Chapter 30: Freedom!

If adventurers specialise in hunting monsters, then mercenaries specialise in hunting humans. They often have lower moral standards than adventurers, and there are more than a few who are willing to do anything – so long as the price is right.

Similarly to adventurers, mercenaries are classified in ranks – copper, iron, steel, et cetera. Mercenaries place great importance on their reputation - even more so than adventurers - because unlike adventurers than can pick and choose their quests, mercenaries can be denied contracts if the contractor finds them unsuitable.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that they put on a pleasant face and help old ladies across the street – no, they focus more on appearing imposing and maintaining as perfect a contract record as possible.

Mercenaries rarely place their home country over a heavy purse, so while it does seem strange, it isn’t uncommon for, for example, humans to be hired by another country to fight against Stalia in wars.

…Now that I mention it, I think human mercenaries have the lowest sense of patriotism of the lot. Hm.

- An unknown scholar

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“Back already?” Glade says from behind me, making me stop and whip my head around in surprise.

How long has he been walking behind us?

Lute on his back, the satyr takes a large bite from an apple and chews it with relish before swallowing. “You sounded all too eager to leave just yesterday.”

“Sure were.” I sigh. “But we had to come out in front of a whole bunch of soldiers, didn’t we? No choice but to go back in.”

Already finished the apple, Glade tosses it to one side and proceeds to lick the juice off his fingers. “Soldiers? Is there a war?” He asks nonchalantly.

“Aye, there is.” Jakin answers sullenly. “And just when people were starting to think we might be getting towards peace.”

Glade laughs, the loud sounds piercing through the forest’s characteristic silence.

Jakin looks at him uncomfortably. “That wasn’t funny.”

Glade shrugs, clearly not paying much attention to his words. “Who is it this time?” He asks instead.

“Almost everyone.” I say grimly.

“What, the monsters too? Halflings and giants?” Glade asks lightly.

I frown. “You know what I mean. Four of the five kingdoms, last I heard.”

He shrugs again, then his head darts to one side. “Ooh, butterfly!” He immediately starts chasing after it.

Before he can vanish again, I call after him, “Can we leave again? Preferably the area to the north-west outside of anyone’s territory.”

“Yes and no!” He calls back just as I lose sight of him.

Xiltroth did mention that nobody manages to leave the forest in the direction they want… I suppose we aren’t exceptions.

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Unlike last time, we don’t find the exit quickly. In fact, several days pass by with us just wandering around. Well, food and water are provided to us for the most part, so it’s not as if we’re feeling particularly rushed to leave.

Speaking of food… I spot a scattering of small shapes in the grass. Motioning to the others, I crouch down to pick them up.

“What’re these things?” Jakin asks in confusion, pinching a tiny pod between his thick forefinger and thumb. “Are they even edible? Seems a bit too hard to me.”

“They’re peanuts.” I say. “Break open the shell, the inside is edible.”

Jain easily crushes the shell in his gauntleted hand and picks out the nuts – although peanuts are technically a legume – within. He throws it into his mouth and chews.

“They’re better roasted and salted, but neither of those are really options right now.” I say regretfully.

“Hm.” Jakin grunts. “This would go well with beer.”

“Yeh’re right!” Exclaims Boaz. The two start rapidly picking them all up, and I only manage to grab a few and secret them away securely in a small pouch before they’re all gone.

One day, I’m going to get my peanut butter. Even if I have to grow these peanuts myself.

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“OI! Shoo! Shoo!” I hear Glade shouting somewhere nearby. “Get out of here you mangy cat! Go eat everything somewhere else!”

We soon see Glade come running through the trees, brandishing his lute and chasing a cat. They both disappear a moment later, only his occasional shouts lingering behind.

“…What?” Says Xiltroth, voicing what everyone is thinking.

Why would he… It couldn’t have been, right?

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In one of those peaceful periods between eating and being attacked by rogue monsters, we are simply walking through the forest.

As we go, I hear the faint sound of shouting from up ahead. We share a glance, but shrug and walk on regardless. We know all too well how ineffective following sounds can be in this forest. May as well keep the same direction.

By some twist of luck, we end up reaching the source of the sound, a demon soldier panickedly fighting off a pair of wolves.

Drawing my warhammer, I leap in and slam it in a downwards arc, crushing through one of the wolves’ skulls. The other takes one look at the mass of gore that used to be it’s ally and beats a hasty retreat.

“Hey, are you alright?” I ask the man.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!” He screams, running away immediately.

I turn around. “My scars aren’t that scary, are they?”

“Nah.” Says Jakin, stone-faced. “You’re just that ugly.”

“Damn, walked straight into that.” I curse.

Looking off in the direction the man ran, I shrug. Doubt we’ll ever see him again.

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A week later, we pop out of the forest again. This time, without anyone around.

Thank God.

We quickly find a flat area, and Boaz sits down with all the maps to try and figure out where on earth we are.

“Alright.” He says after half an hour of intently poring over the maps. “I can’t be sure without a better vantage point, but we be in one of three locations – two in Stalia and one in Morrock.”

“So, where do we go?” I get straight to the point.

“Not sure.” He says uncertainly. “See, if we’re in Stalia, it should be quicker to cut through their territory to the outside.”

“What with the war going on, that would be much too dangerous for us, wouldn’t it?” I ask.

“True.” Boaz nods. “Then we’ll follow the edge of the forest west. Everyone stays away from it, so we should be able to pass through without much trouble.”

Xiltroth frowns. “We came across those soldiers just outside the forest last time.”

“True, but it’s less risky than moving through the countryside.” I remind him.

“Alright, follow the edge of the forest it is.” Boaz agrees.

I hear growling. “Let’s hunt something. I haven’t eaten meat in weeks!” Jakin says hungrily.

Everyone nods in agreement. We have a look around, but there aren’t any obvious signs of wild animals nearby, so we shake our heads in disappointment and get ourselves moving. We’ll find something eventually, I’m sure.

And a couple hours later, so we do. Quickly killing the deer, we dismantle it, disposing of the offal. A short branch collection and a spot of fire magic later, we have the meat sizzling over the flames.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

After it’s finished cooking, Jakin bites eagerly into it. “Now that’s food.” He grunts. “Not berries and nuts.”

Everyone nods in agreement. Berries and nuts are all well and good, but they aren’t exactly a square meal, are they?

After eating, we set up our tents and organise the watch rotation – it’s getting dark out.

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The next morning, we set off at a jog. Being able to see where you are and where you’re going is a large help to motivation. And a hearty meal.

Over the next two weeks, we travel over hills and plains, sticking closely to the edge of the forest as we go. Boaz was able to confirm where we were after the first day of travelling – we were indeed in Stalia, although thankfully the more western of the two points.

As we’d guessed, we don’t encounter any other people, although we do come across a few monsters. Nothing we can’t handle, but a few interesting ones. Honestly, we don’t know what others call them, so we just gave them somewhat fitting names.

Bloody bison, incredibly strong and incredibly aggressive. Appearance-wise, it’s similar to its normal counterpart but has permanently bloodshot eyes, long and viciously pointy red horns and a red pattern along its hide similar to blood splatters. Happily, it wasn’t very intelligent or quick on its feet, so simply splitting up and attacking from its sides while Jakin weathered its frontal attacks was sufficient to defeat it.

The second one we called boomer bats. We thought they were just normal bats and ignored them, until one exploded and singed Boaz’s eyebrows off. After that we quickly got out of the swarm. They were somewhat aggressive, and we tried to fend them off with weapons, but it barely made a dent on the swarm. They exploded when they got hit, so we quickly grew worried about the state of our weapons. I tried a bit of fire magic… I’m still trying to clear out my ears from the noise that chain explosion created.

Rocky stallions. Horses that look like they’re made of stone. Well, they were grazing, so it might just be a rocky carapace? These ones weren’t actually aggressive, so we gave taming them a try… to no success. The herd just galloped away when we got close. Oh well.

And yes, I was the one to name them all. The others weren’t too interested. I was going to name them stony stallions, but it felt like there was already too much alliteration. Anyhow, it was all in all a very interesting journey.

We almost forgot that we had to start searching for supplies again, now that the forest wasn’t providing for us. But we managed. With the help of mana reinforcement enhancing our visual and aural acuity as well as speed, finding animals to hunt and springs and streams to draw water from is a much easier task.

As we are now, living off the land has grown to be second nature, although we aren’t quite confidant enough to try testing out whether some of the wild plants and berries are edible. One encounter with poison is enough for me. And with magical plants in the picture, plain sickness might be the least of my worries. Perhaps that plant over there with the tiny pink flowers contains laxatives powerful enough to kill a bear. Perhaps it’s a powerful aphrodisiac. A sedative, or nothing at all. Who knows, I’m not about to experiment.

Our diet, such as it is, mainly consists of meat and water. Occasionally we’ll find some berry or fruit tree that one of us recognises, and are able to supplement our diet with those, or some wild vegetables.

As for where we are now? To the north-west of the forest of befuddlement: unoccupied territory. Finally, we are free from the constant tension that we’ll come across soldiers.

…Or so we thought, but it appears the war is raging here, too.

“Looks like we’ll have to sneak through, after all.” Xiltroth remarks.

“It does look that way, doesn’t it?” I say, watching the constantly moving crowds in the far distance. “We’ll have to cover you up somehow – your skin and hair are quite prominent. Anyone have a cloak or something?”

“Here.” Jakin holds out a garment. “Might be a little short on you, but you’re already covered waist down, so it shouldn’t matter much.”

“Thanks.” Xiltroth pulls on the cloak, the hem of which barely dips below his waist.

We start moving again, this time cautiously advancing. The army – mostly dwarves, by what we can see from here – is quite a ways away, but I don’t doubt that they have scouts roaming around everywhere, not to mention the convoys ferrying supplies back and forth, and troops marching to reinforce the main army.

Where there used to be just grass and weeds, there is now a dirt path stretching from far in the horizon to the army camp, the thousands of feet that travelled over it trampling any greenery into the earth.

Right now, we are looking with concern at that very road. We have to cross over it to truly be outside the line of fire, but there is a constant trickle of people travelling both ways upon it, any of which will be very interested in why there is a small group of people coming from a strange direction and going in a strange direction.

So, in the hopes that there won’t be as many people travelling in the darkness, we wait until it’s night. At our strength, and especially if we have mana reinforcement enhancing our bodily functions, it isn’t difficult to stay awake for even a few days at a time. However, as doing so results in increasing exhaustion and loss of focus as time wears on, as well as requiring a longer than normal period of rest, we rarely do so.

But staying up a single night and going to sleep in the morning, for example, will have little to no effect on us.

To our delight, there is indeed a large decrease in traffic along the road now that it’s dark. Channelling a steady stream of mana into mana reinforcement to improve my vision and see a bit more of the landscape in the dark, we wait until there’s a large gap between travellers and dash across and to freedom.

We don’t stop, keeping a running pace until the lights of the army camp are barely visible in the distance, then slowing to a less draining jog. For another hour we keep up this speed – we want to make entirely sure that we’re completely safe. We just ignore any monsters we come across, giving them a bit of a berth. The aggressive ones we quickly stop to dispatch and then continue jogging.

Then we stop. Panting heavily, we slump to the ground, sitting loosely on the grass. We look at each other and see the same silly grins on all our faces. We break out into laughter.

Freedom! Freedom at last. Away from worries of being discovered and attacked by one side or the other, from the war, from… Everything, really.

“How are we doing for water?” I ask once everyone finishes expressing their relief. The last time we refilled our bottles was two days ago at a spring, and we’ve already gone through a few of the spare bottles.

Before this, we were able to use the maps to navigate from water source to water source. But now we’re in uncharted territory, and that isn’t possible anymore.

Xiltroth grabs his water bottle and gives it a light shake. “I’m at about half.”

“Not far from full.” Replies Jakin.

Boaz nods. “Same as Jakin.”

“That’ll be our main priority, then: finding a source of water. Then I suppose we’ll set up camp nearby?” I say uncertainly.

“Sounds good to me.” Grunts Jakin. Boaz and Xiltroth nod.

“Before that, who’s going to be first watch? We should sleep while we still can.” Says Boaz.

“Me.” Volunteers Xiltroth.

I shrug. “I’ll be second.”

“Doubt we’ll need a third. Night’s already half gone. Still, if we do…” Jakin raises his hand.

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As we jog, we all keep our eyes peeled for the glimmer of sunlight off of water, and attentively listen for the sounds of a trickling stream or rushing waterfall. We keep heading roughly north-west, even further away from known civilisation.

It’s entirely possible that we passed something last night in the darkness without noticing – probable, even. But we’re not about to go back and check.

Unfortunately, by the time the sun is sitting steadily above our heads, we still haven’t found anything.

It’s only when our shadows are starting to become dangerously long that Xiltroth motions for us to stop. “Let me just look at something for a moment…” He says, stooping down to examine the ground.

“There’s quite a few animal tracks here, all heading in the same direction. Could be water nearby.” Xiltroth explains.

“Couldn’t it just be a group of animals heading in the same direction?” Boaz asks sceptically.

Xiltroth shakes his head. “The tracks are too varied. Too many different types of tracks for it to be much else.”

Shrugging, I say, “Not like we have any other leads. Let’s go check it out.”

We start following the tracks, which soon lead us into a sparsely wooded region. After another minute, we see water sparkling through the gaps in the trees. It’s a somewhat large pond but fairly shallow, probably only a couple meters deep at most from what I can see through the mostly clear water. The area around the pond is mostly clear of trees, making it look like a very appealing camp site.

At our approach, a bunch of animals sprint off into the trees, leaving behind only a small group of rabbits.

I gaze at the area. “This spot should be good to set up camp. Let’s get a f- Woah!”

Dodging to one side, I narrowly avoid the bouncing ball of white that almost slammed point first into my face. “Bunny attack! Watch out for the horns!”

I start to reach for my warhammer before realising just how stupid it would be to try and hit these tiny things with a massive warhammer. Taking out my mace, I swing towards another of the aggressive little blighters currently rocketing towards my face, missing by bare inches and again barely managing to avoid being skewered.

“They’re fast!” Exclaims Jakin.

Damn right they are, zipping around and jumping between the trees like tiny white monkeys on a sugar high. I’ve got no hope of catching up with them. Only chance I’ve got is when they’re trying to jump at me and stab with their horns.

They’re going so fast, in fact, that I don’t seem to be able to react fast enough to hit them with my mace. So, I put it back on my belt. They don’t look like they have a very strong defence, so my gauntleted fist should be enough to knock ‘em down.

…Not straight on, though. I don’t think that’s a good idea.

It takes me a few tries before my eyes start to catch up and I manage to uppercut one of the horned rabbits out of the air, sending it flying with a short ‘eep!’

When it hits the ground, it doesn’t get up.

With the pressure on me relieved a bit I’m able to focus less on dodging and more on punching. Soon enough a second rabbit joins the first one on the ground, and then the third.

“I’m good over here, how are you guys… doing…” I trail off as the other three are already cleaning off their weapons. “Right. Good job, everyone. Let’s… get camp going, I guess.”

“Well, bright side is, dinner’s taken care of.” Jakin holds up a limp bunny, a wickedly sharp conical horn protruding some ten centimetres from its forehead. “Do we have a use for these horns?”

I think for a moment. “Not that I can think of, but who knows, we might find something later. Not like they’ll weigh us down much.”

Jakin shrugs indifferently and breaks the horn off with the hammer head of his pick.

We set up our tents near the banks of the pond. Firewood isn’t a problem today, so we quickly get a fire burning. There is still some water left in our bottles, so we leave that for later – not like the pond’s going anywhere. Instead, we set the rabbits cooking. They don’t have a lot of meat on them, but there are quite a few, so we’re all set for dinner.

The rabbits taste quite a lot better than some of the other things we’ve eaten, in fact. But enough of that – this isn’t a Japanese novel. By the time we finish our meal, the sun is dipping dangerously low on the horizon.

It wouldn’t do to wake up in the morning, find that we don’t have much water and have to wait some ten minutes to boil the water, so we do it now. And of course we boil it. Pond like this, still water, who knows what kinds of creepy crawlies live in the water, microscopic and macroscopic. And nobody wants to find out that their inexplicable appetite is because there are worms in their stomach.

Let’s get rid of that mental image, shall we? Did you know that clovers are edible? True fact. As opposed... to false facts? But hey, maybe you can start a new food trend with that stuff. Don’t even need to buy it, you can probably find some growing in your backyard.

Leafy greens aside, after straining the water through a simple cloth and boiling it in a pot, we wait for it to cool and fill up a couple of our bottles. Then we repeat the process. Three more times. Really makes you appreciate modern water filtration technology, doesn’t it?

Feeling exceptionally relaxed, I fall asleep faster than usual tonight.