Perceived Fate

Malum forced his eyes even in the blinding sun to see where he was again. He was lost, again.

He had been on the road for 2 months now but for his work he was now getting fairly close. His destination was the city he had visited once upon a time. There he decided to ask the Mayor office of the status of his friends.

Considering the time already spent travelling he assumed a large change in personal and he would make sure he would go during a time where now soldiers that could have remained would still be at the frontlines.

With his hair growing longer over his journey and the lack of anything to cut it with, he guessed the receptionist would have little chance of recognising him.

Beasts had been something he had been forced to fend off. Even with no sword, he still managed to fight them off mainly because there attack patterns were so obvious and they weren’t strong enough with purely physical attributes.

The few villages he had stopped at to gather more food and wash himself, thought he was a madman and the stained blood on his clothes along with his ragged appearance was helping little in that regard.

Right now, Malum cared less about how he looked and more about where he was. The map said that this was an area near to two hills, and looking around that description seemed right, and yet when he crested the hill to move to the next landmark he saw a landscape different then what the map said.

Had the map been wrong, had the hill he climbed been wrong, or had the two hills he had used at the start been wrong. He didn’t know but he would spend the next few hours finding out which one was.

Turns out it was the two hills, they in fact were the wrong ones and so he had to double back and start again from the right ones this time.

Crest the hill, see the right landscape and move on.

As Malum had travelled he wasn’t idly admiring the landscape, instead he was focusing on his plans for the future.

Cultivation was his main, general goal. The revenge came next, but those were to long term he needed to break them down into step-by-step goals.

For cultivation he needed...

A potion? It was something like that. His Uncle had been vague such to keep him from running of and trying to do it himself so he knew he needed some catalyst to awaken his soul.

That was a thought, Malum had already spent so long with just his soul he could move it so he wandered if he had already completed this part.

He felt deep within himself and tried his best to feel the soul he had once been stuck with.

Next to his heart, just a little bit below he felt the very centre of himself. It didn’t take long, neither was it very hard but apart from sensing it Malum couldn’t do much else.

Worse yet, it seemed as though it was still inactive. When he was inside death, the soul seemed to push against the sea, now it seemed locked inside its body. No movement was given out, it laid still, asleep.

The catalyst would wake the thing up. Malum needed to find what was needed to make the catalyst and then craft the thing.

Luckily his goals aligned. He needed to see if his friends were alive and whilst he was inside the city he could check the library, although he would need money to enter.

With that figured out, Malum had been trying to pick up some alchemical skills. Every village he entered he asked for some knowledge and occasionally he had read a few books.

The success rate of creating working potions were beyond miserable and the ingredients were even rarer then finding gold, but with several months of travel, Malum had manage to find a few rare herbs to pick up along the way.

He used them to hone his craft and also to make some money for his resupplies. He also made a few mundane poisons to help with his beast fighting. A good spear with it coated on the spike could take out a beast far quicker than his usual beatdown.

With his journey going well, Malum continued to march forwards.

Looking at the walls, Malum couldn’t help but fell nostalgia for when he first arrived there. That was with the whole gang, before it had been splintered.

He hoped again that Alicia and Jake were alright before he entered the que to enter the city. This time he wasn’t here with a band of soldiers and with a wave just beginning Malum ruled out using his solider identity.

Instead he would slip a potion to the guard. It worked at every village and it didn’t fail here.

A few words and a showing of the potion had the guard letting him in with smiles on both parties faces.

Malum was impatient to go ask about his friends but he knew for his sake that he should wash up a bit first.

He needed to keep some of the rough but the dirt down his pants had to go at some point.

Cleaning everything, now Malum looked like a clean beggar. At least now he would be allowed in the building and with access he could get his reward.

With his hopes high he went towards the Mayor office. He ignored the polished door, and walked into the que for the receptionist. This time it wasn’t soldiers making up the que but instead what looked to be wealthy merchants and a few officers here for their battle update.

The merchants were here to complain about a new law that had just passed. Something about a tax which was about as predictable as a wasp sting. A few stragglers asked about random topic and soon Malum also got to ask his question.

“Next.” She said, sounding bored.

“Can I ask of the location of two conscriptions please?”

She looked up, slightly more alive that before.

“Names and relation please.”

“Jake and Alicia, they were recruited in the same batch and I’m from the same village as them.”

“Okay let me check the back for them. Was it recently they were conscripted?”

Malum had found out as he had travelled here.

“Yes it’s fairly recently, only around 5 months ago.”

With three months of travel time, a month on training and a month at war. That left Malum holding the answer as to how long he had died for.

Zero time. Death was truly for an eternity, a place where time wasn’t even present.

It was good news, but also worry news. Malum had always wandered how long he would have bene trapped there and without whatever had revived him, the answer was likely eternity. Or untill he managed to find a way to kill his own soul.

He dragged his mind away from the subject as he found the receptionist coming away from the back. A stack of files in her hands.

“What was the name of the village they were collected from?”

Malum had already guessed this question would come so he answered with no hesitation.

“Stromard village.”

The receptionist began scanning through the files and soon came to a stop.

“There are two Jake’s here and one Alicia. One of the Jake’s are dead but that could very well not be your friend. The two were relieved of duty a month ago, that is where the records end. Next?”

Getting pushed out the way, Malum had to quickly stop himself from jumping in jot. His friends were alive!

He went outside before he did a little shuffle of joy.

The eyes around him meant nothing, their judgement on his actions did nothing to stop his body from grooving to his good mood.

Untill he heard one voice from the crowd,

“Malum?!”

His mind went into overdrive as quickly as possible. He looked around for the voice as remembered people who could know him.

The voice was to deep for Jake, to masculine for Alicia.

He only remembered one man whose voice matched and as his eyes looked for the resemblance he found a middle-aged man looking at him in the crowd.

“Team Leader, is that you?” Malum walked over quickly and gave the man a hug.

The hug was reciprocated but her certainly didn’t do it in silence.

“Where have you been?!” He hushed his voice, “Your team thinks your dead! I thought you were dead!”

After Malum ended the hug he pointed to a nearby inn.

“Let’s go somewhere more private, I can explain it to you there.”

The men walked over and soon began Malum interrogation.

His revival was a process he had already decided not to tell a soul about. With the only witness to his death being a demon, all he needed to do was say he was injured.

There was a problem with his story however and that was his healed shoulder. To cover for this, Malum used his new expertise of alchemy to tell a story about meeting a famed healer.

Taken in as an apprentice, Malum learned his art and got his limbs healed. It was a good story covered by his new expertise in the alchemical arts.

Wandering doctors whilst rare weren’t unheard of. It was common for developing new medicines for doctors to seek out new patients in different places and the discovery of new herbs allowed for new experiences to be had.

It was risky though, with beasts roaming the roads, many avoided the practice due to the danger. Which is why many choose to simply set up a practice in a village. Still many continued the practice despite the risk and most famed healers in the kingdom were from the more rewarding path of danger.

That background, whilst not airtight was enough for Malum to ease of suspicion and it was enough for Jameson to ease on his interrogation.

Next were questions about what he was going to do next. With cultivation as his next step, Malum didn’t have any good ideas about what he wanted to do.

He got his mind back to thinking and with the help of some cheap inn booze, Malum followed a good direction.

To reach the bottom of the cultivation ladder should he not at least start at the top of the mortal one.

The top of the mortal ladder was nobility, some of which Malum was sure had some connections to supernatural strength.

The easiest way to gain nobility was something Malum had seen. Back in the army when he was looking for things he could trade in for, at the near top was exactly that.

Knight titles and Lord titles. Although both were well beyond anything he would be able to afford normally. Perhaps if the attack had lasted longer but even then it was a stretch.

He bounced his ideas of his friend and from it he gained the idea of the more dangerous and yet more lucrative Southern Front. Whilst he got many words of warning, Malum’s resolute goal was not going to stop due to his friends warning.

“I have to do it Jameson. With my ambitions, I cannot take the easy path. Risk and reward come hand in hand and you know that just as much as I do.”

Even though he could think of numerous exceptions, Jameson nodded his head. He had seen to many soldiers with those eyes, and arguing with them led to nothing but sour friendships.

Onto a lighter topic, Malum realised that his Troop Leader perhaps had a better idea of where his friends were, and it certainly wouldn’t hurt to ask.

“Those two, I remember they always kept close. A rare couple of the battlefield, yes we talked at yours and Gerald mock funeral. Sorry, I was drunk that night and it was quite a while back.” He held his head as he tried his best to think back.

“They kept on crying, and Jake practically knelt at your grave. The priest said his words and the eulogies began. Something about funny, but an idiot and your was a good leader. Then it was more drinks and I’m sorry but everything past that is blank.”

Malum didn’t give his friend a hard time but instead grilled him on what the two had said about him in their speeches. Praise was something he always loved so he got Jameson to think more.

“Strict, hardworking, quiet. There was that story about getting that harsh instructor. Guess your hard work did pay off though, your alive at least.”

The words to brighten up Malum’s thoughts instead did the opposite. He knew very well that hard work did not mean results at all, but this time he would try to do it right.

He continued to smile nevertheless and gave his friend some laughs for his effort. At this point they were to drunk to care whether or not it was reasonable.

It was only around midnight that Jameson realised he actually had a job to do and whilst his title would loosen his restrictions, it didn’t make him free from their grasp.

He was a fairly functional alcoholic, at least he could get himself up and walking that was.

Malum on the other hand, he was suffering from both controlling body and then there was his mind. With his body barely listening at all, he manage to somehow get into one of the inn rooms and clambering on the poorly stuffed bed it still felt as comfortable as a cloud for Malums senses.

Falling asleep, he noticed a pain was slowly coming onto his eyes and whilst he wrote it off as simple alcoholic nonsense, in the morning he would soon come to another conclusion.