Feeling elated, Liza hastily smeared a bit of medicine paste on her wounds to prevent future infection and approached the bush of Dancing Sage. She crouched down and called Ben over.

“Be– uh, Neb come here and give me the bag! We found the first herb!”

“Oh, which one is it?”

“Dancing Sage.”

From the bag, Liza took a hand spade, a small earthen pot, a rope and a knife. She began collecting the outer leaves and trimming the branches once they were bare. In the end, only the newest branches with the newest leaves were remaining, reducing the bush considerably in size.

She then dug around the plant and carefully transplanted it into the pot. She tied the rope firmly around the pot and used it as a sling to place it over her shoulder. It was a bit weird and uncomfortable, but for the price they would receive when delivering the plant, it was worth it.

“Do you really need to carry this around? Wouldn’t it be better to just take the leaves like you did with most of it?” Fang Chu asked with some curiosity.

“One can use the leaves for their medicinal attributes, but only a complete plant or sapling, with its roots, branches and leaves has a certain mystical property that makes it much more valuable in some circles.”

“Oh? What property?”

“Dancing Sage is very sensitive to mana levels. Once the seed sprouts, it will grow accustomed to the mana native to its birth location. That means if you take that plant to another region it will react differently depending on the mana level present. If there’s more mana in the new location than the place it grew, the leaves and branches will move around like they’re dancing due to the higher energy, hence the name. If it’s brought to a region with less mana instead, it will grow dejected and eventually die due to the lack of nutrition.”

Since Ben had only managed to buy a single book pertaining to mana and magic, he ended up reading it again and again. Therefore, he instantly realised the inherent value of this strange plant.

“That means that, as long as you know where the plant is from, you can use it as a detector! Places with higher mana have much better chance to give birth to stronger and more useful resources, be it vegetal, animal or mineral. It’s really useful for hunting valuable materials.”

“There you go. That’s why the value of a Dancing Sage sapling is much greater than its leaves, and it also varies wildly depending on its birth place.”

While they were chatting around in excitement, the earth began to tremble. At first, the tremor was so soft that nobody noticed it, but soon it grew intense enough that it startled everyone.

“What’s, what’s, happening?” stuttered Ben.

“I don’t know and don’t care to find out, let’s run!” exclaimed Liza.

They ran as fast as they could, but the tremor only grew stronger. Birds all around them screeched and flapped their wings in desperation as they flew away. Something heavy was chasing them and it was approaching fast.

“We’ve just escaped a mob of kobolds and a basilisk! We barely had time to take a breather. What is it now?” complained Ben.

“Hahaha, running in the woods is fun!” exclaimed Eliot.

“Whatever it is, we can’t seem to shake it off! Let’s find a suitable place to battle!”

They ran for a bit longer until they reached a small clearing. Figuring they wouldn’t find a more suitable place, they stopped there and prepared to fight.

Soon, the shaking was strong enough that they could feel their feet tremble slightly. They could see a towering figure moving across the trees. It was almost six meters tall and two meters wide. It was human-like in its composition, but with a grotesque and brutish appearance. It wore a weird mixture of countless pelts and tree bark as clothing. It was an ogre.

The creature sniffed the air and focused his cruel eyes on the little fellows that barely reached his kneecaps. His lips curled in a disfigured smile as he ripped a thick branch from a tree to use as a weapon.

“Damn it! Why here and now?! We wanted to hunt an ogre, but we wanted to do so in Kolmio Ridge and after preparing enough traps for the big guy!” complained Liza under her breath.

Ben grabbed Fang Chu’s wrist and dragged her to the other side of the clearing, keeping her the farthest away he could from the confrontation. He knew there was little he could do to contribute to this fight, and it was taking his all to not run away while screaming¹.

“Careful, everyone!” shouted Liza.

Once he was done preparing his “club”, the ogre left the cover of the woods and walked into the clearing. Liza let go of her arrow, aiming for the creature’s head, but the ogre simply lifted his arm and shielded his face. The arrow hit his forearm and got stuck there, but the ogre didn’t seem to care. He didn’t feel the attack at all.

[Damn,] thought Liza.

Eliot broke into a run and held his stone sword up high. The ogre gave a guttural scoff and brought his “club” down. Eliot dodged the blow with a jump to the side and kept on running. In no time at all, he was near the ogre’s legs and slashed at his calves with all his strength.

The monster’s visage finally contracted in pain and he gave a grunt. He moved his legs around and attempted to kick Eliot, forcing him to back off. Eliot’s strike was a good one, but the size disadvantage was too much. He would need more attacks like that before he could inflict considerable damage.

Taking advantage of their proximity, Boro flew from Eliot’s shoulders and ascended behind the ogre’s back until he was level with the creature’s neck. Wasting no time at all, he chomped at the back of the ogre’s neck, taking out the biggest lumps of meat he could with each bite.

The ogre grunted in pain again and slapped his free hand against his neck, attempting to squash Boro. However, the dragon was even faster than Eliot and easily managed to slip away. As soon as the ogre removed his hand, he felt another sting of pain at the back of his neck.

In this form, the duo continued to torment the ogre, one taking bites of his neck and the other slashing away at his legs. This infuriated the monster who began to trash about wildly.

He started spinning around in circles, using the tree branch to swing randomly at his feet and using his free hand to try to swat the annoying dragon off the air. Lost in fury, the ogre speed increased and in turn the situation became increasingly dangerous for the duo.

Liza had already put away her normal arrows and was observing the fight with apprehension. She was ready to fire one of the three enchanted arrows they bought, but it was impossible with the ogre rotating around like a spinning top.

Eliot was laughing as he jumped around like a monkey, dodging the tree branch and the occasional kick thrown his way here and there. By now however, his attacks were doing more damage to the ogre than Boro’s and his laugh was infuriating the creature even more.

The ogre gave up on the dragon and used his free hand to throw a blow at Eliot, who dodged it by jumping backwards. Once Eliot was in the air, the ogre followed up the attack with a swing of his “club”. Eliot had no way to avoid it this time. The only thing he could do was try to protect himself with both his arms and his sword. The blow hit him squarely in the middle, launching the young man out of the clearing and into the woods.

“ELIOT!” screamed Liza.

“He’s dead… that thing… that thing killed Eliot,” said Ben’s ethereal voice.

Only Fang Chu retained her calm. This was to be expected. Ben and Liza had seen Eliot get injured and bleed before, so although they knew he was powerful, they thought he was just a bit tougher than they were. Only people like Fang Chu and Barnabas, who could sense the incredible amount of mana present in Eliot’s body, knew it wasn’t that simple.

The ogre was elated to have finally gotten rid of one of the annoying buggers, but he was confused at the same time. He was expecting that this attack would have crushed the little human, making pancake of his flesh and bones. Instead, it felt like he hit something solid and hard, like a rock.

Boro roared with indignation and burrowed inside the ogre’s clothes. The intelligent dragon figured his attacks weren’t being painful enough and decided to change his target… to the ogre’s genitalia!

The ogre howled for the first time since the beginning of the fight. He tossed the tree branch aside and quickly grabbed at his nether region with his two hands.

Ben was still spacing out after what happened to Eliot when he registered a gigantic tree branch flying towards him. He felt like time had slowed down for that moment and, in a fraction of a second, he knew what he’d to do. He turned around and threw himself at Fang Chu, hoping they could drop to the ground and avoid being squashed.

Things went against his expectations however, as Fang Chu received him in her arms and used his momentum to turn around and deliver a back kick to the large tree branch, splitting it in half. Ben was stunned, both by having her in his arms (though it was him that was being held) and about this strange turn of events. Fang Chu completely ignored his idiotic gaze, her eyes staring firmly at the region Eliot was thrown into.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

A bloody shout echoed in the woods, one that rivalled the painful howls of the ogre that was still dealing with Boro. Eliot jumped back into the clearing and rushed at the ogre again. His face was covered in small cuts, one of his arms was broken and his eyes had lost any reasoning. He jumped at the ogre and began punching and biting at him in a crazy frenzy.

[Not good, he completely lost it. He’ll be done for if the ogre targets him again. Maybe he could take another punch, but definitely not two!] analysed Fang Chu.

“You’ve got to do something now or Eliot will be in trouble!” Fang Chu shouted as she tossed Ben towards Liza. She wanted to see what they’d do. If they couldn’t handle it, she would. Even if that meant a painful backlash later.

The shout seemed to awaken Liza who was staring tear-eyed at Eliot. She searched her pouches in haste, grabbed a scroll and shoved it in Ben’s hands.

“Read it with the ring! We can’t afford stutters or slip ups!”

Ben was still confused at all the sudden developments, but he did as he was told and read the scroll, letting the ring vocalize his thoughts. As the incantation was being made, Liza took a deep breath and readied herself.

Ben’s ethereal voice finally finished speaking. There were no show of lights or strange phenomena, but the ogre that was trashing about wildly in his struggle against Boro and Eliot suddenly stopped moving. He let his arms drop to the side of his body, his mouth opened, and his eyes glazed over.

Liza had been waiting for this moment. She took aim, drew the bow to the absolute max and let the magic arrow fly. The projectile crossed the air and pierced towards the ogre’s nostril, lodging itself in the monster’s brain.

The ogre keeled over. Eliot uttered a deranged shout and began clawing at the creature’s chest with his hands, to little effect. Frustrated, he looked around until he saw his sword that was stuck in a tree in the edge of the clearing and grabbed it. Together with Boro, they carved the ogre’s heart out and feasted on its flesh and blood. At this moment they both looked like beasts.

-

¹ I was making a gigantic rant about height, distance and perception, but I figured it was too long and disgruntled that very few people would read it or make sense of it. So here is the short version.

When you read six meters it might be hard to grasp how scary something that big would be. To that end, I have a suggestion. Imagine the tallest person you know. They should probably be around 1,9 – 2m tall and, if you have medium height like I do, they might seem gigantic to you (even though they’re less than 30cm taller than you). Now imagine that there are three of them and they’re on top of each other’s shoulders. There you go. A creature six meters tall is scary!