I head out early in the morning, a snow blizzard was just subsiding but there were still some freezing gusts of wind. I prepared all of my equipment for a worst case scenario so I wasn't really worried about the cold anyways:
armor:
* typical casual wear
* leather reinforced jacket and pants
* fur coat made from a wolf that I killed beforehand
* leather boots
weapons:
* single edged Ivory knife with an iron handle crafted from one of the wolf’s tusks
* a double-edged medium length sword from Father’s collection
other:
* sack with basic necessities
The sun was still only halfway above the horizon, the beautiful glittering of the falling snow mixed with the orange rays of the sun made for a spectacle with no rivals. I love it.
I start walking away from the still sleeping village and head outside the protective city walls. The two guards on standby give me some words of encouragement and with that, they open the big heavy metal doors.
The village is located on a strategic point from where you could see the entirety of a basin, with a big hill in the middle, on top of it, the village. They say that this was a big lake a long time ago but as the cold began, the basin turned to ice and little by little it was excavated and sold as a material to the merchants and used as a water supply. I slide down on of the sides of the hill heading towards the closest lair of Wyverns that I know of. I arrive at the bottom of the old lake and make myself way through big chunks of ice that made for an incredibly hard to walk on terrain. arrived at the other side I feel a presence of a monster, silently squatting down, I slid to a nearby bush, and wait anxiously. This isn't my first time hunting but it is my first time doing it alone. I hear the crackling of a few tree branches and look in the direction of the sound. there, a boar about the size of a human kid is eating the few berries that can be found around here. I decide that this boar might make for a good lunch, but then decide not to kill as it would be a pain to drag along for a long way. I pick up the closest rock and throw it near the boar. The boar immediately reacting to the sound escapes in the depths of the evergreen forest. I get up and continue the walk. If I remember correctly the wyvern lair is supposed to be at the other end of the forest Inside a cave on the start of the mountain. I decide that it's best to continue through the forest rather than going around it as it would take too much time. This forest, in particular, is around the whole lake except in a few points where the merchants and the city folk cut down the trees to create passing points for the arriving and departing merchants. the forest is called: ‘the forest of the night’, as during the night time there are strong monsters that come out from the caves that lead to an underlying dungeon called Kratos. I’ve never been in the dungeon myself as they say that it's too dangerous for anyone under 16, so I have to wait for my coming of age ceremony.
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I walk into the dark forest that blocks most of the sunlight, my eyes adapt quickly to the change and I speed up my pace, the reason is that I have no wish of staying here during the nighttime. I run on the shallow snow and through the trees and the few scattered bushes, always keeping an eye on my surroundings. After a while, I feel like I made quite the progress and arrive to the middle of the forest. I don't feel tired at all, even after running for around an hour incessantly. This is because of my half-elven-half-white one blood circulating in my veins, and the training that I had for about a year now. The middle of the forest is easy to recognize as it has big rocks sticking out from the ground at fairly even distances from each other. The almost perfect sequence is quite eerie in itself. But, the scarier part is that the dungeon entrances are usually under one these boulders, if I look for it I might find the entrance, but that is not what I came for. I rest a while sitting on one the big rocks and analyze my surrounding. I notice a few goblins that are fighting with a small pack of black fangs, the wolf species from which I made my coat from, but decided not to interfere. During the one year of training that I had, I realized that every living being has a mana force in this world. When I killed my first prey I noticed a strange power that surged into me and realized that when you kill a living being in this world you get its mana power and part of its strength. When I asked my parents about this phenomena they looked quite surprised and told me that realizing that at this young age is quite rare. Which pretty much means that I have a very good affinity with mana and magic.
I hop off the big rock and continue running towards the other side of the forest.
On the way there I catch a glimpse of the sun and it looks like its about 10:00 already. And yes the time here is pretty much the same as on earth, a day here is made up of 24 kask which is roughly 24 hours. Next time I see an edible monster I’ll take it down. And just as I think about that a two-meter long winter snake appears before me, it immediately attacks from upfront bearing its venomous folding fangs. I quickly jump to the side evading its attack and take out my longsword. This monster is best fought at a distance, a drop of its venom can paralyze you in an instant. With that, I take my fighting stance and wait silently. The snake is analyzing the situation as it didn't expect me to evade the attack, after a few moments of silence the snake starts an attack towards my legs, being almost triple than me in length, if it got the chance to twist around me, it would be a matter of time and I would most certainly fall prey to its strength, I jump forward aiming my sword at the head of the snake, then slash down on my opponent faking that my sword gets stuck in the ground, the snake evades the slash and is now behind me, as expected. The snake raises his head from the ground baring its fangs again, certain of victory... I quickly turn around at the last moment before the snake could bite me, and with a diagonal slash I cut the snake in two horizontally. The body of the snake falls onto the snow in front of my feet, creating a small puddle of blood. “Ah lunch finally”
After setting camp and roasting the meat of the snake, I ate about ¼ th and decided to keep the rest for a later date. After erasing all of the traces of me ever being here I headed off again. After about 30 minutes of running, I finally saw the end of the forest. Now I am standing just at the last rows of trees observing a very unnatural scenario. There was a pack of hobgoblins riding on about 30 black fangs. Hobgoblins are usually extremely stupid, just like normal goblins, rarely they are able to learn the common language and thereafter become the leader of the pack, but this time it looks like the leader must be a really developed one. At this moment I understood that the simple goblins that I saw back in the forest were actually trying to capture the wolves not kill them. This is quite problematic if their forces are going to increase they will become a constant threat to the merchants and travelers. I’d better report this to father when I get back.
I patiently wait for the group to pass and then run to the start of the mountain, the mountain got fairly steep after only about 20 meters. But if I remember correctly there should be a whole on the ground around here… The description of the location stated that the wyverns had a whole like cave lair that should be around here. I climb up as much as I can and scan the area below me, after 10 seconds I spot a black patch of ground, as I slowly get closer to it, it becomes obvious that there is no ground there but just the darkness of the cave. Now that I found the entrance I decide that it's time for hunting.