Memory Seal- Volume 1

by Insane Mooncake

  Gust sighed. A white lie.

  After some restless shifting, everyone in the wagon fell asleep.

  To set up camp with a defensible perimeter, the wagons had been formed in a “C” formation, with the opening facing the south so as to provide protection against bandits, while the mercenaries tasked with guarding the caravan patrolled along the perimeter. But these were extremely common measures that bandits were used to.

  With political unrest in the capital city of the Conarite Kingdom, many officials were too preoccupied with political affairs to bother maintaining the social order . As a result, the bandits slowly emerged from the shadows to wreak havoc on the citizens of the kingdom.

  Normally, if they were too unruly and attacked “too many” times in a certain time period, the cities would send out soldiers to exterminate them. However, with the officials distracted and too busy competing with each other, these crucial duties were often overlooked.

  As a result, many unscrupulous individuals dropped their honest facades and joined the established and now thriving bandit groups, exacerbating their power .

  Typically, no bandit group would dare approach a caravan like Wesley and Gust’s, for it would be too well-guarded, large, and tightly organized to be worth the risk. Such groups usually had no more than twenty or thirty people, which was nowhere near enough to challenge a caravan that spanned several wagons and housed several hundred people.

  However, at such a perilous and anarchic time, some of the larger bandit groups consisted of over a thousand people. It was precisely one of these groups, innocuously named the Whitewind Family that slowly began to surround Mark’s caravan.

  Chapter 6

  The area was completely silent, save for some snoring coming out of the wagons and light footsteps of the patrolling guards.

  Suddenly, a gale struck the rear end of the “C”,knocking several of the wagons over and few of the guards into the air.

  Everyone woke up with a start from the sound of people screaming and wagons collapsing to the ground.

  “Bandits! We’re under attack! Bandits!” shouted a voice from the front of the formation.

  Bandits flooded toward the caravan from nary a few hundred feet away as the passengers rushed out of the wagons to hide in the center of the encampment. The mercenaries that remained charged forward to confront the intruders.

  Gust and Wesley had been in the last wagon, so when the “C” formation had been created, their wagon had walled off part of the opening, so they weren’t affected by the earlier gale. However, they were in great danger from bandits attacking from the front.

  Gust and Alex picked up their weapons and rushed to defend the opening while Jen grabbed Wesley and ran toward the center of the campsite with Kyle following closely behind.

  Just a few seconds later, the bandits had charged into the encampment, and the melee began, the sounds of metal clashing, yells, and screams filled the air.

  Behind the wall of bandits stood a mage, hurtling a wave of fallen weapons and broken tree branches into the crowd of mercenaries with a single wave of his hand. With one small breath, a gust of wind swept over them, sending them onto their backs and allowing the bandits to charge forward and kill them.

  Jen and the others, who had rushed to the center of the camp, looked on in horror.

  Wesley, however, merely turned and looked toward Jen. “Hey, big sis, what’s the situation like?”

  Jen wasn’t sure what to say. Should she lie, and hope that the end was quick for the unfortunate, blind boy?

  Or should she tell the truth?

  “Um, it looks like we’re winning! The bandits are being pushed back!”

  A calm voice, unfitting for a child, responded. “Don’t lie to me, big sis.”

  Jen spun around to stare at Wesley. Even though they were surrounded by murderers, it was Wesley’s childish voice that had brought her the most fear tonight. Was this cold, calm voice something a child should have?

  “I may not be able to see, but I still have my other senses, you know. I can hear that the fighting has gotten closer to us since the start, and I can feel that someone has been using magic somewhere beyond the encampment. As I haven’t felt anyone closer to us use magic, I can only assume that we don’t have a mage on our side. Obviously, that puts us at a great disadvantage.

  “This…what?” Jen could only gape at him in shock.

  Even Wesley himself was surprised. How did he make all of those conclusions? More importantly, why was he so calm?

  Although he was confused, he still knew what had to be done. He raised his voice to address the people around him.

  “Big sis, everyone, please surround me for a bit so that the bandits can’t see me. I need some time to prepare.”

  With that, he raised his right hand, and paused. Although he’d never done it before, he instinctively knew how to condense and write on air, like Professor Clayde had mentioned just a few days ago.

  With his right hand raised, he held his breath, then pushed. A transparent plane formed in front of him. Then, with his right index finger, he began to write.

  Meanwhile, Kyle and Jen, although confused, followed along and organized those who had run to the center of the camp to huddle around Wesley.

  Outside of the encampment, among the trees, a lone figure stood, performing the same actions as Wesley.

  It was a mage from the Whitewind family. Just a century ago, the Whitewind family had been a merchant family prestigious enough to send their children to magical academies usually reserved for nobles.

  However, during combat practice, one of their youths attending an intermediate institute of magic had accidentally killed a child from a noble family. Enraged, the noble family chased the Whitewind family out of the city. Afraid to incur the wrath of the nobles, all financial partners ceased trade with the Whitewind family, and some even took it upon themselves to “repurpose” the Whitewinds’ assets that remained in the city.

  Unable to sustain themselves off of legitimate means, the Whitewind family quickly turned towards banditry. As one of the few bandit groups in the Kingdom who had mages at their disposal, they quickly grew into a sizeable force.

  One member of the core family, a mage, usually led each team from afar. It was this lone figure that observed and loomed from the forest, far from the battlefield, that held that responsibility.

  Wesley, still hidden in the middle of the encampment, had finally finished writing his spell. “Everyone, get down! The spell is ready to cast!”

  Everyone broke away from Wesley as he swiped his finger across the words he had just written.

  “Cast!”

  The written words glowed, and from the plane on which he’d written the spell on, a large icicle flew out towards the forest.

  After a few seconds, Jen looked toward Wesley in awe. “D-did you hit them?”

  “I don’t know, you tell me.” Wesley waved his hand in front of his face. “If no more spells come out, I guess I got him.

  “Quick, tell me where we’re having the most trouble. I can try to help out.”

  “Uh…”

  While the two started to work together, Gust was having the time of his life.

  At the start of the battle, he’d crossed swords with a bandit, and had lost quite quickly – he lost his sword in the first bout and had to turn tail and run away. Afterwards, instead of fighting like everyone else, he’d jumped atop one of the covered wagons and rummaged through the boxes, planning to hide in one and make his escape afterwards.

  However, the cover for one of the boxes didn’t open on first try. Curiosity getting the better of him, Gust picked up an expensive looking flask from one of the other boxes and used it to bash the cover of the box until it broke inwards. At the same time, a bandit jumped into the wagon. Without a weapon to fight with, Gust wrestled the lid off the box and looked into it.

  There were only some jewels.

  “Ah, shit. Wasn’t this where I’m supposed to get a legendar
y weapon?”

  Without anything better to do, Gust threw the flask at the bandit, then grabbed a handful of the crystals, and threw them at the bandit as well.

  “Boom!”

  Some of the crystals hit the bandit, and, to both Gust and the bandit’s shock, exploded.

  To be fair, it wasn’t a huge explosion, but the explosions did rip the bandit’s body apart, and he was most definitely dead.

  “Whaaaat??” Gust looked at the box of crystals, then grinned. “This is going to be fun”

  Then, he frowned. ‘But what is Mark bringing these to the Kenta Kingdom for? These crystals should be counted as military supplies. Transporting them outside of the Kingdom is incredibly illegal!

  ‘More importantly, what if the crystals exploded during the trip?? I could’ve died!’

  Gust didn’t see, but although the crystals would explode on impact, there were seals drawn in the inside of the box to prevent the crystals from exploding while inside.

  Which brings us to now. Gust stood on the edge of a fallen wagon, crystals in hand, throwing them willy-nilly toward any bandit he saw, littering the area with explosions.

  Before they even realized it, tens of the bandits had died to the exploding crystals. Meanwhile, the bandits noticed that their mage didn’t seem to be casting spells anymore, but instead shards of ice flew out from inside the encampment.

  However, these ice shards were rather inaccurate, as they were aimed by Jen grabbing Wesley’s head and arm, pointing them in a direction and saying, “Right about there.”

  Once the bandits saw that the fight was going south, they quickly fell back and fled back into the forest, leaving the survivors to clean up the remains of the caravan and take count of the fallen.

  Mark, the leader of the caravan, had been mysteriously absent during the fighting, but once the bandits had run off, he poked his head out from one of the covered wagons, jumped down, and shamelessly began to order everyone around as if he’d been there the whole time.

  “Great job everyone! Well done! Now, let’s see how many of the wagons are still in working condition, and how many can be repaired! Otherwise, we’ll have to decide what we can bring and what we’ll have to leave behind. Now, hop to it!”

  Chapter 7

  A few hours later, the sun first rays of light could be seen on the horizon. The caravan’s survivors were huddled around a mound of bodies that just a few hours ago, had contained the miracle of life. After a brief burial ceremony, Mark turned around to address the survivors.

  “Alright everyone, it’s time to get a move on. Gotta keep living. Chop chop.”

  Many headed for the wagons, but those who had lost their friends or family spent a few more moments to grieve. Regardless, after a few moments, they too, left to continue their journey.

  But the wagons felt strangely empty.

  Wesley quietly sat next to Kyle, Alex, and Jen in the last wagon, while Gust was nowhere to be seen. In fact, they hadn’t seen Gust in the last few hours at all. They would have assumed that Gust had died during the attack, except they’d seen him rummaging through some of the boxes on a wagon just a few minutes after the fighting subsided.

  Wesley, however, had more pressing things to deal with than Gust’s location. He was sure that Gust was in the caravan still, and that was enough.

  Over the last few days, he’d lost his family, made a new ally, and had taken another life for the first time. In the spur of the moment, he’d lost himself in his emotions, as any other kid would have.

  But he wasn’t just a normal kid. Given that mages bodies are continuously nourished by their mana, their brains were generally more efficient and powerful than that of most non-mages.

  Thus, they learned, “grew up”, and “matured” much faster than ordinary children. Unfortunately for Wesley, he wasn’t any more mature than a typical kid of his age, as he had been pampered by his parents and only recently formed his mana pool.

  But last night, he’d been too calm. Even he could understand that something was wrong - it was as if he’d already gotten used to death surrounding him. Even now, as he was surrounded by those grieving for their lost family and friends, he didn’t feel a shred of sympathy. As such, once he’d been helped into the wagon, he’d immediately sat in the corner and started meditating.

  Meditation was the first thing that was taught at every elementary institute of magic, even before the simplest spell or a single bit of theory. Proper usage allowed a mage to better assess the capabilities of their mana channels and mana pool, a necessity to gauge one’s combat power so that one wouldn’t overuse their mana, which could lead to incredible exhaustion or even death.

  Of course, it carried with it the normal benefits of meditation, amongst which was a calm mind to allow for better logical reasoning, which was what Wesley current desired.

  Before he could concentrate on working out his thoughts regarding the last few days, Wesley was immediately shocked by what had happened in the region of his mana pool.

  A magic seal with nine individual layers, with the highest layer being the smallest and the lowest layer the largest, had appeared in the area above his mana pool. However, instead of glowing with mana, the seal was pitch black and dormant, almost as if it were...dead?

  The more Wesley thought about it, the more confused to got, so eventually he gave up, and simply concentrated on his initial issue.

  An hour later, Gust jumped into the wagon, looking a little disheveled, but with a bright smile on his face.

  Kyle waved toward him and asked, “Where’ve you been? We were about to steal Wesley for ourselves! He looks so cute when he’s concentrating like that!”

  WIth that, he glanced over at Wesley.

  Gust looked over as well, and smiled. “I’ll sell him to you!”

  Clearly sensing that the other was joking, Alex decided to play along. “How much, good sir?”

  “5 million gold coins!”

  Alex put a hand over his chest and gasped. “5 million! Do you think I am so easily swindled? By my honor, I will fight thee!”

  Gust laughed and sat down. “Aha! I spit upon thy honor. Taste my blade!”

  The two continued their role-play, and accompanying laughter sounded out from the last wagon.

  …

  At the same time, Mark was sitting in the caravan’s first wagon, deep in thought. Most of the wagons held the usual stuff people would expect from a merchant caravan - food, clothes, and tradeables.

  However, two of the wagons held multiple crates of chaos gems, which were strictly military supplies. In fact, in the Conarite Kingdom, there was a very strict supply chain. The gems were excavated, cut on-site, engraved with seals, and then transported directly to a secret underground facility where they would only be brought out in times of war.

  However, an agent of the Kenta Kingdom had contacted Mark - apparently, some of the guards who worked at the underground facility were willing to turn their heads for a fair amount of money.

  And they had said that they would like Mark, as a reputable merchant, to transport a number of the gems to the Kenta Kingdom. For the risk involved, he’d be paid handsomely for each trip. But honestly, Mark was only planning to do this one trip. The guilt of betraying his home country, and the nervousness of doing something so illegal, was killing him.

  If one day the Conarite and Kenta Kingdoms waged war against each other… would it be these gems that kill his countrymen?

  He sighed.

  It’s better not to think about these things. With this one transport, he’ll be paid enough to live for the next few years in luxury. He should just focus on that instead.

  ...

  A few hours later, it was time for lunch.

  To save time, the caravan kept moving, but people ran between the wagons to hand food out.

  A young man around Gust’s age jumped into one of the wagons, and started handing out meals to everyone on board.

  “Hey Jason, any signs of bandits or anythin
g out of the ordinary this morning?” One of the guards whose shift was in the afternoon questioned.

  "Nothing, so far. We haven't seen any sign of the bandits since this morning."

  "Good, good." The guard felt relieved. The quicker he was done with this mission, the better, as this time he'd been given a real scare by the bandits. Maybe it was time for him to settle down and find a wife.

  After finishing, Jason prepared to jump off the back of the wagon to proceed to the next one. However, as he was about to jump, he saw something shine in the bottom right corner of his eye.

  On closer inspection, it was an emerald. A cut one, at that! With a grin, he glanced around, and seeing that nobody was watching him, picked it up and shoved it into his pocket.

  …

  Meanwhile, food had been delivered to the last wagon as well, but the runner hadn’t left.

  Instead, he was busy listening to Gust’s bullshit stories.

  “No no, believe me, I came in from across the sea when I was ten years old as part of a pirate’s crew! I was pressed into service, I tell ya! When we reached land over on the south-eastern beach of the Reiniad Kingdom, close to its border with the Clairmont Kingdom, I hopped out and ran for it!

  “Those bastards gave me a good chase, they did, but since I was so much smaller than them I could wedge myself through busy alleyways and shops they couldn’t and lost them after a few minutes of running - but I had nothing left except my trusty old bag.

  “But due to my irresistible charm, I was able to swindle - ah, umm, talk my into a small fortune, and thus was able to pursue my dream of exploring the world. And so, here we are! Although, that little fortune of mine is running low, so don’t bother robbing me, I’ve only got enough left for me, myself, and I.

  “But hey, aren’t I awesome? Hmm?” Gust spread his hands apart as if he were preaching.