Holy Crusade

Sensing their teacher tensing up as he made a path for them through the crowed streets, the girls tried to talk to him without success as he acted like he didn't hear them. Laena also saw that thanks to the hostility that emanated from him the people instinctively stepped aside so she decided to stop him before anything bad happened. Tugging on his cloak, she tried to get his attention and he turned around to look at her.

"What?" He nearly barked as he glared at her with his nearly glowing eyes. She didn't know why but the elf suddenly got an urge to run away and hide from his cold and wrathful gaze.

"Y-you should maybe calm down... We-we'll attract unwanted attention..." She stuttered as she fought with her fear in her mind.

"Are you alright teacher ?" Evelyn added in a quiet voice. It seemed that his aura didn't affect her or at least she managed to control herself.

Thanks to his companions' worries Jack noticed how much his control over himself had weakened and after a few deep breathes he managed to get a hold of his bloodthirst for now.

"I am fine, thanks you two." He said while smiling a little. They smiled back and together they made their way through the crowd, finally reaching the adventurers guild after a tiring walk. There was still a lot of books awaiting them in their stash but before going back to such a boring activity they wanted to do a quest. This would allow them to remain sharp and furthermore it would make their income believable.

When they entered the guild they were welcomed by a surprisingly active atmosphere. There were many new heads they had never seen before and a huge queue before the counters in which many adventurers were having a heated discussion.

Disregarding their useless chat, Jack kindly asked the girls to reserve their place in the waiting line while he went toward the quest board to see what would they do. There he saw a pristine white parchment nailed above all the others and in every level's area above D rank. Sighing because he had a bad feeling, he still read it :

"Hello noble adventurers ! The holy Church of Radiance need you ! On the third of Pylat we will launch a punitive expedition against a heretical cult as we found out their base's location. Thus, you are hereby invited to our glorious and righteous crusade against the Evil they represent ! Of course, your participation will be paid as we offer ten gold coins for everyone who will come with us and ten more coins per elimination you confirm."

Frowning, he thought about ripping the parchment off but stopped himself as he remembered his students' words from earlier. Sighing because he knew that this crap would stay for at least two weeks, he continued to look through the others quest and found one about a cave exploration. Thinking that it seemed to be interesting, he took the paper off the board and went back toward his students only to find Laena being badmouthed by a bunch of idiots.

"What are you doing here you filthy elf, get out of the waiting line !" A guy with a dirty beard said while his huge belly wriggled as he spoke.

"Yeah, leave us your place and go back to the forests you came from !" A girl as flat as a cutting board in light leather armor added.

"What the hell are you two saying ! I've got all the rights to stay here as I'm an adventurer too !" Laena replied angrily as her patience reached her limits. She had tried to ignore them when they badmouthed her behind her back but had been forced to replied when they started to call out to her.

"Shut up you half-human whore ! You should just go back to the brothel yo-"

"You what?" Jack asked while standing before his students, glaring at the half circle of idiots who were interested in the drama and adding commentaries. He had let a bit killing intent seep in the room and simply stared at them as cold sweat could be seen appearing on the others adventurers.

"W-Who are you?" Asked the burly man from before while his hand unconsciously moved toward his mace.

"I'm their companion. Now, either you attack me or you scram away. I don't have the patience to deal with a bunch of lowlife who are stupid enough to freely insult my st-Lady." The immortal grunted while correcting himself at the last second. He hadn't brought his bones weapons nor his bag but he didn't need anything to punch those guys to the death.

"You don't have a weapon, what do you take yourself for ?" An armored man with a sword hanging on his side said while putting his hand on his weapon's handle.

"Tch, come at me if you dare kid." Jack taunted with a smile on his face as he prepared a few spells to murder those guys easily.

"Now now... We are all adventurers let's calm down shall we?" A knight in plates with long brown hairs said while standing between them.

"What do you want?" The guy with a half drawn blade nearly spitted while Jack's killing intent grew stronger because he couldn't attack his prey.

'I swear I'll kill this guy later if I can't get him here.' He thought while grinding his teethes.

"I just want to avoid the loss of a possible companion in the upcoming crusade." The knight explained while smiling.

"Tch, what make you think that those guys will be doing this quest? Furthermore his idiot has a paper in his hands, maybe they'll be busy. " The other man replied as he studied Jack with a mocking grin.

"No... I was talking about you actually." The knight laughed while a woman in robe with purple hairs and an old man with a bow joined him.

"W-wha... What are you saying !" The guy nearly screamed as he turned red of embarrassment and anger. "Who are you to say such bullshit !"

"Grade A party member, Andrew Lionhart. Nice to meet you." Andrew explained with a mocking grin while his interlocutor turned red from shame. Daring to raise his voice against someone as strong as Andrew was a bad move which could ruin his reputation and even his life if the other had been more violent. Strength and money made might even in the guild. If an A rank wanted to kill something as insignificant as this guy the guild master would ignore the situation as long as it wasn't happening too often.

"You stopped barking in front of someone with a rank my dear puppy?" Jack taunted with a huge smile, breaking the silence that Andrew had brought at the same time.

'It's this guy's fault if I've been mocked by an A rank... It's this bitch's fault...' Were the thought that went through the armored man's head before he drew his sword and side-stepped Andrew's party to reach the immortal and his students.

"Die you fuc-" He screamed before bringing his weapon down on his enemy. Jack simply grabbed the guy's wrist, stopped the hit and punched him with all his strength in the throat, crushing his pharynx. The poor man turned blue from the lack of air and fell on the ground, gasping for air a few seconds later.

'Phew, I'm lucky that this bug wasn't that strong. I'm afraid that if I used a spell in front of those guys they could have noticed it... Especially since this woman is a magician.' The immortal thought while studying the trio carefully.

Some adventurers went toward the now corpse on the ground and tried to help him to no avail. The A rank adventurers didn't move nor react and they simply shrugged before taking their places in the waiting line behind Jack and his students. The two girls were seemingly a bit chocked by the free insults they had received but felt relieved since Jack had appeared to protect them. He had helped them in his way and killed the man but surprisingly they had gotten used to it and even felt a bit happy. Was it a good thing or not, they weren't really sure.

Many insults or questions about why he had done that flew toward Jack but he simply ignored them while staying in the waiting line, thinking about all the information they had found until now in the books and linking them to his memory to see if he knew things about it. Unfortunately, there weren't many memories remaining of random places remaining in his mind so he didn't find anything really interesting.

They finally reached the counter after five long minutes of waiting and receiving angry glares. Linda welcomed them after swapping with her colleague as soon as she recognized them. She seemed quite tired but happy as she saw them and gently said :

"You guys are finally back ! The guild master would like to speak to you about this special quest going on, I don't really know more than that about it. You can go in his office to ask, I think that he is free at the moment."

"Uuh... Alright, we'll go." Laena said after hesitating a little as she heard her teacher grunt behind her.

Climbing the stairs under the watchful gaze of the crowd under them, they quickly reached the wooden door and knocked on it.

"You may enter." A tired voice said from the other side.

The same lightly decorated office welcomed them and they stood behind the sofa while looking at their guild master. The poor man had his brown hairs in disarray while his clothes seemed old and dirty. This added to the bags he had under the eyes announced that he had done quite a bit of overwork during the last few days.

Sensing their judging gaze, Richard quickly said :

"Please don't take my appearance in account I've been... Busy those days. Well, please do not stand, take a few seats." He asked kindly and after the group sad he continued :

"I'll go straight to the subject : You have seen those parchments down there no?"

"Uuuh... No?" Laena said before Jack nodded.

"Well then I'll explain the context. As you probably have heard, a squadron of holy knights came to our city after having been called by the Church after they heard reports from one of their great priestess."

'I don't like how it's going.' Jack thought while noticing that his interlocutor had eaten his nails to the blood.

"It seems that this priestess has found the location of a base of heretics after having... Strongly interrogated some prisoners. However, the guys they attacked had used dark magic so this made them wary. Thus, they wanted to have some manpower and posted an announcement to get some of our guys. However, here come the tricky part. It seems that you have met this priestess with her paladin and mercenary alongside your way and your performance was good since they especially gave a price for your participation."

"So if we want, we can participate in this thing and gain more money than the others?" Laena asked while sighing because she heard the guild master's tone in his last phrase.

"No, they paid the guild in order to order you to go..." Richard said in an apologetic tone while he remembered the amount of gold they had offered.

"So, did you accept ?" Jack thundered as he dug his fingers in the sofa.

"I'm sorry but yes. This guild need investments and their patronage also give us a good image." The guild master sighed as he saw the two girls turn their head toward what he thought was a butler.

"Do we have anything to say in this story? Can't we just not go?" The immortal tried before thinking about the opportunities he would have to murder everyone.

"I'm sorry but I would have to end your adventurers card and you would likely be hunted down by the Church."

"Alright then. Do we know who we are facing?" Jack gave up and asked.