Chapter 22: Sneak Attack

Exodus Tales Exodus Tales

In a blink of an eye, a dark figure holding a long sword suddenly burst out through the waving curtain of the carriage—It was the Knight of Marshall. The second before the servant’s swords made contact with the carriage driver, a powerful flash of combat qi shot out from his sword, cutting the servants and their horses into two. Fresh blood exploded from their bodies meters above the ground. The place was raining in blood, and the few servants up the back were drenched.

The servants were terrified, yet the Knight of Marshall did not show mercy. He hopped from the carriage and slashed a servant head off with his long sword in mid-air. Before the servant even had time to react, his brain had already flown out his skull and landed in front of Joshua’s horse.

Joshua was stunned by this horrific scene. His body started to feel weak, and he fell from his horse on the spot.

In a split second, the Knight of Marshall had already annihilated 10 servants. The other 5 were no longer on their horse holding their long swords, but shivering on the ground. Their opponent was an official knight that understood how to use combat qi. After witnessing the fighting power of a knight, these everyday servants would remember this traumatic experience throughout the rest of their lives.

Abel was also stunned by the Knight of Marshall’s viciousness and directness. Normally, the Knight of Marshall always wore a smile on his face, but what had just happened gave Abel a completely new impression of him.

“Sir.... you are a great knight. I am the eldest son of lord Joel. I demand to be granted the title of Noble prisoner of war,” stuttered Joshua to the Knight of Marshall.

The title “Noble prisoner of war” as a way to treat nobles who had committed war crimes during that period.

According to the knight’s system of rule, winning or losing a battle was not the most important factor. What mattered was that they gave their best performance and faced their opponent with glory. Therefore, being a prisoner of war for a knight was not such a shameful thing.

On top of that, most knights held great economic and political power. After they became a prisoner of war, all they need to do was to pay a ransom to be released. For example, if a higher ranking knight high-level lord had been captured, the lower lever knights were obligated to turn themselves into hostages in exchange for ransoms.

Lastly, these battles were common back in the days, so being captured as a prisoner happened often. Therefore prisoners of war were often treated kindly and released only on based the condition of a ransom.

Knight of Marshall sneered at the hopeless novice Knight who was shivering on the floor in front of him before even giving a fight. The Knight of Marshall wondered if he should deal with this situation according to the noble treatment of granting him the title of noble prisoner of war.

“Joshua?” Said Abel as he hopped off the carriage. Looking at Joshua on the floor, Abel never could have guessed this noble brother had gotten people to attack him because of such a small conflict.

“You know him?” Knight Marshall asked. He had vaguely sensed the reason for this attack, but even if there were conflicts in the city, a knight would rarely gather a bunch of people and planned an unexpected attack.

After thinking to himself for a while, the Knight of Marshall decided to let Abel have the say on what happens to Joshua. It would also be a good chance to trained his decision-making skills, or so it was intended.

“Able, how do you want to deal with him?” asked the Knight of Marshall.

Abel didn’t care if Joshua was dead or alive. Whatever the decision was, there wouldn’t be a benefit in harming this pitiful prick. That being said, Joshua wasn’t completely useless. Abel decided to take advantage of this, and by “take advantage, ” he was hoping that the Knight of Marshall wouldn’t mind him making some extra money.

“Let’s bring you back to the castle, Joshua. I’ll let you enjoy the title of noble prisoner of war”

After the Knight of Marshall had heard Abel’s word, he gave out a faint smile of satisfaction. Abel did not act according to his anger but decided to take advantage of Joshua’s wealth to contribute to the development of the castle.

Abel’s train of thought was pretty simple, Joshua’s flighting abilities were miles behind him. If Joshua was a real knight and was able to pose a threat to him, he would have chosen otherwise, because an enemy is always better when dead.

Abel then took the 5 surviving servant’s belts off their waist and tied it around their hands.

Other than that unlucky horse who had been chopped into 2 pieces by the knight of Marshall, Abel and the carriage driver threw Joshua and the captivated servants on the 11 surviving horses. After the horses had lined up, they began to move while Abel sat on Joshua’s blazing red color horse following from behind.

Joshua was tided to the first horse in the line. Although his belt had also been taken off much like the other servants. Abel internationally did not use it to tie up his hands. This is because if he tries to escape, his pants would fall off. But Joshua was not stupid, he would not dare to escape in front of an official knight.

It was only until now Joshua had realized he had attacked the owner of Harry’s castle, and that person whom he called “little blacksmith” would inherit all of Harry’s castle. At that moment Joshua knew, the first thing he would do after he returns to his castle was to kill the servant responsible for spying Abel.

After they returned to Harry’s castle, Abel gave the captives to Lince the housekeeper. Housekeepers were responsible for settling the ransoms. Other than that, they would not question a single thing since it was the noble’s problem. All they need to do is to identify the captive’s status and negotiate the amount of money they need to pay with the other party’s housekeeper.

Soon, Abel had resumed his daily schedule. Every morning after breakfast, he would exercise and forge metal at the blacksmith shop. At night, he would return to the castle to practice the knights breathing techniques and follow with a good night of sleep.

Just like this, another month had gone by. Abel had forged over 5 long swords of 100 skills only using the technique of this world. He did not use any special carburization or dipping fire techniques. This is because the only rule of forging in here was to make master Bentham happy. No matter how good your secret techniques are, the fundamentals were the most important. Thus, through Abel’s respect for fundamentals techniques these past months, he had been greatly praised by master Bentham.

One morning when Abel was at the blacksmith shop, he was called by master Bentham to go to the master’s private office.

Abel followed master Bentham into the room within the office, and from the top corner of the room, master Bentham took out a thick heavy book from a metal box. “My teacher was the dwarf forging master, master Robin. During the time dwarfs and human allied to combat the Orc, thus every day I was sent off to practice forging with the dwarfs” said master Bentham.

Master Bentham’s eyes began to sparkle as he recalled the good old days. It seemed as though as he was mumbling to himself as he told Abel the stories about his past.

“Those were the best days of my life, every day I could learn something new. The dwarfs were some of the most gifted beings when it comes to forging, and through thousands of years of perfecting their forging techniques it is was truly unlike others. Legend has it the most powerful dwarfs were used to responsible for making artifacts for the gods.”

“Other than making normal weapons, Master Robin could also make magical weapons. I remembered when I saw magical weapons for the first time. I knew I would dedicate my life to be a blacksmith. I remember telling my self that, one day, I would also want to make weapons like this.”

“I tried very hard to master all the things master Robin taught me, and only on the day I mastered all of it, I asked master Robin if he could teach me how to make magical weapons. he rejected me without a second thought, said I didn’t have the talent for it.”

Master Bentham got a bit emotional from his speech, “However, master Robin did give me one last hope when I finished all my studies, and that is this magical weapon forging guide.”

“After I searched around in the guide, I realized that the reason why I could not make magical weapons is because of spiritual power. A person’s spiritual power is the main thing when it comes to unleashing the magical force within a weapon. Yet, most people who possessed spiritual power would become a wizard. No one would want to be a blacksmith... until I met you.”

Abel had suddenly been moved by these words from master Bentham. All this time, he had been seeking information about wizards, and it is the first time he had heard a person directly talk about magic to him.

“Abel, I am already old. I know I could never be able to forge a magical weapon in this life, but you are my student, I hope you can one day be able to forge a magical weapon.” Said master Bentham with eyes full of hope.

“Master, I will try my best” Abel nodded earnestly.

Master Bentham picked up that enormous Magical weapon forging guide in an almost ritualistic manner and passed it on to Abel’s hand

The book felt heavy on Abel’s hand. Just like the legend has it, even though dwarfs were short, they always believed they were the descendants of the giants. Therefore they tried to make everything as big as possible, and this book is a beautiful manifestation of that.

When Abel opened the book, he realized the information was very straight forward. First page: fire magical weapons. In the middle of the page, drawings were depicting both sides of a sword. On the top, there were strange markings, while on the handle of the blade there was a concave area with marking saying “put fire magic gem here”. At the bottom of the page, there was information about the function of fire type magical weapons. Fire potion’s formula and the fighting power of the weapon.

The second page: ice type magical weapons. The layout was the same as the first page. Drawing of depicting both sides of a sword in the middle, and explanation and formulas about ice magical weapons at the bottom.

The third page was about lighting magical weapons, and the fourth page was about toxic magical weapons.

There were only 4 pages in this book. Abel thought to himself self “the dwarfs are ridiculous, they must be stupid to make such an enormous book with only 4 pages of information.” But looking back at master Bentham’s sincere expression Abel did not say it out loud.