Some extra content for the holidays. (Patreon)

Hello, and happy holidays. 

Hermit Here.

Here's a special treat for christmas, or whatever you happen to celebrate this time of year. I've been working on Book0 for a while, and I think I can finally show a bit of it on here.

The following excerpt picks up after the current Chapter 5 - Their Respective Plans.

Compared to the current version, this one doesn't have the same, jarring time skip, and it also doesn't have quite so many character names, which is good. I'm a bit worried that Corco comes off as a bit too brutal here, which is one of several things I might tweek in this chapter before the final release. 

If you wouldn't mind, then some feedback would be greatly appreciated. Also, lots more of the book is almost ready for posting as well. I might post even more chapters tomorrow, depending on how busy I'll be with the Christmas stuff.

Happy reading, and Cheers,

S.H.

PS: Oh yeah, here's the actual chapter:

"And thus, we present, the great seer of seers, the oracle of the west, Corcopaca Fastgrade!" After Brym's perfect introduction, enthusiastic applause rang throughout the small dining hall of the rural knight's manor.

Finally, with the crowd ignited by Brym's masterful delivery, the figure of Corco entered the room. Though as he stepped out into the light of candles and torches, the enthusiasm visibly died down. With scrutiny, the guests inspected the young man's strange clothing, and his stranger demeanor.

"Welcome all, to this great seer's spectacular performance!" Corco said in a shaky voice that betrayed his nerves. "Now if you please, would anyone want to pick a card?"

At the same time, Corco's assistant entered, a giant monster of a man, whose face looked deadly pale from panic. Although he tried to be inconspicuous in the background, his physique made such attempts impossible. With a mirthless face he stood there and glowered at the intimidated guests, doing more harm than good with his mere presence alone.

"If you would?" Corco asked again when no one answered his first request. At the same time, his hands holding the cards stretched towards the crowd, as he tried to ignore the awkward atmosphere. Like magic, the cards folded apart into a large fan. The first impressive trick from the shaky performer finally eased the crowd a bit.

After a few more seconds of hesitation, the knight's wife showed mercy and picked a card out of the fan.

"Now then, madame, have you memorized your card? Please make sure you have, and please show it to the audience as well."

"I have," she replied, before Corco ripped the card out of her hand at superhuman speed. Shocked, the poor woman just stared at the strange man who had almost assaulted her. Meanwhile, the performer ignored his audience as he threw her card across the room without even looking at it. As it twirled in the air, the card flew towards the grumpy assistant. The giant's right arm shot forward like he was trying to strangle a foe on a bloody battlefield. However, the movement proved too forceful, and the card had been thrown too far to the side.

Although the giant's enormous fist still clutched around the card, it also destroyed it in the process. At the same time, the giant's shoulder brushed against a torch and flung it across the room, underneath the curtains next to the windows. Meanwhile, Corco was still busy with his performance, ignorant of the disaster that had unfolded behind him.

"Now then, I have not seen the card at all, have I?" he asked. "Yet through my powers of mental sight alone, I will be able to uncover the card's visage hidden inside madame's mind."

Meanwhile, as Corco was spinning his lies, the brave and heroic Brym was distracted as well, by the pretty daughter of the knight who was making eyes at him, clearly taking in by the young hero's dashing. Thus, even he failed to prevent the catastrophe.

Finally, someone in the crowd noticed the smoke rising from the torch and the curtains above.

"Fire!" the guest screamed and jumped up, the curtains now bright ablaze!

__________________________

"The curtains were not 'bright ablaze'! They were just smoking a bit!" At last, Fadelio got fed up and interrupted Brym's nonsense narration. "And I was never 'panicked' in front of those village fools."

It had been an hour since Corco and his friends had left the territory of knight Merek on their donkey cart. Knight Merek had been the first noble customer who had hired them for a performance. At first, Corco had though that it would be the first step in the fulfillment of their plans. However, even though Brym had shamelessly exaggerated the story, the truth was that those plans really weren't going too well.

"I also don't think my voice was shaky," Corco argued anyways, even though as the driver, he had to twist his head to join the conversation in the back of the wagon. "And my clothes aren't weird... Are they?"

"And that knight's daughter definitely didn't make eyes at you, kid." Atau finished the braggart off.

The braggart, meanwhile, was still defiant.

"Well, you wanted to know what exactly happened, uncle."

In response, Atau's face scrunched up as he jumped to his feet.

"And that is another thing, how come he is your big brother, but I'm your uncle?" he shouted while pointing first at Corco, then at himself.

"In conclusion," the young prince interrupted his cousin before the conversation could go off the rails any further. "It could have gone better."

"Yeah, that's what I said," Brym argued as he also jumped up.

"You be quiet," Atau replied, and pushed the kid's head down until he fell back onto his seat next to Corco. Finally, the older warrior also sat back down on one of the barrels in the back. "Anyways, none of this would have happened if I had come in with you."

"We have already determined that I am better suited as the silent assistant," Fadelio retorted.

"And how did that go for you?" Atau sneered. "With your arrogance, you could only ever intimidate people. You certainly won't make them happy. I don't think you even know how to smile."

"I fulfilled my orders to the letter."

"So your orders were to set the place on fire?"

"Well, that was mostly my mistake," Corco tried to calm the argument. "I really did misplace my throw."

"Throwing that card was a mistake in the first place," Atau added. "What's even the point of that?"

This time, Corco was getting annoyed by his cousin's moaning as well.

"It's called showmanship, and we better learn it fast if we don't want to embarrass ourselves any further," he explained. In response, Atau laughed heartily.

"Speak for yourself, great seer. As far as I'm concerned, I was the only one who did what he was supposed to."

"So you stayed outside. Well done," Fadelio argued in a sour tone, but Atau just laughed out louder.

"Well, someone had to look after the alchemist."

"May I add something on that topic?" At last, the great alchemist Hieronymus Bombasticus raised his head above the barrels in the back of the cart. However, he quickly realized that he didn't have many allies here. Once he received a few poisonous stares, his shoulders immediately slumped down. Still, he stayed strong and looked towards the one among the bandits who seemed most approachable.

"Sire," he spoke towards Corco, "May I know how long you intend to hold me against my will? There are many people back home who greatly require my aid, and I would not wish to deny them my services."

"Right, that's why you were so busy in Etra," Atau replied in a voice dripping with sarcasm.

Corco, however, felt a bit guilty over the way they had treated the alchemist. If nothing else, they owed him an explanation.

"Listen, Master Bombasticus...," he started and scratched his head. "In the end, it was your fault that you just sneaked into the workshop unannounced."

"It is my workshop!" the alchemist shouted. In response, Corco shook his head, and replied in a matter-of-factly tone.

"And we were the ones renting it."

An uncomfortable look was on Corco's face as his head turned to the side to look out into the sunshine. Since Hieronymus seemed to have suddenly gone mute, the prince simply continued.

“Look, here's the truth: You were willing to give us access to your equipment. We used your still, but you really shouldn't have sneaked around to make sure we don't steal anything... which we could have done either way, what with three knight-strength men on our side and the one skinny alchemist on yours. Now it's too late for regrets. Now you know the way to make the brandy, at least somewhat, and we can't just let you go.”

A snort from behind answered Corco's speech.

“Just a simple drink, nothing more. A bit of distillation is all it takes. Why would that be a secret worth keeping?”

"Well, you'll find out in time."

Again, Corco's explanation was met with more silence.

"Anyways, we won't hold you forever. We'll let you go as soon as we've become famous," he concluded.

"Hah." The alchemist's laugh was mirthless, and so was his face. "At this rate, I will remain a prisoner until I am a hundred years old."

"Come on, no need to exaggerate too much," Corco tried to defend his plan. "I mean, our first performance had some places that could use improvement, but we've only been at this for two weeks, and we already managed to score a gig with a local noble. At this rate, we'll be playing for kings and queens before we know it!"

"Yes, and maybe I could win over another pretty noble daughter's heart to help us out, just like that princess last time," Brym added. Just as Corco wanted to reprimand his young ward for his delusions, he was interrupted by a giggle behind him. However, it hadn't come from anyone he could see.

"Wait, who's laughing."

Without a word, Corco's attendant Fadelio got up from his seat to check the back of their cart for stowaways. Since the back was full of barrels and covered in blankets, it was an obvious thought. Yet before he could check anything, Fadelio halted, his eyes glued towards the distant road behind them.

"Friends, we might be in deep trouble," he finally said. "Someone is following us again."

"Where did they come from?"

Behind their donkey cart, a group of men were following them at a brisk marching pace. Although they would catch up to their slow donkey cart eventually, it still looked strange.

"Shouldn't these guys be coming on horseback?" Corco wondered.

"What?" Brym's dull response came back.

"Oh, right." No horses, Corco remembered. He wondered how anyone ever caught anyone else in this world. Though at least for now, he wouldn't complain, since the lack of horses worked out in their favor.

"Well, that makes things easier," he said and winked at a confused Brym. "Let's bounce."

With that, the prince took hold of the cart's reigns and shook them to speed up their ride. In response to Corco's urgency, the two donkeys in front shook their heads and slowed down instead.

"Aw, come on, Oats and Carrot! We have to go!" Brym leaned forward to console the animals, but their transportation didn't look too bothered about the men behind, who were closing in quickly.

"Damn, how did the duke's people find us so quickly?" Corco cursed their bad luck. "We only had our first performance like an hour ago. How did this spread so fast?"

"Looks like we're in trouble," Fadelio added, and drew his axe. "Stop the cart, we will have to fight." In response, alchemist Bombasticus once again disappeared in between the barrels. Of course, the others couldn't make such an easy choice.

Luckily, the donkeys stopped all on their own before Corco could embarrass himself any further. Still, that was where their luck ended. Unlike their fight in the old Fastgrade's stash, they didn't have a plan to deal with the duke's knights this time around. And compared to back then, the knights would no longer underestimate them and just walk into a trap.

Caught before we could even get going, the prince thought in frustration.

Still, he wouldn't give up just like this. Instead, he pulled the matchlock rifle from his side and started to load the weapon. Even if they were to die, at least they would take as many down with them as possible. Maybe if they survived long enough, an opportunity would present itself somehow. Maybe the knights would see that they were no easy pickings and would value their lives over their oaths to the duke. While Corco was still trying to find positives in their situation, Fadelio was shouting again.

"What by the underworld are you doing, southerner!?" he called out to Atau next to him. "Pick up your weapon and fight!"

Infighting was the last thing they needed right now. When Corco looked up to routinely resolve the conflict between his cousin and his attendant, he realized that Atau just stared at the approaching enemy knights, surprise written all over his face.

"Those are not the duke's men," he finally said, as surprise made way to a forced smile.

By the time Corco had loaded his weapon and turned around, their pursuers had come much closer. Finally, they had turned from silhouettes into actual people. Indeed, if these men had been sent by Herak of Balit, the duke was an idiot. Compared to the knights who had pursued them last time, these people were really far too shabby.

Instead of chain or plate mail, they only wore simple leather armor. In fact, more than half of them didn't seem to wear any armor at all. The weapons that Corco had mistaken for pikes from a distance were in fact short spears with rusty tips. Only their leader carried a short sword, though it looked more like an over-sized knife, and he held it as if he didn't want to hurt his fingers while cutting the vegetables.

"What's up with these guys?" Corco mused, his tension and panic blown away by confusion. "Bandits?"

"Whoever they are, they are in for a beating."

Fadelio was ready to walk up to them, but Atau held him back by his shoulder.

"Wait, we..." While the men came closer and closer, he paused and looked around in panic. Finally, he sighed and said, "we better not kill anyone."

"What, you want us to get robbed by the bandits?"

"They're not bandits."

"They're coming!" Corco interrupted them. At the same time, he crawled to the back of the cart, stood on the barrel and raised his rifle. With the weapon aimed squarely at the knife guy in front, he waited for their next move. One step too close and he would not hesitate to gun down their leader. However, the bandits stopped before it got that far. When Fadelio's large figure jumped down the cart and took position with his axe, the pursuers seemed to lose most of their enthusiasm.

Only their leader, possibly unaware of the danger to his life, walked one more step for emphasis and shouted in a self-righteous voice.

"Vile thieves! Unhand the young lady!"

At the same time, he pointed his knife at them, which only further highlighted his weapon's inadequacy.

"Huh?" Corco replied in his usual eloquence as he lowered his weapon.

"Do not play coy with me, fiend! False creatures, who stole their way into our homes to abduct the young lady! Unhand her, or feel the wrath of my sword!"

"Okay, I've just about run out of patience." Corco shrugged. "I don't care who they are anymore, let's just get rid of them."

Again, Corco raised his rifle to take aim, though he had no real intention to shoot at them. Unlike the knights last time, these confused bandits were just simple commoners. Even with weapons, the eight men were no real threat to them. All he wanted to do was scare them a bit by firing a warning shot. Surely, the rabble would disperse at the first sign of trouble. However, before he could fire, he was startled by a shout from beside him.

"Stop!"

On reflex, Corco's trigger finger jerked back, and a sudden shot rang through the evening air. Luckily, the shot harmlessly embedded itself in the ground at knife guy's feet. However, Corco had no eyes for the bullet, and neither did any of the bandits. To the man they stood frozen solid, staring at the young woman who had just appeared from within their donkey cart.

"What the fuck?" Corco quipped.

"What is the knight's daughter doing here?" Fadelio asked.

"Just as master said, they have kidnapped the young lady!" the knife screamed.

"Roesia, what are you doing here?" Atau asked the girl in a strangely familiar tone.

"Wait..." Corco tried to interrupt, but the girl just ignored him.

"I have followed along so we can be together," the girl said in a breathy voice. In response, Atau held his head in his hand.

"Oh brother," he sighed. Piece by piece, Corco was putting together what had happened here.

"All right, so let's just-" he tried again to calm the situation by explaining the misunderstanding, but the girl didn't seem to care about anyone as she droned on.

"Now I have come to give you my heart, just like we promised last night," she said in a sweet voice that couldn't have fit the occasion less. As soon as Corco heard her, he knew that the words were trouble. As expected, knife looked livid.

"Get them!" he screamed, and shook his weapon in their general direction.

"Now what?" Fadelio asked his master as he watched the commoners lower their weapons and walk towards them. For a second, Corco tried to make sense of their crazy circumstances, before he gave his orders.

"Just... knock them down for now. No weapons." As he spoke, he put his empty rifle aside and jumped off the wagon to join his attendant.

"Right. that should be no problem," Fadelio said. With a grin, he threw his axe onto a barrel behind him and limbered up as he walked up to the armed soldiers with just his fists. Meanwhile, the guilty-looking Atau tried to reason with Corco.

"Laqhis-" he began, but was interrupted by his cousin's annoyed shout.

"We'll deal with your shit later! Go!"

As soon as his instructions were done, Corco had no more time to think about his cousin, or the problems he had caused. Instead, he was focused on the spear point coming towards him. Yet the spear that was thrust by the untrained commoner was comically slow. The imprecise, weak stab was easy to dodge. A single step to the side and he was inside the spear point's range. With his bare hands, Corco grabbed the spear and simply pulled. Although the hapless man lost his weapon almost immediately, by that point he had already been dragged off-balance.

Too easy.

With no semblance of control, the disarmed commoner stumbled towards Corco. The prince threw the spear aside and greeted his visitor with a swiftly raised knee. Punished by his own tumble, the man sank to the ground after the knee had embedded itself into his stomach.

One down, Corco thought, as he looked around the battlefield to orient himself. Though calling it a battlefield was giving their opponents far too much credit.

Fadelio had already brought down one man who lay on the ground by his feet, while he held a second up by his neck, before he slammed him against a third who tried to sneak up on him from behind. Meanwhile, the hesitant Atau was using his bare arms to fend off the hesitant pokes from another two commoners. At this rate, he would last all day without getting hit once.

Looks like it's mostly cleared up.

Rather than focus on the others, he had to worry more about himself. At some point, knife guy had made a decision, and now he was charging him with determination. Maybe Corco looked the weakest to him, but he had made a grave mistake if he really thought so. Even though he wasn't a monster like Fadelio or Atau, a commoner fighting a warrior wouldn't ever be a contest.

Yet just as he got into a stance to disarm knife guy, he was interrupted by another, now familiar scream.

"I order you to stop!"

Crap.

Before Corco could react, the dumb, little girl had already pushed herself between him and knife guy, her arms spread wide as if her body was impervious to steel. Before, knife guy had swung his steel with great determination, and now he had lost control over its course as a result. From his panicked face, it became obvious that he would no longer be able to pull back in time.

In an instant, Corco calculated the new situation. There was no time to pull back the girl or draw a weapon. And if the knight's daughter died here, they would have killed a cahlian noble. Whether or not they were actually responsible didn't matter, they would be blamed anyways. Thus, he did the only thing he could do. His feet shifted to the side, and with a half-turn, he pushed his torso in front of the girl, before he finally caught the blade with his shoulder, just in time.

"Motherfucker!" Corco screamed in pain as the steel bit into his flesh. At the same time, knife guy's face was still ashen from panic. In fact, he looked concerned for Corco's safety, which only pissed the prince off more.

With the knife still embedded in his left shoulder, Corco's heavy right landed squarely on knife guy's nose.

"The fuck are you panicked for, you bastard!?" the prince shouted. As the knife left Corco's shoulder, his opponent fell to the ground, too. Without thinking he followed, and landed on top of knifeless guy's torso. When he had been injured, he had already seen red, and the idiot's stupid face, on top of the pointless, avoidable battle, had only made him angrier.

"You having fun playing savior, huh!?" he screamed, as he continued pounding the man's face. "Ever heard of talking!? You enjoying our fight, huh!? Are you!?"

After what felt like an eternity, but could only have been a few seconds, Fadelio reached under Corco's elbows from behind and pulled him off his hapless victim. Finally, the prince took a deep breath and calmed his anger once more. Meanwhile, knife guy was groaning on the ground, his face all bloodied up and freed of several teeth.

While Corco was still observing the damage he had inflicted, Fadelio was checking the wound on his shoulder.

"It's not that deep. Just bind it and we should be fine, I think," he judged.

"Of course it's not that deep," Corco replied in a grim tone. "That idiot can't swing a sword for shit."

"Now what do we do?" Fadelio finally asked, ignoring his master's outburst. "And what do we do about this?"

His head jerked over to Atau, who was now standing near the donkey cart again. When Corco had been busy with his victim and Fadelio had been busy with Corco, Atau had helped up the young lady who had fallen in the tussle, though something wasn't quite right. While the girl was staring at Corco, her savior, with fear in her eyes, she was glued to Atau's arm, who had an awkward look plastered all over his face.

"So," Corco finally said. He sat back down on the back of their cart and observed the battlefield. "Now that we've all calmed down, will someone explain to me what the fuck is going on?"

The image in front of Corco was a mess. The knight's men were lying all over the floor, still busy collecting both themselves and their teeth off the ground. It would take a while longer until they were ready for questioning. Thus, the prince looked at the little lady who seemed to have caused this entire mess.

"What are you doing in our cart?" he asked.

"Hmph, I will not talk to lowlifes such as you." The girl huffed and turned her head to look up at Atau. "Please, darling, tell him what you told me!"

"I mean... I-" Atau stuttered, when Corco interrupted him.

"Wait."

"You said we would be together! Tell them!"

"You... I-"

"I said shut the fuck up!" Finally, Corco exploded again.

Maybe the girl had just remembered what he had done to knife guy, but finally, the prince got some peace and quiet, in addition to another shocked stare.

"Alright, This isn't getting us anywhere," he concluded in a tired voice as he rubbed his eyes. "So here's what we'll do: I will tell you my interpretation of the events here. And if I'm right, you'll just nod. If I'm wrong, raise your hand and you get a gold star. Now."

Before anyone could say anything, Corco pointed at the obvious couple and continued.

"You and my cousin spent a night together. Maybe several nights."

Although the two weren't nodding, both shuffled around awkwardly.

"I'll take that as a yes."

In the meantime, a groaning knife guy had managed to sit up again. He presented Corco a vicious stare and tried to interrupt.

"You-" But the prince would have none of it.

"You wanna lose another tooth!? Sit down, shut up!" Under Corco's vicious stare, the knifeless guy finally looked away, and instead crawled away in search of the precious weapon that made up half of his identity. Meanwhile, the prince took the chance to continue his holmesian investigation.

"Right." He dusted off his hands and turned towards the couple again. "So now, you've decided to run away from home and elope with your new boyfriend."

Immediately, the girl's face lit up like the sun. She stared up at her man before she replied.

"Yes and-"

"And your bullshit is gonna get someone killed, little girl," Corco interrupted. "Probably yourself. I'm guessing these idiots here are your father's men, who have come to 'save' you, right?"

"You-" The girl's misplaced anger was interrupted by Corco once again.

"Don't think I'll block another sword for you. Next time, I'll just let knife guy over here slice you to pieces. So if you know what's good for yourself, get away from our cart. We don't take in stowaways."

As he spoke, Corco walked up to the couple. Meanwhile, the girl searched for salvation with her boyfriend.

"Say something!" she shouted at Atau again. Yet the warrior only looked back awkwardly as Corco grabbed her by her shoulder and easily pulled her off his cousin.

"He's saying nothing." The prince left Atau with a dirty look and shoved the girl towards her father's men. "Now pick up your band of merry assholes and go home!"

"What?" The girl just stared in response to Corco's inexplicable reference, but the prince didn't care.

"Home, i said," he repeated and turned towards Fadelio. "We're leaving."

With the entire crowd stunned into silence, and the knight's men now aware of the difference in strength, they just watched as Corco and his crew picked up their weapons and got back onto the cart. However, just as the girl and her savior turned to leave, Corco interrupted them one more time.

"Wait!" he shouted, and the girl turned around again, her face more annoyed than scared by now. In his anger, maybe he had really overdone it this time. Thus, he awkwardly paused for a few seconds, before he asked a question that had been haunting him all this time.

"Do my clothes really make me look like a weirdo?"

"You look like you came out of a traveling caravan, you barbarian!" The girl shouted, before she turned around and stomped away.

An annoyed Corco watched as the beaten knights' servants followed behind their young lady. As she left, the girl threw wistful glances back at her boyfriend, in hopes that he would swoop in to save her. Meanwhile, the boyfriend awkwardly looked away, since he was also getting stared at by his cousin, whose eyes were a lot less wistful.

"So, you didn't screw up during our performance, is that what you said earlier?"

"Well, I didn't," Atau replied, though he didn't sound confident with his face down towards the ground.

"You only screwed the knight's daughter," Corco calmly surmised. This time however, Atau looked up again as he replied with a sneer.

"Well yeah, how else do you think we got a chance to perform for a noble family when no one knows us? You think they got charmed by your genius?"

"You..." Although Corco wanted to reply, he really didn't know what to say. It seemed like while having fun, Atau had at least tried his best for the group. Finally, Corco just sighed.

"Alright, looks like our plan needs some refinement. We'll take a break in the next town and rework some details. And Fadelio." He turned towards his attendant.

"You're really not cut out for performance. Let's forget about the assistant thing for now."

"Good idea. And no more acrobatics," Atau added while he directed a grin towards Fadelio. "We don't need another 'burning curtain' incident."

"Alright, but only once you stop screwing noble daughters," the attendant shot back.

"Hey, who got us the performance?" Atau laughed.

"And you almost got us hunted by every noble in the country as well," Fadelio retorted.

"Right, so it looks like we all have some things we need to work on," Corco interrupted before the two would start another fight. "For now, let's just take it slow. If we want to do proper business, we need to wait until the brandy is matured anyways. Until then, we should work on our act, and think over our flaws, so something like today doesn't happen again."

"I don't have a flaw," Brym finally chimed in. Throughout the fight, he had been with the donkeys, to make sure they wouldn't run away.

"Well, for one, you could stop making up stories. That would help." Atau laughed again. "Remind me again, who here said that the daughter was making eyes at him?"

Meanwhile, Corco only sighed as he took the reins off Brym's hands and sat back down in the driver's seat. "For now, we should just get going. Let's find an inn and eat something, I'm starving from all the exercise."

With that, Corco flicked the reins, and the donkeys started moving again, as if they had never once refused his orders. While his rowdy friends were making noise behind him, Corco himself was quietly questioning his own plan. This wasn't how he had imagined their start to go. If they wanted to rebuild his master's company, they still had a lot of work ahead of them.