Having not revisited the goblin village since the time of the raid, the sight that greeted Sylvia was to her relief the same; it would’ve just made her uneasy if something else had happened. From here, Calysta took the center stage, with her enhanced senses. Her only real idea of where an exit to the forest could be, would be in a direction where the forest thinned out, or at least seemed more recent. Based on Sylvia’s mental map, Calysta had a pretty good idea of where the older part of the forest was, which gave her the initial direction to explore.
Over the next couple hours, Calysta used her greatly enhanced sense of smell to locate well over ten goblin outposts, but it took her until the 19th before she found one with signs of other people having passed by fairly recently. As she had experienced quite early in her life in this world, goblins stank, probably even more than hell would. Even after a week had passed, it had still not left the different outposts, though it had luckily weakened quite a bit.
Before doing anything else, she quickly turned into Sylvia to save the location in the map and orient herself, before returning to Calysta to follow the footsteps out of the area. After a good 15 minutes had passed, she’d been led to a quite wide, trodden, dirt path. On the ground, besides the vague marks of many footsteps, there were loads of deep lines ranging from the width of a couple fingers to multiple hands, all of which had deeper creature-like footprints near them.
Having found what she wanted, she captured her location and began to head back. Though on her way back, she had deviated a bit to go find and kill a couple beasts for them to smoke, as she didn’t know how long she would be gone. As they didn’t know how long it’d be until they found after leaving the forest, and the fact that it’d probably be around four to five hours on foot just to get out, considering the physical capabilities of her two companions, they decided to head to bed early and set off at the crack of dawn the following morning.
----
Waking earlier than the others, Sylvia went out to get some morning practice before they set off. They had yet to discuss how to handle her different forms while in town, so in case she wouldn’t really have the time to practice once there, she wanted to get at least a little done now. An hour later, they were off to search for a settlement, after Sylvia had quickly filled a large basin with water.
The first hour or so passed with little talk, as the other two were quite on edge from their past experience with the forest, despite Sylvia being there with them. Luckily, as the sun rose, and a nice warmth and light slowly spread throughout the forest, the two were able to relax enough for chatter to begin.
“So, is there anything that I need to know before we get to a town?” “Well, it’d probably be relevant to know about the three guilds.” Philip answered her question with little delay. “There’s the biggest, the adventurers’ guild, though I can’t say that I know a lot about it. Then there’s the craftsmen’s guild and the merchants’ guild, both of which I’ve had more to do with than the adventurers’. I do have a guild card for them, as most people do, but it’s just E rank, the civilian rank.”
Taking over from him, Enelise continued, “It’s the same for me. From what I know, the D rank goes up to about level 200, but I honestly never really got too into it. Though we have two more pressing matters, which is our lack of money in any capacity and what to do about your forms. Regardless of what guild you sign up at, you will be screened by an appraisal crystal that may show your titles or more, so your different forms could easily get connected to each other.”
“Thanks for mentioning the title stuff, but don’t worry about it; my ability to change forms includes the capability to hide my titles for the different forms. And as for some cash, I can just hunt some animals for us to sell, though that would require you guys to be alone in the forest.”
At the suggestion, Enelise shook her head. “While I appreciate the enthusiasm, I don’t think right now would be the best time to split up. Besides, you probably wouldn’t get more than a couple caro for, and I just plan to sell this,” she pulled out the knife she’d made the previous day. “We’re going to get some better materials, so this will eventually be replaced anyway. If that doesn’t work, I imagine that both me and Philip would be able to help the local blacksmith, we both hold an Experienced or higher ranked class.”
“As for your form, I think you should stick to either Sylvia or Frank, of which Sylvia will probably be the most useful, allowing you to properly sign up at the adventurer’s guild and earn money that way. You know as well as I that your masonry is just at the level of a greenhorn.” This time it was Philip who voiced his thoughts. “Got it. Sylvia it is then.”
For the remainder of the walk, they explained a lot of general info to Sylvia, in the hopes that she wouldn’t show a complete lack of understanding when interacting with people. From which her biggest takeaways were the terms ‘creature’ and ‘person’ and the currency, with the former referring to both beasts and monsters, where the differing factor is how close to people they are. The second refers to all the species with access to the class system. The relevant currencies were caro, panis, and telum, with each being worth 100 of the last and there existing a large version of each coin worth 10 regular. There did exist larger denominations, beast and dragon, but there was little to no chance of us encountering them.
A couple hours later, they reached the path Sylvia had found the previous day and decided to take their lunchbreak. As they ate, Sylvia looked around and was reminded of the many wheel tracks she’d seen, so she decided to ask. “You guys wouldn’t happen to know why there are so many wheel tracks and why the path is so wide?” The path in question was at least 10 meters across.
With Enelise stuffing herself, Philip was the first to answer: “The tracks are from carriages, since they’re used to transport the killed prey back, which, as you have experienced yourself, can be of quite the large scale. Even when you take into consideration the compression skill that most parties use, then their spoils will often be able to fill a 3 or 4 meter wide cart, if not wider. I assume you can easily imagine why the path is required to be so wide from that.”
Having finished chewing, Enelise continued: “This forest is also home to a lot of creatures, especially beasts, so there are a lot of materials to be gathered here daily, and with rapidly creatures multiply and grow, the supply is nearly endless. In fact, it’s generally required to at least keep the amount in the outskirts relatively under control. At least that’s how it was at our town, which was quite close to the forest.”
Besides a greater understanding of the forest, the replies left Sylvia with two questions. “First, what’s the compression skill, and second, do the laws of thermodynamics not apply here? Considering how quickly it sounds like everything reproduces,” At the second question, she could see in their faces that they didn’t recognize the term, making her mentally facepalm. “You know what? Just forget that second question. I’ll just assume that the system and mana solve it.”
To clear the confusion, Philip quickly shook his head, “Regardless of what those thermo dynamites are, the answer to the first question is quite simple. It’s a skill that any craftsman can learn, and even if you change class, you can still use it. For that reason, almost every craftsman, merchant, and most adventurers have and use it, though you need to reach level 20 before it really begins to be useful. It allows the caster to compress materials that correspond to the skill type, both for greater effects and storage. That skill alone is why both merchants and adventurers usually have spent at least some time as craftsmen.”
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
It didn’t take her much imagination to see why such a skill would be useful, especially when just a level 50 bear could reach over four meters long. However, the thing that really caught her attention was the changing class part, and as she was about to ask further, she recalled that she had already thought of it before. When she had first had the chance to pick a class as Frank, it had said locked, and that the Frank form had to reach intermediate trainee in five different classes, which she had thought about once in a while when she waited for her leg to heal, but after that she’d been too busy to recall it.
As she pondered whether to ask further right now, or just wait until they found a proper resting place in a town, when that decision was made for her. Thanks to her much higher perception stat compared to the other two, she was the first to hear something approach them from the path going deeper. In a low voice, she said: “Something’s coming, so be ready.” Getting up, the two kept a hand on their knives, ready to draw at a moment’s notice, while she brought fourth her spear.
Rounding the corner, the three saw a large head appear. Even from this distance, Sylvia could feel the size of it, over half a meter high, around a meter long, and only slightly thinner than tall. The shape itself resembled a hippopotamus, but just green and scale instead of the usual greyish skin. What followed afterwards looked little like a hippo, instead it felt like it was a snake with a hippo head, as the neck, if it could even be called that, just seemed to continue for well over a meter. At last, it finally reached the body, which reminded her of a Komodo Dragon, just with a size increase to 1.5 meters tall. The body also seemed to continue on for a while, as a whole three pairs of legs made their arrival before the tail, which she soon found to be wrapped around the front end of a wagon.
As soon as the head had appeared, she had noticed both of her companions visibly relax, prompting her to lower her suspicions slightly, but not too much. “Don’t worry Sylvia, it’s just a wagon that’s approaching us, and likely one that’s returning home.” Sensing her raised guard, Philip added a quick explanation of the situation. Just as she was about to inquire as to how he’d figured that out, she saw it herself. Behind the creature, a wagon of at least four meters width and 6 meters length made itself clear. On said wagon laid three beast bodies, of which at least one was a bear, though all three were at least 1.5 meters in any dimension. At the front of the wagon, Sylvia could see six people sitting on what amounted to two simple benches and one sit at the tip, looking over the beast.
“The creature is a Slimus, which is one of the naturally strongest species we know of, or at least that has been domesticated. Thus, despite not being terribly fast and seemingly never full, they’re widely used for hauling heavy goods, especially such as carcasses. For lighter good, like people, and when speed is more appreciated, different breeds of horses are used. Since you probably don’t know those either, I’ll show you one in town.” Learning a bit more about the creature was nice, though the part about her not knowing what a horse was almost made her laugh, but she figured she’d just say it later; right now, they had more pressing matters to take care of.
As they got closer, Sylvia noticed that the six who weren’t guiding the carriage held their weapons in a similar manner to themselves, in addition to seeming ready to jump down from the carriage at a moment’s notice. Once within audible range, the brunet coachman called out with a shout: “We’re just passing through, no need to fight.”
Carefully, Sylvia lowered her spear and watched the adventurers do the same, making her breath a sigh of relief and realize that she’d been holding her breath since she’d noticed their weapons. From her left side, Philip responded with both hands raised disarmingly. “No harm, no foul. You wouldn’t happen to be making your way to a settlement of some kind, would you?”
Having now gotten close enough for shouting to no longer be necessary, the gruff voice of a male dwarf responded, “Who’s asking? And why should our business matter to you guys?” It was only after he had spoken that Sylvia realized that the voice was female and not male, though to her, the bearded woman looked like a man through and through. ‘Another thing to ask about later.’
“Philip Adderman, Enelise FlameBorn, and Sylvia Hisprit. We’ve ended up lost in the forest and just found this path while looking for civilization.” At Philip’s answer, a barking laugh came from the woman, but her eyes turned deadly serious. “Kid, don’t fuck around with me. You have an elf in your group; you can’t get lost in a forest.” The adventurers took to their weapons and looked around, preparing for an ambush.
As Enelise sighed and began to help out, Sylvia noticed the coachman shake his head and watched them calm down slightly. “The answer to that question is fairly simple. Me and Philip were the ones who actually got lost in the forest, but here we met Sylvia, who had gotten lost outside of the forest. So, she set up camp outside and eventually rescued us from goblins. We found this path after she cleared out the goblins.”
While she didn’t look fully convinced, a whisper from what looked like half-sized human male, probably a halfling, made her sigh. “Fine. You don’t seem armed enough to really do anything either, and Aywin here has already assured us that no one’s preparing an ambush.” She clapped the shoulder of the elven coachman, who grinned lightly.
“Now, to answer you question. Yes, we are indeed on our way to a settlement. Feel free to hitch a ride if you want but leave your spear with us meanwhile. You’re still strangers, and we wouldn’t want the possibility of getting attacked from our back.”
With a slight grimace at the thought of leaving her spear with others, Sylvia ended up shrugging before handing the spear over. “Thank you for letting us come along with you guys. As you’ve already heard, I’m Sylvia Hisprit.” “Halaetain StrongAxe, I’m the leader of this party.” The dwarf, Halaestain, passed the spear along and helped Sylvia up, “We only have seats for us, so you can sit on the floor at the end, same goes for your friends.”
On her way to the back, she passed a male elf, a female human, and two male humans, with the latter sitting at the back seats. As she took her seat, the man next to her, a blonde youth with short hair and one yellow and one greyish-white eye extended a hand. “Nice to meet you, I’m Mikhail Dimatos.” Compared to the others, Mikhail, who couldn’t be much older than Frank, seemed more open to them tagging along.
Sensing her intrigue when she shook his hand, he added, “I joined these guys recently, so I’m not as protective of the group as them.” His smile was quite relaxing for her, at least compared to dealing with the other members. The other two joined her shortly after, and the carriage resumed its steady pace. Over the next half an hour to an hour, the friction between the two groups eased quite a bit.
It had initially begun with surprise at learning Enelise’s crafting rank from the spear, followed by joking remarks that the spear lacked a rope for easy carrying, at which the crafter could only smile, shrug, and respond that they had no such thing in the forest. They also learned that Sylvia had no adventurer card, as she had grown up in a small self-sufficient town without any of the guilds. Not to mention that the two craftsmen had lost their money back when they were attacked. By the halfway point, Sylvia had gotten her spear back, seeing as they no longer deemed them a threat.
At one point, Mikhail had inquired about how she got lost, forcing her to invent a story on the spot. It ended up with her having gone out to forage, but she had lost track of time. Thus, when she was going to use the sun to navigate back to her village, it had, unbeknownst to her, changed location in the sky, so she ended up in the forest, completely lost.
With light banter, the ride felt like it passed way quicker than it actually did, and they had soon reached the city. From the outside, it was obvious to Sylvia that it was a small town of less than 100 meters across, but it was still walled in, and by a wall at least 10 meters tall at that. Surprisingly, neither of her two companions reacted in any way to the walls, so she pretended not to notice it either. After a little consideration, she realized that it was to protect against random monsters, and that magic would make it much more feasible to create and maintain such a wall.