“He’s a cute one, all right,” Azarus said to me later that day. We were sitting together in the back of Gren’s wagon as it rattled along down the road.

Venix had been right about the fact the caravan was all set and ready to go. By the time we’d gotten back, the last bits of the camp had been in the process of being torn down and loaded up. Venix had handed off my kill to a harried Rachel, who had handed it off to a few of her assistants. I’d stuck around only long enough to see them start tearing that poor deer apart in record time.

Goddamn, but proper Butchers could part out an animal quickly.

Venix had left me at that point to check in with the Ironclad, while I had meandered over to Gren’s wagon. I’d been greeted by either baffled or interested stares from the people loading it up. I’d found out that Grey had elected to travel in the Ironclad for now with Sylvia and his apparent subordinates. That left Azarus, Walter, Rachel, Van and I to travel with Gren in his wagon. Any questions or explanations about the new wolf pup in my arms had been put off while I pitched in.

I’d set the newly named Fade down to watch the bipeds throw bags and boxes around. He was remarkably well-behaved, only watching us curiously from the side with his furry little tail wagging.

Before long we’d been on the road, leading to the current scene. Walter was playing with Fade by playing tug of war. He’d elected to use some of the venison jerky the camp cooks had made. The wolf pup seemed to be both enjoying himself and the meat at the same time, enthusiastically tearing at the jerky in Walter’s hands. Walter himself seemed to be enjoying himself more than I’d ever seen him as well, based on the smile on his face.

Meanwhile, Van had joined Gren up on the driver's seat above us. They were engaged in conversation, but I couldn’t exactly hear what they were saying. The tone sounded serious to me though.

That just left Azarus, Rachel, Walter, and I inside to play with the pup. Rachel was conked out, though. I think all the frantic packing of the camp had tired her out and she’d opted for a nap. Azarus and I were talking while we watched Walter play with Fade.

I hummed. “Venix told me he was a Mystic Beast. Something called a Spirit Wolf. You know anything about that?” I asked Azarus.

“Yup,” Azarus replied, eyes tracking said wolf. “Well, a little at least. Mystic Beasts are kinda like animals that are a halfway point between monsters and your regular everyday beast, yeah? Something happens to ‘em before they’re born, and they absorb a ton of Aether, but not enough to mutate into a monster. Just enough for ‘em to develop powers of their own. They don’t got a Status, and they ain’t worth any level progression, but ya shouldn’t underestimate ‘em. Some Mystic Beasts can get mighty powerful.”

“And Spirit Wolves?” I asked him, smiling at the sight of Fade pulling so hard on the jerky that he nearly caused Walter to fall over.

“Myths,” Azarus shrugged. “Didn’t think they really existed, to be honest with ya. What that Venix character told ya is about the extent of what I know about ‘em. Still…” He paused, reaching up to scratch his beard. “It’s probably a good omen fer the future, attractin’ one like that.”

We sat in silence for a moment, just watching the antics.

“You know,” I said hesitantly. “You…haven’t really mentioned what your plans are now. With Grey free, and essentially having helped illegally free a bunch slaves…”

Azarus hummed. “Likely have a warrant out for me head now,” He said, unconcerned. “If I ain't have one now, I will as soon as word reaches Vittolia. Probably been stricken from the Savoy scrolls, too. I ain’t gonna be welcome in the Principality any time soon.”

“And…that’s fine?”

“It was always the plan,” Azarus said, turning to face me. He had a serious look on his face. “I could probably go beg Ely for asylum, but I ain’t gonna put her in that position. Probably gonna try and get into the Academy and pick up some more education. Or hells, maybe I’ll join Grey’s Order. Everyone needs blades smithed, after all. I don’t think Grey’s the type of man to just cast me aside, after what we’ve been through.” A frown crossed his bearded face. “Besides, I’m feeling pretty damn done with my people. At least fer a while. Ain’t anywhere in Dwarven lands I want to be right now, not even the holds. There was a reason I left in the first place to get into this mess.” Azarus had a painful look on his face at the end.

I wasn’t sure what to make of that. “If…you want to talk about it…” I said carefully.

Azarus was silent for a moment, with a far-off look in his eye. He turned away from me to stare at the opposite wall. “Had a girl, once. In the holds.” He said quietly. “Almost stayed fer her. Things…went badly, and I was politely asked to leave. No hard feelings. I just wasn’t welcome anymore.” He sighed. “Didn’t want to stick around after that anyway.”

I stayed silent, just letting him reflect for a moment. As close as I felt these days with Azarus, I didn’t feel like it was my place to pry.

Azarus glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “You ever have anyone? You know, back where you’re from?”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

I shook my head. “Nothing serious,” I told him. “A few flings here and there, but I just…didn’t have the time or energy for relationships. It all just went to caring for my dad.”

“Yeah,” Azarus said quietly, nodding. “I get that.”

At that, the conversation died. We ended up mostly sitting around in companionable silence for most of the day.

………………………………………

The next few weeks passed in much the same way, as the caravan trundled along toward Hollow Hill. Now that we had an actual force of armed veterans from this ‘Order’ leading the way, our pace picked up. About a week into our travel after getting underway, we finally exited dwarven lands. This was a bigger idea than I’d expected it to be with the former slaves of our caravan, as we ended up stopping that night for an impromptu party. It may have added another day to our journey, but I didn’t think the classers held it against the people of the caravan.

I think they understood.

Still, it wasn’t all fun and games on our trip. While we might have escaped Velancia, Herztal wasn’t exactly a safe place either. This was a country currently undergoing a bitter civil war, after all.

As I learned, Hollow Hill was considered to be a community that was on the periphery of the Kingdom. It was on the outskirts of Herztal, but still nowhere near where we ended up exiting the Barren Forest, the land that acted as a buffer zone for the two countries. We ended up essentially skirting the borders of Herztal along the forest in order to reach our destination.

In that time, I saw evidence of the war for the first time.

Nearly halfway to our destination, a particular group of former slaves insisted that we alter our course slightly. It was the people that I had been initially captured alongside by marauding elves, all those months ago. Apparently, their village, or what was left of it, lay in our path.

Rachel and Walter were among those former slaves. It was their village they wanted us to find.

Despite the setback, the other escapees of our caravan backed them up. Under pressure from the caravan, the impromptu leaders had gathered to decide if they would acquiesce. Bafflingly, I found that I had a say in these matters, along with Grey and Gren.

I guess because I was their leader's new apprentice?

I voted to change our course, of course. Not just because Rachel and Walter were my friends, but for more pragmatic reasons as well. If the village was still standing, like they had told me it had been before they left, maybe there were supplies for us to find there. We were doing surprisingly good on that front considering how impromptu our flight from Addersfield had been, but we could always use more. Or hell, maybe some of the slaves would want to hop off at that point and start a new life in a village that was hopefully still intact, if not dusty. We weren’t holding anyone in this caravan captive, after all. Everyone could come and go as they pleased, as was their right as free men and women. It’s just…no one had chosen to do that yet.

We ended up changing our course. My hopes were in vain, however.

When we reached the place where we’d been told the village would be, all we found were ruins.

It looked like a battle had rolled through this village. From what I understood, that’s what had caused the people here to flee in the first place, only to be waylaid by elves and enslaved. They’d been frightened that a battle was going to break out and spill into their home. I guess their poor headsman had been prescient after all.

It was a burnt pile of cinders and sorrow, mostly. There weren’t any buildings still standing when we rolled into the ‘village’. If that wasn’t enough, it didn’t look like whoever had won the battle here had bothered to collect any of the dead. There were dried-out, desiccated remains of human soldiers scattered all through the ruins, in a few different kinds of uniforms. As I was told, the remains we found wearing crimson tabards edged in green with an image of a fiery sun rising over a mountaintop were Herztalian infantrymen. The ones wearing blue and white tabards, however, with two Sculpted arms crossed over a large upright crescent moon, one arm stitched in silver and the other in bronze, represented the Uprising.

Unfortunately, this was also how I saw other Sculpted than Sylvia for the first time. While the majority of Uprising soldier corpses here seemed to surprisingly be human, there were plenty of dead Sculpted to see.

They weren’t all like Sylvia.

Most seemed to be made from far cheaper materials than the pure Mythril that she was. I saw plenty of them made from simple stone or iron, with some being made of softer metals like bronze. Hell, I think I even saw one made from wood, sadly shattered into a million splinters in the ruins of his armor and tabard.

With permission from the former slaves who formerly lived here, the caravan had decided to bury the dusty remains of the soldiers who had fought and died for this small village in the middle of nowhere. We got to work on that, while the former inhabitants tried to sadly pick over the locations of where their homes had been, desperate for old keepsakes left behind.

They had little success.

Meanwhile, the rest of us got to work on our self-imposed task. It took quite a while, even with both the superhuman strength and endurance on display, as well as the amount of volunteers.

There were a lot of bodies.

When we were done with our grim work, we packed back up and left the sight of the dead village behind us.

The mood in the caravan after finding that village was more somber. I think it was just now hitting some of the former slaves that, while they had escaped their slavery, they didn’t exactly have a safe place to flee to. They had mostly fled the war in the first place, and now they were back in the middle of it. Not many of the people that we had saved had much of a life or a home to return to.

Not only that, but the monster presence in these lands was higher than expected, even though we were well beyond the reach of the Ward Break back in Addersfield. From what I was told by a melancholic Grey one night, the bloodshed and battle that was occurring in these lands had a knock-on effect of heightening monster spawns. Apparently, it had something to do with the amount of Aether that was being released by the deaths of so many people and soldiers.

I volunteered for scout duty, after that. The monsters that were swarming these lands apparently weren’t too strong for me, so it was time for another kind of hunting. I ended up gaining another couple of levels, before we finally arrived at Hollow Hill. That put me at level thirty-two, now.

By the end of the second week, we’d finally arrived at Hollow Hill.

I…certainly wasn’t expecting the huge military encampment carefully arranged just outside the walls of the sleepy little town.