Rebirth of the Phoenix God

"Do you have everything you need?"

Nearly as soon as Fen met with his employer, the man explained the reason behind meeting in the confines of the walls instead of the free and comfortable space outside. As if worried about some kind of potential repercussions were he fail to provide the young man with all the tools necessary to finish the quest would spell doom to him if such information would ever see the light of the day, this burly mercenary went through an extensive list of resources that he envisioned Fen to carry.

Sadly, if the young man were to follow his instructions, he could be of use only as a mule rather than a damned arcanist!

The only upside of this entire situation ended as the man's reluctant approval to cut the list of the camping materials by two thirds while dropping about a half of other auxiliary goods. While Fen could get the taste of the victory like that, it didn't change the situation as much. Still forced to carry two huge sacks on both of his shoulders along with his own, small backpack and weapons, Fen started to doubt whether his actual mission wasn't to just carry the goods for everyone around him!

"Then let's go."

Taking the complete lack of reaction at the young man's face, the mercenary quickly pulled twice as much of cargo as Fen was tasked to carry before turning towards the nearest gate.

Moving out without any second warning, the burly man quickly proved that he didn't acknowledge a normal pace of walking as something that should exist in this world. Conquering the road step by step with his huge strides, he quickly lead the two of them towards the northern gate - instead of the closer, east one. 

"Sir!"

It was there than Fen understood that his perception of what one was supposed to carry during a mission was completely wrong and amateurish. 

Standing right outside the gate in a neatly organised group, a band of dangerously looking men was clearly awaiting their arrival. But they weren't alone in their task.

All around the entire field in front of the town's gate, group on the group of different sets of warriors stood in waiting, all holding a huge spear with a painted sign flowing down a special axel mounted right below the weapon's blade. 

"I hope everyone is ready. There isn't much point in wasting time here."

From the way in which the entire group of those clearly experienced warriors instantly followed the unvoiced command to move out, Fen couldn't help but feel his opinion on the owner of his house improve drastically. Even if his entire connection to those people lied in the bonds of employer and a group of mercenaries, just the fact that he was able to pick this kind of veterans for his mission spoke wonders about his capability maybe not as a mercenary, but at the very least as a proper leader.

Yet, it also spoke wonders about the potential threat level connected to this quest.

"We are ready to march out at any time."

Picking up baggage that didn't shy away from what Fen's landowner was carrying by any bit, the officer that commanded the entire group reported. As if using words was some kind of spare luxury, the burly employer of the young man only nodded his head before taking the lead and setting his feet on the road.

Not sure about potential procedures of marching, Fen simply followed the man, quickly noticing that the rest of the group did so as well. Even though they didn't seem to march in any specific formation, the truth about their movements only unravelled way later.

At first, while still travelling in the relative safety of the town's suburbs, the entire group formed a strict line of duos, putting their feet down on the ground in a uniform manner as if following the rhythm of some kind of music. For a moment, the young man even attempted to sharpen his hearing to find out whether someone was humming the tune that everyone would then follow, but to no effect.

Only once their group passed by the huge area of farmlands that surrounded the town did their group suddenly loosen up. With headcount amounting to exactly sixteen mercenaries, employer and Fen, two of the warriors pushed forward, two left behind, while the remaining twelve split into three groups of four before dispersing through the entire width of the road.

At first, the young man was quite confused about the way in which the mercenaries spread out, even going as far as to believe that there wasn't actually any deeper meaning behind their position, but watching as the entire group kept this kind of formation for hours upon hours, Fen had no other choice but to admit that this kind of formation was something he didn't know about nor could guess its use.

Thankfully, there was a pretty simple way to find out everything about it!

"Tell, why are the mercenaries placed around like that? Wouldn't it be better to just keep everyone together as a single unit rather than spreading ourselves so thin like that?"

Learning on his own experiences, for the most part, Fen perfectly knew how a single person should move through a forest but was completely clueless about the basics of moving as a group on a huge, open plain of the central Kinar. 

"In here, you don't really need to worry about bandits or any of that stuff. The only possible danger to an armed group of humans are devolved beasts. And against them… You don't want to stick in a group."

Throwing some terms that Fen had no chance of understanding, this burly man continued to walk at this strange pace, too slow to run after him but to fast to just walk. Maybe it was the leg length difference that made it hard to actually follow him on foot? Or maybe this was some kind of preliminary test aimed at proving whether Fen was capable of extended endurance march? 

But most likely, it was just the natural pace for this man, clearly used to this kind of trekking journeys. From how the rest of their group didn't have any signs of tiredness or boredom, it seemed that it was the young man who was lagging behind rather than everyone else speeding unnecessarily!

Yet, Fen could accept this kind of stuff pretty easily. Given how the very first quest that he took forced him to spend at least a few days and maybe even few weeks outside of the city if this is how the reality would look like for all the future quests, then learning how to walk fast to cut on the travelling time would directly correspond to the majority of saved time on doing said quests!

While amounts like half a day or a day over a week or two long quests didn't seem to be much, not only they would accumulate over time, but most importantly, if the current pace of the mercenaries was something that everyone generally used, then Fen wouldn't even have any choice to walk slower in the first place!

"I'm sorry, but I have never heard this term. Devolved beast? Do you mean the monsters that managed to obtain intelligence or something?"

That was the first chance to explain this different wording. Even though it happened a while ago already, with loads of events constantly making the young man busy, Fen still could recall every single detail of the discussion that he had with the queen back in the forest near Akhaz. Ever since that time, his outlook at the lives of spirits and they greater forms that were most likely called monsters in Kinar as well, changed greatly.

No longer did those beings appear as just a threat that was ought to be eradicated or at least contained to areas where it wouldn't bother anyone. After all, after being cast aside by the society as the spawn of evil only because of some blood that was flowing through his veins, Fen couldn't help but feel sympathetic to other beings whose freedom and lives were curbed by the same group that attempted to kill him!

"No, that would be evolved beast. And for all the gods, do never try to fight one. Not only your chances at coming out of the encounter alive would be dim, even if you somehow manage to survive the onslaught of an evolved beast, the crusade of the entire Kinar and its evolved allies would quickly turn you into a speck of burned ash. No, devolved beasts are something else. While there are some theories where do they come from, I'm not a scholar to even rehearse you on this subject. All I need to know is that they are vicious, angry huge bastards that will take any chance to deprive you of your life."

For the first time ever since the journey began, Fen had the chance to see his landlord actually taking a momentary pause to take a deeper breath.

"And all you need to know, that they are pretty burnable!"