Oakridge is a small village nestled to the east of Larton.

Originally, the village was just an outpost for lumberjacks hired by the city to harvest wood from the colossal magical oak tree. The magical properties of this wood made it highly sought after for crafting mage wands, staves, talismans, enchanted shields, and even for enhancing building structures.

Cutting oak wood was a formidable task, requiring workers with precise control over their mana to infuse special tools just to be able to damage the magical tree.

Recognizing the profitability of the venture, Larton eventually granted the outpost and its surrounding land to the workers, allowing them to establish the village of Oakridge. Over the years, Larton succeeded in forcing them to live in the new village, with the condition that the villagers must continue supplying the magical wood to the town.

Despite the villagers being simple workers without martial skills or magical abilities, the proximity of Oakridge to the southeast edge of the great forest made them vulnerable to frequent monster attacks. To cope with these threats, they relied on guilds for protection, with the mercenary guild being the most affordable option compared to the adventurer guild.

This brings us to Aron and his party. Aron, Raum, Freya, and Pethra spotted a caravan leaving Larton, heading east.

Aron was able to secure three seats in one of the carriages at a reasonable price. The driver agreed, seeing no harm in picking Aron and his group and dropping them close to Oakridge since it's the caravan's regular trade route anyway.

In the carriage, Aron was relaxing and observing the landscape, enjoying the lush green fields.

In his lap, Raum was sleeping peacefully without a care. Using his new ability, Raum was able to absorb the negative emotions of what's equivalent to ten people before he reached his limits. However, attempting to absorb more backfired, causing him to fall into a drunk-like state.

Next to Aron was Pethra, the little witch, wearing her gray robe, black pants, white shirt, and a leather chest piece on top of it for extra protection. In her hand was the Blackwood staff that Aron gifted her.

On the other side of the carriage was Freya, as always the werewolf clad in minimal armor; only a piece of iron plate that barely covered her two mountains.

Currently, Freya was applying oil to her Iron greatsword, taking care of weapons was one of the things that she enjoyed, besides hunting of course.

Aron's gaze lingered on Freya, captivated by her intense focus as she meticulously applied oil to her Iron greatsword. And since the ride would be a long one, Aron decided to try something to pass the time.

He activated his [Dragon sight] while observing Freya, and what he saw was truly fascinating.

A blue gathering of energy in the middle of her chest, the energy was spreading using veins to her entire body.

Another thing Aron saw was a red energy close to Freya's heart, the red energy was tiny compared to the blue one, however, this red energy was moving in one direction, it was moving up to the bite mark on Freya's neck, and from her neck, a thin red line connecting Freya to Aron.

Aron raised an eyebrow, 'So we're connected, is this the werewolf mark?'

He focused his sight on the red energy inside Freya, the moment he did, the energy suddenly reacted to him by expanding and covering all of Freya's left side.

"!!!" Freya sensed this sudden burst of energy somehow, and her concentration was broken. She immediately glanced at Aron and saw him gazing at her with his Crimson eyes.

"What's wrong Boss?" she called.

"Hmm?" Aron saw yet another thing, when his and Freya's eyes met, he noticed that her right eye was red, not blue like the left one.

'Am I influencing her in some way?' he wondered, choosing to deactivate his skill.

"Nothing Freya, I was just admiring how beautiful you are," he didn't lie; Freya always gives the aura and charm of a strong huntress that Aron likes a lot.

"W-What!" her face instantly turned red, and the oil bottle suddenly slipped her grip. However, using her extraordinary speed, Freya managed to catch it before hitting the carriage floor.

"Cough…thank you, Boss."

"Anyways Boss, what do you want us to do in this quest?" Freya cleverly brought this topic up just to hide her embarrassment.

"All I want you to do is to slay any monster that slips my grasp and protect the village in case an attack happens."

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"Is that all Aron?" Pethra said, scratching her arms.

"Yes, little witch, leave the killing to me."

Pethra nodded, "Okay, I hope I'll be able to raise my level in this quest."

"!!!" Aron's eyes widened, and he immediately faced Pethra grabbing her shoulder and causing her to flinch.

"What did you just say?" he asked with a tone that carried a mix of surprise and curiosity.

"Eh?...What's wrong Aron?" Pethra responded, a hint of confusion in her voice.

"You said Level, what do you mean by that?" Aron pressed, his tone now tinged with a sense of urgency.

Pethra blinked, her confusion deepening as she sensed Aron's sudden intrigue in the concept of Levels. They were common knowledge to people, however, when Pethra remembered that Aron had a memory problem, it suddenly made sense that he didn't know about it.

"Uh, well, you know... like, gaining experience points and leveling up from killing monsters," Pethra tried her best to explain it, but in truth, even she didn't know the whole details about Levels.

'That's essentially like my system.'

"And can you see your level?" he asked again, trying to find any similarities between his system and whatever Pethra was speaking about.

"No, I can't. The guilds have a special device that allows us to see levels."

Aron furrowed his brows, deep in thought. The concept of a device revealing someone's Level intrigued him. Perhaps, within its workings, he could uncover clues about his own mysterious system.

Aron has a strong feeling that he's not the one who created the system; he understands that creating one is not an easy thing to do, and for some reason, he can't imagine himself going through all that work of researching and experimenting for years.

[Master, you should check on this device as soon as possible]

'I intend to.' Aron acknowledged mentally.

The rest of the ride was relatively peaceful and silent, with Aron having many things going on inside his head. He spent the journey making out theories and possibilities about the system and the device that Pethra spoke about.

After enduring seven seemingly endless hours of travel without a break, the caravan finally came to a halt.

"We're here," The driver informed, as he halted his carriage.

Rising to her feet, Pethra swung the door open and gracefully stepped out, Aron and Freya trailing behind her. As they stepped out of the carriage, all three of them cracked their backs.

"Damn, my butt hurts like hell," Pethra complained.

""Same here"" Aron and Freya said simultaneously.

Sitting for more than seven hours in the cheap hardwood seats of the carriage was not the best experience for the three—one of the times that Raum is thankful for being a Bird.

Stretching the muscles a little to help the blood flow, Aron glanced at the place where the caravan stopped for the day.

The open field stretched out before them, to the right, a river could be seen, and to the left, an endless sea of tall and thick trees.

The driver, a middle-aged man, approached the group and said, "This is your stop, sir," then he pointed to a wooden sign in the distance. "You see that sign? Just follow the road behind it, and you should reach Oakridge."

Aron nodded and took out a few silver coins from his pocket and handed them to the man. The driver immediately snatched the coins from Aron, with a creepy smile on his face, he bowed deeply to him and then proceeded to join the rest of the caravan on the riverside to make camp.

Aron looked up to the sky, noting that it was late evening; His gaze swept over the prepared girls. With a nod, they set out toward the village.

Following the dirt road deep into the forest, the group reached the village gate. The gate is obviously made from wood, however, what's eye-catching about the gate is well… it looks like shit, wrong it's worse, comparing it to shit is an insult to shit, even shit has a purpose sometimes but this gate. Noooo.

Most of the wood is rotten, the plates are not nailed properly, using wood from different trees to fix it. A close example of the gate will be that a poor man has only in his possession a single shirt, and he patched it so much over and over, that the shirt lost its original fabric, at least that's what Aron and the girls are thinking.

And what about the wall around the village? Of course, it's in the same boat as the gate.

"How are these people still alive?" A really good question Pethra brought up.

"Let's find out," Aron said as he proceeded to knock on the gate. He tried to use as little strength as he possibly could, fearing that a good knock would break the gate entirely.

Knock. Knock.

There was a short delay; after that, a small window in the gate opened up. Behind it is a man—maybe the village guard.

The guard saw nothing for a moment, only darkness in his sight, but after a close inspection, he understood that this darkness was just chest armor and the individual behind the gate was just tall.

"Who's there? What's your business in the village?" he spoke looking up, trying to catch a glimpse of Aron's face, but because of the small window, he couldn't.

"We are mercenaries here for the goblin nest quest."

The voice behind the gate caused the guard to tremble slightly; it was heavy and commanding in a way, making the guard think of opening the gate immediately. However, he shook his head, dismissing such a thought; the safety of the villagers was not something to take lightly.

The guard hesitated, his skepticism evident. "Mercenaries you say? How can I be certain you speak the truth?"

"Huh?" Aron was stunned; he turned to Freya and Pethra with a puzzled look, seeking an explanation of why the man behind the gate was asking for proof, the girls shrugged their shoulders confused as he was.

Aron closed his eyes, massaging his temple for a moment, he ducked a little, gazing at the man behind the window.

"Open this damn gate before I make a bonfire out of it and burn you alive."

"!!!" the guard's heart skipped a bit, gazing at demonic crimson eyes, he felt something cold wrapping around his heart like a hand and squeezing it tightly.

He couldn't comprehend the reason, but his body moved involuntarily. In less than three seconds, he swung the gate wide open.

He glanced up and saw a pale man staring down at him, the guard sweating like a pig waiting for slaughter. Instinctively lowered his eyes looking down in submission, hoping that this terrifying man was actually a mercenary and not some bandit or anything of that nature.

"Bring me to your elder."

"T-This way, sir," the guard stumbled moving to the side, allowing Aron to enter.

Both Pethra and Freya exchanged a wide smile of satisfaction; they could never get tired of seeing someone 'Break' under Aron's pressure.

Freya, particularly affected, couldn't help but curse inwardly.

'Damn, that look and the aura… The aura of an alpha.'