It was already night. A campfire lit the side of the road, 5 shadows were created around the campfire, and just 20 meters away from it was a newly made grave, 2 of it.
The five were a strange combination of campers.
An old man, first of all, was cooking the meat carved from the Wyrm, its aroma wafting through the air and it kept taking away the concentration of a boy who was practicing magic.
The same boy who was meditating couldn’t properly concentrate because of the smell of the meat. Simon was trying hard but the smell was failing him. Another boy was watching him wondering what he was doing.
The noble sighed, the frontier for him was a strange place, the boy who was practicing Flow was stupidly powerful, he actually still had the energy to carve up the Wyrm. He glared at the two adventurers who tried to kill him but the two were totally already behind it.
The Swordsman’s name was Quirt while the warrior who was using an axe was Uzi, the archer’s name, the one that was killed was named Piper. The 2 melee fighters were members of a peddling family before but they were left on the road because of food shortage, while Piper the older one helped the 2 of them. The trio had been together ever since.
Although they were registered as adventurers they would steal and even commit heinous acts as long as money was involved.
“Boy, you can stop now and continue later, let’s eat,” the old man said. There was a ton of meat just beside him ready to be seared on top of the hot stone.
Simon who was clearly starving took out his carving knife and used it to pick up the meat. He directly plunged his mouth into the meat biting it without mercy and began chewing it.
“Oh… hmph! Good!” Simon said while his eyes were closed, he was savoring the meat.
By the reaction of the boy, the other 3 gulped and their stomach grumbled.
“I’ll give you some don’t worry, there’s a lot to go around!” the old man said.
The noble suddenly stood up, he was young, just a bit older than Simon. “They tried to kill me! They killed my horse too! You shouldn’t give them anything!” the boy demanded even stomping his feet.
“Sit down boy or I won’t give you some! Sit down!” the old man said forcing the noble boy to sit down back into the ground, well he was really hungry.
The old man placed another well-sliced meat and began cooking. He divided it into four pieces using his carving knife, he did it like clockwork. Like that last meat, he sprinkled some salt and spread it using his knife.
“If any of you could use wind or fire magic, can you increase the heat?” the old man asked.
The noble raised his hands and then pointed his palm at the flame, he knew what the old man wanted, Elijah’s main element was wind. Using his magic he blew through the flame creating a draft making the flame go larger.
“Hmm, you have good control with magic, why didn’t you use it earlier in your fight?” the old man asked, in a few seconds the meat began sizzling.
“I’m… my magic capacity is very low,” Elijah said regrettably but he smiled “-That’s also the reason why my magic control is good.”
“You know you can increase your capacity by expending all of your magic,-” the old man then pointed to the boy who was eating meat, it was almost finished “-After this, he will be emptying all his magic reserves by practicing magic Flow, he has been doing it since hmm… he was little?” the old man was not sure anymore but all he could remember was it happened when Jedi was still traveling together with them.
Elijah looked at Simon. If what he was saying was true then the boy must be a very powerful individual by now. Remembering how the fight went on earlier in the morning, it was the boy who finished the Wyrm by lodging a sword on the back of its head. ‘The old man must be his teacher, a mentor perhaps’ Elijah thought.
“You are really good, this one is done now, use your knives to get one slice!” the old man smiled offering the meat on the frying stone.
The two adventurers immediately took out their own utility knives and took a slice of the meat. The noble was baffled, he didn’t have any knives on his person.
“Is this your first time going outside picnicking aren’t you?” the old man asked.
The 2 adventurers began eating the meat. It made Elijah a bit annoyed that they were the ones who got to eat it first.
“Hey, boys! Give this boy a spare won’t you?!” the old man said to the two adventurers.
Quirt, the swordsman glared at the boy because he killed their friend but they did try to kill him and their party were ones that lived and understood how life was in the frontier. He still had a knife in his back, he handed it to the noble.
“Make sure to heat it up first, you don’t wanna know how I’ve used it before!” the adventurer teased.
“Don’t worry boy, it's clean I assure you,” the old man said countering Quirt’s words.
“Tsk,” Quirt clicked his tongue but he didn’t glare at the old man.
Elijah grabbed the knife, it was actually a well-maintained knife.
“That’s yours, remember to never trust strangers,” Quirt’s words of wisdom.
The noble grabbed the knife tightly, engraving the lesson he learned from the adventurer’s words. The frontier was really dangerous but in some turn of events, it seemed that the monster that probably killed his brother was already slain as from the words of the two adventurers. Elijah took a piece of meat using the knife that was given to him. His senses told him to bite on it so he did.
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“It's… so good!” he muttered biting a small piece of it.
“Why are you here boy?” the old man suddenly asked, he took a new slab of meat and placed it in the heated stone, he was planning to cook another one for Simon who had already finished his meat but was still ready for another, “Didn’t you hear me?” the old man followed up since the noble just silently took another bite.
“I’m looking for my brother… he came to the frontiers to hunt a monster… a monster that your boy killed,” Elijah said and took another bite.
The old man smiled, somehow he knew what the noble boy was looking for, he then stared at Simon, the Black Hood said that he killed plenty of those who tried to hunt him down. “...Simon! Does this boy look familiar to you?” a sudden question from the old man.
“No!” Simon said.
“I see…” Elijah said after the smaller boy answered then he realized something “Does this monster eat the humans it hunts?” he asked with wide-open eyes, there might be a chance that he had just eaten the monster that ate his brother.
“No… Sylvan Wyrm eat animals but would never eat humans… they hunt them though,” the old man answered.
With a sigh of relief, the noble turned back eating again.
“-And in the case that they did swallow one they would vomit it out of their system,” the old man suddenly added a piece of new information.
The noble almost tried to spit when he heard ‘swallow one’ from the old man then the statement of the old man turned out to be still safe.
“I’m going to go home tomorrow… but these idiots killed my horse,” Elijah said.
“That’s good, Simon this one is good to go!” the old man said pointing that the meat he had just placed was already sizzling.
“Ouch!” the noble boy suddenly said.
In reaction, Simon reached something from his bag, it was a bunch of herbs. “Use this, put it on your wounds!” the boy said.
“Boy, that’s a Hawaran Herbs, where did you find them?” the old man suddenly asked.
“I didn’t found them, it had the same smell of the herbs the chief in the village put on you!” Simon answered.
The boy who was listening put the herbs on his wounds.
“Just cover it up so it could be effective,” the old man added.
The boy followed and teared some of his cloak.
Hawaran Herbs were things that beginner adventurers collect, they grow all year round as long as one find a spot where it would always grow.
<--->
It was dangerous to travel alone in the frontier, one must at least have a ride to escape and evade monsters or a good party to survive battles against monsters. The young noble and the 2 remaining adventurers decided that they would be partying for a while until they reached Elford’s Castle.
The old man and the boy still needed to dispose of the body of the Wyrm that was still lying around the forest. The 2 adventurers actually offered help but the old man just gave them a tooth, rather than just getting the rewards for reporting it the old man wanted them to say that they were the ones that killed the Wyrm.
The old man gave them a piece of tooth from the Wyrm.
Now the old man was sitting on a rock while instructing Simon on how to dismantle more of the body of the Wyrm.
“Simon! Don’t try to cut the bone! Use your knife and trace it!” the old man said while he was watching Simon make mistakes.
It was the first time Simon had encountered that kind of monster, although he was not that bloody since they let the blood drain yesterday, the smell of the corpse was getting on his nose.
A few hours into the work, Simon extracted a good amount of meat and organs from the Wyrm.
The old man then hung the skin of Wyrm in makeshift branches. Simon laid the meat into the stone putting some salt to turn it into a dry meat.
“How about a spar?” the old man asked as he was busy putting up the skin. He turned his head and the boy was already looking at him. All he needed was a nod and the boy nodded.
<--->
Late in the night. The 2 decided to sleep this time on the ground, after the battle earlier, there were no beasts or monsters that were around, unlike the normal monsters found in the dungeons and such, monsters that lived outside the dungeon could feel fear and they were not programmed to attack dungeon divers.
They even had a campfire burning so their sleep was quite comfortable, they had sufficient heat on them.
The boy was sleeping soundly but not the old man, his face kept on twitching.
The old man woke up again to a dream from his past. It had been like this for the past few days, dreaming about the island.
He tried to rise up into a sitting position but his body was in pain. Still, he grunted as he forced himself up.
The boy was really getting better, the boy did land some hits on him. Too bad his sword was fucked up again. “Of course, I didn’t teach him that,” the old man muttered. If the boy’s weapons would always get fucked up because he couldn’t use magic edge then he could just take monster parts to make one.
The old man nodded but then a searing pain emerged on his head, he didn’t scream but it felt like his head was being split apart, his ears were attacked by a sharp sound. He tried to regain himself holding his head up.
If he could only use magic to diffuse it a bit he would but the Pam that fixed him last time said that he couldn't use it because it would be too painful and that could probably shorten the life span that he didn’t graciously have.
After shaking for a while the tremor and pain finally stopped. The old man immediately looked at the boy, it seemed that he was still asleep. He didn’t want the boy to see him like that.
<--->
Simon kept on checking at the old man, it was morning now, they stayed in the forest where he slayed the Wyrm for days and now they were walking down the road.
Unlike before the old man told him they would need to travel by the main road different from how they usually travel off-road.
“Are you okay?” the boy asked as the old man was beginning to fall far behind him. He was getting really slow and was sweating hard.
The old man then stopped moving and just stared at the boy “I can’t move…” the old man said then he sat down like his knees and feet collapsing under him.
The boy immediately ran back to look at him. Something was wrong with him, was he already dying? The boy was a bit panicking.
“Simon, stop making that face… I… want to go back into the island… let’s go back to the Fisher Man’s Village,” the old man said. As he tried to stand up, he failed then he reached out to Simon. The boy pulled him up easy.
“We’ll just wait for a passing cart here,” the old man notified the boy as he tried to find a good place to sit on.
“You are going to die?” the boy asked.
“Probably but not yet… I’ve still got something to teach you, you brought it with you, right? The dulled sword?” the old man pointed at the back of Simon.
The boy immediately took out the sword that got stuck in the Wyrm’s body. It was dulled now, the hot temperature of the Wyrm’s body melted the sharpened edge of it.
“You are an idiot because you can’t use Magic Edge even though I taught you so I’ve got a better solution for you,” then the old man showed his palm and Simon placed the dull sword on the old man’s hands. “-You should just take monster parts that you can sharpen and turn it into weapons!” the old man smiled.
The old man then took out his own sword. Then he took out two pieces of whetstone from his pocket. Simon had seen the old man do this before in the dungeon when they dived before.
“Follow me, I will teach you how to sharpen a weapon!” the old man’s fierce smile made it look like he was feeling well.
“What if the monster part is already sharp?” the boy asked watching the old man check out the dull blade.
“Then that’s fine as long as you craft it for you to be able to use it!” the old man then began sharpening Simon’s sword. “Watch closely, the shape of the blade and your movement must match or you will alter the blade, you don’t want that.”
The boy watched silently.
“Simon… the Wyrm’s meat tastes good right?” the old man began a conversation.
“Yeah,” Simon could still remember how it tasted.
“Since you can not use magic edge, try to avoid fighting monsters who can use magic, unlike humans, monsters have a natural ability to use magic by their instinct…. though their meat tastes really good,” the old man was back to himself.
“I see…” the boy drooled.
The old man glared at Simon making the boy concentrate on what the old man was teaching him. They kept it up until night, and they camped very close to the main roads but it was not until the 3rd day of waiting did a carriage passed on the main roads.