Chapter R5: Journey To The Town of Cezza
(Ride's POV)
I woke up earlier than usual today because today was a special day. Today was the day where I leave A'bell. I can't say exactly how long, but it was safe to say that I won't be coming back here for a long time. The others have agreed to leave A'bell as well, the place we have had the pleasure of calling home for all those long years. All of them wanted to say their goodbyes to the city one last time, and so, we split up temporarily. We all agreed to meet up at the west gate later today, once we finished saying our goodbyes.
I could understand Kranis and Lanarya saying their goodbyes. Lanarya as she knows a lot of the locals in A'bell and Kranis the Rogue's network. Scorch says he was going to prepare as much as he could for the journey. Tyle, on the other hand, said he wanted to go back to check out the orphanage one last time before leaving. I asked if he wanted me to follow him, but he only said to me that he wanted to have some alone time. I left him be. Unlike him, I'm not really that close with the orphanage we grew up with, and I've already said my goodbyes to them.
And thus, I arrived at the place of the last person I wished to say goodbye to, the Adventurer's Guild. I entered the temporary guild house and spotted a big burly middle-aged receptionist. I walked past the quest board and stop directly in front of the big uniformed guy. The said person just sitting down busy with receptionist work. He then noticed my presence, and his hands stopped moving as he turned to face me.
"Oh kid! You are up early today! Nabbing the quest for the tunnels? Gahahaha," Mister Vrazen laughed heartily.
"What? No... It's nothing like that... I... I just wanted to say goodbye. I'm leaving A'bell as of today," It took me a while, but the words came out of my mouth.
Mister Vrazen just kept quiet with a complicated expression on his face. I could understand his feelings. It was quite the sudden announcement.
"Words could not describe how much I owe you Mister Vrazen, so I want to take this chance to—"
A hand was held out to me, disrupting my speech. It was Mister Vrazen's, I looked to his face only to see a proud smile. The smile of someone satisfied.
I just smiled back and shook his hands firmly. Man to man, words not needed.
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As planned, all members of the party 'Providence' were now gathered at the west gate of A'bell. All of them carrying travel bags for our journey to Cezza. We only took necessities so that we won't be encumbered for the journey. Things like personal items, spare clothes, dried food and stuff like that. We then did our last preparations, things like checking our equipments, and our team signals. Once reviewed, we were all but prepared to leave A'bell. Except for one last thing...
"Are you sure? Like, really, really sure you want to leave A'bell, Lanarya?" Scorch asked the only female member of our party.
"It's a bit sad... But I think I'm ready to leave A'bell. One day I'll come back to explore those high-rank areas!" Lanarya replied in a determined tone.
That's admirable, but that's not exactly the problem here. I grabbed the guys, and we gathered in a circle, shoulder to shoulder in an all guys meeting.
"I thought you guys explained this to her already?" I whispered out loud, but just soft enough to make sure Lanarya won't hear me.
"I did dude! I even told her that she will be spending several days with us and that she will be sleeping next to us too!" Kranis replied back.
"I don't understand that girl at all, to be honest," Tyle said to us.
Scorch took a look at Lanarya, who returned a smile and a small wave. Scorch then turned to us again. "Don't we look like the bad guys here? Taking a girl we've only known for a month into the woods all alone? What will the other adventurers say about us?"
"I already told her that! but all I got is that 'It's alright!' in that smile of hers, what else can I do!?" Kranis whispered in distress.
"We are going nowhere with this, let me do it," Tyle fixed his glasses before breaking the circle and walking up to Lanarya.
The rest of us, we just watch.
"Ahem, Lanarya, before we go, I uh... I want to ask if you have all your 'female' equipments ready," A little blush came over Tyle as he asked that.
A bold question, but the girl known as Lanarya was unfazed by it "Yup! I am absolutely certain that I've prepared everything, so you guys don't have to worry about it!"
...
"It's not that I don't trust you or anything Lanarya... But are you sure about this?" I asked back to her.
"Yeah, you don't have to go through with this, we aren't forcing you," Scorch backed me up.
"Arghhh! Would you guys stop treating me like I'm sort of kid! I know people always call me childish, but I'll let you know that I am a bona fide C rank like the rest of you okay! I'm alright! Hmpphh," She lets out a tantrum before starting to walk down the path west, leaving us behind.
"I guess there is that, let's go," Kranis just shrugged at our feeble attempts to dissuade the girl and followed behind the pouting girl.
The others soon followed.
*sigh
The idea that Lanarya might actually be a permanent member of the party excites me, but at the same time, it scares me. I couldn't help but feel a little concerned about that girl.
I took one last look at my hometown, the sight of fallen buildings, shattered walls and debris could be seen. No turning back now. I hesitantly took the first step on a new journey.
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Night has fallen; a small campfire illuminated the surrounding area. We purposely chose a location surrounded by thick bushes and trees so that as little light as possible seeps out of the area. Monsters in the area west of A'bell were pretty tame, but we didn't want to take any chances. After all, it would be unpleasant to be woken up in the middle of the night. In parties like this, we usually take turns staying up to keep watch. We decided that we will do a three-hour shift in alphabetical order of the first letter in our names.
So the people who will be keeping watch for the first day was Kranis, Lanarya and me in that order. The following day would be Scorch, Tyle and Kranis again. The third day will be Lanarya, me, Scorch and so on and so forth. With Lanarya in the team, we could actually sleep longer during the nights now. It would be nice if we could find a sixth member, that way we don't have to stay up two nights in a row sometimes, but that's something for another time.
There was one part that I am a bit uncomfortable with this arrangement... It was the fact that whenever we travelled from one place to another, I would have to be awakened by Lanarya almost every other night and that to me is a bit uncomfortable. It's a given, she might not act like it, but she is a really attractive woman. I recalled the stares of jealousy the team gets whenever we team up with other male only parties. I pitied Kranis who has to wake HER up every other night.
*Crackle
I chunk in another piece of wood into the fire. The fire glowed a bit brighter.
I looked over to my companions, three brothers and a newly added sister, all sleeping surrounding the fire close to each other. I paid extra attention to the 'younger sister', her face relaxed as she slept peacefully without a single worry on her. I didn't know how she did it, but she was sleeping next to three other guys in the middle of a forest with no one around to help her and yet her relaxed face says it all.
'It's alright!' her words echoed back to me.
I thought back to what happened today. Well, it was actually yesterday. The day we left A'bell and entered the forest. Contrary to our fears it ended up being... surprisingly normal. Sure there were a few awkward moments here and there like toilet breaks or taking baths, but the rest of us just looked the other way and gave consideration. We merely kept out of her way. It never really turned out to be that big fuss we were worried about. Even during meals, it was like any typical day eating in the city. Even sleeping time she just slept next to us like it was not a big deal.
Honestly, I didn't expect such an outcome, and I wondered if maybe the fact that I never had much interaction between females is the cause of it all? As far as I can remember, it has always been a male receptionist that I had to turn in quests to. Every damn time I go there, it's always the male's shift. It made me wonder for a long time whether the guild only hired males before I actually saw a real female receptionist and even then she wasn't as pretty as the ones I saw walking around the guild house from time to time. Those female-only parties that we had to team up once in a while for quests? Those are a big no-no. Before Lanarya came into the picture, those were impossible to deal with. A lot of them had that attitude like that stuck up elf Shawna, and those that don't, usually don't get mixed up with guys, or they swing the other way.
A beam of light shined through on my eyes, interrupting my thoughts. The sun was rising.
It's a little bit hard to see because we were in a very thick canopy with large brushes, but you could see more and more beams of sunlight appearing into the campfire, and soon enough it enveloped all of us.
Finally.
Staying watch was the most boring job ever. All you do is just sit down for three hours, and the only thing you can do is something that doesn't make much noise, lest you wake up everyone else.
"Um ah um.."
Lanarya lets out a groan as light hits her eyelids. She then spun around in her sleeping bag before opening her eyelids slowly and brought her body up, her hair a bit messy from all the turning around. She wore nothing but her standard attire without all that armour. Her chest bulged out as she stretched out and raised a big yawn in front of me. The sunlight as if greeting her, shone down upon her as if she is the daughter of the golden sun.
A dazzling sight...
I noticed that I'm probably staring at her too much and looked away, before rushing to our luggage to find a pot to prepare breakfast. I hoped she didn't notice me staring at her like that, it would be really awkward.
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The second day went just as normal as the first day. We gave Lanarya her own space to do her things, and she did the same for us. Other than that, just the usual banter between us as we travelled and fight off the occasional wild monster and animals that attacked us. It was no different than what we usually do in the city. Nothing special happened yesterday night too, Tyle, Kranis and Scorch did night watch as normal. I heard from them later that both of us slept soundly, like as usual.
Overall, the journey had been quite the normal one, nothing special happened, and hopefully, it will stay that way until we arrived at Cezza.
It's about evening as could be seen by the sun turning yellow, Kranis held a map and analysed our location before letting us know about his findings.
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"If we keep up this pace, we will reach Cezza by sunrise. Looks like we might not need to camp for the third day after all."
Cezza, an average town directly west of A'bell. It will usually take around a week to reach Cezza if we follow the road, but the party agreed that if we were going to walk, we might as well walk through the dense forest directly east to Cezza. The forest wasn't that dense with dangerous monsters and adventurers of our calibre should make it there without any complications. That way, we only needed around three days worth of walking to reach the town.
The plan initially was to head to Makaran directly, the capital city of Rydark but it was a bit too far to go there in one fell swoop, so we decided to just take our time travelling to settlements in between before moving on to the next one. Why Cezza in particular and not the other town? It's because Cezza has an adventurer's guild branch there. That's pretty much the only reason we adventurers need to travel somewhere.
"That's good, I wasn't looking forward to night watch tonight," Scorch said to the group.
"Yeah! Having to sit down and do nothing for three whole hours is tiring," Lanarya voiced her opinion as well.
"Least you all didn't have to do it two days in a row."
Oh right. Being the unlucky one, Kranis has to keep watch for two days straight.
"Isn't it fine Kranis? Being the party leader and all, is it not expected for you to be a shining example, don't you think?" Tyle said sarcastically to Kranis.
"Screw you man." Kranis scoffed.
The party lets out a small chuckle.
"Still, I can't wait to take a long hot bath!" Lanarya energetically exclaimed.
"Don't forget about a nice bed too. Sleeping on the floor is rough," Scorch replied.
We continued our friendly bather when suddenly Kranis gave us the stop signal with his hands. As a party, we have predetermined signals that we use to communicate with each other during emergencies or during moments where silence was vital. This particular one was a closed fist that signifies us to stop doing whatever we were doing immediately. Kranis then changed his hands in different motion into another signal.
Monsters. In. The. Front.
The message was laid out like that. Unlike the other times where we get attacked by monsters, this one was different just by the fact that Kranis was using the super serious gesture of hand signals. All of us got serious and dropped our travel bags before drawing out our weapons. Kranis moved into position behind a tree and messaged for us to come closer. As I got closer, I spotted two large monsters in an open area in front of us.
The Killer Mantis and the Armoured Beast Boar. Both of them are described aptly by their names. A giant praying mantis and a large armoured boar. The Killer Mantis was not a big problem, but the boar was a different story. The boar has armoured scales that are hard to penetrate, and it can roll up into a ball, completely covering its entire body with said armour before rolling over prey. It's something a team of B ranks adventurers will have a hard time killing off, something that we didn't want to be fighting for sure. It seemed that both of them had not noticed us at all.
I shook my head towards the party, telling all of them that we shouldn't take them on. Kranis gave a disappointed look before holding out more hand signals to us.
Let's. Move. Around. Them.
All of us nodded before proceeding to walk around the open area to avoid the monsters. We left our travel bags, of course. It will just be deadweight if we do in fact get into a fight. Such is the fate of an adventurer, to continually lose your stuff in exchange for safety. Not that I have many things in that travel bag anyways. Most of my personal items that I treasure the most are located in a pouch on my belt. I assumed that it's the same for the other members of 'Providence'. Their personal belongings must have been stashed somewhere safe.
...
After sneaking for a while, we managed to avoid the two monsters... or so I thought.
A loud screeching sound was heard, and soon after, the sound of the bushes rustling, then a figure of a large praying mantis appeared. It then attempted to strike at us with the large scythes on its forelegs.
"Iron Body!" Lanarya activated her signature defence skill as she intercepted the Killer Mantis.
*Clang!
Without wasting any time, Scorch used his axe to swing down on the praying mantis. A solid hit was connected, and the Mantis lets out a scream of pain. I wanted to use this time to lay the finishing blow onto the mantis, but Kranis's voice came up behind me.
"Ride! To the left!"
I looked to the left and see a large rolling ball spinning towards my direction. Immediately, I jumped to the sides and narrowly avoided the armoured boar's attack. The boar made a large circle before charging back onto our path.
I took the time to stand up again and head to a location far away from Lanarya and Scorch's battle with the Killer Mantis. They will have to deal with that thing with just the two of them. Tyle and Kranis followed up behind, aiming to support me against the Armoured Boar.
The grass beneath me rustled as we stomp pass into a location wide enough for us to comfortably fight. I could feel the ground shaking as the large rolling ball approached nearer.
"It's getting closer!" Kranis shouted.
I stopped running and faced the rolling boar head on. Tyle and Kranis ran past me. The boar picked up speed in an attempt to ram me, but I simply sidestepped it and swung my sword at the Rolling Boar.
*Shing
Similar to dragging your sword across a metal object, sparks could be seen emerging as I miraculously did zero damage to the boar. I didn't even flinch or even slowed its movements. That armour is hard!
*Chak *Chak *Chak
Kranis fired a few arrows at the boar only for it to just bounce off its hard scales.
"Glowing body of fire! Ignite the foe in front of me! Flame Strike!" Tyle shouted out his spell and stabbed the Boar with his flaming Spear.
*Boosh!
But just like our previous attempts, no visible damage on the boar, only sparks. The boar continued forward before making a large circle, Intending to strike at us again.
"Ride! Think you can hold the boar down long enough? I need time to cast quagmire!"
"Are you crazy?! I can't even hold it down for a second! What makes you think I could hold it long enough for you to cast Quagmire?" I yelled back at Tyle.
"Just give it a try dammit! Get it off my back!"
"Roger!" Kranis answered the request and rushed towards the boar who was about to come back for a second round of charging.
Dammit!
"Uwooooh!" I screamed out as I charged at the boar alongside Kranis.
*Clang *Clang *Shing
As expected, our attacks did nothing to stop the boar at all. I tried to lure its attention, but it ignored me and went straight for Tyle. Tyle could be seen visibly annoyed as he was forced to cancel the spell to dodge the Armoured Boar.
The boar made another round and charged at us again. I run forth to intercept it.
I charged my sword with magic as I took the pose to unleashed a sword skill. If a normal attack doesn't have any effect, then what about a sword skill?
"Crescent Slash!" I shouted as I swung my blade full of magical power towards the boar. A large red crescent blade appears in a meter length away from me.
*Clang!
The boar simply ignored the attack and proceeded to ram me. I only managed to dodge the attack narrowly. It then rolled straight ahead to Tyle again who was charging quagmire for the second time. Again, he was forced to cancel the spell to dodge the boar's attack.
The boar was covered fully like an armadillo, with no apparent weakness for us to exploit. Except armadillos can't move while rolled up and this boar was bloody rolling us to the ground. We tried to stop the boar's movement again for quagmire, but we noticed that every time Tyle starts to cast the earth base spell the boar immediately aimed for him, totally ignoring Kranis and me.
All we can really do was keep dodging and try attacking the boar in different angles to see if we could do some damage to it.
Nothing works, of course.
And we couldn't keep dodging forever either, we will eventually get hit by the boar.
"Iron Body!" The familiar sound of a girl could be heard. Lanarya's figure then appeared in between the boar and me. Her sword brandishes forwards to the boar.
*CLASH!
The Boar rammed straight into Lanarya, but she holds out like an immovable object, and the boar flew upwards before crashing on the ground behind us.
I've got to learn that skill one day!
"Axe Splitter!"
*Crash!
Scorch landed a direct hit with an axe skill on the downed boar in front of me. They must had finished off the Killer Mantis earlier.
A loud growl from the boar was heard, and the boar knocks Scorch away, his attack did almost no damage despite the boar in a vulnerable state. The Boar then rolled up again before spinning in place. Like a wheel, it started to move before making turns to ram us.
What? Even that did nothing?
"We can't beat this thing, let's run!" Kranis shouted out for all of us to hear.
A sound idea, but...
"We can't outrun that thing, we got to fight it!" I shouted back, knowing the boar's zoology better than anyone else in this party.
I then charged straight at the boar to attempt another sword skill at it, the rest of the party followed after.
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We went back and forth with boar for a while. All of us attempting to strike the boar with various skills but none of them could do anything to the raging boar. We then tried to buy time for Tyle to use Quagmire by abusing Lanarya's Iron Body, but the boar caught on to it real quick and only aimed Tyle as soon as he starts to cast the spell. We even tried luring the boar to hit a tree or a boulder but it agilely moved around the terrain.
We were pretty much in a deadlock, and we were starting to run out of energy to fight the boar. Sooner or later, one of us will get hit by the boar and that will be it. I looked towards the skies and saw that the sun was almost going to set.
"Dammit, we got to finish this up somehow. If the sun sets we will be in a bigger pinch!" I shouted for the whole party to hear.
"Got It." (Scorch)
"Roger."(Tyle)
"Dammit." (Kranis)
"Eh?" (Lanarya)
Only Lanarya responded with a dumbfounded reaction.
'Wait! Why would it be a disadvantage if it turns to night? The boar won't be able to see us, right? We could just run away then," Lanarya asked as she dodged another attack from the boar.
"The Armored Beast Boar attacks by sensing seismic sensation on the ground, it doesn't need to see us. We'll be completely trashed at night!" I answer back to Lanarya.
Wait... Seismic Sensations?
"Tyle! Shake the ground! Give me a big one!"
"What do you think I've been trying to do the entire time!?"
"That large tree! Knock it down or something! Anything! just make the ground shake! A small shake will do, I got a plan!" I shouted towards Tyle.
"Kranis! Get ready for the big arrow!" I shouted to Kranis who nodded and started to get into position.
He took out a bottle from his pouch with a strange red liquid in it. I then nodded to Scorch, who nodded back in understanding.
"Eh? What? What are you guys going to do?" Lanarya asked in confusion.
"Just follow my lead, we only got one shot at this"
Lanarya just nodded silently and got into a ready stance. The boar soon came back from its round trip in an attempt to ram us again.
"Wind Blades!" One of Tyle's faster spells summoned out blades of wind that sliced a large tree, each blade making a large cut on the tree until it finally fell.
*BAM! *Grumble
The large tree fell near the boar's location and caused the ground to shake violently in the area near it. The boar didn't stop, but it slowed down tremendously, and you could see its body waving around as if it's losing balance.
"Axe Slam!" Scorch let out one of his strongest moves and knocked the boar to the ground, it's body falling sideways as it couldn't balance itself correctly with the ground shaking. The boar let out a grunt before unfolding, one of the few times it was vulnerable to attacks.
"Lanarya, now!" I shouted to Lanarya as I rushed to the boar and thrusted my sword towards its right eye. I put strength into and stabbed it deeply, before letting go of the sword and running away. Lanarya repeated after me and did the same, leaving her sword embedded on the boars left eye.
*GROWL!
The boar tried to close itself again into a ball as it tasted the sharp pain of having a sword in its eyes. And it did manage to close except for a small part that it couldn't because the swords are preventing it from curving inwards.
*Clang *Clang
The sound of metal hitting each other was loudly heard as the boar agitatedly tried to cover up its whole body.
"Blue Flame Arrow!" Kranis shouted out his skill, and a flaming blue arrow landed right in between the boar's eyes. At the end of the shaft is a bottle containing a red liquid that smashed open and the contents leaked onto the boar.
The blue flame lit the liquid on fire, and the monster soon finds itself burning in a violent flame. The boar screamed in agony as it was set aflame.
"Oh, earth heed my call! QUAGMIRE!" The icing on the cake, Tyle cast the spell Quagmire and buried the burning boar in a bog.
...
I want it dead as much as you Tyle, but you just made it harder for me to get my sword back.
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It was already night when we arrived at Cezza. After picking up our swords back and cutting a part of the Armored Boar's scale, we immediately rushed to Cezza. We decided to just head to Cezza instead of camping for another night, just in case another boar shows. The first thing we decided to do when we arrived was simple, we found an Inn and took that long hot bath we wanted to, before gathering in a pub below the Inn.
"haaahhh" The unusual sound of the dejected Lanarya could be heard as she viewed the condition of her sword.
The overall sword itself is alright, it's just that one will have to replace all the flammable parts of it. The grip and all the ornaments that Lanarya had on her sword will all have to be replaced. She will also need to find a way to remove the black soot from her elegant sword.
"Come on, it's not that bad, cheer up." Tyle tried to console the dejected girl.
"Easy for Mister 'Safe' here to say, you are always in the safest part of the party, why don't you try being the frontline once in a while, that way maybe you get to know what it feels like to maintain a weapon!" Lanarya replied to Tyle in a bitter tone as she eyed Tyle's spear, which was in perfect condition.
Tyle just looked away and took a sip from his mug. Unable to give a reply.
I'm in agreement with Lanarya here, I just bloody got this sword Mister 'Safe'.