As promised, Damon brought them clothes to change into. The clothing’s designs matched more what Damon and the people in town wore.
Kazius ended up changing into a dark purple outfit that was so dark that it could be easily mistaken for black. The clothing was adorned with even darker black fur around the shoulders and had leather accents. Damon had even been kind enough to notice Kazius had been wearing armor so he brought him with leather gauntlets and chain mail. The outfit was meant for the cold… Which made sense considering that while now the air was simply cool, it likely would get colder as Winter neared. Not to mention, they were going to climb mountains here soon.
When he met up with the others, he ran into Alice in the hallway. The moment their eyes met, he simply could not help but stare at her.
She wore a brown leather short dress with brown leather armor over it. To replace her torn up cloak, instead she wore a dark brown one with cream colored fur on her shoulders. Despite wearing armor and her pink hair now just barely touching her shoulders, she did always manage to look incredibly elegant even without her fancy dresses and long hair from all those years ago.
“You look beautiful…” Kazius admitted, his words seeming to catch her off guard, her cheeks turning a light pink.
“Thank you… You look quite handsome yourself…These clothes… I honestly feel like we got a fresh start… Speaking of… To move forward… I would be lying if I said I did not miss when my hair was longer… Maybe I will grow it out again. I don’t like the idea that I cut it just to hide… I… I hope to not have to hide anymore one day… To be strong enough to not ever have to… And to be there to protect you, rather than just be knocked out… T-To protect everyone I mean.” Alice admitted with a smile, looking a bit flustered at her slip.
“I… I wasn’t able to do anything to save any of you… So I hope so…. No… I believe we will… I have hope… And if that is what you want… You can do so. Even if we are worried of Edicts showing up again… This is the freest we both have ever been… We can breathe now… We should enjoy it.” Kazius admitted, feeling like a weight had been lifted from him.
“Speaking of the new clothes… I am surprised Damon had such nice clothes just laying around… They look like they would belong to important people…” Alice admitted in confusion.
“I was thinking the same thing.” Kazius agreed. Curiosity was honestly killing him… But Damon was doing his best to help them. It would be rude to push him on the matter rather than thank him… But considering he was The Chief and this was The Chief’s home… Kazius could guess they belonged to former family of his… Which was odd in it of itself… But perhaps he had not been close to the people the clothing belonged to.
Down the hallway, Azanor and Eve would approach and join them. Azanor kept his clothes considering he did not request new ones. As for Eve, she wore a simple long blue dress with a leather and metal belt tied around her waist. If she had been given a coat, she must have chosen not to wear it from what it looked like. Then again, she wasn’t joining them in the mountains, so Kazius supposed she would be alright until Winter came.
“An improvement.” Azanor admitted with a nod to the two.
“I’m not a Priestess anymore!” Eve exclaimed happily, clearly content with the idea. Of course, it was not the clothes that made her a Priestess, but it was better to not argue over that.
“Buahaha! I am glad they fit!” Damon beamed as he approached from down the hall not long after.
“Thanks again for the clothes. We really appreciate it.” Kazius repeated.
“You can count on me! Now you should be ready for most of the mountains too!” Damon admitted with a grin.
“I am sure it will help… I do think we should wait to train until tomorrow… Not sure what we can do for today.” Kazius trailed off in thought. He wanted to give Alice more time to rest.
“I’ve been wanting to look around town… I have no idea what it even looks like, since I was out cold when you brought me here.” Alice admitted.
“I can definitely show you around! Come on!” Damon exclaimed contently. With that, the jolly man led the way.
Vargstam did not look all that different to Kazius from when they first arrived. Though now there was no partying. People from the Tribe just went about their lives… But just like when they arrived, there were similar reactions… Nasty whispers and glares directed at Damon… But now some were directed at them as well.
“There he is again…”
“The vermin even made some friends… Disgusting… They must be as foul as he is…”
Alice frowned, looking at Kazius in confusion.
“Do they not like outsiders?” Alice whispered to Kazius.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“No… That’s not it… Remember what I told you? I’ll translate later…” Kazius whispered back, earning him a nod from Alice.
As they walked, Azanor would look at the people for a second. Rather than seem annoyed like last time though, he seemed to grow confused as his attention shifted to the air. He began looking around, as if trying to figure out something. He looked downright puzzled. It wasn’t the first time Azanor seemed to be staring at something that only he could see… Or at least that is what Kazius figured he was doing. He knew better by now than to think Azanor just liked staring off blankly.
“Something wrong?” Kazius asked.
“There was residue in the air… It looks like a really sophisticated Spell was used recently… The thing is… Normally I can tell what Spell was used and even who did it from the Mana I see…But I have no clue who casted the Spell or what the Spell even is… Like someone purposefully took steps to prevent anyone like me or with knowledge of Magic to know what they did… It is so subtle that even I could have missed it… Whoever covered up the Spell was meticulous about it… Whatever trace there was… Is already gone after I started talking… And nothing seems out of place… Maybe I imagined it… It is just so strange… I don’t make mistakes about something like that normally… But even Zelphar at his prime could not do something like that… Oh well… I will let you know if I figure anything out.” Azanor admitted with a frown, clearly confused.
Kazius wondered if Caleb or Luna could have casted the Spell… But then again… Anyone in town could have done it… For now, clearly they would get no answers, but he intended to keep an eye out for anything strange… And he was sure Azanor would tell him if he noticed something like that again.
“Hey Damon, how good are Werewolves at Magic? Or your Tribe in general? You mentioned that you are called Wind Werewolves… Did you use Magic back there to do all that stuff with the wind?” Kazius decided to ask.
Once again, Damon was pretending he did not hear the Tribesmen as they walked, but did perk up at Kazius’ question.
“Oh! Caleb says our Tribes people have almost no Mana. I can’t use Magic at all! I can’t even read a regular book, no way I could read a magic book. I was just using The Blessing our people have.” Damon explained only to perk up motioning them over somewhere. He led them to the statue Kazius had seen before, when they first arrived. The beautiful statue of a woman with her hands stretched up towards the sky….
It was like she was either calling the sky to come to her… Or maybe she was sending something out towards it. Now that Kazius could see the statue closely, he could also distinguish that her mouth was actually open… Was she saying something? It was a statue made with a lot of care and love for sure.
“Buahaha! This is perfect! See? This is our Goddess, Vind. Remember? I told you about her! She saved our people and led us to our home here. This statue was made by the first Chief. Story goes that he saw her in a dream, and she told him how to come here. This was back when our Tribe was starving and ran out of food during a really bad Winter. We came here thanks to her, where we have plenty of food and water. So, when the Tribe got here, the First Chief started on a statue of her and refused to sleep until he finished making it.” Damon explained, surprisingly happy to speak of the First Chief… Or perhaps he was happy to talk about Vind?
‘So, being Chief is not a bad thing? This means that was Damon’s ancestor that did all this, right? This is so confusing…’
“Why here? There is a lot of land out there. All the mountains must limit how much food can be grown…” Alice questioned in confusion. She was likely already thinking of how far you could scale Vargstam… If it ever grew to be massive enough to house as many people as Ratier did. She truly had the mind and education of a ruler.
“Buahaha! That is because she lives here!” Damon beamed.
“She lives… Here?” Kazius asked in confusion.
“In Mount Cyklon. She definitely lives there.” Damon stated with quite an amount of certainty.
“Have you seen her?” Azanor would follow up, clearly curious.
“No, but there is just no way she doesn’t live there.” Damon insisted.
“How are you so sure?” Kazius asked.
“Buahaha! You will know once you go there with me.” Damon chuckled out with a wide goofy grin.
“Now I am definitely curious… Tell me what that mountain is like when you go.” Azanor told Kazius.
“Why don’t you just come with us?” Kazius decided to ask.
“Me? Go up a mountain? No way.” Azanor stated with a scoff, waving his cane at him in disapproval. He almost resembled an old man with the gesture.
“Demons can’t get stronger with training or any of that garbage. Why bother? Besides, I will stay back and show Eve how to use her Magic while you three go play in the mountains.” Azanor added, clearly having zero interest in the effort such a thing would require.
“Then how do Demons get stronger?” Kazius asked with a raised brow in confusion.
At the question, Azanor simply smirked.
“Give me your soul and I’ll show you.” Azanor teased.
“No way.” Kazius responded with an eyeroll. Honestly while Azanor and Damon were open about a lot of things, it was feeling like the two were having a contest in who could be the most evasive at this point. Though he could guess from Azanor’s response that eating souls was involved in the process… But something told him it wasn’t so simple. It did make Kazius wonder about something though.
‘How many souls has Azanor eaten in his lifetime? The Demon King is the strongest Demon… At least I would think… How many souls did someone like that eat?’
Above all, Kazius had a brief, but startling thought… The idea of Azanor eating souls in the past or in the future did not bother him.
Shaking away such thoughts when he realized he was getting distrated, Kazius returned his gaze to look at the statue. He admired it for a bit before it was then that he noticed the strange symbol on the statue. It was like a triangle with two legs shaped like an x with two dots at either side.
“What does that mean?” Kazius asked as he pointed at it before looking at Damon. Damon still carried his spear that he had used to save them, the symbol on it was the same. It didn’t seem like it was a word or a letter… If it was, Kazius would have been able to read it.
Damon seemed to grow sheepish at this.
“It is Vind’s symbol. I actually found this spear a long time ago… When I was climbing Mount Cyklon. It… I think it was a sign from her… It… Stopped me from making a mistake.” Damon admitted, not going far into detail, clearly uncomfortable at the subject.
‘So he has a spear that he found in the Mountain that their Goddess lives in… That had her SYMBOL on it… He is also a descendant of the person that saved his people… But the Tribe hates him? That makes no sense!’ Kazius exclaimed mentally to himself.
With his mind preoccupied, Kazius could not manage to focus on the rest of the tour. Vargstam was a confusing place and he hoped to get some answers soon.