It has been two weeks since the encounter with Siegfried after which Kara and I went to the Swamp. The Swamps are filled to the brim with insects and poisonous snakes or frogs hide around every corner.

We finally found what had been bugging the caravans when an old man ran into us, covered in blood. He is completely covered in leaves as some sort of camouflage.

“Don’t let him escape!” someone yells from the swamp.

[Beastmaster- lvl 35]

The Old man looks up at me with a manic glint in his eyes, pulling out a knife and stabbing me in the gut.

I clutch my stomach with my right hand, searing pain shooting through me as I pull out my revolver with my left. He runs away and tries to hide behind a log.

[Steady Aim], [Reap Shot]

My Bullet tears through his shoulder, quickly followed by a second one that finishes him off.

[Congratulations, you've defeated a Tamer of the Wilds-lvl35]

[Oblivion: A percentage of the target's highest stat (Mana Capacity) has been added to yours. +2 MC]

[Bounty:Hydra completed]

What?

“Someone’s here, get ready for round two!” the same voice from earlier yells out.

Kara already pulled out her daggers when I quickly reload my revolver as someone slashes through the undergrowth with a sword.

A group of four walks onto the path, weapons drawn and raised. The two people in the front are wearing studded leather armour, both wielding swords with revolvers at their hips. Two more people are kept to the back, one in ranger attire with a bow while the other looks like a Priest from the old stories with a white robe and a staff.

The swordsman at the front looks at me and the [Beastmaster] laying on the ground before sheathing his sword and throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Come on,” he yells, “ Fucking vulture!”

The Priestly woman's eyes widen and she runs towards me, dodging a grab from the [Bounty Hunter]. “He got stabbed, Vikram!”

I raise my revolver at her as Kara steps in front of me, causing the priestess to freeze up. “What do you want?” I ask, keeping pressure on my wound.

Vikram takes a step forwards and puts a hand on the Priestesses' shoulder, reprimanding her “What did I tell you?”

She sighs wearily, relaxing her shoulders and leaning onto her staff, “I can’t heal everyone if they don’t want to.”

She turns to me as her ally stows her bow away. “Can I heal you? That stomach wound looks serious.”

[Life - lvl 9]

“Sure,” I concede, stowing my revolver away, “Let’s camp together. We want to apologise for what I’ve done.”

Kara asks, sheathing her dagger, “We?”

The Priestess steps forward and puts a hand on my stomach, silently praying, “O' Holy Aone

I come before you today in need of your healing hand.

In you all things are possible.

Hold my heart within yours, and renew this mind, body, and soul.

[Prayer of Healing].”

A bright white light shines throughout the road, soothing my wounds and bestowing a calmness of mind I haven’t had in years. I can feel my stab wound closing beneath her hand, blood burned away by the bright lights.

“Thanks,” I say, grabbing her hand and shaking it, “I am Grant and my charming companion here is Kara.”

“Sup?”

The Ranger looks to Kara and nods to her, “Fleur.”

The Priestess turns around to the two swordsmen and introduces them “Our fearless leader here is Vikram and the gloomy Bounty Hunter there is Darryl. I am Merah. I just levelled from healing you, when was the last time you visited a doctor?”

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I let go of her hand and take a step back. “I’ve got a friend that is an [Apothecary].”

Vikram takes the lead, rifling through the [Beastmaster]s pockets, “Let’s go to our camp, we’ve got some bread from yesterday that we can share around a fire, maybe cook up a stew.”

Kara stands next to Fleur and crosses her arms. “I can make some stew.”

Darryl pulls his hat down, hiding his face, “You are our guests, we can’t let you cook.”

Kara and Fleur glare at him until he corrects himself “Ok, ok, you can cook.”

Vikram stands back up and quickly leads us to their camp, introducing the group at large “We are the Stars of Aone, a group of Bounty Hunters that mainly take on Bounties to protect people.”

“Aone?” I ask, vaguely remembering the name being mentioned in an old story and Merahs prayer.

“An old Goddess of Life and Justice, our Merah has always been fascinated with the old stories, even before the System appeared.”

Their camp turns out to be nothing special, just a few logs around a campfire in a rare dry spot of land.

Kara instantly goes over to the campfire and starts cooking, pulling out a dozen ingredients from her [Pantry], and starting to cut it up while Fleur hands her some of their supplies.

“Hey,” I approach Merah, “Could we talk in private?”

Vikram looks at me and chuckles, probably an inside joke of theirs.

Merah nods and follows me to the side, much to Vikram's amusement.

“What is it?” she asks once we leave earshot of the group.

I rub the back of my head, thinking of how to bring it up. “What do you know of your class?” I try, not being able to think of a better way to bring it up.

“Oh,” she says, “I assume you’ve met Siegfried.”

I disable [Death in Disguise] as I answer “Yes, do you know anything about these Classes?”

She clutches her staff in her hand as she replies “I told him to not tell anyone where I was going. Yeah, Did you manage to talk with your Patron yet?”

“He didn’t tell me anything,” I defend Siegfried,” Patron? Like a [Warlock] has?”

She pats my head with a smile on her face. “Kind of, you’ll see.”

Expecting some kind of revelation or contact to be established, I close my eyes, focusing on her hand on my head.

“What are you doing?” she asks, removing her hand.

“I thought you were going to show me my patron!” I quickly explain, feeling a slight blush creeping up my neck.

She chuckles, shaking her head. “No, I can’t do that. You have to do it yourself by listening to your class.”

Come on! How was I supposed to know?

“Alright, “ I say, ”What do you mean by listening to my class?”

“You will have to meditate on your class and the purpose you want to fulfil,” she explains.

“Okay,” I confirm, taking a step towards the campfire.

“Wait,” she says, grabbing my arm and pulling me into a tight hug.

She whispers into my ear as I can hear uproarious laughter coming from behind me, “Winning a bet, sorry.”

I wait a few seconds, loosely wrapping my arms around her waist, before awkwardly taking a step back and turning around to the campfire.

Darryl hands a coin to Merah as we join the rest around the campfire. “How do you always know?”

She slips the coin into a pouch on her belt and shrugs “I just have good intuition when it comes to people.”

Turning to me, Vikram pops a small berry into his mouth before asking “I assume you two took on the same bounty as we did.”

“Yeah,” I confirm, “We took on two bounties near here but it appears like we failed to clear both of them.”

“That sucks,” he agrees, handing me a berry, “What was the first bounty?”

I accept the berry and eat it, relishing the sweet flavour. “We had to take care of a Necromancer but he turned out to be rather nice and helpful.”

Darryl chuckles, cleaning his rapier, “We took that one too, and ended up helping the sheriff clean up the graveyard afterwards.”

“Wait,” Kara interrupts, stopping her cooking, “you met the Sheriff?”

“Yeah, didn’t you?”

Kara and I share a few seconds of embarrassment before I speak up “No, everyone said they didn’t have a sheriff for over thirty years.”

“I can assure you that they have a sheriff, Jeffrey gave us twenty coins even if we didn’t exactly clear the bounty and he said he’d take it down after washing up,” Merah says.

“I think your sheriff might be dead,” I say, already glad that we left that town.

“No, no,” Merah disagrees, “it sounds like he got forgotten, maybe he wanted to go undercover and cast a spell to have people forget him?”

Darryl shakes his head “No, he was no spellcaster.”

Merah steals a piece of carrot from Kara's board, earning herself a withering glare as she sits back down. “Can we go back and help them?”

“We have to stock up either way,” Vikram says, “so sure. We can check it out.”

We chat for a while, Kara cooking while Fleur looks over her shoulder, making one-word comments about the food and sharing small tips.

Night quickly comes and we all settle down in our bedrolls. I sit down and try to focus on my class, figuring out what Merah meant by listening to it.

What I want to do with my class…

I want to kill Idanu. I want to be free, free to do what I want.

No, that’s not quite it.

That’s not what I really want to do, it’s just what I have to do so I can do what I want. Which is…

I don’t know.

It sounds stupid, listening to a Class like it’s alive. She must be making fun of me.

[Siro is requesti- demanding a meeting, trance will commence.]