“The Wolf’s heart” was bustling with activity. It was loud, crowded and reeked of alcohol. Dozens of burly men sat around large wooden tables, drank beer, loudly laughed at the same old jokes they’ve heard countless times and sometimes even brawled, despite the fact that this place was the fanciest establishment in Falun, the capital of the Northern empire. Although this was the spot where the capital’s elite gathered, ‘fancy’ wasn’t really the right word to describe it.
This was a large log house similar to every other building in Falun, except for the emperor’s castle that was build from stone. In fact, all the houses in the far north were build similar to this one – with large horizontal logs interlocked at the corners. Despite the people the in south considered barbarians being primitive, they were anything but that. And even though their architecture looked simple, it was, in fact, technically harder to build three storey buildings from wooden logs than from stone.
But the reason northern people chose this material was simple. Wooden houses build this way were much cheaper to build and easier to keep warm during the harsh winters. Not everyone could afford the beast core formations to warm their premises similar to their emperor and even that old man considered himself to be too proud to use those often.
The winters in the north were cold and these were the few months when women mostly stayed at homes taking care of the children while men drank away their boredom in taverns. It was too cold to go hunting and most of the wildlife slept though the winter period as well.
Only two people were crazy enough to travel far through the cold and snow. Nick and YunYun entered the bustling tavern and brushed off the snow from each other’s heads and shoulders. They didn’t pay much attention to the patrons – they had seen this view tens of times during the past weeks. But that didn’t mean that no one noticed them. In fact, the whole tavern fell silent immediately after they came in and YunYun stomped her feet to remove the snow that was stuck to her white fur boots.
Dozens of burly men almost simultaneously turned their heads towards the strange couple. These two seemed to come from a different reality and were completely out of place. The blond youth, without any head cover, in a light leather jacket, similar boots and blue pants obviously came over from somewhere in the neighborhood since it was impossible for anyone to walk around in the current weather looking like that, but no one of the present had seen him before. Currently there were few youths similar to his age spending their time drinking here, but they were as burly as their older drinking buddies and had similar beards as well, albeit much thinner. Thus, the blond ‘pretty’ blue-eyed boy was completely out of place.
And, as soon as the girl, dressed in short and hooded white fur coat and similar boots, took off the hood and stomped her feel, she instantly mesmerized the local drunkards. Men froze on their tracks, some half way lifting their beer jugs and few even choked. The girl was an angel! Even though, contrary to any women the locals had ever seen, she had short hair, her face was so pretty and movements so gracious, every single man present felt instinctive need to protect her from the dangers of the world. Or course, that meant the obvious desire of ‘making her mine’ came first. One had to give credit to the ‘flowers of Aurora’ who did an amazing job designing YunYun’s winter outfit, although already without that she was a world shaking beauty.
Hearing the loud gulping around them, Nick sighed and shook his head. During the last weeks they experienced way too many occasions like this, but despite the fact that they had to leave behind few broken arms and noses, he didn’t ask YunYun to change her appearance. She was beautiful and had the right to attract attention and it was his job to teach the drunkards how to keep their hands to themselves. YunYun also learned to understand this, although it was hard for Katana to stay in the sheath. If not, the arms would not be broken, but cut off and noses, instead of bleeding, would roll on the floor together with the heads they belonged to.
“Khm.” Nick cleared his throat, “We are looking for an experienced hunter who has traversed further into the Northern mountain ranges during the past months. We would like to ask a few questions and, of course, will pay for the information.”
This was the tactic they agreed to after they had no results in the northern part of the Sun kingdom. Obviously the hunters had the most accurate information and, obviously, barbarian hunters were the ones who knew most about the wildlife here. In addition, Nick and YunYun were not sad about the cold weather, they welcomed it since it gathered their ‘sources of information’ in one spot – the taverns!
When they first experienced this terrible cold, Nick was still fine, but YunYun felt as if her extremities would freeze off. But then they began to take short stops every other hour and practice their dual Qi technique for few minutes and she recovered incredibly fast. The practice was their lifestyle and they absolutely didn’t worry they couldn’t find Angel immediately. Exactly the opposite – they learned more about their Qi exchange technique, how to control it and to enter and exit the amazing meditative state at any time.
Soon they learned to perform a version of it while on the move, but while holding hands. It was not easy at all, because they tried to perform the ‘third Qi technique’ at the same time so they could preserve their, almost infinite, stamina. They even spent over three days staying in one inn, drawing and mapping out Qi pathways for the new technique that, in fact became their ‘fifth Qi technique’ – a modification of the third technique and their Qi exchange.
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But the results were incredible. Now YunYun in cold and stormy weather could feel as comfortable as Nick and, actually, didn’t need that fur coat. She continued to wear it because she wanted to and Nick found her beautiful that way as well.
Thus now they entered “The Wolf’s heart” with rosy cheeks and full of energy. And it was no wonder that in the muddled eyes of the local drunks she looked like an angel.
Seeing that they won’t get anything like this, the two ignored the shouts they were long used to like ‘come to daddy’ or ‘I know how you can pay for my information’ and under the hungry eyes of the drunk patrons directly went over to the barkeeper.
“Good evening.” Nick greeted the burly man who looked exactly like everyone else here and the only difference between him and his clients was that he was the one who filled their jugs and took their wealth, “We just arrived in Falun and are looking for an experienced hunter to consult with. Could you recommend us anyone like that?”
“Where are your clothes, kid?” Bartender rudely barked back.
Nick didn’t pay attention to that. He learned long ago how to northern people this was just a normal way to express themselves and the man didn’t intend to be impolite.
“Does it matter?” Nick smiled back and put a couple of silver in front of him.
“Where did you two come from?” Bartender immediately changed his question.
“Will the location of the local hunters change because of my answer?” Nick, still smiling, put another two silver on the counter.
“Stop being such a smartass. You won’t win many friends around here like that.” Bartender furrowed his brows and said in annoyance.
Although these months were good for business, they were monotonous and bleak. Now that he had the first interesting encounter in weeks, he got immediately deprived of the first-hand information that should belong to him.
“I’m sorry, we had a long trip and are tired. Could you help us, please?” Nick said and put two more silver in front of the bartender.
The latter wanted to say something, but the six silver were six silver even in Falun.
“The two best hunters in the city are not here today, but they come from time to time so you could check in tomorrow. Although I don’t know why would you want to talk to hunters specifically about the Northern mountain ranges, you could ask me, maybe I know?” The bartender said and looked at the six silvers in his hand. These two youths were generous and looked like silkpants from a rich family. There was no reason to not ‘milk’ them more.
“It’s highly likely that the information you have might be inaccurate and only a gossip. But I appreciate your offer. We’ll come back tomorrow then.” Nick said. They experienced multiple occasions when a ‘friendly and helpful’ bartender tried to ‘feed’ them nonsense about the legendary rank six shadow eagle just to earn few silvers and were not to be fooled easily.
“Sigh.” Seeing that the youth was not as dumb as he hoped, the bartender pointed at three large middle aged men dressed in furs of high ranked beasts, sitting at the table in the very middle of tavern and said, “Since you were so generous, I can’t let you leave empty handed. Those three are the most resourceful people in the capital, after the emperor, of course. If you want to find out anything, they could help. Although I don’t know about the payment – they never lacked anything. And with this beauty at your side, you should be more careful.”
At the end bartender took a long look at YunYun.
Nick looked at the three men and thought for a bit.
“Give me please three jugs of your best alcohol.” He said.
About the bartender’s warning he didn’t worry much. They had enough experience in dealing with frivolities of barbarians and if these three tried to do anything ‘funny’, they would pay for it even if they were a head taller and twice Nick’s size. And, in the end, if the two of them couldn’t deal with something, they would simply run away. There were only very few people in the world who could currently keep up with them in case they decided to escape.
A couple minutes later Nick went over with tree jugs of a strong alcohol in his hands. Even though, after the short disturbance their entrance created, tavern returned to the usual state, quite a few people were still staring at the beautiful girl in the white fur coat. The three men Nick approached were not exactly like that, but still glanced at her from time to time.
Not only their behavior, their appearance also differed from the other patrons. While most men came to the tavern unarmed, these three all had huge double axes at their sides. Obviously these items were too heavy to be carried constantly and it was just a showing off to bring such huge things along when going for a drink, only to lean them at the table. These three obviously were some kind of local big shots since the others tried to constantly curry their favor, but despite that Nick decided to try his luck. In the worst case scenario they would come back tomorrow and meet the real hunters.
“Hi, I’m Nick.” He said and put the three jugs on the table, “I’m new around here and the bartender told me that the three of you are the most resourceful people in the capital. I was wondering if you could help me with something.”
The three stared at Nick in disbelief, then looked at each other and burst into loud laughter. After a minute one of them calmed down a little and said, “You don’t know who we are, do you?”
“No.” Nick shook his head, “But that shouldn’t matter. If you don’t want to help, it’s fine. The drinks are on me. Let’s go!”
The last part was said to YunYun and both of them turned to leave. It was no big deal if they didn’t get the answers here. Falun had many taverns and even more hunters.
“Who said you can go?” Another one of the three loudly said and the whole tavern was suddenly filled with dead silence.