Cassius has reached the age of 8. Marcus returned and not long after he introduced new security measures. Two new guards joined the estate’s personal force. They were apparently close with Marcus and Brennos during the war and are thus very reliable.
We learned the motivation behind the assassination attempt was to free house Decimus from the influence of the Scipio family. If their daughter were to die while under the watch of Marcus, they could claim incompetence on his part.
Cassius’ magic and strength continue to grow. However, his motivation, which previously rested solely on an ideological foundation now has real-world backing to it. He who recently experienced the fear of losing those he loved now understands to the greatest degree why he must fight. Why he must grow strong.
When he swings his dagger and practice sword, he swings until his limbs grow numb. When he casts magic, he focuses his mind to the pinnacle of concentration. And when he spars, he weaves the two together. He has also moved beyond practicing mostly attack and defense magic to almost anything that can give an advantage in battle.
Octavia has also moved forward with magical practice. She, however, has completely given up on standard attack and defense magic which she has no affinity for. Support and specific types of utility magic are what she is focusing on in the entirety. The one main defense spell she is learning is an abstract and complex one Claudia is an expert in. This is a defense spell that places a thin layer of threads made from pure mana, which you weave together for a barrier that can block almost any type of magic. This was a spell that Cassius couldn’t get very well, he knew it, but it was not combat-viable.
Julius has made little change to his training regimen. He was also training to the maximum of his capacity before the incident. When Marcus discovered what he did, he was filled with pride. I understand why, at the age of 15, he risked his life for his brothers’. He is a hero beyond a shadow of a doubt.
…
Cassius is 8 years old, and he is stronger than ever before. His father seems to think that he won’t be a hindrance on monster hunts. So he invited Cassius along to the next one they go on. Octavia was invited too.
Apparently, he regrets not taking Julius on one sooner. He believes that if he had given him real-life controlled fighting experience before he had that confrontation, maybe he wouldn’t have almost died.
It seems to be unprecedented to go on a monster hunt at such a young age, but word seems to have gotten around that Cassius is a genius. Octavia has also had her talent for support magic recognized.
They have both truly grown huh? I may be just a spectator, but seeing it happen with my own eyes is truly something precious.
Cassius’ silver blue hair reaches his ears now, his bangs hang just above his eyebrows. He shed off most of his fat, now having a fairly lean, but surprisingly muscular build for his age. He appears very healthy and now wears adult-like clothing.
His style is mirrored after his father, he wears a white wool tunic with blue stripes along the edges that match his hair color. He has light chainmail underneath it on this expedition. He wears black pants with a matching belt. He has boots that don’t have much of a heel, this is because he likes being close to the ground for his fast-paced agility-focused fighting style.
He has two daggers at his waist. One of them being the one gifted by Theophanous. The other is a custom order blade made from black steel which is common in this world. He learned to cast magic with his fist closed, allowing a two-dagger style to be viable.
Octavia has white hair and red eyes. I never really noticed it until now, but red eyes is kind of weird. Now that I think about it, I’m always focusing on Cassius, maybe that’s why I haven’t noticed until now.
She always wears slightly different variations of the same dress. It’s a black base color with red stripes. The dress reaches halfway down her calf, and she tends to wear a stylish cloak-type thing over it. She opts for sandals unlike Cassius, but that’s because she doesn’t move much during combat. While she acts like she is useless at close quarters, she does have a dagger which she can pull out if desperate. I don’t really know anything about fashion, but it’s like what I’ve seen in depictions of Roman clothing.
She chooses to carry a staff, unlike Cassius. Apparently, staffs provide minimal advantage to warrior mages like Cassius, but a great deal of advantage to backline mages like Octavia. Her staff is made from black wood with a red gem. It is completely straight with no fancy designs, some mages prefer flashy staffs, but she is in favor of pragmatism.
As they were getting ready to depart Cassius jumped slightly, letting a *hic* come from his mouth. Yes, just as he was about to leave for his first monster fight, he developed the hiccups.
The party of 6 which consisted of Cassius, Octavia, Julius, Marcus, Claudia, and Brennos left the estate and stepped onto a carriage just outside. When in the carriage they began discussing what the battle would look like.
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“We will be fighting crystal wolves. They are a relatively weak monster, but don’t let your guard down ever. If anything goes wrong-“
“Hic-“
“If anything goes wrong, we will retreat immediately and let the soldiers finish the mission for us. We will fight in a-“
“Hic-“
“We will fight in a 4-layer formation. Cassius and Julius will be at the front, I will be not too far behind. You two will-“
“Hic-“
“You two will be doing most of the fighting, but I will watch closely and cover for any mistakes made. Behind me will be Cl-“
“Hic-“
“Behind me will be Claudia and Octavia. You two will be the main supports, Octavia watch your mother closely and learn from her.”
Aww, he just pretty much accepted Octavia as his daughter casually. Daughter or daughter-in-law? I’m not sure, figuring out social roles never really was my strong suit.
“Hic-“
“Brennos will hold the rear. That is not typically a role in parties, but I think extra caution is due. I will also watch the sides.”
Good job Marcus, despite constantly getting interrupted by hiccups, you gave a great explanation. By the way, everyone in the carriage found these hiccups to be cute. Marcus seems to be hiding how cute he thinks they are, but I can tell he is enjoying them.
The ride there was relatively short. Marcus got out and talked with the soldiers he stationed to watch the wolves. Apparently, he went through and killed all the other monsters in the woods to the north of the city except the wolves over the last three days.
There is an adventurer’s guild in this world, but it is considered a branch of the military in each nation. There seems to be a method of getting your certification from the guild accepted across national boundaries, but that requires a lot of paperwork it seems. However, the highest-ranking adventurers are excused from that.
The group entered formation and walked towards the wolf pack. Crystal wolves stand at the lower tier of monsters. There are 7 tiers of monster danger, 1 is the most dangerous, 7 is the least. It’s a convenient system. The tiers are measured logarithmically, meaning there is a 10x difference between the danger of each monster. A tier 6 monster is 10x more dangerous than a tier 7 one. Crystal wolves are tier 7, but that doesn’t mean you can be negligent. Even a tier 7 monster can kill you.
The crystal wolves were on a hill within an opening in the trees. Some were sleeping, and others were patrolling the perimeter of the hill. They had normal fur and flesh, but there were crystals protruding from their body in random locations. Eventually, one of them notices us. It leaped back and howled into the sky. When it did that, all the other wolves responded by gathering, there were 9 of them.
Their movements are slow, at least compared to how I’ve seen Julius and Marcus move. They are about as fast as slower dogs are in my world. What makes them dangerous is their group tactics.
Julius takes the lead; he stabs his sword into the wolf that charged first as he does two more circles around him. This poses no threat to him; he simply pulls his blade back, dodges the one to his left and beheads the one to his right.
Octavia casts her magic, she starts with three spells. Physical enhancement on Cassius, magic enhancement on Cassius, and focus on Cassius. Magic enhancement is a spell that increases the potency of the target’s spells. Focus increases reaction time and decreases cast time for spells, allowing for faster spell casting.
With these buffs, Cassius starts his assault. First, he launches fireballs at the first two who attack him. This instantly kills them. Two more start their attack, but they are not a match for his increased physical prowess. Octavia casts the spell sharpness on his blade which increases the potency of attacks.
He leaps at the first one isolating it and slashes twice. This doesn’t kill it instantly, but it falls to the ground and begins the process of bleeding out. He turned around immediately to see the second one jumping at him from behind. He cast the wind magic ‘impact’ and the wolf was sent flying. It died from the impact almost immediately. The second one died after not too long.
Julius easily dealt with the last two wolves himself. The group then went to the second and last target, A crystal bear. The crystal bear is a tier 6 threat, meaning this will be a substantially more difficult fight. It is about as tall as a brown bear in my world and had crystals protruding from its flesh in random locations.
The formation remained the same, and they departed to face the bear after resting for about an hour. The group had not regained all their mana, but that is to be expected. Adventurers and soldiers fight on weakened mana reserves all the time.
The bear was in a cave, the group decided that fighting within the cave would be a bad idea. Julius took the role of baiting it outside. He moved quickly, after throwing a knife at it, he retreated out of the cave to where Cassius and Octavia were getting ready.
Octavia cast the same three spells as before but made them slightly more potent. Cassius cast the spell ‘shifting earth’ which recreated earthquake-like conditions in just one spot of ground where the bear was standing. Octavia casts fear, which weakens an opponent's will to fight the bear.
The bear was now substantially weakened. Cassius launched multiple fireballs at it, with a decent effect, but not enough to kill it. Julius attacked from the front, his main goal was to draw all the attention to himself and do some damage to its limbs and joints. He was successful, chopping its left arm off and damaging its right hand.
Cassius took this opportunity to get behind it, leap up, stab its neck, and then cast a fire spell through his blade, killing the bear.
It was an easy fight, definitely more difficult than the Crystal Wolf fight. But much easier than the fight with the assassins.
With this finished, they returned to the estate and had bear meat for dinner. It was apparently pretty good. I kind of wished I got to eat it too.
After this, they would start going on hunts more often, giving the kids real-life combat experience. Julius wasn’t really a kid anymore; I think he’s 16 years old now. But in my eyes, that’s still a kid.
With dinner done, they returned to the living room to talk about the hunt. The conversation about what to do next time was very short as they already discussed that on the carriage ride home. It soon moved to more trivial things. Julius, Claudia, and Marcus drank wine while the two 8 years old's drank juice.
The discussion was mostly carried out by Claudia and Cassius. Everyone there was fairly reserved except Cassius, making him the center point of conversations often. Marcus was apparently very talkative when he was younger but being traumatized by the war left him quiet.
The fireplace was lit as night came and blankets were brought out. I don’t know when it happened, but Octavia fell asleep on the couch next to Cassius. He quieted down after noticing this and fell asleep too, ending the night.