Chapter 4
Our journey so far has been one horrible thing after the other. Hopefully the horrors were behind us, but somehow I doubted it. Bad things had always followed me around. I was lucky that I hadn't been killed by the goblins earlier. My bad luck has been acting up lately. While I had managed to escape it hadn’t been without its share of danger. If I had made one wrong move or one misstep I would likely have been killed. It was rather odd to me that I hadn't been caught and killed, but there was more luck than just bad luck I guessed. Apparently some good luck had finally come my way. I had escaped the orphanage and the city completely unscathed and even made a profit of five gold coins. My luck seemed to ebb away when I had that run in with the goblins. Though I had survived the encounter.
It wasn't without its own cost. I had picked up three injuries and the burden of taking care of a fox girl with an attitude problem. In some ways you could say I was lucky. I had survived at any rate. So my gift for having only bad luck had seemed to lose at least a little of its strength. Then we ran across the butchered merchants and guards. It was a horrible scene to witness. Though we had managed to find a little food and water. I had even managed to find the necklace though it seemed mostly useless at this point. I had hoped it would reveal some hidden magic power that would grant me power or knowledge unknown but sadly it had not. It was just a silver necklace with a shiny black gem in the center.
We walked until the sun started to go down. It was odd to me that we hadn't seen anyone else on the road. You had to discount the merchants since they were dead. Though I thought it was a bit odd that no one else living had been on the road at the same time as we had. We found a nice place to rest. It was a little clearing about fifty feet off the road.
The grass was flattened in a circle. Which to me seemed like it was probably a popular resting spot for the merchants and other travelers. There was even a spot with a bit of wood stacked up next to a ring that had apparently been used as a fire pit. I started a fire just to add a little bit of comfort for Sora and myself. It was quite warm out, but I liked having the fire. It kept predators away and provided me with a sense of security. I know that was all just in my head, but it did make being alone in a monster and bandit filled forest a little more bearable.
Sora seemed to relax a bit after I got the fire started. It seemed I was not the only one to draw security from the fire. We sat for a while just staring at the fire. I looked at the girl who sat across the fire from me. I was astonished by her beauty. Her hair like the fire glowed bright red in the dim light. She was absolutely beautiful. Her skin was the color of the palest porcelain. She was a marvel to look at. I caught myself gawking at her and was about to turn my gaze away when I noticed she was staring at me with the same level of intensity. Though I seriously doubted that she thought I was very good looking. I thought that my appearance did have its charm and I might be considered handsome by some. Though I was in no way on the same level as this girl.
I acted like I hadn't caught her staring and she did the same so I didn't say anything about it. We sat there for a while just staring into the fire. We split the rest of the bread and drank a little bit more of the water. There wasn’t much water left, so we corked the waterskin and decided it was time to go to bed. I told her that I would take the first watch. She agreed with that and went to lay down on a fresh patch of grass not too far away from the fire. I kept my vigil for about five hours until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I decided to wake Sora so that I could catch a little sleep. I would try to sleep lightly in case the girl fell asleep on the watch again.
I woke her as gently as I could. Though I still think that I startled her a bit. I told her that it was my turn to sleep and she complained a bit, but eventually she got up and went to the log next to the fire where I had kept watch. I fell asleep without saying anything else. When I woke up to my surprise Sora was awake. She seemed to be drifting off but she had not yet fallen asleep. I was impressed by this. She had apparently seen her mistake yesterday and was trying to work to fix it. This was certainly a step in the right direction. I wanted to praise her, but I thought that would make her mad. On the other hand she could also get a big head if I praised her too much. I decided to risk it. “ Sora I am very impressed that you were able to keep watch without falling asleep.” She replied haughty “Of course my noble self would not make a mistake sleeping when I was supposed to be looking out for our safety.” I said, “ Of course, your grace. You are without flaw and I am so gracious to you for doing today what you had not managed to do yesterday. Your abilities know no bounds.”
She fumed but did not respond. He knew that he had scored a point on her. Though he thought she would probably get him back for this. He didn’t really know how she felt about it but no one liked their mistakes being pointed out. This was even more so when it came to nobles. They thought themselves infallible. Though they were far from it, that did not stop them from looking down on anyone that wasn’t also a noble. I assumed Sora was the same way, but for now she needed me and I was at this point still useful to her.
I did not know exactly what she had in mind for our little expedition. I really didn’t care. I was only interested in having an adventure for the time being. This was what I had always yearned for. The chance to have an adventure. To find a beautiful maiden in trouble and to save her and complete a quest with her. Maybe even fall in love with the girl. That didn't seem possible. This girl may be an incarnation of fire but she was an ice princess. Though I was no foolish child and I would keep my fantasies to myself there was no time for me to be drooling over the girl. Not when I was on my first quest and still had not become an adventurer.
She keeps going on about being a noble and that doesn’t impress me much. As a peasant I dislike the nobility on sheer principle. Though to me this girl looked like she was simply playing a part. Acting how I expect nobility to act. She had been giving me sideways glances since the moment we set out on our journey. I figured she didn’t know what to make of me. I was obviously just a peasant but I had come to her rescue at least in her mind without a second thought. I had saved her life. That much was true at least. I didn’t feel like she owed me a thing. I may have been a commoner with not an ounce of noble blood , but I knew that saving her had been the right thing to do.
I’m surely a hypocrite. Talking of fantasies of saving the beautiful maiden and going on an adventure. I had killed another boy just a couple of days ago. He had been an evil bastard and he was in the way of my escape. That did not mean that he deserved to die like that. If I had killed him for beating me or something like that it would have been an all together different matter. I had killed someone in cold blood just to escape, but risked my newly acquired life to save a girl I had never met. It really didn't make any sense, but I was in no mood to contemplate my own morality. I didn’t care that I had killed Sloan. In my mind he was a bastard and I had gladly traded my freedom for his life.
Well, that was enough daydreaming it was time to get a move on. We needed to get to the capital as soon as possible and my past was not going to help us get there. I looked at Sora and said “ Let's get moving. The sooner we get to the capital the sooner we can buy some mounts and get on with the real journey.” “ How do you intend to pay for these mounts? Surely a peasant like yourself would only have a few coopers at most.” She said in an acidic tone. She must be mad about my sleeping through the watch comment. Oh well that can’t be helped. I said what I said and I’ve got to live with the consequences. I slipped my hand inside my shirt and pulled out a little pouch. She gave the pouch a quizzical look. “ What pray tell is in that little pouch?” I opened the pouch and showed her the five gold coins. Her face turned to a look of shock. “ How in the world did a peasant like you get his hands on five gold pieces?”
She knew that a regular commoner family could live for years on those five gold coins. Most commoners had never even seen a gold coin. Gold was the currency of nobles. Commoners mostly dealt in copper and bronze coins. With the rare exception of street merchants who may have a little silver, none of the common people circulated the more valuable form of currency. It wasn't that they didn't have enough copper or bronze coins to make a silver coin or even a gold coin if they put up their whole savings.
It was that silver and gold were just impractical for commoners. They would have to buy much more than they needed so that the merchants could come up with the change for even a silver coin. Don’t even mention gold that would be far outside of what a normal merchant could handle. It was the big shops in the market district and noble districts that dealt in silver and gold. For a noble five gold coins was nothing, but for a commoner it was a life changing amount.
“I have my own secrets. I didn’t steal if that's what you’re thinking. I earned it fair and square.” She said “ Fine it’s not like I actually cared anyways.” “ Sure whatever you say. That should be enough to get us some supplies and mounts for our journey. It may not get us enough for the whole trip, but it will get us more than we have right now at least.” So we once again set off down the road to the west. We walked through the forest for a few hours only talking every once in a while about nothing important. It seemed that neither one of us really wanted to tell the other too much about ourselves.
We passed the water skin back and forth as the day went on. It was just about empty so we would need to ration out the rest or find somewhere to fill it. We had at least another day of walking before we could leave the forest and the water was not going to last. We had already eaten all of the bread that we had found. I knew from my years of practice of nearly constant starvation that you could go a long time without eating. I also knew that you could not go very long without water. So that was my first priority to find water soon and then we could worry about getting the rest of the way out of the forest. I thought that there was a good chance that a river or a stream was pretty close to us in the forest. The road through the forest had been planned that way. It would not be good for the kingdom's main road to be impassable due to not having a water source close to the road. At no point on the road was water more than a few miles away. That of course was no small distance especially through a forest but it wasn’t a distance that we could not manage. I asked Sora if she thought we should try to make it to the water and she agreed that we wouldn't last very long without water to drink.
So we set off into the forest in search of a river or a stream. I just hoped that this side journey wouldn't be as exciting as the last time I had left the trail. The trip through the forest was not as hard as I had expected. It took us an hour to get close enough to the river that we could hear it. The trees were spaced pretty far apart in this part of the forest. There wasn't much brush to impede our path so it was more of a leisurely walk through the trees then an arduous push through vives and bushes. I wasn't going to complain about our luck. I preferred this easy trip to a hard slog through tightly packed trees and thorn bushes.
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As we made our way closer to the river I started moving more slowly. I didn’t want a repeat of the last time I had aimlessly been looking for water. This proved to be unnecessary as there was no one in sight. We made our way to the edge of the river and noticed that there had been a camp set up here not too long ago. I didn't want to stick around for too long and meet whoever had made this camp. We filled up our water skin and headed back the way we had come to the road. Along the way Sora and I tossed around the idea of who could have made the camp. We came to the conclusion that it could have been anyone, bandits, monsters, or even just a traveler that didn’t want to be too close to the road. It didn’t matter too much to us who had made it. We had not managed to run into them so it was really a nonissue. We would continue on our journey, but we would also be more wary. Just because we had no proof that it was a group of monsters or bandits did not mean that we should let our guard down. It was better to prepare and be wrong then to not prepare and be right.
We continued walking on the road and talking about who could have left behind a camp when we heard the sound of multiple hooves. I made a split second decision and pulled Sora off the trail and into the forest. She whispered “ What are you doing?” “ We don’t know who they are. What if it’s the bandits passing by to check on their work from yesterday?” She went silent. I guessed she wanted to see who it was as well. We really couldn't risk running into a full group of bandits. The two of us alone would simply be slaughtered before we could even do anything to stop them. It was best to wait and see.
The sound of horses grew closer and closer. I could soon see who was on the back of the horses. It was a group of menacing men. They wore sneers and acted as if they ruled the world. They may not be the bandits from the merchant massacre, but this was a very large group of bandits. They looked perfectly capable of pulling off what we had seen yesterday. Sora and I crept further into the forest so as not to be seen. We waited for an hour until we could no longer hear the sounds of horses and bandits. We slowly crept our way back to the road. We looked around and couldn't see anyone. So we decided to continue our journey as if we had not seen anything.
We walked for a few more hours without seeing anything out of the ordinary. We continued on hoping we would never cross the path of that group of bandits ever again. Too many unwary travelers had fallen prey to the blades of the bandits and I did not want to be counted among them. For I believed that my journey was a long one and I could not afford to be brought down here and even more so by such a mundane foe. I would be an adventurer, a killer of monsters. At least after I got trained up a little. The battle with the goblins weighed heavy on my mind for I knew that it was not skill that made me win the day but sheer dumb luck that had been in my favor.
We found a little cutback in the trees where we could set up a camp for the night. I once again took the first watch. As I sat there watching the forest I found my eyes continuously drifting in the direction of Sora. She really was a beauty to behold. I paid particular attention to her luscious red tail and her pointed ears. It was a little strange for a human male to be with one of the beast-kin but it was far from unheard of. It was more that it was frowned upon. Some people had even been called beast lovers by other humans for daring to lay with one outside of their own race. It was foolish knownsense to me. Anyone should be allowed to be with whoever they wish.
Still I thought my attention would not be reciprocated by Sora so I needed to keep myself in check. I was but a peasant where she was a member of the nobility. She would never have noticed me if I had not wandered upon her and saved her from the goblins.That however may spark a bit of interest from the beauty. I was her Hero after all. Even though I really didn't feel like one. I wouldn’t press her about if she had any feelings for me, but if she did I would accept her without question. Not often would a man be in the company of such a beauty. For this I thought myself infinitely lucky. Though what sort of luck the lady would bring remained to be seen. I watched her sleep for a little longer and then continued my vigil.It would not do for me to be assailed while on watch just because I couldn’t keep my wandering mind in check.
After the standard five hours of watch I woke Sora so that I may catch what little sleep I could. I told her to tell me immediately if she had any reason to think someone else may be approaching even if it seems unnecessary. She agreed that she would wake me if anything happened. That made me relax a little. I layed down not far away from the log I had been sitting on and fell asleep. I had been sleeping for what felt like only a moment when Sora shook me awake. She held a finger to her lips to tell me to remain quiet. She then waved for me to follow her deeper into the woods. I did not know what was happening but I knew that for right now I should do as the girl asked and leave the campsite. After a few minutes of waiting five men rode up to where we had just been camping and dismounted their horses. They started talking amongst themselves and started setting up a camp. It seems as if we were being displaced for the night.
We backed up slowly further into the forest. There was really nothing that could be done about it. We could not take on five men in a fight and it would be foolish to fight over a camp when we knew they may have friends close at hand. After walking into the forest for about fifteen minutes we started following where we thought the road had been heading. I was very tired since I had not had much sleep so it was hard going to trudge through the forest but it seemed to be the only option. We walked that way till I was too tired to walk any more. I needed to sleep at least for a little while. So I asked Sora if she could continue her watch while I slept. Then after I rested I would stand watch for her. She said that wasn't necessary and started her watch. I was out instantly and slept for about three hours.
After I woke up we kept walking through the forest instead of heading for the road. It wasn’t worth the risk of being spotted on the road by bandits. The forest would take us longer to traverse but it was well worth the longer walk. We walked for many hours without coming across anyone or anything and decided to take a quick rest. We passed around the water skin and talked of the foods we would love to eat. We both would have settled for some dry hard bread but we didn't even have that to eat. We shouldn't have been far from the exit of the forest by now, maybe just one more day of walking and we would be free of it. Though it would be a hard journey we could make it. We had to make it. There was no other option.
We continued walking until the night where we once again set up camp and I stood watch. I stood watch for half of the night and there wasn’t much going on. I had seen only a few animals but nothing else of interest. Just when I was about to wake up Sora so that I could get some sleep I heard a noise. For a few minutes I had thought it was just my imagination but the noise grew closer and louder so I woke up Sora and we slipped away deeper into the forest. We stayed close enough so that we could see who or what was approaching. It was a small group of three goblins. I motioned to Sora to see if she just wanted to leave or if she wanted to try and fight with them.
One look at her face showed me that running away was not on the table. Her abduction by the goblins only a few days ago must have been sitting heavily on her mind.We talked it over and decided it would be best to watch them and see what they would do and then decide on a strategy. They formed a circle on the ground and started making a fire. They then started cooking some meat over the fire that looked like rabbit or maybe some type of bird. We decided that while they were distracted by their food we would attack. I would come in from the right and Sora would come in from the left.
We would try to kill one of them each and then go after the last one together. I snuck around to my side of the fire behind the biggest of the goblins. He appeared to be the one in charge and if things went wrong I wanted him dead first. I slipped my dagger out of my belt and crept silently behind him. Once I was only a yard or so behind him I lunged at his back and sunk the blade into him up to the hilt. He let out a piercing scream that probably signaled everything in the forest that we were here. I didn’t have any time to think about that though. I heard another similar scream across the fire and assumed Sora had taken care of the second goblin. I pulled my dagger from the back of my goblin and made my way towards the last goblin. It had reacted quickly to the scenes of violence around it. It had pulled out a dagger similar to my own and was making its way towards me. It looked like even though it had heard the sound of the other goblin dying it had only seen me so far. That could work to our advantage.
Sora was creeping up behind the goblin as it made its way towards me. She did not make it before the goblin struck at me. It lunged at my chest and the tip of the dagger grazed me. I tried to lunge at it but I missed. That was when Sora finally got into position behind it and stabbed the goblin in the back. I followed it up with a stab to the front to ensure that it was dead. We went back to our respective goblins and stabbed them each one more time to make sure they were no longer alive and then we took a look through what the goblins had with them.
Each of the goblins had a dagger and the big one even had a bag with a few cooper coins in it. In the bag was also a little bit of bread and a water skin. We carried the goblins away from the fire so that we would not have to smell them anymore. After that we looked at the food they had been about to eat before we had interrupted them. It turns out that it was a rabbit that they had been cooking . Sora and I split the rabbit and the bread and washed the meal down with some of the water.
After we finished eating we decided to move on just in case someone or something had heard the sounds of the dying goblins. We also confiscated the goblins' sleeping rolls. They smelled terrible but it was better than sleeping on the hard ground. Though it was dark and I was very tired, we walked through the forest for about an hour to get away from where we had left the goblin bodies. We found a little clearing where we felt safe resting. I set up my sleep roll and collapsed inside of it. Sora was of course standing watch for the rest of the night since she had been able to sleep before the attack. I slept well for a few hours and then woke up. Sora was awake when I got up and it was just past dawn. I hadn't slept long but since we had eaten so well last night I didn't need as much sleep and felt full of energy. Today we should be able to get out of the forest and make our way to the town of Vangill. It was the town just on the other side of the forest and there we could get some supplies and maybe even a mount. From there it was only a few days' ride west to get to the capital where we could register as adventurers. After we did that we could head for Sora’s home in the Sakura Empire.
We set out once again in a hope that we could get out of this accursed forest and into a normal town. I wanted to get into town and get a full meal and a night's sleep in an inn. Sora of course wanted a nights sleep and a belly full of good food but she also wanted a hot bath. I was not opposed to the idea of a bath either. It sounded great after almost a weeks travel and a few deadly fights. Along the way we talked about what we would do in town and what we needed to buy. We needed better clothes for traveling and maybe even some light armor to help keep us safe. Of course we also needed food and water and bags to carry them. The last thing that we didn’t necessarily need at the moment was better weapons. Also better camping gear like a tent and new bed rolls would be a welcome comfort on the journey ahead. We walked for most of the day. Then at last we came to the edge of the forest.