It was a cool morning, with birds chirping and the sun shining. If you didn’t count the horrible three hours of sleep he had managed to get, you could say it was a beautiful day. Vulren, getting out of bed half asleep and changing his clothes, headed to the kitchen for breakfast. The antidote he had prepared for Griffin had taken longer than expected, leaving him sleep-deprived. After a strong breakfast of mostly bacon and eggs, he grabbed his bag and headed out.
He needed to deliver the medicine to the mystical creature. Without even checking his surroundings, he leaped over the wall with half-closed eyes. After washing his face and hands in the icy spring at the edge of the forest, he set off toward the rhino meadow. After a long walk, he could see the leaves of the tree where Griffin lived. He got as close as he could and let out a sharp whistle. Griffin, with its broad wings, gleaming feathers, and razor-sharp claws, glided down to Vulren. As he pulled the medicine from his bag, he stammered nervously,
"Uhh, did you know I’m actually a cook from the village I come from? Of course, you didn’t, that was a stupid question. Anyway, if you ever want, I could cook one of those rhinos for you! I’ve always wanted to taste one, but hunting even one is nearly impossible for me."
Griffins couldn’t fully understand human language, but they could get the meaning of it. When Griffin didn’t react, Vulren didn’t push further. After pouring the medicine from the jar into Griffin’s mouth, he was packing up when he felt the ground shake. Turning around, he saw the rhinos running around, with Griffin flying above them. The creature dove down with incredible speed, its massive claws snatching one of the rhinos. The rhino struggled to break free, but its feet left the ground as Griffin lifted the three-ton herbivore into the air and bit into its neck with its beak. The rhino’s moves soon stopped, and Griffin slowly descended, landing in front of him. Vulren, mesmerized by what he had just witnessed, was overjoyed to see that Griffin trusted him, at least a little.
He began examining the massive pile of meat before him, then excitedly ran to his bag and pulled out a set of knives. He had planned to ask this question before leaving home and had brought the knives with him. He took out the largest skinning knife and started separating the animal’s thick, woolly hide from the meat. Despite the animal’s weight, Vulren’s training paid off, and he managed to strip the hide without much trouble, piling it on the grass. Next, he moved on to the meat, using a sharper knife to carefully carve it into pieces. Except the harder meat, it wasn’t too different from cows. After separating all the meat, he went into the forest to gather wood for a fire. When he returned, Griffin was eating the organs, which Vulren hadn’t planned to use anyway. Did Griffin know that though? What else did it know? Lost in thought, Vulren piled the wood and lit a fire using a fire crystal he carried in his bag.
Once the fire was big enough, he pulled out a massive iron pan and spices from his oversized bag. He let Griffin sniff the spices for approval, then began chopping the wild vegetables he had found while gathering wood. Once the oil in the pan was hot, he tossed in a huge steak cut from the rhino’s back. The oil sizzled upon contact, and after cooking the meat for a while, he added spices and some herbs. While the meat bathed in the oil and spices, he roasted the wild vegetables on skewers over the fire. After checking the meat’s tenderness with a knife, he took the pan off the fire and set it on the ground.
Noticing Griffin’s impatience, he didn’t wait for the meat to cool and stabbed a hunting knife into the center of the steak. Using the knife as a fork, he carefully carried it over to Griffin, placed it in front of the creature, and stepped back. As soon as Vulren retreated, Griffin pounced on the meat, clearly pleased. But such a small portion would never satisfy the massive beast. Vulren had anticipated this and rolled up his sleeves, returning to the fire. He spent nearly until noon cooking different parts of the rhino for Griffin, finally satisfying the creature. Griffin, having also eaten the wild vegetables Vulren brought, left a generous portion of the rhino for him. Vulren’s nearly torn bag couldn’t hold all the meat packets, so he carried some in his hands.
"I wish I could use one of those magical bags; that would be amazing," he thought.
These magical bags were incredibly useful, allowing the user to carry more than usual, but they were difficult and expensive to get. Additionally, opening the bag required a small amount of magic, which Vulren couldn’t use—or could he? As he thought about magical bags, his mind turned to magic crystals. These crystals could store a certain amount of magic, and with the right runes, the magic could be released. Vulren’s idea was to combine a magical bag with a magic crystal to create a bag even he could use. But since he couldn’t perform magic, his knowledge of runes was purely theoretical, and he needed something to activate them. Normally, since everyone could use magic at least a little bit, no one needed a separate rune to draw magic from crystals to activate an other rune, meaning Vulren would have to invent a new rune.
As he approached the village walls, he pushed these thoughts aside and prepared to jump. Carrying so much weight, he had to be extra careful. He took a few steps back for a running start, then carefully sprinted forward, making sure not to drop anything. As he reached the wall, he leaped with all his might, barely clearing it. He stumbled upon landing and, weighed down by the meat, fell on his butt. Brushing himself off, he continued on his way, carefully navigating through the fields to avoid being seen and finally reaching his home.
He hurriedly stored the meat in his pantry’s meat locker and changed his clothes. He had high hopes for the rhino meat, as it was far more nutritious than beef, though a bit less tender. But he could solve that by marinating it or with some other techniques. This meat was his secret treasure and had to remain hidden from everyone, even Kavrala. He was also eager to research what he could do with the rhino horn he had acquired. After finishing his preparations, he left the house and headed to the restaurant. Arriving at the door, he inserted the key, turned it, and stepped inside. After putting on his apron and preparing the kitchen, he began waiting for customers. Kavrala’s occasional visits had made others curious about the restaurant, and they had started coming too.
"I wonder if Kavrala recommends my restaurant to others at school," he thought.
While preparing orders for his regular lunch customers, he always tried to strike up conversations, but no one seemed to care. He spent the rest of the day cooking until closing time, when the door opened. It was Kavrala, which was unusual since they had just seen each other that morning. With an overly serious expression, as if they didn’t know each other, Vulren asked, "May I take your order, your excellency?"
Kavrala, putting on her most noble expression, commanded, "Peasant, make me the most luxurious and high-quality chicken salad."
Both struggled not to laugh as Vulren replied in an overly grateful tone, "I am deeply honored by your presence in this humble establishment, your majesty!"
Kavrala couldn’t hold back her laughter, and Vulren, happy to see her in good spirits, went to the kitchen to prepare the salad. Leaning on the counter, Kavrala said, "I asked my father if there were any openings in the servant staff. He said there’s one spot."
Vulren, thrilled, began, "That’s great! Then I’ll—" but Kavrala cut him off, "But there’s a condition. You have to join my capture the flag team at the summer festival." Vulren’s face fell, and he tried to persuade her otherwise, but it was no use. Faced with her stubbornness, Vulren finally gave in. "Fine, I accept. I didn’t want to die without slapping the whole village in the face anyway. But if I'm going to do this, I'll make sure everyone has a bad day.” he said.
For years, he had only been able to test his training against monsters, and frankly, he was starting to get bored. He wanted to test his strength against real people. After eating with Kavrala, he closed the restaurant and headed home. As he walked, he thought about how he could use his stealth to his advantage. When he got home, he grabbed a book from his pile and lay down on his bed. His mind was already full of so many things, and now the capture the flag had been added to the mix. The game was about a month away, and he wanted to spend that time training with Kavrala in the forest and working on the rune. But he couldn’t forget about Griffin either—the poison had spread more than he had anticipated. If Griffin died, he’d have to deal with two young Griffins roaming the forest. For now, he decided to push these thoughts aside and go to bed early.
The days passed in a routine. Since Kavrala’s school was out, they were meeting more often. On the days she didn’t come, Vulren visited Griffin and continued his research on runes. He tested some runes on Kavrala and recorded the results in his notebook. Although he couldn’t gather much information as an observer, he was making some progress. He even had a prototype made from a small belt pouch. However, it didn’t always work, and when it did, it was hard to control. In short, he first created a simple magical bag from a belt pouch, then connected another rune to the bag’s rune to draw magic from crystals. After a few intense weeks of working on this, the festival week finally arrived.
The summer festival was a major event that almost the entire village participated in. Special stands were set up in the marketplace, and games were played. During the last three days of the week, competitions were held for both young people and adults. The first of these was a race around the village, where participants used flight spells to go as fast as possible while trying to slow each other down with spells. Vulren had no chance in this, but the second game was capture-the-flag. This event took place in a small forest outside the village, the only wooded area within the village walls.
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At each end of the forest, there was a flag—one red and one blue. Two teams of ten people each had to protect their own flag while trying to capture the opposing team’s flag. Kavrala was the leader of the blue team, and her rival, Gorduin, led the red team. This was the only competition Gorduin could beat Kavrala in, so he took it very seriously. The rules were simple: take the opponent’s flag and bring it to your own flag’s location. But first, your flag couldn’t have been taken by the opponent. Any attack that wasn’t seriously harmful was allowed, and those who become unable to continue were out of the game. Gorduin always won because he could distract Kavrala with multiple people, and his team was generally better than hers.
For the first few days of the festival, Vulren would work at a food stand in the marketplace. He thanked his father for arranging this for him. Tomorrow was the first day of the festival, and he would be busy almost all day. He needed to leave early to check on Griffin, and he had already come up with an excuse. He didn’t let the excitement keep him from sleeping and lay down, closing his eyes. He was happy to be able to participate in a summer festival for the first time in his life. He was happy—in fact, when he thought about his life over the past few months, it was quite pleasant. A little too pleasant, which made him feel uneasy for some reason.
When the sun rose, he opened his eyes excitedly and put on his nice clothes. His father’s old shirt didn’t fit him, so he had to wear something else. After getting ready, he headed out and made his way to the marketplace early. As he walked through the village, he noticed the other shop owners giving him dirty looks. When he finally found his stand, he started setting up. He placed his crystal-powered stove, arranged his knives and skewers, and neatly organized the ingredients under the table. After about forty minutes of work, everything was ready. He even hung a small menu in front of the stand. Soon, the marketplace began to fill up, and people of all ages were laughing and having fun. During the festival, all shop owners sold their products at low prices—the goal was advertising, not profit. The smell of Vulren’s food attracted a small crowd to his stall. While he was pleased, he couldn’t escape the jealous glances from his neighbors.
Around noon, he noticed a large crowd forming at the end of the street. As the crowd moved closer, he saw the girl at its center. It was Kavrala, since she was the daughter of the village chief, she had to go around and make a good impression. She was chatting with the crowd, a fake smile on her face, as she visited the stands. When she passed Vulren’s table, she suddenly stopped and turned to him. Without saying a word, she approached the food stand and asked for a skewer of chicken.
Vulren quickly handed it to her, and when he saw her reaching for her pockets, he said, "This one’s on me. Good luck in your competitions!" Kavrala was about to protest, but after glancing at the crowd, she gave in. She thanked him, took a bite of the chicken, and smiled. This time, it wasn’t fake. Seeing that Kavrala genuinely liked the food, the crowd began ordering from Vulren one by one. The workload suddenly increased, and Vulren found himself in a hectic pace, trying to keep up with the flood of orders. But after a while, Kavrala and her entourage moved on, and things calmed down again.
After working for a while longer, his ingredients were running low. While he was focused on cooking, a man passing by the stall deliberately kicked and broke one of the stand’s legs. As the table began to tip over, Vulren caught it with one hand and prevented it from falling. The man smirked and said, "Oops, sorry, young man, my foot slipped," before walking away, laughing. Not wanting to start a fight on the first day of the festival, Vulren said nothing. Holding the broken table with one hand, he quickly repaired the leg with the other. Aside from that incident, the day passed without any major issues, and he was relieved.
As he walked home that evening, his mind kept returning to the competition. He had been thinking about his plan for days and hadn’t even told Kavrala—he wanted it to be a surprise. He also wanted to thoroughly inspect the area where the capture-the-flag game would take place before it started, but if he waited too long, preparations would begin, and he wouldn’t be able to scout the area as he wanted. After completing his usual evening training, he ate dinner and went to bed. The next morning, he woke up early, had a hearty breakfast of a large meat-filled flatbread and pancakes, got dressed, and headed to the marketplace. He was leaving early tomorrow to visit Griffin, so he had brought a lot of ingredients today. After a much busier day than he had anticipated, his supplies ran out just before sunset. Enduring the bullying from the other stall owners, he closed up his stand. He bought a red shirt from the market and then headed home.
The big day was getting closer, and Vulren’s excitement was growing. Normally, he could stay calm in such situations, but this time was different—it was the first time he was participating in such a large event. He couldn’t afford to mess this up, and he didn’t want to disappoint Kavrala either. After finishing his training in a nervous state, he returned home.
Vulren always wanted to purchase a large water crystal and to build a shower in his house—he was tired of going to the forest every day to bathe in the stream. After reviewing his notebook for a few hours, he lay down on his bed and fell asleep. On the third day of the festival, he woke up much earlier than usual and headed to the grove where the competition would take place.
There were signs that preparations had begun, but no one had arrived yet. He quickly scouted the area, sketching a map in his notebook and marking important spots. Finally, he drew the most suitable route for his plan and then left, heading back to the marketplace. As planned, he ran out of ingredients early and hurried to the forest. On the way, he stopped by his house to pick up the antidote and then set off toward Griffin. After about an hour of travel, he reached the meadow. He whistled from the top of a tree, but there was no response.
After waiting for half an hour, he saw the massive creature flying in the sky and whistled again. The rhinos, which used to attack when they heard the whistle, now fled at the sound. Griffin landed with a powerful thud, shaking the ground, and lowered its head as Vulren approached with the antidote. Vulren poured the disgusting medicine into the creature’s mouth and tried to chat with Griffin, but failed again. After feeding the Griffin with the rhino meat he had brought from home, Vulren returned to his house. Now, until the day of the capture-the-flag game, he had nothing to do except sell food at the marketplace.
A few days passed, filled with growing excitement, and the fifth day of the festival arrived—the day of the first game, the village race. Like everyone else, Vulren took his seat in the spectator seats and began observing the competitors. There were thirty participants in total, including Kavrala, Gorduin and his sister Leena. Thanks to the observation crystals set up around the village, it was easy to follow the race. As soon as the race began, Kavrala and Gorduin shot ahead, leaving most of the competitors behind. The closest to them was Leena, she was only couple of meters behind Gorduin.
Despite the four-year age gap between Gorduin and Leena, they were neck and neck, which visibly irritated Gorduin. As Kavrala pulled further ahead, Gorduin, now even more furious, began casting spells to slow Leena down. Seeing this, Vulren couldn’t help but feel angry. Once Kavrala had built a significant lead, Gorduin and Leena began battling for second place. As they neared the finish line, everyone sped up, and Kavrala crossed the line first, landing gracefully. While the crowd cheered, Gorduin, who had nearly caught up to his sister, launched a final attack, hitting Leena just before the finish. Vulren held his breath as the dust settled, revealing Gorduin in second place and Leena in third. Vulren wished he could cheer up his sister like a proper older brother, but he knew it would probably only make her feel worse.
After the fifth day ended, Vulren spent the entire day going over his plan one last time. On the morning of the sixth day, he woke up, washed his face, and after a hearty breakfast, began preparing to leave. He put on the red shirt he bought the other day, grabbed the prototype of his magic bag, and headed to the spot where Kavrala had told him to meet. He arrived at the gathering point in the grove, the designated meeting place for Kavrala’s team, and was the first to arrive.
While waiting for the others, he completed his warm-up exercises and then climbed a tree branch to clear his mind and calm his nerves. About an hour later, he sensed a familiar magical presence approaching—it was the team captain. As a responsible leader, Kavrala had arrived at the meeting spot before the rest of the team, except for Vulren, of course. She sat on a rock, waiting for the others, when Vulren suddenly dropped down from the tree branch, startling her.
Trying not to show her surprise, she asked, “Oh you’re early, can it be possible that super calm and smart Vulren Ravanan is nervous? Do you have a plan in mind?" Vulren, flipping through his notebook, replied, "I have a plan. Put on a flashy show and explosions as much as possible, and leave the rest to me." After explaining a few details about Kavrala’s role in the plan, Kavrala spoke up, "I need to introduce you to the team and explain why I added you. I was planning to say something about the advantages of your stealth." Vulren interrupted, "Forget about the stealth. I have a better idea." Kavrala rolled her eyes and said sarcastically, "Of course you do."
As they were talking, Vulren sensed a powerful magical presence approaching. He immediately jumped back onto the tree branch and hid among the leaves. Moments later, a girl emerged from the bushes. She had beautiful golden hair, slightly darker than Kavrala’s. This was none other than Vulren’s sister, Leena Ravanan, who had also decided to arrive early. About an hour later, nine young men and women had gathered under the tree where Vulren was hiding.
Once everyone had arrived, one of the boys turned to Kavrala and asked, "Who’s our final teammate, Miss Kavrala?" Before Kavrala could answer, a large figure dropped down from the tree. Everyone was stunned to see Vulren’s face, but no one was more shocked than Leena. She immediately frowned and asked, "What’s going on? What’s he doing here?" As Kavrala began to explain nervously, Vulren cut in, "Miss Kavrala told me she’s very confident about this year’s game. She said she wanted to teach Gorduin a lesson by winning with the weakest member of the village on her team, so I couldn’t refuse and agreed to join." Seeing the cold smile on her brother’s face only made Leena angrier.
She snapped, "We haven’t even been able to win with normal teams so far. What makes you think we can win with nine people, Miss Kavrala?" Kavrala, her usual blank expression unchanged, replied, "Don’t you trust me, Leena?" She left the question unanswered and decided not to escalate the situation further. Leena trusted Kavrala fully, but she had absolutely no trust in her brother. And this was their last chance to beat Gorduin in the capture the flag. With only half an hour left before the game began, everyone had taken their positions and was waiting for the starting signal. Vulren sat on the ground, meditating to clear his mind and calm his nerves. The moment was almost here.