Days had passed since the skunk burrow. Jonathan’s continuous journey towards the mountain had been relatively uneventful, although resource management had started to become a bit of a chore as he didn’t have his dimensional storage items. Hell, any storage space at this point would’ve been a blessing. All he had to carry his limited supplies in was his skunk pelt, which was tied around his waist like a savage loincloth to give him a modicum of decency. If he was to run into humans, or whatever species lived around these parts, he didn’t want to make the wrong kind of first impression.

On his second day of travel Jonathan had found a small stream coming from the direction of the mountain that he decided to follow. Number one rule of surviving without any equipment in the wilderness was to stay close to a source of water. Or was that rule number two? He didn’t care. It was a good rule to follow.

Finally, after almost a week of continuous walking, Jonathan finally saw buildings looming far in the distance. The area surrounding the mountain seemed to be constantly covered in a light layer of fog, and as the days passed, the air grew considerably cooler. Clouds far above him covered the sun in an almost permanent overcast, giving the land an eerie feeling to it.

As he approached the buildings, something caught in his nose. A distinct smell of decaying flesh. Instantly on edge, Jonathan slowed down his track, his mind gearing up for battle. It could be nothing. An animal corpse left out in the humid air. But airing on the side of caution, he didn’t want to take the chance of the smell being something, and him being too stupid to dismiss it.

The buildings grew closer. From the looks of it, the place was a small village. Probably a trade outpost, as he hadn’t seen any surrounding farmlands and the stream was too small to house a fishing village.

Jonathan reached the village center and found out the source of the decaying smell. A number of bodies were piled up against a broken well, slowly being broken down by maggots and scavenger birds. The sight was haunting, humans from children to elderly killed and left to rot.

Seeing corpses was nothing new to him. Being a mage on the path of trials, he could’ve filled cemeteries with his kills alone. But not like this. The pile held only bodies of civilians, fully dressed, with no weapons in sight. To make matters worse, the injuries on the corpses would not have been instantly lethal. Whoever had done this took their time to make sure each and everyone of them suffered before their inevitable deaths.

Jonathan was enraged at the sight and wanted to do something to bring justice to these people. Sure, he didn’t know or had any personal connection to them, but the righteous anger he felt served as a good excuse to let out some of his own frustration.

Before he rushed into anything foolish, he wanted to secure the area in case of any survivors or lingering threats. Going from house to house, Jonathan made sure no one was left behind. When a house proved empty, he pillaged everything not nailed down, carrying clothes, tools, whatever he could find outside to be inspected later.

While Jonathan was going over boxes of dried meat in the cellar of what he assumed to be the village inn, the air temperature in the room suddenly rose a degree. The change was almost imperceptible, and would’ve been for anyone without a strong connection to Primordial Air. Someone, someone very good at being quiet, had entered the room with him.

A click of his tongue revealed a figure walking towards him, sword held ready. He took a deep inhale, getting a sense of the new smells that had entered the room. Iron, sweat, leather and a hint of salt water, reminding him of the ocean. Jonathan smiled. His first victim had entered the ring. He closed the box he was currently examining and focused his mana to his palms. Exhaling, he removed some of the anxious jitters from his body, and released the spell, drawing the air in the room towards his palms with great force.

The air rushed to the ground and towards him, causing his assailant to fall on his back as the wind knocked her feet out from under her. Jonathan spun around, releasing another gust that pushed the attacker further away and stood up.

“You thought you could ambush me?” Jonathan’s voice was dangerously calm, almost soothing, as he focused more power to his hands, readying an one-two combo of air cannons. “Killing everyone outside wasn’t enough for you? No. You decided to come in for one last kill.”

In the dim light of the cellar he could just barely see the figure slowly getting up in the corner. It didn’t matter too much. With the echolocation Jonathan knew exactly where to aim, and as the savage got up on her feet, Jonathan blasted her back down with air cannons.

“Stay down. I have a few questions for you.”

“Wait!” A woman’s voice gasped from the corner. She sounded frightened, almost pleading. A moment later Jonathan heard metal scraping across the stone floor and something heavy and cold thunked against his foot. “My weapon. I’m unarmed. Hear me out!”

Jonathan looked down and saw a hilt of a shortsword resting against his toes. He kicked the metal further away, making sure it was unreachable in case the woman chose to be violent.

“Start talking then. Who are you and what are you doing here?”

The woman got up, causing Jonathan to shift into a defensive stance and ready up another pair of air cannons.

“Calm down. I’m not about to rush you.” She said, coughing up a bit. Her hands were raised to her chest level, palms pointed towards him. “My name is Alice. I’m an adventurer, sent here by the Order. I’m here on an assignment to investigate the group of cultists.”

Adventurer sounded like this world’s equivalent to a mage, so the story was likely enough. Plus if she was with the people who had attacked the village, it was unlikely she would’ve been this talkative, but Jonathan wasn’t just going to let his guard down.

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“Adventurer? And they sent you alone to a murder scene?”

“Only to investigate! Ask questions from the cult activity! I saw you looting the houses and thought I’d get some answers out of you. But since you’re talking instead of killing me, I assume you’re not with the people who did all of… that.”

She spoke too much, offering too much information without prompting. Was that a sign of nervousness, offering details to make a lie believable, or just a part of her personality? Jonathan couldn’t tell. Judging by her aura, she was around the same level as him. Maybe a level or two higher, which meant that she was still a newbie. One could start gaining levels at the age of eighteen, so that meant she had probably just come of age and was taking her first steps as a mage.

The circumstances mostly pointed towards the story being true. And even if she was to attack him again, he knew he could subdue her easily enough. Jonathan dropped his arms, absorbing the energy he had been holding..

“Go on then. Investigate away.”

Hoping that the woman, Alice, would leave him be, Jonathan resumed his looting, carrying a crate after crate up the cellar staircase and out in the open. He noticed Alice examining the corpses, writing down notes every time she found out something new.

After every house had been emptied of their equipment, Alice walked over to Jonathan, who was in the middle of examining his haul.

“So, what’s your deal? Are you some kind of a vagabond? Bandit? You don’t have the physique to be a barbarian and you cast spells. Some kind of force powers? Is that how you threw me around? And why are you here? You asked if I killed the people, so you didn’t do it. I hope so at least. Was that some kind of weird lie?”

Too many words. Jonathan stood up, taking a proper look at the woman for the first time. She was tall, dressed in practical clothing with muted colors and her blonde hair was tied behind her head. The most striking detail was the slightly pointed ears, indicating elven heritage. They weren’t long enough for her to be a half elf, but perhaps a quarter? A thing they had in common then, not that it mattered much.

“Vagabond is a good enough description for now.” Jonathan shrugged. “Hoping to change that soon.”

“Is that why you are gathering everything? Are you planning on selling all of this? Or become a mayor of this village?” Alice kept on her questions, seeming to ignore the fact that he had replied only one from the last round.

“The current plan is to hunt down the people who did all this.” He waved his hand around the grotesque sight. “I’m looking for supplies and clothing.”

“Alone? All of them? If I had to guess, at least two dozen people were on this raid. You’ll die.”

“Alone and all of them.” Jonathan stated simply. Since his brawl with Alice had been a brief one and had ended without a conclusion, the frustration and anger at his situation had returned, and Jonathan needed something to release all of it on.

“How are you planning on doing that? The cult around here has been scaring people for ages, and now they have apparently started to raid villages!” Alice’s voice was skeptical. If she had any kind of formal mage training, she would be able to read his aura as well as he could read hers. If so, she knew fully well that Jonathan’s level was lower than hers.

“What do you know about the cult?” Jonathan asked in return.

“Some vampire worshiping lunatics. A few thugs have been going around asking for blood donations and recruiting people to join them.”

Jonathan groaned. Vampires were generally annoying to deal with. Dozens of different types, unique bloodline traits and worst of all, if there was one, there was bound to be a full cabal. Cultists he could deal with, possibly even in larger numbers, but if there was a vampire leading them…

“Is a vampire leading them?” He asked, wanting to get confirmation on this point.

“Who knows. There is one living at the top of the mountain if the rumors are true, but no one has seen it in ages. I always thought that it was made up to scare kids into behaving. ‘Now behave, Alice, or the vampire will come down from his mountain. Everyone knows vampires love ill behaving children’”

So that was a no. If there was a vampire around the lands, people would definitely know. That probably meant that the group was a bunch of lunatics who came up with a religion and got too into it.

A silence fell upon the pair, during which Jonathan changed into new clothes, ditching the smelling skunk hide. Alice was sitting down a fair distance away, reviewing her notes and sneaking odd looks at the man every couple of minutes.

After packing a bag with dried meats, a few pairs of extra garments and other essential supplies, Jonathan stood up, swinging the bag over his shoulders.

“Right then. It was nice meeting you, but I’ll be off.” He stated, getting ready to leave.

“Off where?” Alice asked, standing up herself.

“To kill the cultists.”

“Oh. You were serious about that?”

“I was.”

“Where are you going then?”

“To kill the cultists.”

“Yeah, but where? What direction? Do you know where they are? Can you track them somehow? Do you have tracking magic?”

Alice’s questions didn’t sound condescending, but rather interested in his capabilities. However she brought up a good point. Jonathan had no idea where to even start looking for them. He didn’t have a direction, or a plan. Taking the lives of those who had murdered this village was something he had set his mind on in lack of a better short term goal. Just something to vent his frustration on.

“Uhh.. No. You wouldn’t know where to find them?”

“Hah!” Alice snorted. “So you were just going to wander off and hope you’d come across a poorly defended fortress, sneak in without any back up, in the middle of the wilderness AND kill everyone within?”

Jonathan didn’t answer. That had been pretty much what he was going to do, even if he didn’t realize it until now.

Taking his silence for an answer, Alice continued:

“Wait, really?! That was your entire plan? Heavens me!”

“Are you going to answer my question?”

“Sorry!” She tried to conceal her amusement at his ignorance, failing miserably. “And no. I don’t know where they are. Like I told you, I was sent here to gather information from the villagers about their movements. Seeing that they are all dead, the order will likely take action once I get back with my report. If you really want to do something, you should come with me.”

Now that was an idea Jonathan hadn’t thought of. If he were to follow Alice to this Order’s headquarters, he could perhaps trade his services as an enchanter for money or essential equipment, ultimately making his quest for vengeance that much easier. Not to mention that the Order probably knew more about who he was planning to fight or where to find them. The fact that the idea hadn’t even crossed his mind proved that he wasn’t thinking clearly.

Before agreeing to anything, Jonathan had a one more question

“Where are we going then?”

“There is a city about a week's travel south. You’re not from around these lands?”

“You could say so.”

“Oh. You must tell me where you’re from on the way there!” Alice smiled genuinely, while offering her hand. “If you’re coming, that is.”

Jonathan hesitated for only a second, before taking the hand. Someone to talk to would be nice, and even though he wasn’t exactly sure about Alice, she seemed like a person he could get along with.

“Let’s go then”