The Lord of Dawn stood on a mountain of gate tower rubble and stared emotionlessly at the defenders of the city. Many of them were dancing, others were praising the gods, others were just fooling around with happy smiles on their faces. A familiar figure emerged from the line of defenders, which had already disintegrated, fending off the soldiers and guardsmen who were asking questions and congratulating them.
The man looked down at the city from the ruins of the towers, it was over, without the support of the Necromancer, the strange energy that filled the bodies of the undead had simply evaporated and the undead army had simply scattered, the sounds of battle could still be heard in some places. But it was obvious to a fool, it was over.
Bondrewd jumped down from his vantage point and quietly approached the figure of the Captain of the Guard.
"Congratulations on your victory, we definitely couldn't have done it without you." Margil told him cheerfully, his helmet was off and there was nothing to prevent him from seeing the radiant smile of a man who was no longer young.
"It's too early to celebrate, what's the situation in the city? How many more troops does the enemy have inside and outside the walls, where is the king?" Bondrewd's words like a cold shard of ice stabbed Margil, the smile flew off his face and he, who had already realised Bondrewd's complex character, did not choose to piss off the powerful knight.
"The necromancers are retreating, as you can see most of the army of the dead have just scattered and the remnants are controlled by the younger necromancers, but I think the only thing they are thinking about is getting out of the city as quickly as possible, so that shouldn't be a big problem," the captain of the guard continued after a little hesitation.
"Just leave it to us, you've already done more than anyone else here."
"Where is the king?"
"The king is safe, he is in the palace now, and while we are on the subject of the king, he has contacted me via the communication crystal, I am sending you his thanks and an invitation to a reception tomorrow night at the royal palace. I hope you will not have any important business to attend to, the king wanted to personally present you with the honour due to your merits."
"I will, once more you are here, you have not seen that swordsman come with me, I do not see him in your ranks." Margil perked up a little, he knew all the gang leaders by duty, at least roughly, and he recognised Dick at first sight, if Sir Bondrewd was one of this crowd, co-operation with him would be difficult to say the least.
"I haven't seen him since you ran out of the alley, he followed you, I haven't seen him since." Margil tried to remember where the swordsman had gone, but he couldn't.
"I'd like to ask you to find him, I need to..."
"There on the roof,' the guardsman interrupted, pointing his finger at a neighbouring roof where a white silhouette stood."
"To arms." Margil ordered, but was stopped by the Lord of Dawn, who simply put his palm in front of his face and beckoned the figure from the roof towards him. It did not hesitate and with great leaps descended into the square through the ruins of the house and stood behind Bondrewd's back.
"Put down your weapons, your own!" Loudly shouted Bondrewd, so that every frightened soldier, realised it was not worth firing. Margil reluctantly removed his hand from the hilt of his sword.
"Lord Bondrewd, I have to say that you are the most unusual knight I have ever met." Bondrewd stroked Ozen's withers and listened to the Captain of the Guard with half an ear, skipping his cheap flattery and trying to extract some useful information.
...
The house of the interest-earner
Dick was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, Ritor and Linda had given him first aid, and the old fart had even given him a healing elixir. Which at first put Dick in a slight stupor.
"What's he trying to do? He's not like that," the former outlaw speculated aloud, groping for his leg, which was broken, but the old man had some ointment with firte. Spitting at the ceiling, the former centurion speculated about his further actions.
"What next?" Indeed, what to do next would not be clear, whether to go on with Bondrewd or to take Linda in his arms and get away, and as quickly as possible, perhaps in the city remained his employers, and they will not be very happy to see him without the ring, on the other hand, he, together with Bondrewd considered to have saved this city, and if he is not executed, the reward should be worthwhile.
There was a knock on the door, and I could tell from the deafening pops that it wasn't Linda.
"Ritor, come in!" The door swung open and another man entered, clean-shaven and combed, wearing a new beige camisole. The man walked proudly to the bed and silently moved a chair closer to the bed.
"Ritor, you're scaring me, what happened?" The grey-haired man smoked a pipe, and exhaling a jet of thick smoke, asked.
"They are looking for you, I don't know why, but there are patrols in the streets looking for a man suspiciously similar in description to you, Dick."
"I see, and of course you don't know why, do you?" Dick sighed heavily; it seemed to him that he would have a little more time to choose.
"No, and I have only one question for you now, what are you going to do?"
"Wait for Ritor, in case you haven't fucking noticed, I've got a broken leg, and I couldn't run far if I wanted to. Thank you for the elixir, I'll be fine in a couple of days, but in the meantime I plan to stay with you, if you don't mind."
The grey-haired man drew in the bitter smoke, his face was almost physically painful, he was not the most honest and noble man in the city, but to kick out the man who had saved his life was too much even for him.
"Stay, but you can't hide forever, and given your past, you're in big trouble."
"Well, don't worry, I'm the hero who saved this town."
"Like heroes were never hanged from the nearest tree." Both men smiled, each realising the risk was great, but there was no other way.
"I've been meaning to ask you, did you fire the crossbow?" Dick was sure that the answer would be positive, and in his mind he prepared words of gratitude, but the answer surprised him.
"No, I didn't, my crossbow had a broken arc, but I saw the man who saved your skin, a thin man in dark closed clothes, he fired from the roof, and then disappeared from sight. He didn't look like a soldier or a mercenary, strange."
"The secret police,' Dick interrupted Ritor." I don't know if it was an accident or not, but it's not a good sign, and if they pay attention to me it'll be bad.
"Well, we'll see, but while you're resting, why don't you tell me how you got to this life."
"Well, it's a long story."
...
Bondrewd had barely managed to disengage himself from the Guard captain, the man had clung to him like a bath sheet, questioning him about literally everything in the world, but now in the dark alley Bondrewd was finally able to be alone and take care of the system.
- Congratulations you have taken the first step in completing your quest, as a reward you will be given back the ability previously blocked.
Homunculus Flesh - Racial ability, allows the body to change depending on the user's desires, growing additional limbs, changing appearance, changing properties of internal organs. ¬(excessive use of the ability can lead to body exhaustion).
The ability will become active after the interface is updated. Please confirm that you agree to the update.
"Confirm." After he said that, the golden symbols were a hurricane, rolling in front of Bondredw's eyes in an endless succession. Five minutes later, it was over.
"I can't get used to these nauseating updates."
"Tell me about it. - There was an awkward silence."
"Who are you?" Bondrewd was slightly taken aback, though he had heard this voice before, but his appearance was extremely unexpected.
"Universal voice artificial assistant, and I anticipate your question, why I have not introduced myself before, and only occasionally frightened you with sudden phrases."
"I'd like that very much." Said Bondrewd, he was curious, this assistant did not seem hostile, a couple of times he really helped him, so why not listen.
"It's all because of the crooked installation of the 'supervision system', your fight with the bear didn't go unnoticed and some of the functions just didn't load correctly, that's why I tried to help you as much as I could, but the communication function was almost constantly unavailable."
"Okay, so what are you going to do now?"
"Help you, of course, that's my mission and purpose. I'm an artificial assistant, it's my job to analyse and advise you when necessary."
"Can I switch you off?"
"No."
"In that case, don't bother me with the small stuff, and I think we'll work together."
"Great, and before I go into sleep mode, Audita wanted to talk to you, a long time ago actually, I think you should get in touch with her."
Bondrewd nodded, and pulled a ring out of his belt pouch. "Here we go." the man put the ring on.
"A deafening shriek that could probably rip out a man's soul and eardrums at the same time sounded in Lord of Dawn's head."
"I'm so happy for you," the girl's voice trembled slightly and the words struggled to string together in a sentence.
"Are you drunk?"
"Of course, a victory should always be celebrated, especially a victory like this."
Bondrewd's hand somehow stamped itself into his own face