I slowly approached the carriage, the adventurers tensed up a bit, the ones on the horses put their hands on their weapon, ready for anything. I could vaguely sense the mage girl casting a spell on her party members, probably a boost of sorts.
The archer tightened his grip on his bow. But I only noticed this because of experience I guess, all these movements they did were so fast and silent, that any other would probably not have noticed it. They are definitely professionals.
I started off by waving at them, to show them I meant no harm, as well as showing my empty hand. I quickly got closer and one of the horsemen slowed down to meet me. He had a one-handed sword on his hip, a big metal shield on his back and a heavy set of armor on him. My first thought was: Tank.
"Hey, looking to go past us?" The man asked. I guess he thought I'd wanna go past them and then continue on my journey.
"Actually, I'm not in a hurry and haven't really talked to anyone in several days, except for bandits, but they really talk too much," I said and smiled at him before I continued.
"I saw that we were traveling the same way and was hoping for some company," I told him my motive for approaching.
"I'm sorry, I can't have that. We don't know you and we got someone to protect." He said without even giving it a thought. Dang, I guess I see where he's coming from...
"All right, I understand your logic. I'll just pass you then." I said and quickened my pace to get ahead of the caravan. I slowly came side by side with the caravan and saw that noble-looking woman look at me. She then turned towards the adventurers and talked to them. I ignored it and continued riding ahead.
"Wait up!" I heard the mage yelling as I passed them a few meters. I quickly slowed down, hoping that they changed their mind. It's a bit lonely out here after all.
I got side by side with the caravan again and saw the Noble looking woman look at me.
"Why don't you join us for camp tonight? It's not easy being alone out here as a woman. That is after all why I hire people to protect me." She said and giggled a bit. She was a beautiful young girl, maybe 16-18 years old with long silver hair and blue piercing eyes.
"That is more than true, miss. I already had a few encounters with bandits on my way here. I guess they think I'm an easy target because I'm a woman." I said and laughed a bit.
"What's your name?" She asked, and I happily replied.
"My name is Rudy, miss. How about you?" I asked and tried to keep eye contact, but was more focused on the road.
"My name is Jenna, nice to meet you!" She said and nodded towards me.
Then the others in the caravan started to introduce themselves. The mage girl was named Amy, she had short brown curly hair and was short and looked pretty young, no older than 20. The archer was a tall and slim man with short red hair, his name is Isac.
The two people on horses were Michael and Arthur. Arthur was the one with a shield and Michael had a big double-edged ax on his back. Arthur was a big guy, around my size, at least 6”. He had long black hair in a pony tail and a goatee, he looked like the oldest of them, maybe around 30.
Michael looked like the savage of the party. long brown, slightly curly hair, scars on his face and looked overall dangerous. He was shorter than Arthur, but not by much, but he had very big arms, he definitely had power in those arms.
They had a good party set up. A tank, A melee DPS, A ranged DPS and ranged support who can probably deal damage as well.
We only rode for less than an hour before we set up a camp to rest the horses. Me, Michael and Isaac went hunting for something to eat. I said I could go alone, but they insisted on going with me. They probably want to keep an eye on me, as I just joined their travels.
I managed to locate a wild boar who Isac then shot down. Isac was impressed that I could find it but didn't ask any questions. Michael did absolutely nothing, But I'm pretty sure he just followed to protect Isac from me if I turned hostile.
We got back to camp with the boar, which me and Michael carried. The others seemed happy to get some fresh meat. They had already started a fire and we just had to process the boar. Isac was really good at that and he did it very quickly as well. The meat was cooking and everyone was sitting and talking.
"So Rudy, where are you heading to?" Jenna asked me as we sat around the fire.
"For now I'm heading to Stonehold, we'll see where I end up after that," I said and looked at her.
"What is your goal there, if you don't mind me asking?" She asked with a curious look on her face.
"I guess I'm gonna make my debut as an adventurer there. I did register at Rivett, but I had a Marquis who wanted my hand in marriage, so I left as soon as I could after that." I said and giggled a bit.
"Bennet, huh?" Jenna said in a low tone and looked disappointed before continuing.
"So, you're also an adventurer. If you're going to debut in Stonehold, that would make you an F-rank, correct?" Jenna asked me.
"Yep, that is correct. Fresh new adventurer with 0 Quest Points." I said and laughed a bit.
"But you're probably stronger than your average adventurer. Based only on what we've seen, you're probably at least C-rank in strength." Arthur cut into the conversation. I got a bit curious as to why he thought that and asked him about it.
"You said you'd met a few bandits on the road. Bandits around here are always at least 10 in number. That means either you got very lucky and only faced a few at a time, or you're strong enough to beat 10 regular people at once." He said, brilliant observation if I say so myself.
"Good observation! The first group were 18, the others were 10. Both groups died within a minute of attacking me." I said, boasting a bit. I noticed that Michael looked up when I told them that. He had a fierce smile on his face, I can only assume he's a battle junkie.
"You took down 18 bandits on your own?" The mage, Amy cut in and asked in a surprised tone.
"Well, I managed to get them to lower their guard. While they were all aiming their crossbows at me and had their weapons drawn, I told them to leave within 5 seconds or I'd kill them all. They, of course, lost it and burst into laughter. That's when I attacked. They didn't even last very long." If I told them it took less than 10, they would not believe me.
"Oh, right. I noticed you have a big hammer and a shield on you, but no sword on your hip. What's your style?" Arthur asked, and looked towards my gear.
"I use the hammer in one hand and the shield in the other." I simply said as if it was no big deal. The others widened their eyes a bit. No one simply uses a weapon made for two hands with one. Unless you have extreme physical strength, which I guess I have.
"Hey lady, wanna spar?" Michael finally said, he really is a battle junkie, huh?
"Damn it, Michael! You can't fight everyone you think is strong!" Amy yelled at him. The rest of the group just laughed, I guess they are used to him being like that.
"I'd be glad to spar," I said. I do like to fight, I haven't had a decent fight since I got here.
The rest of the group let out a sigh as Michael stood up and put his gear on with a smile. The others seemed curious about my strength and didn't stop him. We walked a few meters away from the fire, in the open. I took my hammer and shield. I noticed the others looked impressed as they didn't seem to believe what I said at first.
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"Ok! Rule nr 1: No killing! Rule nr 2: No crippling. Also, try to keep it at least a bit friendly." Arthur said and looked at us, we both nodded and didn't take our eyes off each other.
"Go!" Arthur yelled to signal the start of the duel.
Michael didn't seem like the guy to hold back. He rushed with his axe and tried to hit me from above with it, I smashed my shield to match his axe, he staggered back a bit and I pushed my hammer on his chest, not with my full strength, that would have killed him. He fell on the ground and before he took to stand up again, I stood there with my hammer pointing to him. The fight ended very quickly and everyone in the party was surprised to see that Michael lost so easily.
"Damn, you must be at least A-rank!" Arthur said.
"Is that so? What rank are you guys?" I was curious, as I hadn't asked before.
"Our party is officially C-Rank. But that's because Amy joined us pretty late. She is D-Rank, but her strength is definitely C or above. Isac is C, about to be promoted to B. Michael is a B rank and I'm about to become an A-rank." Arthur explained. No wonder he feels so protective of them, he is the highest rank and probably feels the need to protect them.
At that time, Michael had finally got up and looked at me with determination.
"I won't lose next time!" He said and went back to the fire.
The food was done and we all got a big share each. I took the time to ask Amy about magic, as I was curious about how it worked in this world. Apparently everyone is born with magic in them, just not everyone has the talent or mana capacity to become a mage.
There's 4 common magical attributes, fire, earth, wind and water, then it had two rare ones, Holy and Unholy. And the advanced ones were Space and Time. Everyone could use the common ones, how well just depended on the affinity they had in it.
Affinity can be seen as Low - Medium - High - Peak, most people have low affinity in the common ones, with low they would have to work extremely hard and long to get anywhere with it, most who are born with Low affinity gives up magic, but those that don't usually do miscellaneous jobs.
Low fire affinity can be used to dry wet clothes, they usually work with cleaning and so on. There is a huge difference between Low and Medium, Medium and High, and High and Peak. At medium, you can easily become a mage. But still, you have to work hard to get higher. Most Medium people go to Magic Academies and end up in the mage corps in armies.
High affinity is where you are seen as someone who will make it big in that field. Usually, High people become magic teachers or court mages for nobles. The tier of affinity also affects how much mana someone has and how fast they can improve it.
Peak tier is what all arch-mages in history have had. It's still fairly common to have Peak, but it's hard to get higher in magical strength than a High tier, but the mana of a Peak tier is always higher. All tiers have different strength on their spells as well as mana pool. There is a magical tool that checks affinity, which Amy happens to have with her and we were all curious about my affinity, to be honest.
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Fire: Medium
Earth: Medium
Wind: Medium
Water: Medium
Holy: Peak
Dark:
Space: Low
Time: High
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Seeing their reaction to this, it’s safe to assume that it’s good.
“Peak holy! I’ve never heard of anyone with that before.” Amy comments in surprise.
Apparently just having medium in all common is rare, and then having one rare at peak and both advanced one, one being high is unheard of. Time magic seems interesting, I need to look into that more.
Amy said she has High in both Holy and Fire and Medium in Earth and she's seen as a prodigy with just her affinity alone.
I can somewhat understand some of these, I can change some of my skills and runes to deal with Fire, Cold, Holy, Lightning or Physical damage. So I can see why Fire is medium. I assume Water is medium because of Cold. Holy is... well, I was a holy warrior, I could see that coming. The dark is obvious. I was a holy warrior if I had an affinity with darkness that would have been embarrassing.
Space being low, meant I had to work hard to have any use of it, but I’m more interested in Time to be honest.
I asked Amy to teach me a bit about magic and how it's used. She explained that you form your mana into the element of your choice and the mana can take any shape you think of, but the strength and speed of the casting depend mostly on affinity and experience.
Amy showed me a fireball she cast. She hovered it around herself and then me, then she cast it at a rock in the distance, the rock shattered in pieces. I asked her how to about mana and how to see how much mana someone has. That is something that was hard to measure, as it was something everyone had differently. The mana pool could also increase, the more you use it.
It was mostly experience that let you know how much mana you have. If you used magic often, you’d know how much it would take before it ran out as you would start feeling mentally tired when it was low. Amy had a lot of mana and could keep using mana for hours in fights if she needed to.
Mana was something that everyone had and was everywhere in the world, that meant that all mana lost would be recovered with time, and sometimes it would even give you more. Exhausting your mana could be a way to increase your mana pool, but it was still pretty rare for it to happen. Mostly your overall mana pool depended on your affinity.
After a few days, we were about 1 week away from arriving at our destination. During our travels, I have experimented with wind magic and figured out how to shoot wind blades with a swing of my weapon.
One day we were camping and I was with my magic trying to create something with it, we heard a roar in the distance. The group took a defensive stance and we looked towards the distance and saw a big, orc-like creature.
It was almost as big as a troll but looked more like an orc. Its skin was dark red, it had two horns on its head and it stood tall at almost 4 meters. It walked towards us and had a smug look on its face like he was sure he was gonna win against us.
"Ogre....." I heard Amy say in a low voice, the entire group looked a bit scared.
"We need to retreat, We can't defeat it while protecting Miss Jenna," Arthur said. Which confused me. He was supposed to be close to A-rank and still wanted to retreat.
"I'll take it on then," I said and walked towards it to face it.
"No! Don't! An ogre is a lot stronger than a troll and they love to toy around with their opponents!" Amy yelled at me to stop. But I didn't listen, I heard that the Demon I killed before was a S class monster and if this guy is anywhere near him, he should not be too much of a threat to me.
"Stay inside this," I said as I cast Concentration on them, with the Aegis Purgatory rune, it made a force field around them, protecting them from any and all damage. In the game, it lasts only 5 seconds, but as long as I supplied it with mana, it would stay up.
I walked towards the ogre with a smile, hoping to finally get a fight in this world. I guess I'm starting to become somewhat of a junkie myself.
The ogre let out a small groan as he looked at me, a tiny human compared to him. He grinned at me, which showed sharp ugly teeth in its mouth. He was equipped with a big two-handed hammer, but since it's an ogre, he could easily wield it with one hand. He swung it at me at a slow pace, probably to test me, I dodge it and tried my Wind Blade on him. It barely penetrated his skin. I guess I need to work more on that.
Though it didn't penetrate much, it still made him bleed a bit which made it very angry. I guess its pride was hurt because a tiny human managed to deal damage to him. He let out a huge roar which hurt my ears a bit before he charged at me with a hard downward swing.
I took the blow head on with my shield. I could hear Amy scream, she probably thought I was crazy to take it head-on. The hammer hit my shield and a loud *CLING* sound could be heard as the metal hammer clashed into my shield. I was still standing, with a small crater under me and the ogre looked very confused as to why it didn't crush me.
It made him even angrier as he tried kicking me, but I blocked that as well and didn't get pushed away. I waited for him to make another swing with his hammer to make my counter attack.
He punched at me with his free hand, I dodged it. As I was dodging I could see his hammer coming closer, I took that chance to slam my shield at his hammer to make him stagger. It worked like a charm, he fell on his butt due to the force and me just a bit of force on my feet as I Jumped almost 4 meters up in the air and took my hammer with both my hands and swung it towards his head.
He didn't see it coming and when my hammer touched his head it exploded. I used a small knife to pierce its heart. Since I don't know anything about these creatures it's better to be safe than sorry.
The group looked at me in awe, wondering what the hell they just witnessed. Someone soloing an ogre with ease is at least S-class. I walked towards the group as I put my shield and weapon away. Isac walked past me towards the ogre. Confused, I looked at what he did.
He looked around the bloody mess before he found what he was looking for. He picked up a shiny rock of sorts. Amy could see my confused look and was surprised that I didn't know. Apparently higher level monsters have Mana core in them, usually in the head, and these sell for quite a sum. Mages use these to help cultivate their mana pool, but it's not very effective unless it's like a dragon's mana core. I guess dragons exist here as well, I'd like to see one.
Arthur got curious as to how I became so strong at such a young age. I asked him how old he thought I was, and the entire group immediately said 18 or 19. Apparently, I have a young face, or so I was told. I don't know if my real age is in this world, but I was around 30 in both lives before. I need to take a good look in a mirror when I get the chance.
After that encounter, the group was on high alert the rest of the way, we only fought some minor monsters such as goblins and packs of wolves. In the distance, we could now finally see the town of Stonehold.