The next day at sunrise everyone got up, packed their stuff and got ready to leave. The horses were bought from their stables and tied to the carts. Soon the caravan left the city and started on its way to the capital of Baiblic.

Aether sat in a cart with four other mercenaries. He enjoyed the light of the sun and the breeze. The atmosphere was clean and the air was filled with energy unlike his home back at Earth. The mercenaries started talking with each other to spend the time.

“How many days till we reach the capital?” Aether asked.

“It’ll take 14 more days.” Said a mercenary. He sighed with disappointment. It was going to be a long journey and if nothing major happens along the way they would have to spend time here in the cart, numbing their poor butts with rocks and humps along the way.

“You said you travelled with Helions in the sea to the port right?” one of them asked Aether.

“Helions? As in people who live in Helion? Yeah I did travel with them.” Aether replied.

“I heard some of them are crazy and consider themselves as a superior race or something.” a mercenary said. “I’ve heard that too.” Said another.

“They were pretty good. They even saved me from pirates. Didn’t seem like they were stuck up people.” Aether said, defending the captain and his crew. After all they were good people.

“You were captured by pirates? You never told that to us!” said a mercenary. “What? You my dad or something, I need to tell you everything?” Aether said with annoyance. “Ok, then tell us about what happened” he said. All the other mercenaries looked at him expectantly. They didn’t have much to do might as well listen to a story.

“Well….. I was on the demon continent…”

“Wait a minute! You were on the demon continent?!” before Aether had even started, he was already interrupted. “Yeah I was ok? Just shut up and listen don’t ask questions.” Said Aether. He didn’t want to explain why and how he was there. They wouldn’t even believe him anyway.

Aether looked towards the ceiling. His eyes blanked out and he recalled his past events. “While I was on the demon continent, I tried to find human settlement but I couldn’t, so I built a raft and sailed into the ocean. Three days went by in the ocean as I realised how stupid I was for doing something like that. To my luck a big ship suddenly appeared in the horizon. I was ecstatic. I did my best to grab its attention and to my surprise they spotted me and came to my rescue…. Or so I though.

The ship looked creepier and creepier as it got closer. Green algae covered it’s wood. It’s sails were torn and it’s flag had a skeleton symbol on it. That’s when I realized I had fucked up and I wasn’t so lucky after all. The pirates found me and decided to sell me as a slave seeing that I was still young. I still remember how they told me that they would have eaten me for dinner if I wasn’t so young. Ugh, it still makes me want to vomit.

They put me in a cage. I was way out of their league so I couldn’t even escape. In the next few days a Helion ship came by. Apparently, it was out on a mission to annihilate the pirates. So, it did annihilate the ship and rescued me in the process. Then I travelled with them for a few days and here I am!”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“That’s pretty unbelievable …...” Said a mercenary after listening to Aether.

“Believe what you want to, I don’t care. I’m saying the truth.” He replied.

Like this one after the other the days would pass. At night they would camp in an open space and travel when the sun is out. They would encounter a few monsters here and there but it wasn’t anything they couldn’t take care of.

They were camping on the fourth night of the journey when Aether suddenly saw a pair of blue coloured eyes in the bushes. “AWOOOO!!” a howl sounded through the air and the pair of blue eyes vanished.

“What was that?” Aether wondered. The pig had already gone to sleep in his body. Aether didn’t know how it functioned but there was a space in his body that the pig could get into. The space existed in his body but it didn't at the same time.

Aether ran into the woods. “Hey! Where are you going kid?” a caravan member shouted at him but he paid no attention to him and kept running.

“What was up with him?” the member mumbled. “The kid’s probably going for a dump.” Said a man who watched Aether run into the woods. “Yeah you’re probably right.” The member said and got back to his own work.

Aether kept running in the woods but he couldn’t find the creature. It was dark and he could barely see because of the moonlight. He decided to return to the camp when he heard rustling noises and another howl.

Finally, the pig woke up. “What the heck is this? Is this treasure I smell?” the pig was active as soon as it got up. You couldn’t tell he was sleeping just a moment ago.

“You can smell treasure?” Aether asked the pig. “Not necessarily but I can sense something powerful in the area and it’s very close by.” The pig said.

“Where is it?” Aether asked. “We have to get this treasure. It can probably help you advance quicker. Keep going straight.” The pig replied.

“This better be worth it pig, the mosquitoes in this place are horrendous!” Aether complained. He started running straight. The pig told him to change directions quite frequently and soon they entered an area. There was a huge cave with monsters sround it.  Aether climbed a tall tree to get a better view and was shocked by what he saw.

“What the hell is happening here?” he asked with a shocked expression. “I knew I smelled monsters! Cheh! All of them are low levelled.” The pig said. They saw a couple hundred monsters gathered around the cave. Most of them were low levelled but some were above level 20.

“What are they doing?” Aether asked again. “They’re probably protecting whatever’s in that cave” the pig replied. Just when they were checking the place out a flying monster screeched at them. All the monsters were attracted to the tree and a loud howl came from within the cave.

“AWOOOOO!!”

“AHH! Fuck, first a screech then a fucking Howl! My ears are going to burst!” Aether said while covering his ears. “They found us.” Said the pig. The pig grew alert.

The flying monster which looked like a large eagle knocked Aether down the tree while he was distracted. The monsters rushed to Aether as if they were commanded by someone.

“God dammit!” Aether fell to the ground while the pig used Aether as cushion.

The monsters reached Aether in no time and attacked him. Aether quickly got to his feet as fast as he could and took out his dagger. “Hey pig keep looking behind me and alert me.”

He slashed at the wolf like monster and kicked it away. He quickly stabbed his dagger into the weak monsters brains and killed them. “They’re weak but there’s too many of them.” Aether said while he struggled to fight.

“Use that thing we got from the pirates!” the pig shouted. Aether quickly took out a large stone like object and removed a pin from it. He threw it where he thought the monsters were grouped and “BOOM!” an explosion took place and ten monsters died instantly. Their blood splashed around everywhere and the explosive sound temporarily stunned the others near them. The monsters mainly looked like wolves, tigers and boars but they were larger than their earth counterparts and were enormously stronger.

“I wanted to save it for later…” Aether lamented that he had to use his only grenade that he had obtained by luck in a place like this. He kept fighting them but they were too many of them.

“Look out behind you!” the pig screamed. A large eagle lurched at Aether seeing that he was still alive.

Aether quickly turned behind and waited for the eagle to swoop down. “Lightning fist!” Aether shouted. His arm was wrapped with lighting as he dodged the bird and hit its body when it was the closest to him. The poor bird didn’t expect this and fell to the ground while screeching helplessly. Its spine had been damaged. If it’s one thing that Aether had improved over the past couple of years, it were his reflexes to dodge.

The monsters still rushed at him crazily. “Shit, that drained my stamina. Why are these creatures rushing at me brainlessly? Are they in that much of a hurry to die?” Aether asked.

“No not brainless but they have no choice. They are being commanded. Something in that cave is doing it.” The pig replied.

“You do know that I can’t keep this up for long right? There are still tens of them and I am running out of stamina. We’ll have to run away.” Aether said. He couldn’t care less about some treasure right now. Although these monsters were only level 10 – 20, he couldn’t fight for long. He was also just over level 20. If he didn’t have his dagger, he would have probably run away from here a long time ago.

“Don’t run away, run to the cave” the pig said. Determination filled he pig’s eyes, 'I ain't going to leave here without the damn treasure'.