By the way, The King's Mission || Danplan

chapter three

~ = chapter three = ~

The Rogue

"Speak," the voice commanded, yet her voice was adorably high-pitched, it wasn't intimidating at all. 

Daniel gently shoved the dagger away from his face because it was scaring him from the thought she would accidentally stab his eye, but she pointed it back again with the twice the firmness from before. 
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 Both Stephen and Daniel looked up and was genuinely surprised to see a short girl in a rogue outfit, with pink hair tied into pigtails and a supposed-to-be-angry plastered on her face. She looked like a child.

 She narrowed her glare. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" She asked again and leaned in which made the dagger touch Daniel's forehead. He winced. 

 "W-We're just roaming around," Daniel stammered out, looking away with scrunched eyes. 

 She was tiny but terrifying. Fierce. 

 "Roaming around? With no harmful intentions?" She repeated, almost sarcastically, to which the two nodded hesitantly at. "In that?" She pointed the dagger at their outfits with disbelief and a hint of disgust. "Yeah, I doubt that." 

 Stephen stared at Daniel in reassurance before looking up at the pink-haired girl. "Before we say anything, can you tell us what are you doing here, too?"Daniel was about to butt in and say, "you can't just expect her to answer that!" but the girl replied. 

 "The guy that lives here looks rich so I decided to follow him. My original goal was to steal some goods, but I saw him bringing home terrified girls to this house and I decided to want to know why." 

 Stephen smirks in victory at Daniel. He then asks Ann, "our goal is to catch him because he's been kidnapping innocent girls from the village nearby." 

 She lit up. "Oh! So you're heroes or something?" 

 Daniel nodded. "Something like that." 

 "I wanna join!" She says excitedly, making the two boys bewildered. "I know the award we receive are some goodies. I'm Ann, by the way!" She reaches her hand out. 

 Dan takes it and shakes it. "I'm Daniel, fresh-out-of- training warrior." 

 "Stephen." Was all he said along with, "necromancer." 

 "Great!" Ann chirped. "You two are pretty strong despite at a low level, but we can capture the kidnapper! I know we can!" 

 She raised her arms excitedly and flailed it around, almost forgetting she was still holding a dagger as Daniel and Stephen dodge her unintentional swings. 

 "Should we call Hosuh first? He's left back there, and I think by now, he's done checking up on the girl," Daniel asks Stephen. 

 "I don't want to leave this spot," Stephen answered. "I don't want to lose sight of that man again." 

"Alright, alright." Daniel sighs, defeated and takes a step forward but Ann stops him. 

 "Wait. Who's Hosuh?" She looks up curiously."He's a friend of ours that got left behind." 

 Ann hums, as if in deep in thought.  "How about I fetch him?" 

 As she says that, they heard rustling in the bushes. They immediately went on guard and got into position. Daniel stared knowingly at Stephen as the purple-haired boy nods knowingly.But then a familiar figure appears, panting. 

Their gray-haired friend sighs in relief at the sight of them and walks up to them - no, runs up to them and tries to calm himself down. He leans unto Stephen unknowingly. 

 Stephen nudges him off but stopped when he noticed his friend's disheveled state. "What happened to you?" 

 "Hosuh?" Daniel said, reaching up a hand to him. "How did you find us? We thought you were way back there! Can you track us? Or sense our presence?" Hosuh took his hand gracefully and slowly stood up, still shaking a bit. "N-No. . .I just heard you guys all the way back there. Your voices were pretty loud." He suddenly glances at Ann, who was still in a protective stance. 

"Hello!"Ann falters a bit from Hosuh's genuine smile and puts her dagger back in her pocket. "Hi. I'm Ann." 

 Hosuh looks back at Daniel and Stephen and they nodded. 

 "Ann's joining our small quest today. Said she's gonna help us catch the man we're looking for," Daniel explained, as Hosuh nods in understanding. 

 "For some loots," Ann added. "I'm pretty low on them right now, and that's a big deal as a rogue." 

 "Okay," Hosuh said. "Well then, what are we doing here? Where's the man?" 

 Stephen tensed. "He just disappeared, I don't know. We don't know! But what I do know is that the man is some sort of a magic-wielder, too." 

 "Right. But what about that weird cottage over there?" Hosuh pointed behind them where a small cottage was, something Daniel and Stephen just noticed. They weren't exactly sure if they wanted to go to that eerie cottage that screams "don't go here!" just from its appearance.

~ = this chapter is written by sorrowful_soul = ~