Wandering Warrior: Judge - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Chapter 1

Not another one.  I sighed in defeat as I trudged into town.  This was only the third village I had come across since coming here, and all of them seemed to follow a similar pattern.  In front of me, a scene that could have been in a spaghetti western played out before my eyes.  I told myself to ignore what was happening.  That I would be better off if I just kept on walking.  All that went straight out the window the moment my gaze met with the fury-filled eyes of the child.

“My lord, please forgive him!”  The screaming mother dropped to her knees into the muddy road, tears blending into the rain running down her face.  “He is only a boy, and doesn’t know how to act around his betters!”

“Then the fault lies on your head, woman.”  The rotund noble was barely old enough to be called a man, but the years of opulence and non-restricted rations had already given him jowls.  They were painted pink with the outrage of a four-year-old boy who was foolish enough to bump into him on the streets.  “Your lack of proper education has cost this child his hand.”  The mother whimpered in fear, knowing what the prospects of a maimed boy would be for his future.  “Just be happy I haven’t decided to take his head instead!”

“Th-thank you, my lord.  For allowing my boy to keep his life.”  The woman kowtowed in the mud, slamming her forehead into the filthy muck that was ankle-deep everywhere in this gods-forsaken dump of a city.  “Your generosity will carry on the winds to the ears of the ancestors!”

“Of course it will, foolish woman.  Now, guard, give me your sword.”  The noble held out his hand, and the hilt of a heavy curve-bladed dao was gently placed in his soft palm.  He almost dropped it when the guard let go, but the noble managed to keep its gleaming length out of the mud.  The guard was already going to have to spend hours cleaning it once they got back to the jumped-up hut the nobleman called his manor, so keeping the mud off of it was a small mercy.  “You, hold out his arm.”  The second of the three guardsmen who were playing bodyguard for the man in silk robes grimaced as he held out the stick-thin arm of the boy.  “Good.  Now, don’t move.  I don’t want to miss, and accidentally dent your armor.”

Looking at the face of the boy, I made the same kind of decision that I always made.  The worst kind, that always ended with me in trouble.  “Who wears silk robes in the mud and rain?  I mean, seriously.  That’s a special kind of stupid.”  While the noble sputtered in indignation at my interruption, I paid attention to the eyes of the little boy.  The white-hot rage burning in their depths is what made me decide to interject myself into the situation in the first place.  Like I said, it was the worst kind of choice to make, but even after all these years, I was never as heartless as I needed to be.  I saw a little of myself in the boy, which was why I opened my damn-fool mouth.  “And cutting off the hands of children?  Does that make you feel important, somehow?  Come on, guy.  That’s the worst kind of person you can be.”

“How dare you speak to me that way!”  The soft-skinned noble sputtered, his formerly puffy pink cheeks turning almost as red as his silks.  “Guards, bring me that man’s head on a pike!”

“Sure, why not immediately jump to killing the armed stranger who just strolled into town all by himself?”  I sighed, pulling the end of my staff out of the mud to shake the end clean.  I didn’t bother unclipping the mace dangling from the right side of my belt, opposite the straight-bladed ninjato sword on my left.  “I mean, he clearly was capable enough to travel alone through monster-infested lands, managed to make it past all the bandits, and still pulled off looking this good, but yeah, attacking him is the definite go-to for your classic pompous villain.”  I tilted back the straw hat protecting me from the worst of the steady downpour, giving them my best smile.  It was important to me that they understood I wasn’t lying about looking good.  I even tossed a wink at the lady peeking out the door to the general store this drama was taking place in front of for good measure.

“Counselor, maybe we should try talking first.”  The third guard was the oldest of the bunch, and clearly the only one with a brain.  “We don’t even know what clan or guild he comes from!”

“Yeah, you don’t even know what clan or guild I come from, Mr. Stick-up-my-butt.  You wouldn’t want to make somebody mad by accident, would you?”  This time, I winked at the nobleman.  He didn’t appreciate it nearly as much as the lady did.

“I don’t care!  Kill him, so I can feed his body to the pigs!”  He was shaking now, and I was half-expecting him to keel over from a brain aneurysm.  “Now!”

The boy scampered back to his mother the second the guard let him go, and the two took off.  Man, the thanks you get nowadays.  I turned my attention back to the three guards slowly approaching me, all three with naked steel in their hands.  The oldest guard - probably close to my age, which made me wince internally - held out an official badge and started talking.

“By order of Counselor Bri-”  I cut him off with a backward spin of my staff.  The tip hit a clump of mud near my feet, and flung it at his face.  I didn’t feel like listening anymore.

“Get him!”  The guard to my right was outraged by the dirty trick, and charged with his dao raised above his head for a mighty downward chop.  I twisted my staff up high, slapping the side of his blade and knocking the sword sideways.  The momentum of the heavy lump of metal meant it ended up buried at least a foot deep in the thick muck.  A quick diagonal quarter-swing brought the tip of my staff upside his head, and the guard face-planted in the muck.  He was gonna take a little sleepy-time break.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking.”  The older guard was still doing his best to wipe the mud out of his eyes - I almost felt bad about it, because he was certainly getting pink-eye after this - and the guard to my left had paused when he saw what happened to his friend.  “What you should be thinking is, ‘Do I feel like drowning in the mud and manure of the street like my friend is right now?’  But what you are really thinking is, ‘I can probably take this guy.  I’m a better fighter than my friend, and I have a chance!’  Well guess what, bub.”  I thumped his unconscious friend on the back with the end of my staff.  “You really aren’t better than your friend, and you will most definitely drown if you try me.”  I took five quick steps backward, almost losing one of my boots to the mud.  “If you want to save him, roll him onto his back, you and your friend pick him up, and you go on home.  Maybe have a cup of hot coffee or something.”

A spark of intelligence burst forth, and the man did the unthinkable.  He listened.  I didn’t say anything while he rushed forward to save his compatriot, and he dragged his friend to the nearest wall and propped him up against it.  The older guard finally got to the point where he could see, and quickly joined the other two, out of my way.

“What are you doing?!  You have to listen to me!  I told you to kill that man, so kill him!  I am a Counselor, and I will not be ignored!”  The noble was shaking in impotent rage, and he pulled a short dagger from his belt as I got closer to him.  “No, yo-you stay away from me!  Don’t come any closer!”

“In all the worlds I have traveled.  In all the lands I have walked.  I don’t know if I’ve met someone as stupid as you.”  I was most definitely lying.  I had met some incredibly stupid people before.  “Now, are you right handed, or left?”

“Worlds you have traveled?  Are you insane?  And what does me being right or left handed have to do with anything?”  The noble was taken aback by the rapid shift in subject and tone.  “And why should I answer to the likes of you.”

“I’ll answer those in order.  No, I’m not insane.  At least, I don’t think I am.”  With a twist of my wrists, a foot of almost paper-thin pointed metal shot out of the top of my staff and snapped into place, turning my staff into a very dangerous spear.  I sliced it downward, then horizontally, removing the noble’s hands at the wrists in a blur of movement.  The blade was so thin, the noble didn’t even understand what had happened until his appendages flopped in the mud.  “I guess it doesn’t really matter which hand is dominant, since you don’t have them anymore.”  The noble dropped to his knees, his mouth open in a silent scream.  From past experience, I knew the pain hadn’t hit yet.  He was just in shock.  “As to why you should answer?  Well, first off, I would have only taken one hand.  But the real reason is because I am stronger than you, and there is nothing else that truly matters in this world.”  I could have thrown some titles I had earned at him to lend some legitimacy to my words, but I didn’t see any point in it.  He wasn’t really listening to me anyway.

I turned away and started walking for the door to the general store.  I needed some supplies if I was going to make it to the next village, and I was pretty sure the cute lady had smiled at my wink.  Definitely something to check out.  I ignored the twin sprays of blood that erupted from the stubs of the man behind me.

By reflex, I checked to see if the quest I had been given long ago had finally completed.  I wasn’t shocked to see it still staring me in the face.  It hadn’t changed in a long, long time.  Twenty years, twenty worlds, and no end in sight.  Still, I had to know.  “Status.”

Name: James Holden (Earth v7)

Title: Chief Justice/Arbiter/Justicar/Executioner/etc…

Level: 100/MAX

Age: 27 (Physical) 47 (Actual)

Class: Warrior/Soldier/Knight/Paladin/Mage (5/5)

Profession: Healer/Alchemist/Blacksmith/Runesmith/Judge (5/5)

Status:

Strength- 50

Flexibility- 50

Vigor- 50

Mind- 50

Mission:

Mythical Quest: Deliver Justice - World Count 20/Unknown

Legendary Quest: Return Home - Requirements not met

Epic Quest: Find out why - Requirements not met

Rare Quest: Track down Silver Star - Ongoing

Well, that confirms it.  I’m still screwed.