“Butchers in other towns you can apprentice with?” Bosh frowned, thinking. “Sorry, Pilus, I don’t know any. I’d be happy to take you here, though.”
* * *
“I’m real sorry, Pilus,” Forn said with a grimace. “My captain won’t take on a ten year old. You would normally apprentice at port, working the piers or with a shipwright, and could maybe get hired on at twelve or thirteen. I’ll put in a good word for you with my captain, but I wouldn’t hold your breath for this year.”
* * *
“Hah!” Belat cackled. “As if I’d recommend such a slacker like you to any of my acquaintances. Now scram, I’ve got potions to brew.”
* * *
“As I said,” the secretary at the magical research institute repeated. “Master Vorel isn’t taking any appointments.”
“I just need to chat with him about apprenticeships.”
“He’s not taking any apprenticeships, either.”
“What about a referral to another institute in a different city?”
“He does not make referrals.”
“He works with my mother, would that–”
“He frowns on nepotism, too.”
* * *
“Damn it all to hell,” I muttered, wandering through the jungle with Treepo, Gregory, and Vlad at my heels.
Not a single one of my adult contacts which I had cultivated over the last few years could help me in the slightest. Bosh knew no one, Forn’s hands were tied, and Belat and Vorel would barely even acknowledge me. I would have to come clean about my magic to maybe even be considered, but then I would have to explain myself and expose some of my secrets. I had really hoped Belat could connect me with an out-of-town enchanter, but that was a dead end.
I could probably get aboard Forn’s ship if I waited a couple more years, working menial labor in the meanwhile, but I didn’t actually want to spend much time at sea. It was just a way to get out of town quickly and easily. Slaving away in an apprenticeship for two or three years just to get a ride was a last resort.
I could just leave. Disappear, ride Buda off into the horizon. I had the gold to get started anywhere, and I could even tactically deploy my illusions to fake my station until I was old enough to get by on my own. It was a risk, but the bigger problem was my parents.
What I really needed was a legitimate excuse for them, so that they wouldn’t worry. As much as I wanted my freedom so I could spread my wings, my parents had been good to me. I didn’t want to break their hearts with worry if I just disappeared. I could try fabricating an illusion for them, to convince them of a reason I was leaving, but I was a little worried my mother would see through it. She had advanced her 5-point magic skill since I had first appraised her, and I didn’t know how strong it actually was.
Guess I’ll grind, I thought to myself. I could dump SP into 5-point magic and strengthen my illusions as much as possible this summer as a backup. Stronger 5-point magic also helped me with my barriers. I dumped the last few points I had into my 5-point magic skill immediately and started to prepare for a journey into the deeper jungle.
I mounted up on Buda, with Treepo sitting in front of me between my legs and Gregory clinging to my shoulder, and we set out southbound along the beach. I wanted to avoid the swamp area I encountered the draconewt, so we were setting out for the old dungeon area and would plunge deeper there in search of shagloths or similar strength beasts.
We came upon Birdo’s memorial again, which was still intact. I smiled sadly at it as we passed it by and headed deeper in. The skillfruit tree had died and the area around it was being overtaken by new growth, the jungle happily swallowing up the void left by the former scar on the land. In another few years, it would probably be unrecognizable. There were no additional signs of shagloths in the area, which lent credence to my theory that it was the skillfruit tree in particular which drew the shagloth over.
As we continued heading southeast, I felt a shiver at the back of my neck which I had come to learn was my detect skill being set off. I whipped my head around just in time to see a large beast diving towards us, and tossed up a barrier as I threw myself off Buda to get myself into a battle-ready position.
I hated being ambushed, but at least I noticed the attack in time. Using my new 3-point magic skills, I appraised the beast that was attacking me and my familiars. After dozens of days of practice, I managed to get the magic working like my old appraisal skill, the information presented with the familiar popup instead of an idea in my brain.
Swift Griffator (Lv 2)
HP: 254/254
MP: 47/47
Status: none
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EXP: 63/2000
It was a wild, evolved griffator. How did that happen? I had no time to think, as the beast was already charging again, shaking off the surprise barrier collision.
I set another barrier and started casting debuffs on the oncoming threat, replenishing my own haste and protection buffs. I pulled out my baselard and tossed out some stone bolts and started pelting the beast.
Now that my enemy was in front of me, I actually wasn’t that worried. Yes, an evolved griffator would be rank D, but compared to the version I fought in the dungeon, this one seemed cuddly by comparison. Instead of size and power, it was all speed.
It was maybe twice the size of a normal griffator, so about the size of a tiger from Earth. Its feathers were even finer, and despite being in battle with the beast, there was a part of me that wanted to tame it so I could pet it. I dismissed the thought, as I was both caught unprepared and had never tried taming an evolved beast; this battle was not the time to try it out.
The swift griffator’s muzzle was more protruded and pointed, almost beak-like, and it had a tufted crest decorating the top of its head, but was otherwise just a slightly bigger and faster version of the beast I was familiar with. Rank D speed, I could handle.
Buda blew out of the foliage nearby and headbutt the beast in the side, catching it by surprise and sending it soaring away, but it landed on its feet and was pouncing again immediately, having flipped around while still in midair with its cat-like reflexes. It was headed right for Buda, so I threw another barrier in its way and pulled out a new tactic I had been working on.
The large stone arch that I withdrew from my inventory took a bit of focus to maneuver, but in the brief moment the evolved griffator was stunned from bouncing off my barrier, I slammed the arch down over the beast’s back. Its pointed ends sunk into the loamy jungle dirt and pinned it to the ground.
It yowled and roared as it tried to get its taloned feet under it, but I was still applying pressure down through the arch into the ground. I walked over and deliberated for a second before bringing my sword down on the back of the creature’s neck.
The blow would have easily killed a lesser creature, but the rank D beast had a lot of HP. It swiped at me and managed to get a claw past my greaves to cut my leg, but I simply changed my stance so I was out of reach and healed the wound. The beast was bleeding from the cut, but it had enough neck muscle to stop the blow from being fatal. I grimaced at that, and chopped again. It took a third chop to end the battle properly.
Overall, though, it was a little too easy. If the swift griffator had leveled up some more, it might have been more trouble, but it had probably only recently evolved and made some big kills to gain that first level. How had it evolved? Had it killed and eaten a rocky shieldback?
I had evolved and released a number of beasts over the winter. Had they developed magic crystals and then got themselves eaten? Was this beast’s existence my fault? It was pretty far from the city, but not entirely outside of my usual range.
I collected the corpse and appraised it in my inventory and found that it didn’t have a magic crystal of its own, so I took that as further evidence that it was fairly newly evolved. I didn’t really know how long it took to grow a magic crystal, though.
As I took stock of everyone and myself post-battle, I realized that the whole experience had barely spiked my heart rate at all. The fighting had actually felt a little mechanical. I had played it safe all winter after the draconewt encounter, but I gained a lot of strength from that win and further honed my skills and abilities in the many months since. Had I changed so much since last year? Or was the difference between this swift griffator and the draconewt so huge as to make this beast seem easy?
Even if the battle wasn’t dangerous–despite being by the seat of my pants–it was still a substantial amount of experience. Enough to push me up to the next level, which was good; this time last year, I thought I would be closer to level 20 already. I looked over my stats.
Pilus Horgson (Lv 17)
HP: 174/174
MP: 103/229
Status: Absorption, Haste, Protection
EXP: 23/1700
Skills: 3-Point Magic(+), 4-Point Magic(+), 5-Point Magic(+), 6-Point Magic(+), Acrobatics(+), Brewing, Butchery, Cooking, Detect(+), Foraging, Inkmaking, Inventory(+), Knotting, Literacy, Needlework, Negotiation, One-Armed(+), Ranged, Smithing, Stealth, Taming(+), Tanning, Two-Armed, Unarmed
Familiars: Abyssal Whaloid (Lv 4), High Treehopper (Lv 10), Flying Nodmouse (Lv 10), Wooly Ramhog (Lv 6)
I was going to have to sweep the jungle a little more aggressively and make sure other large predators weren’t getting lucky because of my actions and evolving into problems for the town guard. It would benefit me as well, and meant I didn’t have to push that much deeper into the jungle while still providing worthwhile growth opportunities.
I looked around carefully at the trees, trying to spot scratch marks indicating that a shagloth passed through, but saw none. From what I had been told, shagloths weren’t aggressive predators, so they probably weren’t hunting smaller beasts. If one was on the cusp of evolving it might change its habits and try to get a magic crystal somehow. I wasn’t looking forward to possibly facing an evolved, rank C beast if it had.
* * *
Despite the mess that was my lack of a coherent plan to leave town, one thing was certain: Vlad would not be able to come with me. Now that it was spring again, his pod was passing through the area. I rode him out to meet them.
Of course, it had been a year, and Vlad had now evolved. I wasn’t expecting reintegration to go perfectly smoothly. As Vlad approached the pod, it arranged itself to face him with a particular whaloid in front of the group, facing us down.
Vlad sung at the pod and the leader of the pod sung an angry song back. I felt my familiar reaching out to me and I tried to decipher what I was seeing, hearing, and feeling. It seemed to me like the one in front was in charge, and that it was trying to hold off the big guy, unwilling to be challenged for leadership of the group.
I mentally probed Vlad for permission and got an affirmative response, so I pulled out a stone spear and magically spiked it into the brain of the whaloid in the blink of an eye. The pod started making sounds of distress, and Vlad sung a calming song back. He moved up and I leaned forward, hanging off his horn, to touch the dead beast and move it to my inventory.
With the leader’s body removed, the pod was reorganizing, but it was opening up into a formation around Vlad. They sung for him and I felt acceptance from him. Vlad’s intelligence made him easy to understand; it felt like he had figured out, in a way, to communicate back to me through my telepathy. Or maybe that was a benefit of the evolution of the skill to 3-point magic.
Vlad swam back towards the shore and the pod trailed behind. I slipped off and into the water, swimming up to his face and leaning my head against his.
“Thank you for the last year, Vlad. You saved my life more than once and helped me uncover all sorts of treasures. I hope I was able to pay that back to you. I hope we can meet again as friends one day.”
Vlad sung softly back, and I stroked his head a few times before I swam back to shore to stand alongside Treepo, Buda, and Gregory.
I released the connection between us, and Vlad dropped out of my familiars list.
I saw the slight change in his eyes, a flash of confusion, maybe even a slight hardening. There was no delay. Without the tamer connection, I was no longer family. He turned to meet his pod and the group swam away without a second look back.
I sighed, wondering if I had done the right thing–wondering if any of what I had done had been the right thing–and started to walk back to town.