“How are you doing, though?” Velariah asked after a few more seconds had passed.

”I’ll be fine. Couldn’t be happier to have this armor. Still, I imagine I have quite the bruise after that attack.”

“Bruises will heal,” The elf said calmly. “And Dworag will fix your armor right up until it’s as good as new.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” I turned my attention to Nira. “Thank you for the help. I feel much better already.”

“No problem. Glad to see you’re okay. That looked painful,” She said softly while continuing to heal my wounds.

The sounds of battle died down after a few more roars that I traced back to trolls reverberated across the clearing. My vision was now fully back, and the pain had started to lessen enough to allow me to focus again.

When I looked across the field, a few things became clear.

Our reinforcements had arrived in record time. There were about thirty of Valtheril’s soldiers present, currently cleaning their blades and checking if the trolls were dead. Others were setting fire to the defensive structures the goblins had erected, and some were already leaving to fall back in line. In addition, I felt hooves trample the ground, circling around the area, and I imagined these were scouts.

Our enemy had been completely annihilated; their corpses were spread through the area. As far as I could tell, we’d suffered little enough, besides my injury, of course. There seemed to be one other soldier that had received a mallet to his armor as he sat down with his arm in a strange position, and his pauldrons sat on the ground next to him.

Another soldier knelt at his side, an empty potion in his hand. He seemed to be making sure the other was alright, and received a nod in response.

Yet, his arm was twisted, and I could tell he was in no position to fight any longer. It didn’t take long for another ride to come and have him hop on his horse. When they rode towards Dawnleaf, it was easy to guess they were off to see some proper medical treatment.

“Seems you were right,” I said. “They have been taken care of. That was quite the attack from their side, I must admit.”

I counted the bodies and got to about fifteen dead trolls. That number included the one I’d left to die earlier. With no other damage done to his corpse, I could only imagine it was my wound that had done him in.

In addition to the trolls, there were a few goblins that had joined them somewhere during the battle. Most of them were archers, but few of their arrows had hit. Their projectiles were scattered throughout, but I only saw one person who’d received a hit, and it hadn’t pierced their armor.

Seralyn’s arrows on the other hand had found their marks. She was currently walking around and collecting them, pulling them out of the enemies she’d slain… and there were quite a few of them.

“What a mess,” I let out as I saw the makeshift fortifications go up in flames after taking in everything I could see.

“Mess for sure,” Velariah continued. “But that’s what we're here for, and if they show up in large numbers like these, well, it makes our job easier.”

“And harder at the same time,” I noted. “I really need to be more careful. This armor will only protect me so much.”

“You do,” She agreed. “But at the same time, you saved our asses. Things may have gone way worse if you hadn’t.”

“Don’t go and make me feel good now. You could have run.”

“But I didn’t want to.”

“But you could have,” I said again. “Anyway, now that this is done. What do we do next?”

“We wait,” She said. “We’ll take a break now, a bit of a longer one, to make sure we’re all ready when it matters most.”

“Miss Elania,” Draco said as he approached. “Are you well? That looked painful.”

“It was,” I said with a chuckle. “But I’m okay. No need to worry. Thank you, Draco.”

“That’s good to see. You were great, as usual.”

“And you’re a real flatterer.” A smile appeared on my face, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

“And you still have your sense of humor. Good to see.”

The others approached as well, led by Eric. His eyes immediately darted to the dent in my armor, but a nod from me appeared to put him at ease.

“I’m surprised I haven’t lost anything,” I said, hinting at, and pointing my head towards the saddlebags attached to my sides. “These things are the best.”

Velariah chuckled as she walked over to the bags in question.

“Want something to eat, or drink maybe?” She asked.

“Some water would be nice, thank you.”

We all sat down, intending to make the most of this break. A few more words of admiration were said by the elves and I accepted them hesitantly. When I asked how they did, it became clear they'd learned a lot in the short time they knew us. Despite not being directly responsible for the death of anything, their actions had enabled Velariah, Draco, and a few of the soldiers to easily dispatch several monsters, and we made sure to let them know that this in itself was invaluable.

The pause lasted a good while, and eventually, more hooves sounded from afar, going back and forth. It seemed there was quite a bit of communication going on again.

Slowly but surely, the soldiers that remained started falling back, eventually leaving our party alone with the two that were stationed to our left and right.

But still, there was no signal to continue.

Afternoon turned into evening, and eventually, a messenger showed up telling us that we were done for the day. This prompted Draco to collect some firewood, and Seralyn to go out hunting in the area directly behind us.

She said that she was craving something else to eat, and promised us to not stray off far. Just to be safe, we decided that Nira would join her because she could alert us faster than anyone besides myself. However, everything we’d already passed through should be considered safe either way.

The skies turned red, which meant there wouldn’t be too much time left before darkness would set in. Draco had already finished the campfire so there would still be plenty of light left either way, and, like the optimist he was, he’d pulled out several metal pins he’d brought that were going to be used to cook whatever Seralyn would catch.

“Quite the optimist, aren’t you?” Velariah spoke my exact thoughts. How she did it, I had no idea.

Honestly.

It was kind of creepy.

“Don’t kid yourself, Miss Velariah. You know she’ll come back with a rabbit or two, maybe three,” Draco replied.

“It’s funny because it’s true,” I added.

“I suppose you’re right,” The white-haired elf said with a smile and a shrug. “But I do wonder what your reaction would be if she came back with nothing.”

“Nothing?” I heard Seralyn’s voice from behind the bushes at the edge of the clearing. Apparently, she’d heard us from quite far away.

Elven hearing was really something else, huh?

“You know I’d never show up with nothing,” She said triumphantly. “You’ll never guess what I found.”

She was still not in sight, which meant she was clearly playing with us. Either she’d found nothing, or she’d found something very interesting. Judging from the cockiness in her voice, option one was out of the question.

“Let’s see it,” Velariah said.

“Ta-daa,” She said as she appeared, holding a.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT. WAS THAT A MASSIVE TURKEY?

A turkey, larger than any I’d ever seen, was held up with both hands. It was so heavy that, despite her muscle, she’d have to seriously strain herself to even try holding it with one.

I wasn’t the only one staring; we all were. The grin on Seralyn’s face was one of pure joy and pride.

“Holy crap…” Velariah was the first one to speak.

“I know, I know,” The archer said. “I’m amazing. I hope y’all are hungry.”

“That has to be the largest Kul-Kul I’ve ever seen,” The knight continued in amazement. “I haven’t seen many, to be completely honest, but still.

What did she just call it?

Kul-Kul?

That was a new one. Not too hard to see where that name came from, though. The beast was dead, but when it was still alive, I reckoned the sounds it made weren’t so different from the ones back on Earth.

“An excellent catch,” Draco said with a large smile.

“Yep,” Seralyn said as she sat down. “And extremely useful in more ways than one. Would you like to clean it, Draco?”

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“With pleasure,” The lizardman said with a nod.

“Do try to be careful, I’d like the feathers, undamaged, especially the right wing’s ones. I intend to use those for myself. Maybe take those off first.”

That was a lot of information to take in at once, and only part of it made sense to me. The last bit of her sentence made it clear she was going to use them for arrows, but what was this about right wing feathers? What did that have to do with any of this?

I let it slip for now, but when we were alone again, that meant our party and nobody else, I’d definitely ask a few questions that were on my mind. I didn’t want to accidentally give away that I wasn’t from here, or actually look dumb in front of our new, temporary companions.

I had a hard time containing my curious nature, but watching Draco carefully pluck the turkey’s feathers was a decent enough distraction. As Seralyn had requested, he separated the feathers that came from each of the fowl’s wings, and after he was finished with them, the archer took each stack, wrapped them up in some cloth, and placed them in my saddlebags.

“I don’t need the rest,” She said. “You can go wild.”

The lizardman nodded and sped up the process as everyone else watched in silence, and I swore I could see them starting to salivate. I had to admit, even though I wasn't hungry, I wouldn’t, I couldn’t say no to some turkey.

Everything else in this new world had already tasted heavenly, and free-range, wild turkey might just top the list.

I was so going to find out.

“And we should probably cut this thing up a bit. Cooking this thing in its entirety is going to take hours, and we just don’t have that kind of time,” Velariah suggested.

Draco seemed to have at least a bit of experience doing this as his next few actions were done with elegance. He removed the beast’s tail by twisting it, and the beast’s beard by pulling. Then, he asked if anyone had a clean, sharp knife, and he was given one by Krelion.

I had a great time watching how this was done. The concept of personally cleaning and preparing one’s catch held major appeal to me. Buying it in stores, ready to put in the oven just seemed so… boring all of a sudden.

Draco’s actions surprised me. He created a cut near the breast and with a few agile hand movements, removed the entire layer of skin and feathers, revealing pink flesh underneath.

Holy crap. That looked way easier than I could have imagined.

Then, he cut off the breasts and had Seralyn place them above the campfire on a skewer.

“Have you done this before?” I asked, watching him make this appear easy.

“Just once myself, and one time being told how to do it,” He replied. “It’s hard to forget once you know how it’s done.”

“I can see that.”

“Only issue is that my claws are too big to properly gut it, so I may need one of you to help with that.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Seralyn offered.

“You got experience with it too?” I asked, surprised.

“Yep. You don’t?”

Her voice had her typical teasing tone in it which left me stunned and unsure how to react.

“Don’t worry, El. I have no idea how to do any of this either,” Velariah said soothingly, and with a smile. “I’m as fascinated as you are.”

“I hope y’all are hungry,” Seralyn continued with a wicked grin. “And I hope you will stay hungry. Even as you’re going to watch us gut this.”

Eric shrugged. “Can’t be worse than what we’ve seen today, no?”

“I suppose that is true.” The archer grinned.

“Also,” Draco said. “There is the other way of doing it, which is completely plucking it, but as Miss Velariah said, we can’t sit here all night. This is the quick and easy way.”

I nodded and watched him cut off the inedible parts of the legs, before cutting off the large quarters, which were placed onto another skewer to start cooking.

“Have to admit I’m impressed,” Krelion spoke up as Draco’s work neared completion. He just cut off the head and opened its rear up in preparation for Seralyn to remove its guts. “At both of you. Must be amazing to have someone who can hunt and then properly clean and prepare prey.”

“Certainly beats eating dried rations and bread every day,” Seralyn replied in a serious tone as she sat down.

“Well,” Krelion said with a chuckle. “I suppose I know what we need to look for, for our own party now.”

We let out a hearty laugh as the work continued. In the meantime, we decided that tonight’s watch consisted of Nira and Seralyn first, and then Eric and Draco in the second round. Seeing as we’d dealt with a large-scale attack this day, we considered the chances of anything funny happening at night extremely low, thus the choice of having only two people stay up.

Then, it’s a matter of watching Seralyn get her arm all bloodied, all while the food was cooking in the background. I had to admit that it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d expected from their talk, but I reckoned by now, I was getting used to a fair deal of gore.

The last bit of preparation was done, and slowly but surely, meat was getting ready for consumption, and as they were taken off their skewers, new pieces were put on. The loot was then divided evenly and we started what was going to be a lengthy, but wonderful dinner.

In the meantime, the world had already gone dark, adding even more to the ambiance. Stories about the day were being shared, and laughter followed some of them, especially the part where the goblins had used their own bodily fluids to put out fires.

I wasn’t focused on them too much, knowing exactly what happened and also feeling a bit guilty for being so careless. I was just munching some of the best meat I’d ever tasted in silence with Velariah seated before me.

“You’re awfully quiet,” She said with a whisper, not gaining attention from the others. “Anything wrong?”

“Nah, I’m just a bit… I don’t know.” I had trouble putting my thoughts into words and hoped that she’d get it from that as I didn’t feel like explaining it in great detail.

“I think I know what you mean. Today was rough, but hopefully, the worst part is behind us now.”

“That would be nice,” I spoke quietly. “We’ve been out only for a few days, and I already miss Gray and Minia.”

“That little spider’s really grown onto you hasn’t she?”

“More than I like to admit,” I said, wrapping my lower arms around her waist.

“We’ll be going home soon. Then, the next part of our adventure begins.”

“Zerdania,” I said with a sigh. “There’s still so much we need to do before then.”

“There will always be stuff to do before then. We just can’t do it all. Better get used to that.”

“That would be for the better, I guess. Can’t prepare for everything.”

“We’ll prepare as best we can before we head out, though, but there will always be surprises. Might wanna start thinking of a way to take Minia with us.”

“I’m sure we’ll find something for that. What I’m worried about is how we get a covered wagon through the desert.”

“Well,” She said with a grin. “You’ve already made great progress on that. We’ll order some of that Elvenwood as soon as we get back, and hopefully, that’s the solution to the problem.”

“Good idea,” I said, nodding. “And I was hoping to find another party member as well before we leave, but seeing as it’s short notice, I doubt it’s a good idea to take someone who we haven’t known for a while.”

“Yeah. That’s a bit difficult, isn’t it? I was going to suggest trying out some people. I mean, we have an open search, but even if we find someone suitable, we’ll be off for a good while. Chances are, they aren’t going to sit around and wait for us to return.”

“May just have to call that off… or decide to stay in Dawnleaf for a while longer.”

“We both know that that ain’t gonna happen,” She said with a chuckle. “You know how I am, I know how you are. It won't happen.”

“Definitely accurate,” I said with a grin of my own.

“How’s the Kul-Kul?” She then asked as I ate the last piece of meat I had in my hand.

“It’s simply amazing. I wasn’t hungry, but hot damn, I’d like some more of this.”

Velariah giggled at my reaction.

“Well, you’re in luck then. There’s so much of it that I don’t think that’s going to be an issue.”

“Now that’s just what I like to hear.”