is almost no such thing left in the world, perhaps only with us. - Showed off the local landmark Eli, proudly examining his transformed home.As Claude was forced to admit, he liked such a festively transformed village, almost nothing like the gray, wretched village he had come to during the day, but he still did not want to stay here.- Welcome to our dance in your honor, Claude. - Eli announced a little pathetically and with an inviting gesture circled the square, where the entire population of the village had gathered. People all as one, with poor faces and thin figures, walked around the clearing, some in groups, some alone, but invariably looking at the guest. Claude was not flattered by such attention, but it was not unusual either. This oft
The Rancia empire prospered. Those terrible times when the Ransians fearfully expected the birth of their own children are far behind. With the accession to the throne of the new emperor Claude re Tigras the First and Empress Daisyre re Tigras, the people stopped living in fear and excitement. Now every Ransian, human or not, had the same right to life and happiness. The persecution of non-humans stopped, because the ruling family also did not belong to the human race, mixed marriages began to appear more often, and cities grew. Life became calmer, now the imperials were not afraid to travel between cities, risking being in the mouth of some monster. All creatures, of course, did not disappear, but as a result of a number of innovations introduced by Claude from the experience of his mercenary life, they greatly facilitate the fight against these creatures, forced them to go away from human habitation or hide deep in their holes. Man again became the dominant race on the planet, and e
- Oh, those boys. Alita purred as she slid off her man's lap and sat down on Claude's bed. “In general, sweetheart, when we burst into the hall, we only made it to the finale, when you, with completely wild eyes, rushed towards the door until you stretched out on the floor, not having reached us a few steps. And then Alexander quickly stepped forward, ordering that you be lifted and taken to the imperial chambers and called for a doctor, and then he explained to everyone present that according to some ancient law, I don’t know where he dug it up, you become the next emperor, taking the place of the deposed you ruler. We didn't even believe what we heard. You are Claude and the emperor. It sounded kind of unbelievable. And to be honest, they also managed to catch this cold, so they thought it was the result of a fever. But as it turned out, no, they heard right and you were really glorified as the future emperor. He cleverly organized everything here. So even the few dissatisfied witne
- Infections... It's people like me that you call an infection?- Yes. To be honest, I even liked you a little, not often non-humans managed to hide from my eye for so long, and your stupid principles ... naive, frankly childish, but noble, made me smile. However, the fact that you are a monster cannot be changed and you have no other destiny than to die.“It’s like seeing which one of us is a monster.— Ha! Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror?“Appearance says nothing about a person. Yes, my eyes and ears are different from human, but there is much less blood on my hands than on yours.- What are you talking about. Turn around. All these people could live if not for you.“My fault for their death is no less than the one who set them on me. At least I was only defending myself, not sending them to their deaths.They died because they were doing their duty.Or because they were left with no choice.This conversation did not lead them anywhere, without bringing clarity or sat
And now only three of them remained, the horses carried the tired mercenaries forward, whipping dust into the air and crumbling the age-old stone into the sand. Two hot streams of steam escaped the air from the wide, nervously quivering nostrils of the driven horses. No one believed that they would catch up with the warrior, only hoping that the emperor would not realize his terrifying plan immediately upon the arrival of his assistant. On the horizon in front of them rose the towers of San Pen, brightening up the dull landscape with each kilometer growing higher and higher, delighting and frightening at the same time. Claude did not know what awaited them in the capital, for the first time he did not have at least some slightly thought-out plan, only one desire to be in time, not to be late, to stop. Inside, everything was shrinking from a bad premonition, but the guy drove away uninvited thoughts. You should never take on a job with a gloomy attitude to its failure, otherwise, every
Leata's voice broke through her rage-clouded consciousness. "Finally!" the guy exhaled, looking at the best thing to do in order to retreat without consequences for his health and life. It was not far to go, the creatures had already almost pressed him to the failure, from which the mercenary was separated by several steps, he needed only a couple of three seconds to get the coveted vial and jump over to the other side. Taking a step back, he seized the sword more comfortably and threw the dagger at the creature closest to him, slashing the blade across the entire expanse available to him and forcing the creatures to retreat a couple of steps. Here are his seconds. Rushing back, he removed the blade with one hand, and with the other he felt for the coveted cork. Which is specially marked so as not to be confused with others. The previous experience of using this remedy in the battle with sectroses taught him decently, but there was no time to sip drop by drop. Let it be what will be.
Aiyana, hurry up. Something is not happening.- One more second. Here it is! - the girl purred enthusiastically, pressing the lever near the capsule, and completely not noticing what was happening around.- We have no time. It's time to go.- Not! Until I find it, I won't leave.- Crap! Is it worth your life?- Yes!Discouraged by the answer, the mercenary fell silent for a few seconds. That's devotion! She could be admired if he and his comrades of life did not depend on her.Tell me what to look for! - finally, unable to stand it, he grunted, finally entering the room and feeling the cold enveloping from all sides.- You don't know the language.But I can see. I'll find it by sight. Show me or we'll all stay here.She did not argue further, obediently showing what symbols she had to find. There were few of them, at most four, of which one was a letter, and the rest resembled modern numbers. It was not even a name, but rather a code. He moved along the nearest shelving unit, running
At Leata's remark, Claude only shook his head, as they approached the ruins, Leatrice became more and more irritable and angry. He did not know what was eating her, most likely she was also afraid. After a quick bite, they hit the road. The sounds that accompanied their breakfast didn't help their appetite, and neither did their conversation. In anticipation of a meeting with the owners of these voices, people unanimously grew gloomy, but walked, carefully looking around. It gradually began to get light around, mischievous rays gently ran across the grass, reflected in drops of dew, flashed on people's weapons, playfully looking into their eyes and blossomed with a gloomy rainbow, reflected from the surface of the lake. The one that Leata called the "Lake of the Dead". For what it received such a name, no one knew, but the assumptions were different. Maybe the ancients drowned their dead in it, or maybe this is due to some mysterious story, since the lake was no different from its cou
- What the hell! cried Claude with a loud splash as he went under the water. The turbulent river picked up its prey with the joy of a small child who discovered in his power a toy he had long desired. The big man was twisted and twisted, sometimes hitting the side of the shell. Water clogged in his mouth, nose, forcing him to spit, smearing haze before his eyes. You can't give up! Claude remembered that he was not alone in the water, but he did not have time to really see the creature that had so cleverly discounted him. However, this did not give a reason to underestimate her. Ripping up the water with powerful strokes, he forced himself to swim up. Thank the Gods, he did not have time to take aside. The shell, like a native, clung to him, dragging him along, trying in vain to pull him under him. The body already almost did not obey him, bound by a terrible cold. Pushing off from the surface of the water, Claude desperately jumped up in an unsuccessful attempt to grab the edge, feeli
— Falcon. Daisyra prompted, following his gaze. For her, this distance was not a problem. - Beautiful.- Yes. And lonely.- How are you!- What did you get?“This is how we met you in that tavern.- When it was. Seems like another life.- Yes. And I'm glad we met.- And I.They had a strange conversation, they seemed to be talking and at the same time not. Pictures of their meeting floated before his eyes, taken apart by the words of the girl, and seeing himself, he looked and did not recognize. Now he was no longer the same person. Claude has changed. Becoming somehow something ... more integral, but still in his chest did not want to melt a tight lump that appeared there in childhood, as if not allowing him to free himself from the cage created by himself.- For me, he is not alone, but strong. Rolk muttered thoughtfully.— Who are you talking about? Caer joined in, also following his eyes sparkling in the rays of the sun, following the bird circling above them.- About both.“We wi