Chapter 2.5: The Cloaked Beauty
The carriage’s wheels creaked and knocked aside small pebbles as it followed the road at a moderate speed. The driver whistled a tune and happily rode along in his carriage filled with cargo. Sitting inside the carriage was a person who wore their hood up, effectively blocking their facial features and concealing their identity.
Rays of sunlight from the morning sun came down and the sight of it reflecting against the moisture on the grass painted a peaceful atmosphere.
This carriage which carried a large amount of goods would no doubt earn a lot of money if the cargo were to be sold within a town or city. But carriages like these were the perfect targets for bandit raids and were often met with misfortune. This is the reason why the driver paid for protection in the form of a Rank E adventurer.
The carriage abruptly stopped, rocking the crates and passenger within. Voices were heard outside, seemingly arguing. The merchant who drove the cart got off and started talking to the unknown visitors outside.
“Look I’m… What do you mean that… Y-You can’t be serious…” The voices were muffled, with the words said occasionally being cut off.
The cloaked passenger lightly hopped off and walked to the front of the carriage, where around twenty men surrounded the driver in a half circle.
“Just hand over your carriage, and we’ll let you leave with your life.” A burly man stood in front of the others and said in an imposing manner that obviously intimidated the merchant.
“Don’t think you petty bandits can get away with this! I’ve hired an adventurer with a ranking of E! This individual is more than enough for you all… right?” The merchant began to threaten them and looked toward the cloaked individual who now stood beside him.
“Heh… Don’t you know? Our boss here also used to be an adventurer with the ranking of E!” A thin, monkey-faced individual from the group of bandits said, to which the burly man, who seemed to be the leader, responded to by puffing his chest out in pride.
“No.. No way…” The merchant subconsciously stepped back and showed fear on his face.
The burly man laughed and spoke, “Loot the cart.” He motioned to the monkey-faced individual who started to stride towards the cart in an arrogant manner.
Before he could get anywhere near the cart though, the monkey-faced man received an impact to the stomach and was sent flying for several meters. In the place where he used to stand, the cloaked individual stood, foot stretched outwards. This person seemed to have sent a casual kick, but the strength behind it was no doubt extremely powerful.
“You want to die!?” The burly bandit leader leapt at the cloaked figure brandishing a sharp two-edged battle axe. He swung downwards with all of his strength, only to have his axe deflected with ease. The collision brought about a torrent of air that rushed out, blowing away the individual’s hood.
In the place of the hood, the individual’s face was exposed revealing an extremely beautiful girl with midnight-black hair! Her eyes were cold and her sword suddenly moved, becoming a blur. The sword left a wide cut on the man’s chest, but it wasn’t fatal. It was obvious that this cut was meant to intimidate, instead of kill.
The bandit leader landed with a thud and his colleagues all rushed at the unhooded beauty with both lust and anger in their eyes.
The girl’s body flashed and within a few seconds, all the bandits had numerous shallow cuts and bruises all over. Some of the weaker ones even lost consciousness upon being bashed or kicked by the black-haired girl.
The bandit leader raised his head from the ground, face paling upon seeing the sight in front of him. “You… your strength isn’t at the level of an E rank..! You’re at the level of a D rank adventurer!” The bandit leader screamed in fear, scrambling up.
His colleagues faces also showed fright and shock, and hurriedly picked their unconscious friends and ran off, the bandit leader following not far behind.
The cloaked beauty gave a tired sigh and put her hood back on, wordlessly re-entering the cart and only giving a small nod in response to the merchant’s cries of gratitude. Seeing that the threat has passed, the merchant got on the cart and begun the trip once again, headed to the town of Aharne…
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After arriving at the town, the mysterious black-haired girl decided to rent a room at the local inn. She began to walk towards the counter but was blocked by an arrogant-looking individual.
“Hey… I haven’t seen you here before, you planning on staying at the inn? I heard the rooms were full, why don’t you stay at my place tonight?” His friends behind him snickered. Then, a black-haired boy came out from the inn’s kitchen and gave a fed up look at the man in front of the girl.
“You heard wrong, Hank. There are a lot of vacant rooms in the inn. Don’t go harassing the customers, or the owner’s going to be mad when he comes back.”
The boy slowly said to the man named Hank, who looked at him with an annoyed expression. They began to argue while the cloaked beauty looked at them coldly. She was frustrated that she couldn’t just go about her business normally, trouble had followed her around since young, and even led to that horrible incident…
Her look became colder after Hank tried to claim her for himself and she started to feel anger. The other patrons watched on as if this was a daily occurrence, but showed surprised expression when Hank asked the boy to participate in a bet. The stakes were quite high and the boy surprisingly agreed, giving the girl and Hank a troubled look before heading out.
He looked back and said, “I have a name, you know…” giving Hank a blank look.
“Oh? I’ve honestly forgotten at this point. Come on, tell me then!” Hank’s grin grew wider. At this moment, even the cloaked beauty behind him showed some curiosity.
“My name’s Dust!” The boy said, before walking out the inn.
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Black-haired Girl’s POV:
After the incident at the inn, I left and decided to sleep somewhere else instead. Before this though, I had to take care of a contract I accepted in the last city. I exited the town and ran towards the forest, jumping across large roots and maneuvering across the forested terrain.
The contract I took involved collecting tusks from the boars usually found around this area, and a specific portion detailed that two tusks must come from an alpha tusk boar, or an alpha tusk boar’s mate.
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Hurrying along, I spotted a group of tusk boars and quickly dispatched them, collecting their tusks. It went like this until I found a gigantic tusk boar that towered above the rest, but just as I spotted it, it spotted me as well. It gave an enraged shriek and charged towards me, knocking down a good number of trees in the process.
I evaded, but it quickly changed direction and charged at me again. This was repeated a few more times before we burst into a clearing in the forest’s outskirts, I dodged the boar but it headed straight at an individual in the distance.
This person jumped to the side and barely dodged the boar’s attack. During the evasive maneuver however, he dropped his sword and showed a panicked expression, slowly retreating a step and then bursting into a run.
The boar gave a roar and followed after, intending to impale him with its tusks. Before the boar could reach him though, I drove my knee into the side of the boar’s face, sending it tumbling to the ground, direction unchanged.
“Why do you hate me!?” The boy screamed at the boar and leaped forward, just barely surviving the boar’s crash. He slowly stood up and dusted himself off, staring at me before jogging back to his sword and picking it up.
I looked at the boar, there’s no way this thing’s unconscious. They’re too resilient to go down from just that first attack. My suspicions were confirmed as the boar stood up and dashed towards me once again. I answered by running towards it and then sidestepping, driving my sword into its side and leaving a large wound. The boy also took this chance to stab it in a particularly sensitive area from behind, making the boar’s cry increase by an octave.
‘Pfft…’ I almost laughed at the scene, but I held it in and left a deep cut on the behemoth’s neck. I looked back just in time to see the boy spit out a mouthful of blood.
My face froze before it twisted in worry for a moment as I dashed towards the boy’s collapsed form.
‘No…’ At this moment, the memory of a tragedy that happened long ago flashed into my mind, making tears appear in the corner of my eyes. The blood that stained the side of his mouth made me remember all the terrifying things that happened all those years before. I frantically checked his body’s vitals, and checked his wrist, relaxing when I felt his pulse.
After wiping off the tears on the side of my face, I gave a sigh of relief and carefully laid his body next to a tree, collecting the boar’s tusks before strapping them to my bag. Afterwards, I walked towards him and suddenly realized he was the boy in the inn this morning, the one that quarreled with that idiot. I thought of his name, if I recall correctly, it was… Dust.
I picked up his sword and carried him to an area of the forest I judged as safe, putting him down gently and placing his sheathed sword beside him. The sky had already begun to go dark by this time and I quickly set up a campfire around us.
I sat down with a small puff and exhaled softly, hugging my knees to my chest and staring into the fire. I stayed like this for a few hours before Dust woke up. I gave him a small nod and stood up, preparing to catch some food. As I left, I heard him say something, but decided that food was more important.
Arriving at the stream nearby, I easily caught some fish and gutted the inedible parts. When I returned Dust was staring into the fire with a dark expression, looking like he was remembering something horrible. As soon as he saw me carrying two pairs of fish though, his expression lit up immediately, much to my surprise.
‘I wonder what happened… to make him show a face like that…’ This thought entered my mind and passed as quickly as it entered. I placed the fish next to the fire and watched it cook, sitting opposite of him.
He looked at me awkwardly and asked, “Are any of those for me?” I glanced at him, thinking about how I should answer that question, and in the end, chose to stay silent.
“If you eat too much, you’ll get fat, you know?”
‘Seriously?’
“You’ll ruin your good-looking figure, you know?”
‘I’m just going to ignore you and watch the fish cook…’
“Men all around the world will shed tears, you know?”
‘Please… just shut up.’
As I thought this, the smell of cooked fish wafted out, drifting into the air. I reached out to the fish and took it from its place near the fire, taking a small bite and savoring the taste. At the same time, in the corner of my vision, I saw Dust’s eyes move from me to the fish, he then said, “I’m taking some… alright?” and quickly scooped up the fish. He held it like he would a baby and stared at me like I was jeopardizing his child’s safety.
‘Is he an idiot?’
Dust looked at the fish with a complicated expression before setting it down beside him.
I was exasperated by this and spoke, “…Why aren’t you eating?” He froze, and his eyes started darting around the place, as if he was looking around for someone, until his gaze stopped at me. His face was a mixture of shock and astonishment, which slowly changed to a slight smile.
“…I’m not really hungry.” He spoke like a maltreated child and made the corners of my mouth twitch in annoyance.
‘How can this person be so annoying?’
He looked at me for a few moments before he smiled and leaned on the rock behind him, gently breathing in the cool night air.
“…Thanks.” He said, I looked at him for a moment and spoke, “…No problem.” I paused for a few seconds, waiting for a reply, and a reply was what I got.
He started snoring.
‘I hate you.’ I silently thought to him as I ate.
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Author’s Note:
There’ll be a part 2 to this side chapter the day after tomorrow and in that chapter, I’ll write down why the reason for the goblin village’s destruction and the actions of our black-haired heroine before she returned to the town of Aharne. Dust’s confrontation with Hank will come tomorrow!
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