Freedom Card - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Taking Care Of Robbers

A slight wind had started to blow since Xyle's Hand left Okino Village and it was now rustling the leaves of the trees softly.
“So, uhm, Xyle?” Caylos said.
Xyle turned to Caylos.
“Yeah, what is it?”
“What is it that drives Yigixo to do all of this?”
Xyle was silent for a moment, a troubled look on his face.
“Is it okay to tell him? Maybe it's a little too early. But what to tell him otherwise? He has the right to know... right? Let's hope the conversation doesn't go “that” way.”
“He's looking for an Elemental Weapon, or so we have heard.”
Caylos was quiet for a moment and then asked:
“Why is he looking for it here? If there's any place I wouldn't expect such a dangerous weapon, it's in this area.”
“We have no idea about that either. We don't know what sources led him here. The only thing we know is that he's after something we also want.”
Caylos was silent for a moment and Xyle was almost convinced the conversation had ended when Caylos started talking again.
“So... how long have you been following him now?”
“This conversation is definitely going the wrong way! How am I going to answer that question without raising questions?!”
Dergez, Herene, Lepodes and Qualoppe felt that Xyle wouldn't be able to get out of this and had to tell Caylos everything. But just as Xyle had given up on hiding it and telling him, Mini, whom was walking in front of everyone else, interrupted their conversation.
“Hey, look, someone just jumped out of the bushes onto the path,” she said, pointing her finger at the person. Everyone stopped walking and directed their attention to the figure that was quickly coming their way.
“He looks all hairy,” Dergez commented, as the figure came closer. It had quite a big posture, at least thrice as big as Mini. The beast-like figure didn't slow down, even as it came closer.
“He looks kind of creepy,” Mini said.
“Look who's talking!” Dergez yelled at her.
“Guys, it's attacking us!” Herene yelled, as it was only ten meters away from the group. She had barely ended the sentence when the beast-like creature jumped at Mini yelling:
“I'm HUNGRY! I WANT THOSE DELICIOUS EYEBALLS!”
“MINI!” Caylos yelled, as he ran at Mini to push her away in time.
And that's when a lot happened in just a few split seconds. Mini looked at the incoming Oglip with emotionless eyes, until the two were less than a meter away from each other, when a small grin appeared on her face. A scythe suddenly materialized in her hands. But it wasn't a normal scythe. The handle had a blood-red color, while the blade was completely black. That wasn't the weirdest thing. The scythe had one more attribute that surprised Caylos. Along the cutting edges of the scythe were spikes that were rotating at high volume. We'd call it a chainsaw nowadays. Only the tip of the blade wasn't covered by these spikes as the spikes went into blade right before the tip. The thing made a whizzing sound that Caylos had never heard before. Caylos didn't believe his eyes as he watched what happened next. With one swift motion, Mini lashed out with the scythe at the incoming Oglip. The scythe cut Oglip in two pieces, from right to left, like a hot knife through butter, ending Oglip's life. Blood spat everywhere, mostly covering Mini. She wasn't done, however. Before the two parts of Oglip's dead body could properly separate, she turned her scythe around and cut through him again, this time from left to right. And once more, this time vertically.

Oglip's body parts fell amongst the group, covering everyone in blood.
“Mini! Look what you have done! Now we have to go wash these! Aha! What a bother!” Xyle said as he admired his bloodied clothes. Mini wasn't listening. She was licking her blood-covered hands.
“HEY! Stop that disgusting habit of yours! Don't lick other people's blood!” Dergez yelled.
Mini turned around and looked at him with a satisfied look on her face.
“But it tastes so goooooood!” she responded.
Caylos couldn't say anything. He felt like he was petrified to the ground.
“What... what did I just see?! WHAT DID MINI JUST DO?!”
“That's one of the reasons why you'll never have a boyfriend,” Dergez yelled at Mini.
“Oh, but I don't need one! After all, I already have you, don't I?”
“That's a lie. You're making that up!”
“Deeeergeeeez!” Mini yelled as she ran at him. Her scythe automatically disappeared with a “poof”.
“WHAAA!” Dergez yelled, as he started to run away from Mini, “Stay away! You're covered in blood! ”
“Oh, but you are too! We look so much alike, don't you think!?”
“Mini! Dergez! That guy wasn't the only one!” Xyle warned them. Mini and Dergez stopped their shenanigans and look beyond the trees right beside the narrow path they were standing on. Multiple figures were hidden in between the trees.
“Robbers!” Dergez said.
Xyle nodded.
“We don't have time for this, dangit!” Dergez said annoyed by the situation.
“What are we going to do?” Caylos asked.
“I don't know,” Xyle said, looking around him, keeping an eye on the shady people hidden between the trees, “Let's keep walking for now.”
“We're not going to fight?” Caylos asked, slightly surprised by Xyle's decision.
With his eyes on the robbers, Xyle answered:
“Unless they attack us, we won't. Let's keep walking, but keep an eye on them and don't lose any of them out of your sight.”

And so started a rather awkward situation. Stained with Oglip's blood (more or less), Xyle's Hand started walking again. But the shady people between the trees followed them. After ten minutes, Caylos asked Xyle:
“Why aren't they attacking us?”
Qualoppe, whom was walking behind the two, answered the question before Xyle could.
“Isn't that obvious!? Do you think they'd be happy to fight us after she showed what she's capable of?” he said, pointing his thumb at Mini. She looked up when the thumb was pointed at her.
“Are you guys talking about me?”
“Caylos thinks you're frightening,” Qualoppe quickly answered.
“Wait, why me?!” Caylos said, afraid that Mini would get angry.
“Oh, thank you. It was my intention,” Mini said with a smile, that strangely fit her.
“Well, I can't say she ISN'T frightening. More like, she scares me to the point where I wish I wouldn't have started traveling with this group!”
Caylos turned to Qualoppe and replied:
“Well, that's true. But if they're scared of Mini, why are they still following us?”
“I don't know exactly,” was Qualoppe's reply, “There are multiple reasons why they are still following us.”
“Multiple reasons?” Caylos wondered out loud.
“Yes. 124 to be exact.”
Caylos opened his mouth to say something but couldn't find any word to say.
“THAT'S TOO MUCH! HOW MANY REASONS DID YOU COME UP WITH?!”
“A reason I personally like is that, as soon as they saw me, they fell in lo-”
“AS IF!” Dergez yelled, “I'm sure they're coming after me!”
“Why would you want men to chase after you?!”
Qualoppe scraped his throat.
“Anyway, the most likely scenario is that they are not sure what to do as well, “Qualoppe explained, “They probably live in the woods from what they find and rob. They might even have families somewhere. These robbers had planned this robbery for some merchants, is what I think. Merchants that came from Okino Village.”
“Okino Village... my village... but it's destroyed!”
“Yes... and because of that, they have been waiting since morning. But no merchants. They won't be able to make a living now, unless they move away.”
“Whoa... Yigixo's actions even affected people's lives that were never affiliated with my village.”
Caylos paused for a moment.
“Wait, we're making these guys sound like saints right now! They're still robbers!”
“Poor souls,” Xyle said, while the tears flowed down his cheeks. He turned to Mini, “Mini, why did you have to kill that guy? That poor soul.”
“That guy was trying to eat us!”
“He was all hairy. I wanted to kill him,” Mini gave her reason.
“Are we even paying attention to the robbers?!”
As that thought went through Caylos' mind, a robber suddenly jumped out of the bushes and lashed out his sword at Caylos. Caylos gave a yell in fright, closed his eyes and lifted up his arms in defense. But the expected sword cutting him didn't come. Instead, there was a sound of metal clashing at metal right next to his ear. Opening his eyes again, he saw the robber's sword only inches away from his face. But something else was there between him and the sword. It was a cap... or no, a sharp, small blade, like a knife's extending from the bill of the cap. That's when Caylos realized this cap was Dergez'.
“Going straight for the new guy this time? You sure know how to pick your victims,” Dergez said to the surprised bandit. Caylos fell to the ground from fright and slowly crawled backwards, away from the dangerous bandit.
“Well done, Dergez,” Xyle complimented, as a weapon materialized in his hands: a spear... the Elementary Weapon, the Spear of Earth. Despite the mighty name, the spear looked very simple. A wooden stick with a sharp, crenated stone attached to it with rope at one end. Almost like a spear from ancient times. Like cavemen from the prehistory made them. Xyle did one step toward the bandit and stabbed at him, but the robber was too attentive to be hit by the move and was able to jump backwards, before the hit could connect. But with the next motion from Xyle's Spear of Earth, the robber was done. Xyle swung the weapon up from the ground. At the same moment, a pillar of earth, shut out of the earth right underneath the robber's feet, launching the man five meters into the air. With a loud yell, the bandit fell back to the earth, into the forest. Some yells came from the forest and the group witnessed how the bandits ran away yelling, frightened of this group of strange, powerful people.
“COWARDS!” Mini yelled.
“Well... that's dealt with as well...” Herene, whom had been carrying the luggage ever since Qualoppe had collapsed underneath it, said.

After changing clothes, it was back to traveling again. It was half past two and the sun stood high in the sky, shining its warmth down to earth. Maybe a little too much, as it was wearing down the travelers.
“Man, who'd think it'd get this warm after that rain from yesterday,” Dergez whined.
“It's always like that, y'know. When you roll with a dice, after rolling a six, you will most likely roll a one or two,” Xyle replied, “There's only so much luck one person can get.”
“That's completely different!”Dergez said, “In the first place, that logic is completely based on superstition. And don't talk about luck. Mini absorbs all our luck for her gambling.”
Dergez waved his hand up and down to give his head some cool wind, but it didn't help much.
“Maybe you could take off your cap. That might help,” Caylos suggested.
Everyone looked Caylos' direction. It was unusual for him to mix himself into such a casual a conversation.
“I can't do that, y'know. If I take this cap from my head, the blade automatically comes out of the bill,” Dergez replied.
“Oh...”
“That was a stupid suggestion! That definitely was a stupid suggestion, wasn't it!?”
Dergez saw the emberrassment on Caylos' face and smiled.
“It's a magical weapon,” Dergez said, to keep the conversation going.
“A magical weapon? That cap?”Caylos said in surprise. He looked at the cap. It looked just any other... ordinary. It was just a brown cap.
“Yeah, it doesn't look like one, doesn't it?” Dergez said.
Caylos nodded.
“Where did you get it from?”
“Hmm... there's not really a story behind it. I bought it at a normal convenience store in my home-town,” Dergez told him.
“They sell magical weapons in your home town?”Caylos asked surprised.
“Haha, no... It seems you still don't know. Magical weapons aren't made by humans, y'know.”
“They aren't? I always thought they were somehow made by humans.”
“Well, yeah... the item itself is made by humans, but the magical power bestowed upon the weapon is not from humans. Humans don't have influence on whether an item becomes a magical weapon or not.”
“Then who decides which weapon becomes magical?” Caylos asked next.
Dergez shrugged.
“I don't know. No-one knows. Some strange, invisible force appoints certain items with magical powers.”
“Oh, I see,” Caylos said, a little disappointed. He really wanted to know the mystery behind the magic weapons, “What does your cap do?”
“You saw just a while ago, didn't you? A blade extends from the bill as soon as I take it from my head.”
As to set an example, Dergez took the cap from his head and indeed, a blade the length of the bill extended out of the bill.
“Is that all it can do?” Caylos said, looking at the extended blade.
“Hmm... watch the blade,” Dergez said. Caylos hadn't been doing anything else.
“If I give the cap a little more magical power,” Dergez paused and suddenly, the blade extended even more, “the blade grows.”
“It's a sword now,” Caylos described the weapon.
Dergez nodded.
“Still,” Caylos continued, “it doesn't do much.”
Dergez chuckled.
“This isn't all that this weapon can do. It's just that I can't do any more,” Dergez explain, while he put the cap back on his head. The blade automatically disappeared into the bill.
Caylos looked at Dergez with a confused expression.
“What... do you mean with that?”
“I don't have enough magic power to get the most out of this weapon. I don't know how powerful it is at its best, but I think what you see now is only ten percent of what it can really do.”
“Just ten percent?”
Dergez nodded and looked down as he went on to explain:
“You may already know, but all magical weapons know several stages they go through, each one of them makes the weapon and its wielder stronger. How many stages there are, is different everytime. There are weapons with so much as twenty different stages and some don't have any stages at all...”
“Oh, I see...”
Dergez turned to Caylos.
“You didn't know any of that?”
Caylos nodded.
“I don't know much about magical weapons and stuff. The only thing I knew about them before this all happened is that they existed and had strange powers.”
“Hmm... So, that means that you also don't know that not all magical items are necessarily used as weapons.”
Caylos shook his head.
“No, I didn't.”
“You really don't know much, do you?!” Herene added herself into their conversation at a fierce tone.
“I'm sorry,” Caylos immediately apologized.
Herene was surprised. Why did he apologize?
“You don't have to apologize!” she said loudly.
“I'm sorry. I thought I was disappointing you.”
“D-Disappionting... what are you saying?! Why would I be disappointed in you?!”
“You sounded like you were,” Caylos replied.
“I... I wasn't! Y-You're good just the way you are!” she said with a slight blush.
“Wait, why am I blushing?! I shouldn't be blushing over this?!”
“Oooooh?” Dergez said, with a smug smile on his face, “Words like that don't come from your mouth very much.”
Xyle laughed.
“Hahaha. I was about to say that. You two are amusing together.”
“How dare he imply...”
“Do you want a fist in your face!”
“Why are you getting so worked up?” Xyle asked, “It's not like I implied anything or something. What are you thinking?”
“I...”
“Calm down! They're teasing you!”
“I am not! It's nothing! Just shut your trap.”
Xyle chuckled. Caylos was a great new member.

It took them another seven hours to reach Dicarpio. And they found it completely unscathed.
“We're in time!” Caylos said happily as he saw the houses of Dicarpio through the trees.
Dergez looked at Xyle when Caylos said that. A worried look decorated Dergez' face for a split second.
“Let's search for a hotel to get some rest. I'm getting tired,” Herene proposed.
“What?! Shouldn't we wait for Yigixo to arrive and stop him before he enters the village? He could get here at any moment!” Caylos protested loudly.
Xyle turned around.
“No, we're looking for a hotel first.”
“But...”
“No buts... we still have our luggage. Do you expect Herene to fight with that backpack on her back? Aside from that, everyone's worn out.”
Caylos hesitated for a moment, sighed and said:
“Sure.”

A hotel was quickly found. Dicarpio was not a big village. As they were checking in, Dergez walked up to Xyle.
“Xyle, can I speak to you outside for a moment?”
A look that spoke urgence was readable from Dergez' face. Xyle sighed and nodded. Dergez turned around immediately and walked towards the entrance.
“I'll take a walk around the village with Dergez, guys. I'll see you later!” Xyle cared to explain to the others.
Mini didn't care. Lepodes, Qualoppe and Herene looked at the two leave the hotel. They knew what that conversation going to be about.
Once outside, Xyle started the conversation as they started to walk around the village.
“I can guess what this is going to be about.”
“You bet you can! How long are you going to keep it hidden from him?!” Dergez asked loudly. It bordered yelling.
“All in due time, Dergez. There is no need to rush it.”
“Rush? Oh, please. There shouldn't have been a need to “rush” this. You should've told him the moment he joined. Like you did with Herene. And she didn't particularly care,” Dergez replied.
Xyle turned to Dergez.
“Every person is different, y'know. Herene had a completely different reaction to it than how I think Caylos would react to it.”
He pointed his index finger up.
“If I would've told it right away, there'd be much less of a chance that Caylos would've joined. And that would be such a pity.”
“I still think...”
“Everyone needs another approach. If you tell him now, we'll lose him. Don't you think of telling him, Dergez. He'll leave us and go somewhere on his own... the world out there is hard for guys like him. We need to keep him with us at all costs.”
Dergez looked at his friend for some time and eventually sighed in defeat.
“At least you seem to know what you're doing. I'm hoping everything will be alright in the end.”
Xyle smiled.
“Hasn't it always ended up alright in the end? Our story is a success-story. Caylos won't bring any change to that.”
“I hope so,” as he looked at the sky and witnessed red clouds, colored by the setting sun. What were Dergez and Xyle talking about? Will everything really be alright in the end? And what will happen to Dicarpio? All of that might just be revealed in the next chapter.