“Lord Argantis!”

  “Oh… Will you shut up? I just woke up and you’re already shouting in my ears! What’s the problem this time? I don’t have time to explain the incantations to cast a damned fireball again, it’s literally just four words!”

  “Hum… Sorry, My Lord… But it is a real emergency this time!”

  “That’s not the first time you said this, either! Listen, I had a hard night, that… Succubus of a woman didn’t let me sleep, so… If it isn’t an actual emergency worth reporting to me, I will cast a curse to turn you into a frog”

  Lord Argantis was a tall, slender man garbed in the typical robes of a mage, although sporting a face unplagued by wrinkles, the few that were there combined with his grey hair made it clear that he hadn’t been a youth for at least a decade now.

  Despite his impressive height and status here, the message bearer did not look very impressed by the threat and merely tilted his head to the side.

  “Woman? Since when do you have a woman in your bed, Lord Argantis?”

  “Listen, I was checking on the supposed ‘virgin sacrifice’ I was brought and… Well, that was a load of nonsense, if that’s a virgin, I am the damned king– And why am I saying this?! Weren’t you supposed to have an emergency to report?”

  “Oh, yes! Well, several of us have gone missing”

  “...Several, as in?”

  “Twelve”

  “T-Twelve? That’s not several, that’s… That’s literally half!”

  The messenger looked to the side.

  “Oh… It’s true that there were twenty-four of us…”

  “You damned idiot… Alright, and what do you mean by missing? Do you have any idea what happened to them? Did they all disappear at once? Is there any clue?”

  “My Lord, by missing, I mean it literally. They went to do their usual patrols through the woods and abandoned areas, and they simply never showed up again! I didn’t want to disturb you at first, so I took the rest of the guys and went to search for them, but we found nothing of substance. There was no blood or anything, and they left all of their stuff behind… The only strange thing was that the hanging corpse at the barn down south also disappeared, but apart from that…”

  “They left their belongings behind? Mmh… Doesn’t seem like they deserted then”

  Lord Argantis began to pace around, making circles around the messenger, rubbing his sleek beard in thought.

  “I knew that I should have employed some professionals instead of amateurs…”

  He mused to himself, but that was never going to happen. He was too paranoid to surround himself with people who might actually pose a threat to him. He had merely gathered twenty-four fools who could be lured with promises of learning his superior techniques and knowledge…This territory only needed a visible presence to deter anyone from thinking that they could encroach upon his domain, but the only true defender needed was him.

  His goons were a reminder that Lord Argantis was here, but beyond that, they were useless, especially since he was only teaching them the most basic of incantations.

  “Aherm… As for your other question, they didn’t all disappear at once. We first lost the short guy and then the following day, we lost the rest… I assume that they were picked off one by one… Who could possibly be brave enough to provoke you in such a manner, My Lord?”

  “That’s a good question… Did the king find a way to deal with me? No, if that was the case, why bother with my minions? Is it someone who thinks they can claim this territory for themselves? Or someone completely clueless? No… There are no coincidences. It must be targeted and coordinated…”

  “You, carry a message to your fellows, the twelve of you will go patrol the woods together as a group… You said the hung corpse was gone? Then go and set up camp here for a few days”

  “My Lord… Are we bait?”

  “Of course you are, but hey, with twelve of you, there shouldn’t be much to worry about, right? Surely your combined intelligence will be enough to manage four simple words”

  “Very well, My Lord…”

  ___

  “This sucks! I came here to become a mage, not fodder!”

  “Will you keep quiet for a minute?! I can’t even hear myself think with you moaning all the time!”

  The twelve remaining minions of Lord Argantis all ended up gathering inside the old barn, having worked together to remove the greying hay and to barricade the windows, leaving only the door as the singular way to get in or out.

  These men had all come to swear allegiance to Lord Argantis for the same reason. They believed that the old man would teach them the secrets of incantationism, a way of power often mocked for being the lesser version of the more widespread, ‘energy manipulation’.

  Relying entirely on certain words being spoken to cast specific spells, leaving little room for creativity and flexibility, only true masters of the discipline could see success with such a way of power. Regular folks like the twelve fools would accomplish very little.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  In short, the reason they were all here was because they were all idiots.

  They knew it, Lord Argantis knew it, everybody knew it, but they themselves avoided mentioning it. Too embarrassed to admit to their own shortsightedness, which had landed them stuck here.

  It wasn’t like Lord Argantis would let them go if they wanted to leave. In fact, they were all afraid that they had already been cursed ahead of time in case they tried to slip away.

  After all, the real domain their lord was an expert in was that of curses. The rest was just an afterthought compared to this. It was his curses that were keeping the crown at bay and deterring others from coveting his territory.

  But now, someone had shown up who did not care in the least, and they were forced to be bait for them… Not even bait, as Lord Argantis wasn’t even nearby, as far as they were aware.

  The smartest of the band, who always took care of carrying messages to the lord, already knew that his lord only wanted to see how the unknown enemy would react… Would they keep their distance? Would they kill one by one using stealth? Would they burst into the barn and massacre everyone? Would they do something else?

  Argantis merely sought to gain a better understanding of who he was dealing with. He could always gather more minions in the future. It wasn’t like he had invested anything into his current ones.

  “Did you hear that?”

  A panicked one leapt up like a frightened cat as some branches brushed against one another in the wind.

  “Yes, that’s called a gust. Dimwit”

  “No need to be so aggressive…”

  The scaredy-cat dusted his shoulders like nothing happened before speaking up again.

  “Hasn’t it been a long time since he went to take a leak?”

  “Who?”

  “The guy with the round face, I don’t know his name”

  “Oh, him… Yes, he’s been gone for a solid ten minutes?”

  “It’s been twenty minutes”

  Someone else added, and the eleven men looked at one another. Not one thought of checking on their fellow, and they instead all silently moved further into the barn, leaving the campfire they had set up in front of the doors.

  “I… I am sure he’s coming back and hasn’t been silently murdered…”

  “Man, shut up”

  “Noted…”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Let’s just close these damned doors and go to sleep”

  “Great idea!”

  “I was going to say the same thing”

  And thus, their first night in the barn concluded.

  The next day, another one of them went missing. Everyone was certain that he had done nothing more than go out of sight for a moment by walking by the side of the barn, but without a sound, he had disappeared without leaving a trace.

  The remaining ten began to feel true panic, and one thought it a good idea to try to take off running into the woods. This left nine of them.

  On the second night, one of them woke up as he felt light hitting his eyelids. It was the messenger who, in his wisdom, had decided to sleep at an angle behind one of the pillars of the barn, being the only one who did not decide to sleep up on the platform, only accessible by ladder.

  While sleeping, he must have moved a bit, as the moonlight was peering directly into his face through the opened doors of the barn…

  His face quickly turned ugly. They had closed these doors again tonight and even secured them by placing a heavy steel rod as a makeshift lock. He raised his head to shout about the anomaly, but before he could make a sound, a drop of blood fell right on his forehead.

  And then he heard it, the sound of bones being crushed. It was strangely quiet, as though whatever was shattered, these poor bones could do it without any effort.

  The messenger stayed frozen for a few seconds. The danger was clearly above him, and the doors were open. If he wanted to, he could just take off running. He might even be able to make it back to Lord Argantis before whatever was above could catch up or notice that he had run away.

  He only hesitated for a second, a minuscule amount of time, and yet, as he stood up, a dark silhouette leapt over the railing above and landed right in his path. Wrapped in darkness as all of the light was pouring from behind their back.

  All that he could make out were two purple dots and the vague shape of a maw.

  This figure wasn’t standing at its full height. Its shoulders were drooped, arms and legs slightly spread out. It was ready to start moving at a moment’s notice. The figure was waiting for the prey to do something before acting.

  His knees wobbled, his legs trembled, and his stomach was tied into a knot.

  The man swallowed his saliva.

  And then, a sweet melody started to play. Simplistic, it might sound quite relaxing in any other context than the current one.

  Right now, it was probably the most terrifying sound he had ever heard in his entire life. And it was coming from the dark figure.

  “IL FLUMA-”

  The instant he began to articulate, the silhouette bolted forward, and the soft melody was replaced by the screams of several different people, all melded together into a single horrifying howl.

  He was tackled against the ground by what felt like the charge of a bull.

  “-A… Al Flum-”

  Teeth closed in on the sides of his head, and with a brutal twist, his neck was neatly broken, silencing him as the killer didn’t even wait for the prey to truly die before beginning to feast.

  ___

  Did you see how that guy froze up instantly when he saw me? That was hilarious. He really thought that I didn’t know he was here.

  I couldn’t have missed him even if I had tried. The sheer fear he emitted when he realised that something was above him and tearing apart his fellows, that fear made a direct line toward his position.

  Hey, Nara, what do you think of the little trick of running the records of all of those screams at the same time? I couldn’t see his face clearly, but I think it was quite effective in spooking him.

  Considering the amount of fear he emitted in that instant, it suggests that it was indeed very effective, but I think it could be refined so that it has a bit more personality. For now, it’s just a bunch of screams. Many things can do that, you should have something unique to you

  You want me to have my own ‘merchant’s mark’ for what I shout at people before murdering them? That’s not a bad idea…

  But first, I still have business to attend to.

  I still do not recommend getting anywhere close to that ‘Lord Argantis’

  Trust me, I don’t plan on doing anything dangerous like that. I’ll do something else that’s dangerous.