The third day of travel. Lunchtime. The group was seated by the side of the road, eating their travel rations. Eliot, like usual, was throwing stones in the air.

He tossed them with moderated strength, because this way he could keep track of their flight trajectory. He tried using his full power before, but nine out of ten times the stones wouldn’t return. It was hard to toss them straight upwards, after all.

Watching the sky carefully, Eliot ran around in small circles, collecting the stones with great agility as they fell. Two stones were thrown badly and ended up falling a great distance apart each other. Eliot ran for one and, after catching it, came back in a flash, diving at the other. It could have costed him the game, but he managed to save it.

“Ten! Hahaha, told you I could do it! What now Boro?”

“That was great Eliot!” shouted Liza.

“Well done!” said Ben.

Boro only snickered and grouped eleven stones in a small pile. He grabbed one pebble with his left claw and a leather pouch with his right. He flew to the sky and almost disappeared from their view before letting the stone in his grasp go.

As soon as he released the pebble, Boro dived down with all his speed. He quickly grabbed another rock from the small pile on the ground and flew back up, catching the falling stone inside his leather pouch in the process. He did this eleven times, releasing and catching all the rocks before they touched the ground.

“That’s cheating! It’s not fair! I told you can’t do that!”

Boro ignored Eliot and proceeded to do the same thing with twelve stones. Eliot couldn’t take it anymore and rushed at the dragon, punching him on the face when he was in the middle of diving down from the sky.

Boro dropped his pouch with all the stones and hit the ground with a bang, tossing soil all around him. When he recovered, he flew straight at Eliot, clawing wildly at the young man. Just like that, another one of their mock fights began.

Liza and Ben did nothing to stop this. At this point they were used to their play fighting, even though it could only be considered “play fighting” to them. A normal person receiving one of those strikes would probably die.

In this rowdy manner, their journey continued without any mishaps. It was only on the seventh day of travel that something peculiar happened. The group spotted a dust cloud in the distance as they were walking down the road. They paid little attention to it however, since this could be a merchant caravan or a large group of people traveling together.

They only came to realize how wrong they were a few hours later. In the middle of the desolate road was a broken wooden cart, with four corpses covered in blood around it. A dwarf and three humans. The cart was empty, and the corpses were bereft of their possessions. Looking at the sight, Liza clicked her tongue.

“Tsc, that cloud of dust was probably the result of their fight. Maybe if we rushed over when we saw it…” said Liza.

“It wouldn’t matter. It took us a few hours walking to get here, we wouldn’t make it in time even if we ran,” said Ben, who was taking the sights surprisingly well.

[The first dwarf that I’ve seen and it’s a dead one… that’s sad. Look at all this blood… is that his intestines? I’m surprised I don’t feel like throwing up… I guess I’m really getting used to all of this. Though I don’t know if I should be happy about it or not,] he thought, smiling wryly.

Eliot and Boro circled the scene, looking on disinterested. Death, blood and gore would never be something that warranted a different reaction from them. The only thing that drew their attention somewhat was the corpse of the dwarf. They’ve never seen anything like that before.

“Why is he so small? Is he a child? He doesn’t look like one though, he’s too wide and has a beard. Can children have beards?” asked Eliot.

“That’s not a child Eliot, he’s an adult dwarf. He’s from another race. Remember what I’ve said before about races?” inquired Liza.

“Oh, so are all dwarves this small and squarish?” asked Eliot in understanding.

“Yes, but never say that to their faces, they don’t like it.”

“What do you think got them?” asked Ben.

Liza circled the scene before coming closer to check on their wounds. There were only three types of injury: short stab wounds, large serrated gashes and bite marks. The bite marks were a dead giveaway.

“Goblins.”

“Goblins can do this?” asked Ben in surprise. His first meeting with the creatures left such a weak impression that Ben was under the assumption that even he could dispatch one, if push came to shove.

“They only attack when they outnumber the opponents and, when properly armed, they’re nasty little buggers. You shouldn’t underestimate them. But they weren’t alone in this case, see those deep, jagged wounds there?”

“I’m doing well, but I don’t want to force it if I don’t have to…” Ben copped out.

“Never mind then, but there are wounds here that are too deep for a goblin strength, probably done with an axe. One not very sharp. That means there are probably hobgoblins or orcs in their group.”

“Hobgoblins? Orcs? What are those?” asked Eliot with curiosity.

“Hobgoblins are just like goblins, only bigger and stronger. Orcs are large humanoid creatures. Their skin colour can be anywhere between brown and green, they have tusks and beast like features. You’ll know when you see one.”

“Oh, so they’re just monsters,” concluded Eliot.

“Yup, just another type of monster.”

High in the sky, a bunch of carrion birds were circling around their location. Ben looked at them a sighed deeply.

“Should we bury them?” he asked.

“We don’t have a shovel, let’s burn their remains instead.”

They put all the corpses on top of the cart and filled it with its broken parts and other ignitable pieces. Liza added some lamp oil and started the fire by hitting a piece of flint with her fire striker. They watched for a while, making sure the fire wasn’t going to go out of control.

“Shall we keep going?” asked Ben.

“Yes, but not towards the capital. Let’s make a detour and hunt those monsters,” said Liza.

“Seriously? We don’t know which way they went or how many they are… it could be dangerous.”

“Yay, a fight, a fight!” shouted Eliot.

Boro roared into the air approvingly.

“I can’t tell their numbers, that’s true, but we just need to be careful. Regarding which direction they went, I’m sure they’ve gone south. They left some tracks behind.”

Liza guided them south, stopping every now and then to make sure they were following the right trail. Ben, Eliot and Boro just tagged along, making sure to not disrupt her as she was concentrating.

“Hey, Eliot, why do you like fighting so much?” asked Ben.

“It’s fun! I was scared of fighting back when I was living in the forest, but I had to do it if I wanted to get some food. Then I just got used to it and it became fun! Every time you dodge an attack that was about to hit you, your heart goes bump bump and then you turn around and swing your sword with a pashan! Then bang! You got meat!”

[Wow, just what the hell did you experience growing up…]

“I see, that must have been hard.”

“Hard? Why?”

Ben felt his eyes tear up and Liza trembled slightly. Eliot didn’t understand how harsh his life was. To him, everything that happened was normal and a matter of fact. This made Ben and Liza feel huge amounts of pity for the young man.

“Anyway, it’s great you’re here with us Eliot,” said Ben, patting Eliot’s shoulder.

“Un, I think so too!” exclaimed Eliot happily.

Liza sniffled and dried her tears on her sleeve before hugging Eliot tightly.

“That’s right Eliot! And you too Boro, come here.”

She hugged both of them for a long while before letting go. Despite liking all of this, Eliot didn’t understand that they were having a moment, so he continued the previous topic like nothing had happened. The others could only smirk at his antics.

“You’ll see Ben, you’ll end up liking fighting too.”

“I doubt I’ll.”

“You never know Ben, Eliot might be right. Many people begin to work for the guild as adventurers to make some coin, but most of them never stop. Even those that managed to rake in enough money to live the rest of their lives comfortably.”

“Oh, they become adrenaline junkies then. That would explain why they keep throwing themselves at dangerous situations even though they don’t need to.”

“Adrenaline junkies? What’s that?” asked Liza.

“It just means they’re in for the thrill, nothing more.”

“Oh, yeah, pretty much.”

They kept following the track, with Liza at the head of the group and everyone following behind. So far, the entire scenery was dominated by plains, but now a rock outcrop could be seen further ahead of them. It was a prime location to hide and set up camp on such vast open fields.

“Boro, could you fly high and peek to see if there’s anyone hiding among those rocks?” asked Liza.

The dragon nodded his head and flew high into the sky. Liza was rather confident that the monsters were hiding there. Soon they would have their answer.