Jave groaned. His back ached. His boy felt sore all over. His felt dry again, so did his mouth. He rolled over to the small pond, and delightfully took a few gulps of water.

He then got up and proceeded to stretch. He wouldn’t be any good in a fight if he felt like this. So he stretched until his muscles were feeling loose again.

He was a bit excited when he felt his mana pool. If he had to judge, he’d say it increased by a good ten percent. Not a lot in the short term, but for the long term? It meant he’d swinging powerful spells around in no time. Relatively, anyway.

He was hungry, again. And he wasn’t willing to eat the ants again. One time was bad enough. The only choice left was to hunt for monsters. Or maybe find the Silver Tine boar and skin it.

Then he realized it had probably rotted, after being left out in the open for a day or two.

Jave sighed.

He had no idea what to do. Except wandering around hopefully looking for the artifact, which was not a very good plan.

He sighed again.

He decided that he’d do that anyway, since he had no better ideas. He was a bit reluctant to leave the cave since it was the only place he knew in this place that had water and shelter, but he had to relent, since he’d only grow weaker without food, making his chances for survival grow less and less likely.

And so he’d returned to wandering the desert. Only half an hour later, he was already tired and thirsty. But he didn’t go back. It was better to go back only after a substantial amount of time, or if he had found something/

At some point he found the boar, but his suspicions was confirmed, by the horrible odor it reeked of and the flies flying ‘round it.

Two to three hours later, he was back in the cave and drinking from the pond again. He decided to wash his face too, to refresh himself. As he finished, he noticed something strange within the water. It was something brown, and hence camouflaged within the water.

He squinted his eyes and did his best to make out the details. He could notice a few metal strips…

He gasped, and a grin spread on his face.

It was a part of his armor. Or specifically, his chest plate. More specifically, a part of his chest plate.

He immediately dived in and dragged it back to land, hugging it to his chest after.

He loved his gear, after putting so much effort to get them. So it didn’t matter if it was just a piece of what was left, because all that matter was that it was his.

He then decided to inspect it, to figure out how the hell had it ended up in the bottom of some pond in some cave. Granted, he was also in the cave, but that particular bit of information was ignored.

After looking over it, he frowned. It seemed the bit of armor was severed on purpose, judging from how the cuts were aligned along some particular lines where there was only leather and no steel.

Jave’s aromor was custom. His chestplate was no different. Now, an ordinary chest plate would be completely made from steel. But that would’ve put too much weight on him, limiting his mobility. He could’ve gotten a ‘lighten’ enchantment, but that would’ve made it a lot more expensive. Instead, he ordered strips of metal be sandwiched between the leather, to reduce a lot of needless weight.

But that was a secret known only to him, his friends and the blacksmith he had ordered it from. To anyone else, it was just a piece of leather, just a bit thicker than the norm.

All of this meant the person who had cut it off was him, because he couldn’t imagine his friends, nor the blacksmith ending up here too. Also because of the fact he hadn’t see any signs of life besides him, and the ants ‘til now.

Looking closer at it, he could see something crossed into a bit of leather.

Willpower.

He frowned.

What the hell does that mean?

He recalled reading about Willpower in a history book. It said it was what made Gods. A large amount of people believing against all logic ended up manifesting a god. Or miracles.

Oh.

Then he fell to the knees, clutching his head in pain. But that didn’t help. The pain was from the inside. Images passed through his vision.

***

End Of Chapter 5