Chapter 15: Chapter 14 – Problem resolving.

The two looked at each other. On one side stood a boy that wasn't even eleven years old, on the other side was a tall man with long chestnut brown hair. He had a bushy beard that didn't look like it was trimmed in months. His eyes were bloodshot as if he didn't get a good night's rest in quite some time.

"Wait, you're the one that the Baron send to keep watch over me,... he didn't order you to kill me, did he?"

The man furrowed his brows at what Roland had said, he straightened out a bit while snorting the throwing knife dancing between his fingers.

"So you knew... It doesn't matter, no one has to know... there are a lot of dangerous beasts in this forest."

Roland kept backing away while the man continued to approach. He was clearly going against his initial orders and wanted to kill him for some unknown reason.

"Are you sane? Do you really want to kill a nobles son? Even if I'm a bastard, I'm still a noble you will hang for this!"

There was a clear rule against killing nobles. If a commoner attempted such things they would be imprisoned and maybe even killed even if the noble was guilty of a crime. The nobles liked to keep to themselves and didn't like it if other people took the law into their own hands.

"Shut it you bastard, do you know how long I've been here... so much time spent just watching some ignorant brat! You were supposed to go crawling back within the week! Why do I have to babysit a little bastard like you, if you're dead I can finally go back! I'll never become a knight if I stay in a shit hole like this!"

Roland's eyes widened as he finally understood what this was all about. The man was hired by his father, he was probably a soldier from the army. He was ordered to keep an eye on Roland, probably to protect him if something happened. The problem was that no one expected the ten-year-old boy to last this long. He had no problems living in this town now, from this man's point of view the short temporary job became a full-time thing.

"That doesn't have anything to do with me, you can just quit, they could just hire someone else!"

Roland looked around while he was trying to find a good route of escape but the man was much faster so that was a big problem.

"Hah? Look at this little shit, you think I can just refuse a direct order from the commander? If I return without a good reason he will just send me right back or kick me out. On the other hand, if there is no reason for me to remain here anymore..."

The man grinned while licking his throwing knife. There was one thing that didn't make sense for Roland in that statement, why was he not afraid of getting made an example of if he let his target die. 

"Wait, won't you get punished if I die? Weren't you hired to protect me?"

The man just laughed while moving closer.

"Protect you? Do you really think that man cares for you that much? No, I'm just here to keep them informed about your whereabouts, they never told me to protect you in any way, if you die well... some people would even be glad... but I've already said too much..."

Apparently his dear old dad didn't think he really needed any protection. This guy was only here to keep tabs on him and to exchange information. The big problem here was that this man had some high aspirations, he wanted to become a knight. This wasn't an easy endeavor though, you needed to achieve a lot of military merit for that but instead, he was stuck here not really doing anything worthwhile.

The last sentence that the man muttered echoed in his mind, did someone coax this man to do this. He made it sound like he knew who that person was. Maybe the man didn't go crazy after spending half a year in this small town, maybe there was more to this than meets the eye. It was also strange that the man wasn't afraid of hurting a noble's son, maybe he had someone backing him. Why anyone would want him dead was quite a surprise. He didn't think he had enough worth for someone to go out of his way for something like this.

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