The knight, whose master was unknown, began to exhibit hints of unease as he witnessed Marsh’s shadow rising from the ground and enveloping its creator. He was not well-versed in the Magic Art but he knew dark magic when he saw it; anyone could. The air turned cold and the chill pricked his body, making him shiver. The disgraced High Lord was not to be underestimated.

“Good sir, I’m feeling generous today,” said Marsh as the shadows gradually covered every inch of his body.. “I will allow you to run while my benignant mood persists.”

“I’m afraid I will have to decline your kindness, my lord.”

Marsh chuckled. “Why? Is your life worth more than gold?”

“My honour is at stake.”

“Honour?” Marsh scoffed. “What honour is there for a freelancer?”

The knight widened his eyes before narrowing his gaze. He took a step forward and placed one hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Don’t look so surprised. You speak with the manner of a knight, but that’s all that is knightly about you. Your back is slouched. You walked like one who is too accustomed to walking. You came all the way here without a horse. What else can you be other than a freelancer?”

“Freelancer or not, I have a duty to fulfil. You can either come quietly with me, or I can drag you all the way back to the city myself.”

Marsh burst into a chortle. “Dear sir, you have severely underestimated yourself. Do you not see or feel this power coursing through me right now?” At this point, Marsh was entirely enveloped in darkness as if his shadows had become a part of his body, his skin.

“Sickening tricks,” the knight spat.

“Even if I am without my sickening tricks, I still have my men. What can you do by your lonesome self?”

The knight snorted. “Who said I’m alone?” He snapped his fingers and people started emerging from the trees and dense vegetation. They were all rugged and rough men, bodies filled with scars, and armed with crude weapons. They looked no different from the bandits one would encounter on highways. They numbered around fifty. Even a hundred would be possible considering the vastness of the surrounding forest and the abundance of places to hide.

“Only a fool will hunt a beast alone and only a fool will assume a hunter is alone.”

“Most hunters always hunt alone,” Marsh retorted.

“Most hunters are fools. Now, I will ask again. Will you come quietly?”

Marsh grinned. “Do you still need to ask? Do you think all this preparation was simply for the pleasure of your gaze?”

The knight shrugged. “I won’t know. You nobles are always very dramatic with your gestures.”

“Very well, then. Evidently, words are meaningless.”

“Finally, I was getting bored waiting—” the knight fell silent halfway through his sentence. He felt a strange chill on his right arm. The sensation alone was unsettling. Hesitantly, he looked down at his arm— or where his arm should be. It was not. His arm was on the ground beside his feet. His arm had been cut off. The pain surfaced with this realisation. He fell to his knees, clutching his fresh stump, screaming.

“How disappointing,” said Marsh.

The knight trembled. His screams stopped. Marsh had somehow ended up right behind him without his notice.

“All that spectacle and speech, yet you fell to your knees just because you lost an arm. No wonder you’re just a freelancer.”

“Damn you!” the knight bellowed. Fury overcame his agony. He drew his sword with his remaining arm and lunged at Marsh from the ground.

Marsh laughed and caught Marsh’s blade with his hand and with great ease.

The knight stared in disbelief, but his astonishment lasted only for a few seconds as he shuffled off the mortal coil prematurely. He didn’t even know how he died; he just knew that he was dying as the pain left his body along with the warmth.

“Who’s next?” Marsh asked as he pulled out his arm from the knight’s chest, blood dripping from the tip of his sharpened fingers.

“W-what the hell are you!?” asked one of the bandits in a shout. He appeared to be bigger than most and he looked brighter than everyone else. He was the leader, Marsh was certain.

“Oh? Did this freelancer tell you nothing about me?”

“You are nothing but a snobbish upstart noble, that’s what he told me.”

Marsh sniggered. “He ain’t wrong about the upstart part, but snobbish? I fear he may have misled you because he couldn’t face the harsh truth.”

“And what harsh truth would that be?”

“I am much more than whatever he can hope to be. I am much more than whatever you can hope to defeat.”

If it were the usual, the bandit leader would have given his arrogant retort, but this was anything but the usual. The ugly and horrendous truth was laid bare with every word that came from the noble’s lips.

Smiling from underneath the black, baleful skin he was wearing, Marsh turned his back to the bandits and began walking back to the cottage. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

It was the perfect moment to attack, or so any fool would think. The bandit leader was no fool. He knew the knight’s combat ability. The knight was no slouch or fraud, and he was slain so easily. The noble was not normal. He saw the noble’s ability— no. It would be more accurate to say that he didn’t see anything.

“What’s this?” Marsh said, stopping in his tracks. He turned around and faced the bandits once more. “No one’s trying their luck? This is quite surprising, I must say. Very curious.”

The bandit leader said nothing. He wasn’t sure what he could say in this situation.

“You’re not as witless as I believed,” Marsh mused. “As you already know, I’m an upstart. Before I was a noble, I was a freelancer, very much like this knight here. I fought and killed many of your kind. Every time I gave them the chance to run or surrender, they squandered it. They always thought they stood a chance. They always thought they could stab me in the back the moment I turned around. They always tried and they always failed. I may not seem like it, but I know the sword and many other things. Are you all following so far?”

Some nodded. Some simply stared. Some were scared witless. All were looking to their leader. They knew their leader. He was a man who survived the worst odds and faced countless betrayals. He would be turning sixty next season. This was a path that many died young, but the leader lived this long. It was a testament to their leader’s capability and they trusted him. And now, the very same leader was shaking in his boots and hesitating to attack the seemingly defenceless noble, though the said noble was clad in darkness and had just felled a knight without being properly perceived.

“I gathered that you already know of my… dire circumstances, right?”

“I wasn’t told of anything…” said the bandit leader. “But I have a good guess on what’s going on in the big city. I have seen people like you. You’re not the first. Nobles get into illegal dealings; they get exposed. They went on a run with whatever valuables they could gather as quickly as possible. Most of them would come to us, seeking safe passage.”

“Do tell, how many of the nobles have you given safe passage?”

The bandit leader couldn’t answer. He knew the noble would not like the truth. He could lie but he doubted the lie would work.

“I see. Never, huh. So, you are not to be trusted, I take it.” Marsh’s vicious grin widened and he laid bare his claws that were coated in hardened shadows.

The bandits quivered. It was as if they just heard their sentence being uttered, and the sentence was death.

“Wait! Wait!” the bandit leader shouted. “I can help!”

“What can you do? I don’t need safe passage and I certainly don’t need escorts consisting of backstabbers.”

“Wait! Wait! I can stall your pursuers! I can mislead them!”

“...Can you?”

“Yes, I can.”

“You are strong. I’ll give you that, but you and your men are no match against proper knights and castle-forged steel. They won’t be sending a few soldiers. They will be sending at least a hundred for my head.”

“A h-hundred?”

“Yes, that’s how much I’m worth. Can you hold off and mislead a hundred knights?”

“I-I…”

Before the bandit leader could answer, Reed came running up to Marsh. “My lord!” he yelled. Despite Marsh’s current appearance, Reed ran up to him without any hesitation. This was neither the first nor the second time he had seen Marsh in this form.

“What?” Marsh inquired with a brusque tone.

“It’s… your paramour. S-she has escaped…” Reed said with the palest expression that his constitution would allow.

The air suddenly turned as cold as winter, and Reed was frozen in fear to where he stood. “How?”

“W-we were just accommodating her like you ordered, and… she tricked us and took the opportunity to escape. We didn’t think that she would leave the—”

“Say no more!” Marsh roared and grabbed Reed by the throat. Without letting him go, he turned to the bandits. “This is your territory, isn’t it?”

“Y-yes, it is,” answered the bandit leader.

“You know this place like the back of your hand, don’t you?”

“I-I do.”

“Then, you’re in luck. My woman has run away. Find her for me and you will be suitably rewarded.”

“W-what does she look like… m-my lord?”

Marsh chuckled wryly. “You do not need to know what she looks like. How many lost girls are there in the forest here? Find her.”

The bandit leader nodded and slowly backed away from Marsh. His men followed suit. They backed slowly until they were far enough away, and they immediately scattered in all directions, disappearing into trees and dense vegetation.

“M-my lord…” Reed called out. He was struggling to breathe.

Marsh turned his gaze back to Reed. “You disappoint me, Reed. How big of a fool are you to be tricked so easily by a girl?”

“F-forgive me… my lord. She was very… persuasive.”

“Complimenting her won’t save you. You should have been smarter.” Marsh sighed and released his grip on Reed’s neck.

The young man collapsed to the ground as soon as he was released, gasping for air.

“If it wasn’t for how few men I already have, you wouldn’t still be breathing.”

“Y-yes… my lord.”

Marsh didn’t wait for Reed to pick himself back up. He walked past him and went straight back to the cottage. The darkness on him melted off him and seeped back into his shadows. The cottage was already empty when he entered. At least his men had the sense to go find her immediately, instead of waiting for his instructions.

“Oh, you’re here?” said Baloc.

“Is it so weird that I’m here?”

“You are aware that your lover ran away, don’t you?”

“I am.”

“Shouldn’t you be going after her? Or have you already moved on?”

Marsh scowled but offered no retort. He simply tottered over to the chair by the fire and slumped into the seat with a rough gasp.

“Ah, you used the darkness, didn’t you?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Marsh retorted with rasped breaths in between his words.

“It was meant to be rhetoric.”

Marsh growled but he decided to save his breath, which he was already having difficulty in controlling.

“I hope you haven’t forgotten what happens if you overuse that power.”

“I haven’t.”

“How long did you use it for this time?”

“Only a few minutes.”

“Hmm. You look like you have used it for longer. This is bad. Well, for you, that is. You are terribly ill-suited for this power, which is ironic, given your nature.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“A power with dark origins is incompatible with someone with a dark nature. Isn’t that ironic?”

Marsh snorted. “I don’t care. Soon enough, I will have no need for this faulty power.”

“For your sake, my friend, I hope that you are right. Otherwise, you will meet your end faster than your lover will.”