I grabbed Nico′s arm as soon as I saw the first glint of the drawn weapons slashing down. Moments later, the screams started. Nico, who wasn't tall enough to see, froze when I grabbed him, but let me pull him along when he heard the first screams. People pushed against us, trying to flee as the first screamers were already silenced, hot, panicking bodies pushed and pressed into me from behind and the sides, squeezing the air out of my lungs as we were pushed into a wall.

  Nico's hand clenched around my own in pain as he was pushed deeper into the bricks, his face contorted into a silent scream. I scooted closer towards him; even half of Rebecca's strength, granted to me by [Behind every great person, there's their spouse], was superhuman enough to fight on against the waves of human bodies trying to seperate us. Finally, with my trms on either side of him, I did my best to shield Nico from the pressure. He gasped, body shivering as he caught his breath.

  “You ok? Anything broken?”, I asked as someone slammed into my back. Nico nodded, then shook his head before gesturing at me to move on. I nodded back and let him run in front of me, hoping that my stats would prevent anybody from being able to push me down or trample me to death.

  New screams came and faded, even after we managed to get ourselves into a side path. “We made it.”, I said, and Nico simply gave a grim nod.

  I felt a stinging behind my eyes. This time, I knew what it meant. I twirled around, hands raised, only to barely bring the steel of my gauntlets between my flesh and an axe. I kissed my own wrists as the strike knocked me back with force.

  “We aren't town guards.”, I yelled in panic. That hit had cut my lip, and I could feel it with every word I spoke. “I didn't do anything to any of you.” The man in a simple tuinc raised the axe again. It wasn′t an axe one would expect of a fighter, instead a mere woodcutter's axe, yet his eyes had the same intensity Rebecca′s had, the same intensity of someone who knew how to fight.

  I raised my arms once more to protect my head, only to feel the air being driven out of my lungs as the steel wedge bit into my side, pain surging through me. I remembered Rebecca's words. It was like she said. While the chainmail would protect me against the slashes, the sheer force of the axe was unimpeded.

  The world spun around me as the air was driven from my lungs. With shaky legs, I fell into the wall when the axe hit my shoulder. But the man didn't raise his axe again. He stepped over me, walking towards Nico. Only then did he raise his weapon again. I tried to scramble to my feet as he swung the deadly blade.

  It bounced off Nico′s skin as a sound, akin to metal cutlery falling onto a stone floor, rang through the alley. The Corvid took a deep breath, sidestepped the attacker, and kicked his chest. The attacker stared at Nico before his eyes rolled back and he went down. For a few moments, the Corvid continued looking at the guy for a few moments before lowering his wings and leg.

  Then he walked over to me and helped me up.

  “Right. Corvids are martial artists.” With a flick of his semi-wrist, Nico presented me with a thumbs-up equivalent.

  “But why did he attack us out of nowhere?”, I asked out loud. “We don't look like guards. And we certainly didn't throw the first punch either. While I was still wondering what this meant, Nico opened hte mans tunic to reveal a chestplate under it.

  “Things are hardly already bad enough for the average person to wear body armor, are they?”, I asked. I kneeled next to Nico to pull back the tunic further. The kick to the chest had left a sizable indent in the chestplate, while deciding that I would try my hardest not to ever antagonise Nico or Robin. Or anybody, for that matter, for all I knew, a lot of people could be capable of something like this.

  I felt blood dripping down my chin before wiping it off. Apparently, [Overlapping Protection] didn't protect me against my own armor. I decided that knowing this might be useful later, so I pushed the thought back for now. Flipping over the edge of the unconscious man's tunic, Nico revealed the town′s heraldry engraved on a badge.

  “That explains things.”, I said. “We need to show this to the others.” I considered the logistics for a few moments. The fighting had yet to stop, but the sound came from further away now. A real Rolander would most likely have stopped it. Someone with the power to do that would have stepped in between the warring masses and said, “ENOUGH.” But I couldnt do that. Not now, maybe not ever. But what I could do was bring this guy to the others, and hopefully inform as many as I could of what was happening here in hopes of rallying enough people to solve this problem long enough so we could leave and…

  And then we′d still not know who attacked us. And nothing would stop this from happening again, here or elsewhere. This was getting more and more complicated at a rate I was not happy with our… no, my chances to successfully solve any of these problems.

  Looking at the still breathing body before us, I wondered if….

  It did not quite go as I had hoped, as I will describe here:

  I thought, that I'd walk up to the door, kick it open, much to the surprise of everybody inside, carry the unconscious guy over one shoulder like in an action movie, and drop him on a table to reveal the heraldry and explain what I thought was happening. I hadnt asked for much, I wanted to act cool for once, maybe impress Rebe-

  Where did my mind go there?

  It turned out that I could indeed get him up onto my shoulder, but not as effortlessly as I hoped. Nico walked beside me, chipperly whistling as he saw me struggle. I knew he′d help if I asked, but I had specifically asked him not to, since I had wanted to try this out for age, after years of action movies and games showing this kind of stuff.

  I struggled to get the guy over my shoulder while walking, and in the end, had him halfway hanging off me as we walked through the streets. At some point, he lost a shoe, but that hardly mattered, I told myself.

  Eventually, we reached the inn, and I, still undeterred by my struggles and full of desire to try this, kicked at the door, which didn't budge. I stared at the unwilling piece of wood. Then I tried again to no effect. Looking between the door and myself, Nico finally took pity on me and pressed the door handle down as I kicked again, this time losing my balance as I did so.

  A sound mixed between confusion and shock sounded from within the inn when the door hit Rebecca full frontal in the face just as I went down under the guy I was carrying.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  I did not miss a single potential mistake to make, did I? As I lay there, staring into the sky, I decided to practice before trying to act cool again.

  Nico and, once she had helped me up, Rebecca found the whole thing hilarious, I should add. She was unhurt by the door and really more confused why it had come at her like that.

  The mood did drop a bit when I laid the guy onto the table and realised another thing that never came up in those movies. The unconscious guy didn't wake up again. He had stopped breathing at some point while I dragged him, though I did not know when exactly..

  With a deep sigh, I still presented my findings before the group and the bartender, who was reasonably concerned with me dragging a corpse up to our rooms.

  Robin sat between Simon and Emily, though closer to the latter, checking on her just as we entered, only for her to quickly pull back.

  Emily almost jumped up in bed, her ears pressed flat to her head as she let out a distressed whinney.

  “Henry?”

  “Yes, Simon?”

  “You′re dragging an unconscious body into the room.”

  “Dead, actually, he stopped breathing at some point.”

  Simon pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep “What are you doing?” breath, “I'm gonna need you to explain your thought process.”

  I explained to the group what had happened when Nico and I left the bookstore, up to the point where we dragged the body to the inn. Then I set up the body in a chair and pointed at the heraldry. “This man is a town guard, pretending to be a civilian.”, I explained. “He knocked me down and immediately went for Nico.”

  Nico whistled.

  “And Nico shattered a steel core pearl to protect himself.”, Rebecca said.

  “So that was that sound, got it. Anyway, from what it looks like to me, the people who attacked the guy on the podium were guards. They started the whole thing to be able to attack “aggressive” demihumans.”

  “Got any proof of that?”, Simon asked. “I don't want to say you′re lying, but without proof-”

  “First of all, we have the chestplate, hidden under the tunic, so they′d have some protection in case they weren′t recognized by their colleagues. Then there′s the fact that he immediately went on the attack, even though Nico and I were minding our own business in an alley just a bit away. Neither of us looked like guards nor acted aggressively. We stood in the alley, waited, and were suddenly attacked with an axe.” Nico pulled the weapon out of the man′s belt. “Last but not least, the guy carried a weapon when the whole thing was apparently supposed to be an announcement.”

  “But why?”, Simon asked.

  “To have a way to make it seem like it was civilians that killed demihumans, so that demihumans would retaliate and give the guards a reason to be suspicious of them. It's a setup. The town is locked off. Its a false flag operation. I don't quite know yet what specifically they gain from making demihumans look like criminals, but they must gain something by it.”

  Simon opened his mouth, then closed it. “I don't like how much sense that makes.”, he said.

  For a bit, we just sat there, in thought as to what to do with this information.

  Then I nudged the corpse. “What do we do with him now?”, I asked. “Drop him off on the street?”

  Emily spoke up. “We′ll have to drag him to the necromancer guild or the adventurers guild. Or the guard station, whatever′s closest. Then it′s just an FTR, failure to revive. That's barely a crime compared to murder.”

  She said all this in a calm manner, as if she were talking about hitting someone's car in the parking lot.

  “I say we take off the tunic so the guard uniform is visible, then the cost is just gonna get pulled out of his paycheck for the next six months. And by “we” I mean “you guys” since I can barely sit up on my own at this point.” She let out a yawn, and before anybody could say anything, she drifted off and began snoring. Robin looked over her walking up and down before she finally decided to sit at the foot of her bed.

  “Wait, if it's that cheap to revive him, why did that Necromancer need a bunch of souls to revive his wife and kid?”, I asked. Calling it cheap was a lot I′ll admit. But back home reanimation was impossible, so any price that could come out of someone's paycheck was low in comparison.

  “They most likely died a natural death, disease, random organ failure, something like that. The gods aren't as willing to give your soul back from that.”

  “Why are we even worried about someone trying to kill us then, if death is that little of a problem?”

  This time it was Simon who answered. “The Merchants Guild doesn't cover revival, and last I checked, neither you nor Rebecca are signed up as adventurers.”

  “And even then, we′d need to be B-Rank at minimum to get to enjoy that kind of benefit.”, Rebecca interrupted.

  Simon picked his thread back up: “And without the type of discount those guilds give you, you can't pay for that kinda thing if you′re not rich enough to own a village or two.”

  I sighed. “So it's about money, got it.”

  “Yeah.”, Rebecca answered. “Its not in the price range of most. Which, ironically, makes those half-decayed necromancers a very attractive option to get into your friendgroup or family since they′re often willing to revive their friends or other family members too at their employee's discount.”

  Now that was a workplace benefit I could get behind, though the side effects seemed harsh.

  “So, still gotta worry about being killed, huh?”

  “Yep.”, said Rebecca.

  “Boy, if I didn't know you′re a Rolander, I'd be asking you if you′re just stupid.”, Simon said, reaching for his cigars, which Nico quickly pulled away from him.

  “This guy′s a Rolander?”, asked the bartender, who I, and by their facial expression, everybody but Emily, had completely forgotten about.

  _________________________________________________________________________

  Current Status:

  Stats:

  Power: 2

  Agility: 1

  Toughness: 3

  Mental: 2

  Perception: 3

  Mana: N/A

  Effects:

  Night Vision  Lvl. 1

  Overlapping Protection  Lvl. 1

  Skills:

  [Basic Core Technique]  Lvl. 1

  [Behind every great person, there's their spouse] Lvl. 2

  [Emperors Gaze]  Lvl. 2

  [New World Mental Block]  Lvl. N/A

  Known Ritual Spells:

  [Basic Healing Magic]

  [Determine Value]

  [Filth to Food]

  [Ignite]

  [Liquid Equilibrium]

  [Rite of True Death]

  [Simple Transportation Magic]

  [Trigger]

  Have a wonderful day.