The Guardians' Throne - The First Magic Swordsman

                                              Things got noisy again when the kids noticed that Zaos's sword was one of the swords of the legends. They were really looking forward to the revival of the demon god, so they could get their revenge on the world, but for that to happen, they couldn't let someone like Zaos have that sword.

"I forgave you guys once for trying to kill me, but I won't do the same again," Zaos said. "I will fight to kill now."

"I thought you were planning to retire," Derenus said.

"Retirement doesn't mean that I am going to become a pacifist who hug all those who tried to screw with me and forgive them with a pat in the head," Zaos said.

"Sir, if you help us, I am sure we can take him down," The light brown-haired man said.

"Perhaps, but more than half of us will die in the process," Derenus said. "I don't want anyone dying in my home, Fyran. If you want to fight, then go and leave my home, I won't participate in any battles where I know many people will die for no reason.."

"For no reason? He has one of the two cursed sword!" Fyran said.

"The other still is far away from us, so it will be for no reason," Derenus said. "Only one of those two swords is enough to damage the demon god, after all. Anyway, if you don't have anything to do here, go home and tell all the others that I am not planning to fight or help others fight."

                                              Fyran and the other kids showed some complicated expressions, but then that changed when they felt the scent of soup, and then their stomachs began to growl. That was weird. Zaos was pretty sure that there were plenty of bears in that region.

"If you agree not to cause any trouble, you can stay and eat," Derenus said.

                                              In the end, the kids nodded, and then Derenus grabbed a lot of bows from his warehouse. It was weird that he had so many considering that he lived alone… his house probably had many visitors in the past…

"Zaos, I noticed that you enhanced your body while you fighting those idiots, but you didn't use a conventional method, right?" Derenus asked. "What did you do?"

                                              Zaos frowned when he heard that and frowned even more, when the kids looked toward him and waited for the explanation. As if he would reveal his techniques to others.

"Why are you asking this now?" Zaos asked. "You are too smart to think that I would answer this."

"Are you afraid that by revealing this you wouldn't be able to defeat them?" Derenus asked.

"Nice try, Gramps," Zaos said. "You will need to try harder to taunt me. Even if you succeed, you will only ended up picking a fight with me and I won't reveal anything."

"I suppose that is only natural," Derenus shrugged.

                That situation was a bit weird. Zaos knew that not all of his people would be shady individuals that would brainwash people and then use corpses as zombies to fight. Still, Zaos never imagined that he would talk with one of them for so long. At first, Zaos thought that Derenus was bullshitting him when he said that he only wanted to speak with one of his people after so long, but maybe that was the truth. In any case, Zaos recalled that it was an excellent opportunity to learn what happened with Vitalar's group.

"Hey, you," Zaos said, looking at Fyran. "What happened to the guys that were with me? Did they escape?"

"Why should I answer you?" Fyran asked.

"Because I can kick your ass if you don't," Zaos replied.

"Let's see you try," Fyran said.

"Try again when I already succeeded?" Zaos frowned.

"If you want to fight, you will have to leave my house, no blood will be shed here," Derenus said. "If you want to know what your friends are up to, they didn't do much in the last two months. I guess they are preparing to raid our main military camp."

"Is that so… that seems like something that idiot would do," Zaos said and then facepalmed. "He never learns… the real problem is the fact that he might lead my unit to their death."

"You weren't the one who lead that group toward our base?" Derenus asked.

"If I were the commander, I wouldn't have fallen for that obvious trap," Zaos replied. "The king nominated a man called Vitalar to be the commander of all the operations here in your territory." 

"Vitalar… that name doesn't sound unfamiliar," Derenus frowned.

"He is someone who studies everything that there is to know about your people, while I didn't ask many things, I could see that he knew pretty well how to ambush your scouts," Zaos replied. "Since you people are weak physically, he even fabricated some special bolts to capture you and the poison he used was also very effective."

"Interesting… still, are you sure that you should share that kind of information to us?" Derenus asked.

"I don't have a shred of loyalty toward the kingdom anymore, even less so toward that guy," Zaos said. "If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be in this mess."

"How interesting, you said that you would check things before deciding anything, but it seems deep down you believe that I told you the truth," Derenus said.

"Well, I have had many doubts for a long time…" Zaos said and then looked toward the window of the hut. "To be honest, I don't want to see what they are doing with the captives, but I am really hoping to find a motive to cut all my ties with the kingdom."

"When I hear you talking like that, I can't help but wonder how we didn't notice before that the kingdom was falling into pieces from inside," Derenus said. "Their incompetence and our incompetence are astonishing." 

"I don't think that is the case, I just happened to act based on my own set of values instead of the ones they spread in the kingdom," Zaos said. "I guess the fact that the gift of the demon god doesn't affect me is also another factor."