Josk

Josk, affectionately called Joe, was a three-star gold ranked knight known as the ‘Divine Marksman’. He was born in a family of knights and was adopted by a noble. He joined Lorist for the sake of vengeance. He pledged to live life alone forever so that he wouldn't forget his deceased fiancee.

## Personality

He is a lone ranger who wasn’t that good at working with others and hated troublesome matters, as exemplified from his previous performance when Lorist once asked him to form a mounted cavalry unit only to have Josk quit after a few days due to lack of interest after sending the men back to Yuriy’s light cavalry scouts.

## Appearance

Marksman Josk looks to be in his thirties. With his head of blonde hair and well-defined physique, he looks exceedingly handsome.

## Background

Josk’s father was a Gold ranked knight who had left his newlywed wife around twenty years ago to answer the call to arms of the empire to resist the invasion of the trade union, only to die on the battlefield and never return. After Josk was given birth to, his mother soon left the world from a sickness that has ailed her since she had gotten wind of her husband’s death. Orphaned from young, he had only managed to survive thanks to the goodwill of his neighbors. During one fateful day when he was twelve, he managed to save Baron Omador from a raging wild boar and was brought back to the castle of the thankful baron.

After understanding Josk’s family history, the baron decided to adopt him and trained him strictly in hopes that one day he would become a Gold ranked knight like his father. Josk himself also trained zealously and successfully became a One Star Gold Knight who was well-versed with the bow and arrow under the baron’s tutelage at the age of 24.

During the 14 years Josk lived at the baron’s castle, the baron’s daughter also gradually grew up and the two of them fell in love to nobody’s surprise. The baron was extremely pleased with the relationship and let his daughter get engaged with Josk and said that they would officially become husband and wife when his daughter reached 20 years old.

However, on the day when Josk was supposed to get married to his lover, the count sent someone to request the baron’s daughter’s hand in marriage for one of his illegitimate sons. During that time, the baron was incredibly furious and chased the messenger away. Who knew that right after that, Count Cobry and his army invaded the baron’s dominion and surrounded the whole castle and declared war with the baron using the excuse that the act of chasing away his messenger was a grave insult to his status.

The castle that was prepared for a wedding ceremony was naturally not a match for the count’s army and was breached within two short hours. Josk, who was defending the castle at the frontlines, had ended up severely injured and only managed to survive from having been rescued by his subordinates. On his trip away from the castle, he regained consciousness for a moment and witnessed a scene that he would never forget: the castle that he had lived in for the last 14 years had been set on fire with black fumes rising high up into the sky, with his betrothed plunging to her death from the highest floor of the castle in her snow white gown.

Josk let out an inhuman shriek before falling back into the indifferent embrace of unconsciousness. It took another half a year before he completely recovered from his injuries and infiltrated the count’s mansion in an attempt to kill the count and his illegitimate son. However, of the three arrows he had managed to unleash, two of them managed to take the illegitimate sons’ lives while the third only hit the count’s shoulder. After that incident, he was under constant pursuit of the count’s forces. Due to his seething hatred for the count, he eventually formed an insurgent group that aspired to cause as much trouble to the count as possible.

Among the insurgents who fought against Count Cobry, Josk could be considered as a rather influential person with almost 700 men under his command and a total of 2000 people including the soldiers’ family members. However, he didn’t have the intention of setting up his own stronghold and instead chose to let the family members stay at the largest stronghold, the Hiddenbull Stronghold, while he led the soldiers to cause trouble for the count, enabling him to be one of the most active insurgent groups in the area.

## Story

A skirmish between the Hiddenbull Stronghold and the count’s forces had caused Josk to lose nearly half of his own men, leaving him with around 400 people of all ages ranging from their mid-teens to their fifties. Every one of them held held makeshift weapons or farming tools in their hands. This drove him to try to burn the supplies of the count in an act of desperation, resulting in him getting acquainted with Lorist. When he left the convoy to rally up the other insurgent groups, he had imagined that they would be thrilled to join the war effort.

However, when he arrived at the western mountain area, he was only met with rejection and ridicule. To the people living in the mountains, the fact that the count’s rebel-sweeping corps had left the mountains was already considered a victory for them. They believed that they should take advantage of the peace that was to come to rest up instead of provoking the rebel-sweeping corps, lest they once again fall into their sights. They even suggested to Josk to let the convoy and the count’s forces wipe each other out.

Some of them even suspected Josk for entering into a secret agreement with the convoy. Otherwise, why would he bother asking the rest of them to attack the count’s forces? Given that they had struggled so hard just to protect their strongholds from the rebel-sweeping corps, to take the initiative to attack them was like knocking an egg against a rock.

And some others even hoped that the convoy and the count’s forces would mutually obliterate one another so that they will be able to take advantage of the whole situation. Given that Josk had told them about the size of the convoy, they inferred that it would definitely own a huge amount of resources that would instantly make them filthy rich.

Toiling away for three whole days at the mountains to try to negotiate with the insurgents, Josk ended up heavily disappointed that nobody bothered to join his cause to aid the convoy in attacking the enemy’s main camp. To make matters worse, the leader of the Hiddenbull Stronghold invited Josk over and told him that they would no longer be able to sustain the 2000 family members of the soldiers and Josk’s men due to the losses they sustained during the recent skirmish with the count’s forces and suggested that they either join the stronghold and survive on some meager amount of rations until spring the year after or bring them away from the stronghold to find other means of survival.

Josk was angered beyond belief as that signified that the Hiddenbull Stronghold intended to take advantage of Josk to make up for their own losses without even taking into account their contributions in resisting the count’s forces. In fact, the stronghold did not lack any supplies at all as they had obtained two-thirds of the supplies pillaged from the count’s warehouse that was just recently conquered by Josk’s forces.

The prideful Josk instantly exposed the lies of the stronghold’s leader and left with his men that very night. After that, he brought them to another stronghold within the mountains that had been ravaged by the count’s forces. When he recalled his arrangement with Lorist and the way the stronghold leaders treated him, for the first time in his life, Josk felt like rushing into battle and dying to end it all. That was why he left all of his rations with the women and children at the abandoned stronghold and rushed all the way to the encampment with 300 of his able-bodied men to the camp. He thought that as long as the convoy was still fighting with the count’s rebel-sweeping corps, he would sacrifice himself and do whatever damages he could to the enemy to fulfill his promise with Lorist.

However, when he arrived at the battlefield with an empty stomach, the fight had already ended for two whole days. At that moment, Josk instantly regretted that he had spent so much time to convince the stronghold leaders to no avail.

Lorist gave him a brief summary of the battle that had occurred and said that the convoy was only able to obtain victory due to a series of unlikely coincidences. After that, Lorist suggested that Josk move his men and their family members to this camp as the convoy would leaving in the next two days, citing the reason that the camp was much easier to defend and incredibly hard to besiege with ample land for farming as well. He said that as long as he occupied the camp, his days in the future would be much easier and he wouldn’t have to face the likes of the mountain insurgents ever again. If Josk was willing to do as he suggested, Lorist said that he would have some of his carriages help out with the moving and even leave enough equipment and supplies for them.

After considering it deeply, he shook his head and turned down Lorist’s goodwill and gave a response that greatly shocked him. “Milord, I would like to join the convoy and follow you up to the north. However, when we arrive at your homeland and dominion, I will come back here after everything is settled down to kill the count and all his illegitimate sons before returning to serve you completely.” Josk then entrusted his men with Lorist, so that they can have a peaceful life when they reach the Northlands.

Lorist asked him to form a mounted cavalry unit, only to have Josk quit after a few days due to lack of interest after sending the men back to Yuriy’s light cavalry scouts.

Josk headed to the dominion early with the Lorist before the convoy arrived. During the time, the marksman guarded Firmrock Castle, the allied noble army formed by the duke wasn't able to penetrate it at all and ultimately suffered a defeat from the arrival of the convoy's main force.

When the Hanayabarta Kingdom invaded Silowas Island, after receiving Freiyar's message, Josk stayed by Charade's side. Back then, they were in Whitebird Town. Charade quickly notified the Whitebird Town garrison to make preparations for battle and instructed the third local defense brigade to come over to the town quickly to reinforce them. The hundreds of foes who arrived on shore on the first few ships were successfully intercepted by the garrison force, but there were many more ships behind them. More and more enemy troops began to swarm them. Josk managed to kill two gold ranks and more than ten silver ranks, but then a blademaster appeared all of a sudden. He cut Victor down right away, lopping his head off and causing it to roll to Josk's feet. By then, Josk knew that he was being targeted by the blademaster. He was a marksman, there's no way he could handle close combat with a blademaster. So, he could only retreat as he continued to fire away. It didn't take long for him to lose contact with Charade and the others. By the time he circled around and managed to lose the blademaster, he realized that Whitebird Town had already been occupied by the enemy. Despite his frustration, he could only retreat to Swordfish Ridge to gather up the marines and set up a defense line. After that, they received the troops of the third local defense brigade that broke out of the encirclement at Farama Village. In the end, we were picked up by Sir Senbaud's ships.

After Lorist was entitled Duke of the Northlands, the house entitled twelve barons included Divine Marksman Josk.

## Abilities

Josk himself trained zealously under Baron Omador's tutelage successfully becoming a One Star Gold Knight who was well-versed with the bow and arrow at the age of 24.

He is an impressive archer, for him to be able to shoot someone from 80 meters away and also manage to knock him off his horse for about 6 meters. The strength of the bow is indeed great, the velocity of the arrow was also incredibly fast given that Lorist could only barely see its trail through dynamic vision.

Josk himself had said that he only had enough stamina to shoot a couple of hundred of arrows before he would become totally wasted.

Josk's marksmanship could threaten a rank 1 blademaster, but it was not able to do the same for those of higher ranks.

### Weapons

* Green Benny: Josk's green longbow. It was rumored that the longbow was originally made from a bone of a magnificent dragon that had been excavated from an ancient ruin which took the grandmaster up to 10 years to craft. One fateful day, it was acquired by Baron Omador who later gifted it to Josk as an engagement gift between Josk and his daughter.

## Relationships

* Shazin Hennard: Back when the Duke of the Northlands, Loggins, sent Knight Chevany to attack the Norton dominion, Baron Shazin, or Hennard, as he was known back then, was one of the commanders of the duke's forces. Even though Josk did not personally fight against the baron, he got to know him during the time the baron was held captive. The two had developed a strong friendship in the time since then and spoke informally in private settings.