Julian made the two insufferable brats scare off the crows from this garden while retreating back inside to be more presentable. Absently he wondered if it would pay to feign falling asleep and hoping that the kids would run off and leave him be.

Hah! He wished. But knowing those two little shit faces, it was extremely unlikely. 

Back inside his pathetic hovel, Julian was faced with a catastrophic mess, which only fanned his irritation. At the very least, Dog had finally taken pity on him because Julian found his seeing glasses conveniently placed on the desk, where it clearly wasn't before. He hissed curses at the thing but otherwise ignored the creature in favor of getting dressed.

Within the mess that now decorated his little living space, Julian had a really hard time finding his walking stick. Actually, hadn't he left it leaning against the stuffed bear? Or was it behind the armor? Julian wanted to pull out his hair in frustration.

It ended up being near the entrance, next to the trunk Julian conveniently used as a shoe stand and the spilled blues that were now scattered all over the floor. The ores glittered and glowed like little gems but were too rough in texture to be called precious. To the doctor, there was nothing else in the world more valuable. These babies were the only known mineral in the world that could conduct mana.

Julian swore there was one ore less than before when he went to put them back in the jar. He wouldn't be surprised if he found it in a day's time, somewhere among wyvern manure.

"Dog! If you don't behave I'm going to stuff you into one of those rabbit cages for the next two weeks, you hear me?"

The wyvern cackled at him but did not cause any more mischief. It curled up in the hammock and rocked back and forth, seeming rather content with itself. Julian left the window open in hopes that the beast would fly out and never return.

Finally, he was going to see those brats again and give them a well-deserved beating.

The sun shone insufferably bright, and Julian had to squint with all the glare reflecting off his glasses. It didn’t stop him from waving around his walking stick like a madman. "Come out, you noisy devils!" he howled.

Unbeknown to Julian, the two kids were standing before him the entire time, watching with both awe and judgment on their little faces while the doctor screamed into the air. 

"We didn't do anything wrong,” the girl finally spoke up, catching Julian’s attention. Lina, eight years old, had brown-red hair always done in two little braids. She took after her fat needle-spinning mother and had large chubby cheeks and had a constantly bored pouty expression.

"Yeah, that's right." Freddie was the same age as Lina but was half a head shorter than her. His head was a mess of brown curls and he had a dumb gap-tooth look about him that Julian liked to make fun of. Plus, the brat totally deserved it. "It's not our fault you don't have your life together."

Julian snarled at them both in avid disapproval, his arms crossing in front of his chest. He really did not have the patience for kids, particularly these ones. “If you’ve decided to run up the hill just to cause me indigestion with your incessant nagging, then know that I’ve just the trick to get your daddies to beat you good.” 

Lina dusted off her apron, a perfect replica of her mother’s habit, albeit a bit clumsy. She approached the doctor with a little bounce in her heels, undaunted by his crossed arms or narrowing glare. "There is an urgent matter we wanna discuss with Mister Doctor. Won't you listen?"

"Yeah, old man." Freddie ran up to him and couldn't seem to decide if he wanted to stand on Lina's right or her left. The kid was shuffling back and forth restlessly. "You gotta listen to us."

Julian's arms tightened as his sneer deepened, glaring at them through the circular glasses that sat upon his nose, "Is that how you talk to me, as an adult and village healer?"

Lina said nothing and gave him a look of disappointment.

Freddie nonchalantly replied, "Yup. You're not even good at being an adult even though you're an old man."

"Learn some manners!" Julian roared at them, raising his cane. It didn't really have the effect that he wanted. The little shits ran off with laughter, knowing well that he had no way of chasing them with his lame leg.

Left to curse and fume, Julian waited for their return to finally tell him why they had to so rudely rouse him from his rest.

Maybe Freddie's dad had another exceptionally bad hangover and couldn't get out of his bed to go tend the sheep. Or maybe Lina's mom wanted Julian to take a look at their old cat that no longer did a very good job of scaring off the mouse, even though Julian explained to her countless times that he only took human patients. Honestly, the woman was never in her right mind.

But they were urging him to come along with them without much explanation. To Julian's horror, the kids were leading him down the forest trail rather than toward the village.

“Come this way, Mister Doctor, we promise it’s going to be fun.” Lina blinked at him with her large innocent eyes, the little devil that she was!

“Yeah, yeah,” Freddie urged, “don’t be such a sick in the mud.”

“Stick in the mud,” Julian corrected, feeling exceptionally petty at that moment.

The forest air was damp, making Julian’s right leg itch. The road was wide and well-traveled, leaf litter and shrubs abound. Without any rumbling winds, the tall trees and their spindly branches loomed overhead peacefully, green leaves filtering the sunlight that beamed downward. 

Freddie had way too much energy and kept running ahead. Julian almost wished that Lina followed him, so he could pretend to have gotten lost and just return home.

“Stop running so fast, dummy!” Lina shouted. “Don’t you know that Mister Doctor can’t run? Geez.”

From up ahead, they heard a bratty voice yell back, “You’re a dummy!”

“…” Lina shook her little head and gave exactly three exaggerated tongue clicks. "Sorry, he's a bit stupid."

"I can tell," Julian answered dryly. "So just what exactly is out here? If it's some bear or wolf carcass I'll tell your parents about the time you brats stole apples from Mrs. Kateen's orchard."

"You wouldn't do that." Lina huffed at him with her signature pout. "Plus, it's not a bear or wolf care-crass, it's a surprise."

"Yeah, it's a surprise. Come here!" Freddie’s voice echoed from the winding road.

The first thing that Julian saw peeking out from behind the wide tree trunk was black leather boots.

He secretly hoped that it was a corpse, especially when he approached and saw a Divine Light medallion nestled in a gauntlet-wearing hand. It was an inquisitor.

Generally speaking, inquisitors were less trouble dead than alive. They hunt mages like Julian for a living.

The signature deep blue inquisitor’s coat pooled around a large tree trunk, a bit damp. This sorry sod had probably fallen into the nearby stream before hauling himself up to this resting place.

The slumped man was quite a sight. His hair was black, long, and straight. It hung around a pale ashen face that was remarkably young and handsome. He looked no older than twenty-five, Julian gathered.

"Is he dead?" Lina asked.

Julian bit back the feeling of exasperation and knelt down in front of the inquisitor for further inspection. The two kids knelt as well, one of either side to curiously follow the doctor's expert eyes.

The metal of the man’s left gauntlet was dented by some sort of blunt force and there was a deep cut on his right calf. His leather boot was split along with the flesh underneath. It was red, inflamed. The blood around it was dark and flaky, most of which dried.

The man’s clothes had seen better days. The black and blue garbs of the standard inquisitor uniform were dirtied and torn. His hair as well was matted with bits of mud, grass, and dead leaves.

What was most startling was the wound on his abdomen, where leather armor and the fabric of his clothes seemed to have melted away, leaving a large area of angry red burn marks.

It was not an ordinary burn, Julian could tell right away. He scrunched his nose at the smell. Magic residue had a particular smell, and Julian was more than familiar with it. This was undoubtedly caused by the spellwork of a mage. 

Not a very good one, since skilled mages wouldn’t leave behind this much of a trace. But somehow, this unskilled mage managed to get past the defenses of an inquisitor.

Very interesting.

"So is he dead?" Lina asked again, picking up a random stick from the ground to poke the man.

"Can we take his stuff?" Freddie found the inquisitor's witch slayer conveniently lying nearby on the forest floor. The boy tried to pick the sword up, despite the blade being taller than him.

Julian reached over to the inquisitor’s neck, hoping to feel rigor mortis settling in on a freshly dead body. He had no such luck and instead found the strum of a light, shallow pulse on damp, clammy skin.

Julian sighed deeply.

"No, kid. We can't take his stuff."