16 Factions?

"You look as good as new there Jack!" Martin shouted out as he saw Leo and Jack approaching.

"Well, it is all thanks to this alchemist. Actually, what was your name?" Jack replied as he asked Leo.

"You can call me Leo. I am new to this place, so I hope that you guys can help me out a bit." Leo said as they finally sat down next to Martin.

"The meal is almost ready." Natalia told the small group. Leo used this chance to pick the group's brain for information.

"Oh that village near the entrance to these mountains? That Nathan character sounds familiar. I think I heard my uncle mention him." Jack told Leo after he explained the direction he came from.

"Our city tries to send out some troops to help smaller villages around this area defend against monster waves. However, I heard from my father, that the village you mentioned has rather mean citizens." Martin said.

"Some of the villages around this world, are very battle hardened due to the rough conditions. But, some villages take it out on outsiders. It does not surprise me that they treated you the way that they did. If anything, since you seem to be an alchemist, I am surprised that they didn't try to recruit you immediately."

"That being said, I do not want you to feel that we have any ill intentions, but we would love for you to come back to our city and possibly even join it. You can choose to join any faction you wish, we only care about making our city stronger regardless of internal power struggles." Martin mentioned as he waited for Leo's reply.

Usually, depending on the race, a city would almost never see any internal power struggles. However, in this case, humans who have a high enough level of strength, desired to rule as many places as they could.

As long as the overall strength of a city would not be lowered greatly, citizens of these cities just let those powerful experts fight each other. This being said, these experts who fought were unable to kill each other.

Due to this group of three being so insignificant, they did not care about these types of power struggles. Unable to play a role within any sort of internal power struggles, they only wished to recruit strong experts to strengthen the potential of their city as a whole.

"I would love to join your city and find a way to make it work. Although, are you three all part of the same faction? I couldn't help but to notice that your fighting styles work well as a team, but are completely different?" Leo asked the group of three.

"Since we are all being blunt here, I can explain." Natalia spoke up as she handed out the plates of food.

"There are currently three factions within our city, and each faction holds different households and clans. Us three come from three different households, but we are in the same faction, so we are more than happy to travel outside the city with each other to hunt down monsters and such."

"It would be wise for you to join a faction right away once we reach the city. Since you are so strong and an alchemist, our faction would be more than willing to accommodate you if you join us. However, it would be your choice, and we would not pressure you." explained Natalia.

"If I told you that I was not an alchemist, would your faction still accept me with open arms?" Leo asked the group of three. He wanted to correct them early on, otherwise, the situation might get out of hand in the near future.

"The righteousness in which you have shown us in that battle, proved to us that you can fit in with our faction. That is the single most important trait to become a member of our faction." Martin said as he pounded on his chest.

"Plus, you appear stronger than all three of us and might be able to defeat us all by yourself. That alone would make any faction want to recruit you." Jack added as he patted Leo on the shoulder.

"This all sounds great, except, I am going to need to kill another monster and return its head to the village I came from. Nathan gave me a quest and I want to make sure that I can deliver on it before moving on." Leo said after absorbing all of this information.

"If that is the case, let us accompany you. Coupled with the strength that you already have, our squad is more than capable of taking down another monster!" Martin quickly responded to Leo's request without hesitation.

Finally finishing their meals, the sun was still up, and so the now four person squad decided to move out.

Beep Beep Beep!

-Would you like to form a party with your team?-

"That is interesting, but I can not be sure to completely trust these three quite yet. If I give away too much, it might harm me in the future." thought Leo as he quickly pushed the decline button.

To Leo, these three individuals seemed worthy of trusting, but, the way that they seemed to not care about their faction worried him.

Leo understood that these three wanted nothing more than to help their cities prosper, but, to not take advantage of pulling him in forcefully to their side seemed a little off.

"So Leo, now that you saw our formation we chose, where would you like to fit into it?" Natalia asked as she pulled closer to Leo's side.

"I think that I should remain hidden as you three continue to work on your teamwork. When I find an opening like I did in the last battle, I will make a swift killing move."

"None of you need to worry, in the previous battle, I only arrived once the battle escalated to a dire situation. That will not happen again." Leo explained as the squad stopped in front of a small river.

"We trust you, to be honest, this small river is the home to a wolf type monster. Wolf type monsters are easier to deal with compared to bear types due to the fact that they use their speed to make up for their strength. This also means that they are less sturdy and easier to defeat with raw power." Martin explained as he told Jack and Natalia to get into their positions.

The plan was for Natalia to use her fire magic to encircle the wolf type monster once it appeared. From there, Jack would divert its attention, while Martin waited to land the finishing blow.

The three member squad had done this successfully before, and they were confident that with Leo hiding in the shadows nearby, that their lives would not be in any danger.

Sure enough, after only an hour a wolf type monster had appeared.

Chanting her encirclement spell, Natalia quickly closed off all of the escape paths that the monster could take.

In a breath of time, Jack was already facing the wolf head on. In terms of speed, they were both evenly matched, but Jack was finding it hard to keep up with his strength in their clashes.

After a minute went by, Martin was able to land two blows onto the monster. The first blow, knocked the monster back by its waist, while the second blow landed right on its neck.

Splash!

Using the momentum that Martin gave to him, Jack used his two sharp daggers to slice the monster's head off before it could become damaged.

"Their teamwork really is top notch. I just hope the others who just arrived, do not harbor any ill intentions." Leo pondered as he saw a group of three humans approaching the battleground.

"Oh you must be that Martin brat? It has been a while since we played. Do not worry though, give up that whole corpse and we will let you retreat back to the city." mocking Martin and his squad, the person in the lead couldn't help but to laugh loudly.

This person had an evil aura to him. Dressed like a grim reaper type with an all black cloak and gloves, this person seemed as if he could be compared to a monster himself!

The two individuals behind him, were dressed the same, except, they had different colored paint on their faces. Leo was not sure what the color of paint represented, but all three were glowing orange above their heads.

"Jacob, we are not looking for any trouble. You are aware that we have defeated this monster, and therefore deserve to take the spoils from the battle." trying to keep his heroic bearing, Martin responded to Jacob's taunts.

"Oh? Reports have said that your squad left without any escorts from any of your houses. You should know what happens out here in the wild, can not be blamed on anyone, right?" with a sinister smile, Jacob continued taunting Martin as his own squad continued to make their way over.

"It seems like compared to their faction, the other seems to not be very nice. Maybe it was wise to trust in those three since the beginning." Leo thought as he allowed this situation to continue to escalate.

"Hehehe! Hey Martin, stop trying to fight us. If you do not hand over that monster's corpse, we will simply kill you and take it for ourselves!" one of Jacob's underlings shouted out.

"Is that a threat?" Martin's eyes started to shine with killing intent as Natalia and Jack left the corpse to head over next to Martin's sides.

"It seems like you have a bit of a backbone now. I hope for your sake, that is enough to keep you from dying by our hands!" pulling out their weapons, Jacob and his underlings started to make their moves against Martin's squad.