The field was a painter's masterpiece. A vibrant tapestry of crimson poppies, sapphire bluebells, and golden sun-kissed blossoms stretched to the horizon, woven into a lush, green carpet of grass. The air was thick with the sweet perfume of nectar and the rich scent of damp earth. High above, a lark's joyful song pierced the sky, a melody answered by the chittering of unseen creatures in the long grass. It was a scene of perfect, pastoral peace.
The melody was shattered by the dissonant, metallic rhythm of plate armor. The gentle breeze, which once carried only pollen, now brought the acrid stench of gunpowder—a harsh, chemical promise of violence that choked the floral air.
Like a serpent of gold and steel, the army wound its way through the field, crushing the beautiful flowers under countless, relentless boots. These were not mere soldiers; they were golden knights, their full plate armor polished to a blinding sheen that reflected the serene sky in a grotesque parody. In their hands, they carried not just lances and swords, but long-barreled muskets, a fusion of archaic honor and modern death. Their march was not a walk; it was a machine-like, synchronized trample, a funerary dirge played with the crunch of stems and the clank of iron. They were a melody of death, and they were approaching their enemy.
At the head of this living weapon rode the Sun King, a figure of silent, imposing authority upon his pristine white horse. Without warning, he reined in his steed. A single, gloved hand rose into the air, fingers outstretched in a simple, absolute command: Halt.
The effect was instantaneous. The machine of gold and meat froze in its tracks. The cacophony of thousands of men and metal ceased so abruptly that the sudden silence was itself a deafening force. It was a vacuum, heavy and oppressive, broken only by the frantic, returning songs of birds too naive to understand the danger below.
No one moved. No one dared to even breathe too loudly. They were statues, held in place by the will of their masked monarch. Yet, within this golden facade, weakness festered. The sun beat down, turning their armor into ovens. Sweat trickled down brows and soaked into padded gambesons. A subtle tremble, born of exhaustion and terror, could be seen in the hands of a musketeer struggling to keep his heavy weapon upright. The weight of their own glory was crushing them.
A minute passed. In the tense stillness, it stretched into a subjective eternity. The strain was a taut wire, and it was about to snap.
One soldier, a young knight whose face was pale and slick with sweat beneath his helmet, could bear it no longer. The silence, the pressure, the heat, it broke him. He gasped, his vocal cords straining to form a plea. "My L-"
The word was never finished.
In a single, fluid motion, the knight standing directly behind him drew his sword. There was no shout, no warning. Just the clean, sharp *shing* of steel and a wet, chopping sound. The young knight's head, its expression still frozen in a mask of desperate relief, tumbled from his shoulders. His body remained standing for a moment, a macabre fountain, before collapsing into the flowers.
For a heartbeat, there was only stunned disbelief. Then the wire finally snapped.
Chaos erupted, not as a single explosion, but as a wave of violence that rippled out from multiple points at once.
It was not a battle; it was a culling. The knights with the sun-insignia caps the King's loyalists, had been strategically placed throughout the formation. They became the epicenters of the storm. A musketeer leveling his weapon found a sword point bursting through his chest from behind, the steel emerging in a spray of blood. A knight turning to face the threat to his rear was blindsided by his own squadmate, who hacked at the back of his knee, bringing him down before finishing him with a thrust through his visor.
The field descended into a hellish, close-quarters melee. The air grew thick with the roar of musket fire as panicked soldiers fired at point-blank range. The ball would smash into a golden breastplate, not piercing it but denting it inward with a terrible crunch, the force pulverizing organs within. Knights grappled hand-to-hand, daggers finding the gaps in armor at the armpits and groin. One loyalist, a giant of a man, used a warhammer to smash a traitor's helmet into his skull, the metal crumpling like paper.
The beautiful field became a charnel ground. The colorful flowers were churned into a bloody, muddy pulp. The air, once sweet, was now a suffocating cocktail of coppery blood, acrid gunsmoke, and the foul stench of voided bowels. The sounds were a symphony of horror: the screams of the dying, the clang of steel on steel, the wet thuds of blades meeting flesh, and the desperate, gurgling last breaths of men drowning in their own blood.
The purge was systematic and merciless. For ten long minutes, the carnage continued. The traitors, taken by surprise and isolated, were systematically cut down. Some fought back fiercely, knowing they had nothing left to lose, creating small pockets of desperate resistance that were eventually overwhelmed by the coordinated loyalists. Others broke and ran, only to be shot in the back by musketeers or run down by knights.
And then, as the last traitor fell, his scream cut short by a decapitating strike, the silence returned. It was a different silence now, heavy with the weight of death and the iron scent of blood.
The Sun King, who had held his hand aloft throughout the entire slaughter, finally lowered it. He dismounted from his horse with a calm, almost leisurely grace. He turned, a passive observer to the carnage his will had wrought.
The sea of gold was gone. In its place was a slaughterhouse. A gory sea of meat, entrails, and shattered armor painted the field in hues of crimson and viscera. The army of thousands was now a mere fraction: 500 golden knights and 100 musketeers stood amidst the wreckage of their brethren, their armor now spattered not with polish, but with the blood of their comrades. They stood panting, their weapons dripping, their eyes wide with the adrenaline of what they had just done.
"So this is what is left of them?" the King mused, his voice a calm, almost disappointed ripple in the stillness. He gestured with a gloved hand at the field of the dead. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. And here I thought their resistance would claim at least one of our own. I guess I overestimated the Cult."
From the gory muck, a single survivor stirred. A soldier, forced to his knees, felt the cold kiss of a knight's sword against the back of his neck.
"H-h-how..." he stammered, his body shaking uncontrollably. He gathered the dregs of his courage, his voice cracking as he shouted at the heavens, "HOW DID YOU KNOW?! Our cells were isolated! Our communications encrypted!"
The King's masked gaze slowly turned toward the sound. "How? Well..." He walked over, his fine boots stepping indifferently in the pools of blood. He crouched down, bringing the hollow, terrifying eyes of his mask level with the soldier's despairing face.
"Because I can see everything."
His hand, still clad in its pristine yellow glove, rose and settled on the man's face. There was no effort, no strain. With a casual, crushing force, he squeezed. The sound was a horrific pop and crunch of bone, followed by a sickening squelch. He let the limp body drop.
"Now," he stood, producing a white napkin from within his robes and meticulously wiping the gore from his glove, "Captain Capy~!"
The knight with the sun-insignia cap, his armor dripping with blood, stepped forward and knelt. "Yes, your Majesty."
"Clean this mess. And, uh, here, have some of this." He pulled a small, perfectly wrapped chocolate bar from his pocket and tossed it to the captain as if rewarding a pet. "Thank you for your service. Without your detailed list and strategic placements, I couldn't have identified and purged all the Cult members in my army so... efficiently," he said, offering a cheerful thumbs-up and a patronizing pat on the man's bloody shoulder.
"Y-your Majesty," the captain stammered, the chocolate bar feeling absurd in his hand. "I was at least hoping for a raise. And my name isn't Capy, your Majesty, it's Caspian," the Captain said, visibly heartbroken.
"Huh. Alright, I'll think about it, Capy. Now go clean this up."
"But your Majesty-"
"Shoo now. I have work to be done."
"Yes, your Majesty." Heartbroken, Captain Capy went on his merry way.
The King tilted his head back, looking up at the serene blue sky, now streaked with the smoke of the massacre. A shadow fell over him, vast and swift. Two massive wings blotted out the sun, the downdraft from the beast's arrival whipping at his robes.
"Well," he said, bending down to pick up a discarded sword from a corpse. He tested its weight with a practiced swing, the blood on the blade flicking onto the trampled flowers. He looked up at the colossal dragon now circling overhead, its scales glinting like obsidian. "Please bleed for me."
.
.
.
POV: Zero
"I'm leaving."
"What."
This profound, emotionally charged exchange was the sum total of our farewell. Borin, the man who had taken me in, or more accurately, taken my labor in exchange for a roof and a constant cloud of ale fumes, was departing for the eastern territories. Apparently, the Sun King's grand procession had temporarily eased trade restrictions, opening the eastern passage for a short, lucrative window. And where there was a quick coin to be made, Borin was never far behind.
He didn't leave empty-handed, of course. For me, he left a legacy. He tossed a clinking pouch onto the rickety table between us. "Here's money for a month. And, oh, some beer," he said, gesturing to a dubious-looking keg in the corner. "Knock yourself out, kid."
And with that, he was gone.
"...damn."
Well, at least I got paid. And, if I'm being honest, something far more valuable than coin, the ability to read and speak the local language without the translator. It had taken weeks of painstaking effort, mostly spent trying to decipher Borin's slurred lessons. It was so frustrating! Trying to learn the subjunctive tense from a man who could barely remember his own name after sunset was an exercise in supreme patience. I'd have had an easier time teaching a rock to recite poetry!
"Whatever. It doesn't matter anymore." I told myself, pushing the keg of beer into a corner with my foot. I can't get drunk anyway.
Mr. K, for all his... work... couldn't give me official influence. A shadowy vigilante, no matter how effective, doesn't get a seat on the royal council. But a mercenary? A successful, reliable, and deniable sword-for-hire? That was a persona that could open doors. It was a more time-consuming path than, say, being born a duke, but far more direct than trying to climb the greasy pole of a monarchy's bureaucracy. Who has the patience for that?
It was decided, then. Zero, the nameless commoner, would become Zero, the nameless mercenary. It had a certain ring to it.
But first, some shopping. Even aspiring underworld figures need to have clean cloths and most importantly weapons.
I found myself in the familiar chaos of the city bazaar, a place I knew as well as the back of my hand. The same fruit sellers yelling about their "ripest" apples, the same fishmongers with their pungent wares, the same guards leaning on their spears, looking bored.
But.
I stopped, my eyes narrowing. Not all the guards were the same.
I know every guard in this district. There's Big Nose Barry, who always sneezes at noon. There's Slim Jim, who tries to look tough but jumps at his own shadow. I'd been meticulously observing the city watch's investigation into Mr. K's little... public performances. As far as I knew, the guard roster was fixed for this month. No new recruits were needed.
Yet, here they were. Two of them. Their armor was a little too shiny, their posture a little too perfect. They weren't lazily scanning the crowd; their gazes were methodical, sweeping the thoroughfare with a focused intensity I'd never seen in the local force before. Something was off.
But I shouldn't be distracted by them right now, Mr. K will will deal with this later
Shaking my head, I continued toward the guild district. My goal was the Mercenary Guild. I had the plan, I had the basic skills, and I had a face of a young attractive man, a valuable asset for charisma checks.
There was just one, tiny, potentially catastrophic thing.
I stopped in front of a large, timber-framed building with a sign depicting a crossed sword and axe. I took a deep breath, my hand on the door.
I really, really hope the Mercenary Guild doesn't need a form of ID.