Chapter 6 – Mannoroth Bandits (part 2)
Scene 1: Tracking
To find out where their hideout is I would have to find out the trail they left behind by them and track it back. Tracking is an art, at least that's what grandpa used to say. Even though he was a weapons master he knew enough about tracking to put experienced hunters to shame. He always used to say about one of his companions who was a hunter and how he was the best tracker to have ever lived. Grandpa learned this tracking method from him and naturally wanted to teach me. You could say humans are pack animals like wolves. They find peace when they are in groups and they enjoy being in groups. As such they also hunt in groups. When hunting in a group it is much more safe and escalates the probability of survival which is what everybody wants. While group hunting in a forest if it's a well balanced pack they should have an experienced hunter with them for he is the one responsible for tracking, scouting and reconnaissance.
I never liked hunting in groups as I was like a lone wolf, always solo. Grandpa knew of my preferences and decided to take extra care in teaching me how to track. Tracking and stealth was important for solo hunters cause that's how they survive in a forest and how they get an edge over their enemies.
Alzier: “When hunting something first we have to look for the tracks left behind. We have to find out what we are hunting, where it's going, what are it's characteristics and all that from these tracks. Right now we are hunting a iron tusked boar as can be seen from the hoof marks.”
Lucas: “You could find out what animal it is from just a hoof mark grandpa. You're awesome.”
Right now grandpa and me were hunting for dinner inside the mannoroth forests and grandpa was teaching me about tracking.
Alzier: “Yes Lucas. You can find out which animals mark it is from their tracks. Actually if you are experienced enough you could find out about their age, size, current condition and all that just from the tracks. See this hoof mark. The depth of it suggests that the boar was in no hurry when passing by and it's a heavy one. When it's passing slowly it means either it's old and weak or it's mature and confident about it's power. The prints here suggest that this one is more powerful perhaps on it's transition into maturity as can be found out from the forceful stomping while walking.”
I was kind so surprised grandpa could find all these from the tracks alone that I was thinking maybe he is making these up to impress me. Grandpa saw me eyeing him with incredulity.
Alzier: “Haha as skeptic as ever eh Lucas. Let's go find out if what I said is true or not.”
We started to go to where the tracks were leading us. I have no doubt about the fact that it's an iron tusked boar as this part of the forest is kind of littered with them. They are huge boars the size of cows with a muscly structure, an impenetrable defense and iron like tusks. Kind of ugly looking with short brown fur, long snout with huge nasal openings, they snort all the time to make unpleasant nasal sounds to intimidate their opponents. But even considering all this they are kind of easy to take care of. All these boars ever know is to charge in a straight line with a purpose to build enough momentum to squish the opponent to a paste. Also it's nearly impossible for them to change directions mid charge, not that they try to. When they build enough momentum they don't even look where or what they are charging at. So all you have to do is let them start building the momentum, move out of the way, hack at them while they pass through, hack at them again if they crashed into something, which is most of the time and get out of their way before they regain their bearings.
This is kind of easy to say but difficult to put in practice cause once it starts building momentum its are gonna come at you really, really fast and you will only get a small window to opportunity to get out of its way. Well you could let it chase you so that it's much more easier to move out of the way but then it becomes difficult to attack back. Also you have to take into account the size of these things. When it comes charging at you it feels like you are standing in front of a huge ass train and the fact that it's coming right at you coupled with their snorting sounds which vibrates against your heart and that ugly intimidating form, you would be hard pressed to be in a calm enough state to move out of the way. If you could do all of this it still doesn't mean you could win. It has a tough skin which is so powerful that it's nearly impossible to pierce and even if you pierce it the muscles underneath are so hard that your blade won't be able to move an inch. Either you have to have an enchanted bladed or use mana augmentation in you blade to make it powerful enough which are the only ways available to fight this thing. I know all this cause I have fought it before. Iron tusk boar meat when cooked using a special method which grandma knows is so awesome that you would want it more and more and we used to hunt the boar often for the same reason.
Alzier: “Remember Lucas when tracking something never walk over it and damage the tracks, we might need to double back in case we lost it.”
We started walking where the tracks were leading us. I was listening to Grandpa's teachings and trying to identify the tracks with him.
Alzier: “See the broken twigs and the bruised plants. The dark bruises indicate that the tracks are fresh. Also if you look closely you can find out the marks where it's skin has chaffed against the trees. See, these kinds of marks can only be found out by anticipating certain things like what kind of animal we are talking about and what kind of mentality it has. If it was a steel skinned panther then it would take extra care not to leave behind any trails and it would only travel in stealth mode. It would be pretty difficult to find it's trail that it's borderline impossible. Whereas this boar walks around in pride. It's kind of arrogant about it's own defense that it goes around making as much noise and destruction as it wants so it's kind of easy to track. Also when you track be careful that you always stay downwind. We don't want the beast to get our scent. Most probably the beast would be walking facing upwind direction while walking so as to find out about danger from ahead. They will face downwind when stopping so that they can't be startled ”
We were following the tracks and we could hear that there were some sounds coming from ahead of us. Grandpa signaled me to quiet down and we ducked under some bushes so as not to be seen by the boar. It was exactly as grandpa said, the boar was huge and healthy. Considering the skin color and tusk length of the boar it is just about to get mature and grandpa could really find these out from just the tracks alone.
Alzier: “See I told you so. Now let me get today's dinner ready.”
The boar was startled by the sound and turned towards us. Grandpa started walking towards it calmly with a sheathed sword in his left hand. After all stealth is not his strong suit. He is not an assassin but a weapons master and weapons masters are known for rushing into a battlefield without any kind of planning or strategy. The boar became angry and is thumping it's front leg into ground shaking up the forest. It was creating intimidating snorting sounds that was akin to roars which scared of all the small creatures in the vicinity. Even after all this grandpa was standing there in a relaxed manner not at all minding the little show the boar was putting on.
The boar might have been pissed by his attitude because it roared loudly and started charging towards grandpa. For something this big it was very fast. It build up momentum pretty fast and was coming dangerously close to grandpa, whereas he was still not moving. And just when it was about to hit him grandpa disappeared from his spot and reappeared to the left of the boar with enough room for it not to hit him. All I saw was a flash and sound of blade being unsheathed. The boar suddenly lost all it's momentum. It was rapidly losing it's life force and limped forward for a few meters and plumped down. I could see that half of its neck was severed cleanly and blood was gushing out into the forest floor and grandpa was standing with a sword dripping blood in his right hand and a sheath in his left. This was my grandpa's favorite sword. It didn't have any enchantments neither was it created from any hard and rare materials. It was just an ordinary steel sword. Grandpas dwarven friend made it for him. This proves that the best swordsman is not the guy who could fight a dragon with a legendary artifact, but the one who could use a toothpick to defeat a dragon.
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I could never even imagine piercing this boar without an enchanted blade or augmenting it with my mana. Grandpa did neither. If you could achieve his level of speed while wielding a sword I think you could use a twig to cut through steel. As I was looking at grandpa with awe he just swung his sword so fast that all I saw was a blur. He might have swung it a few times and when he stopped it looked clean and all the blood came off. He silently sheathed it. I was nowhere near as strong as grandpa but someday I will be.
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Now tracking the hideout of these guys will be easy. After all the rarest thing in the mannoroth forest is the humans. It was pretty easy as expected. These guys were really a bunch of idiots who never really cared about somebody tracking them. Let alone covering their tracks it feels like they were kind of making it easy for everybody. You don't need to be a hunter to find their tracks, a 10 year old kid could do it. When I found their hideout I was really disappointed. It was just a cloth used to create a kind of tent with some objects strewn around. There were about 12 people standing huddled together discussing something. About four girls were tied together nor for from them. One of them looked middle aged while the rest looked young. Among them was a girl with glasses on who looked really good looking. She must be from a well to do family as can identified from her rosy complexion. From the robe she was wearing it could be deduced that she was a mage, but taking her age int consideration she must be a student. How did a mage apprentice get caught up with the bandits in a forest alone. Form what grandma used to say mages are considered to be pretty rare and they are revered all over the world. Then they were not common as to stumble upon in a bandit camp.
Those 12 people where discussing about what to do with the prisoners and I decided to rescue them. After all I couldn't just leave them alone in here and also I could get some information about the current world from them. I sheathed my sword silently to my right hand and started compressing air in my left. That is magic where you compress air in your hand and release it at the enemy. It has varying effects depending on the grade of the spell. A grade I compressed airball could push a normal guy away and make him disoriented for a bit. When a grade II compressed airball hit a normal guy he will be blasted away and he may suffer injuries like a light concussion and will be stunned for a pretty long time. Now from grade III onward it gets dangerous. If a normal guy gets hit in the head directly by a grade III compressed airball his skull would crack and will die immediately or if lucky remain in a coma. If he gets hit anywhere in the body it would cave in causing instant death or being disabled for life unless healed by a magician. Grade IV compressed airball when comes into contact makes a normal guy into meat paste. Grade V and above is so powerful that it could be used as siege spells and AOE attacks. Humans usually stop at creating grade III spells. A grade IV spell takes so much time and mana that it's only possible by an archmage or multiple mages which then becomes impossible to control as you need precision control to avoid the airball into exploding while creating. Even archmages don't use it as it's not viable and intelligent enough to waste enormous amounts of time and mana for a single spell and moreover it needs fine tuned mana control and absolute concentration to create it. Above grade IV humans don't even think of it. It's only capable by dragons or certain wind attributed beasts.
The one I created was a grade II compressed air all. I threw the airball into the middle of those guys and it exploded when it came to contact with the ground while creating a loud noise and blasted everybody away. All twelve of them were stunned and they were kind of easy pickings thereafter. I then freed all the four prisoners. Among them the mage was staring very intensely at me. I could see the sparkles in her eyes and she's looking at me like she found some kind of interesting specimen for her to experiment on. She had dark brown hair tied above her head in a bun. An oval face with blue sparkly eyes and nice tight lips. There was a bruise mark under her left eye which might be the result of bandit manhandling. It's purple colored and looks painful. The mage clothing she was wearing does not give me any chance to ascertain her body shape or structure but I am pretty sure that she has a kind of shapely figure.
“Hi my name is Mina, and thanks for saving us.”, She was smiling while saying that. The smile of beautiful girl is always contagious and I smiled back while replying.
Lucas: “It's alright. My name is Lucas. But how did you guys get caught by them?”
All of the other girls were looking at me like I am some kind of savior.
Mina: “Well I am a mage student from the Iolus academy and I was scouring the Mannoroth Forest looking for research information. While I was too grossly engaged in a herb these guys attacked me from behind.”
“My name is martha and these are my daughters lily and rachel”. It was the blond middle aged woman.
Martha: “We were looking for some medicinal plants when these brigands attacked us. We cannot even imagine what would have happened if you hadn't come. We would be eternally grateful for it.”
Lucas: “No need. I was just passing by when I happened on you guys. If you are going to the village maybe I could come with you. I have kind of lost my way in here.”
Martha: “Of course please follow me”
She started walking with her children and me and mina were walking behind them. Mina was still looking at me curiously.
Lucas: “Is there something in my face. You have been staring at me for some time.”
Mina: “No it's just that I never expected to find an advanced wind mage in here. And moreover you could fight with a sword also.”
Lucas: “No I am not a mage just an adventurer.”
Mina: “An adventurer using a grade II compressed wind spell. Even advanced mages have trouble with that. Let alone adventurers.”
It seems like I have to be much more careful about my magic from now on. In here adventurers and mages are different. There are adventurers who are capable of magic. But they are only use basic ones. Unless you are a hero level adventurer you will not be using high level magic. That's that part of repertoire of mages. Creating advanced level magic requires hard work and dedication into researching it which is only possible if you are a full time mage. So it must have been quite a shock to see someone like me using a grade II compressed airball. After all compressing a spell requires precision mana control otherwise it will explode on your face. But the fact that only archmages could do it is new. So the magical skill of the world might have decreased and I have to be careful about it so as not to get any unwanted attention.
Lucas: “That's the only high level spell I can use correctly. I had to take a long time to prepare it before rushing out.”
Mina: “Oh... Who is your teacher? I haven't seen or heard about you in Iolus academy. Somebody of your age who could use a grade II advanced spell would have been famous.”
Lucas: “Well I have never been to any school. I was taught by my grandma. She was an advanced mage.”
Mina: “That's truly awesome. So where are you from and what are you doing here in Mannoroth forests.”
Lucas: “Oh I am from up north. I just decided to become an adventurer so for getting enough experience I decided to train in the forest.”
Mina: “Oh”
Lucas: “What are you doing here. Did Iolus academy start a branch here in Nubia.”
Mina: “No the Iolus academy is still sending students in conjunction with the execution of the Mannoroth Bandits.”
Lucas: “Execution of the Mannoroth Bandits?”
Mina: “Oh you don't know about it?”
Lucas: “No what is it?”