Chapter 20: Border i

They had arrived a week later, during that time Cerise’s [Lesser Reading] skill had nearly reached level 5. Her knowledge and vocabulary had increased significantly allowing her to hold basic conversations, though her literary skills lagged far behind in comparison. As evidenced by her poor writing, she could read though but not to a much larger margin.

Behind the small village which served as a resting place for travelers was a thick marble wall topped with holes for archers, posts for mages, and a wide sturdy door to serve as an entryway. Instead of the solid plate armor of the Balros Army, the guards posted at the checkpoint wore mostly chainmail and some leather armor. Practical and inexpensive.

There was one thing that they weren’t expecting though. Thanks to the devastation of Viscor, many local villages and larger settlements started evacuating either southward or eastward like they had. The border village was flooded with people, elderly, adults, and children alike. The guards were working in overtime to calm the chaos and had closed access to the border for the time being.

In the sea of people, there was one particular cluster near the gate which was louder and more packed than the rest. Roy, Isbeth, and Cerise made their way through practically parting the sea thanks to Roy’s intimidating stature. They made their way through to the front and saw a man struggling against three guards. His two female companions stood behind him trying to convince a woman to let him go.

The leader of the two females was a tall woman with almond colored hair. Her rich magenta eyes and shapely body drawing in the gazes of men from the crowd.

“Please just let us through, we’re only passing by quickly. I promise there will be no trouble.”

Her voice was enchanting to say the least of it, carrying an immaculate charm that no man can resist, but such a voice held no sway over the guard captain in front of her.

“Listen, I don’t care what you do while you’re here but nobody can just waltz right in and grope my butt. I’m taking this man and bringing him into temporary detainment. Move him boys.”

The female guard captain ordered the three guards holding the black haired youth to follow her. The youth’s struggling becoming more desperate by the second.

“Let me go! I’m a Hero!”

He yelled at the woman who he had offended, his words causing swarms of whispers and looks by the crowd of onlookers.

The guard captain looked down at the man held by her subordinates. He had rough leather armor that didn’t fit him and a short sword sheathed by his waist. She judged him as just a fool that didn’t understand the weight that those words carried.

“If you are a Hero, then why are you running away from the war? Us guards are already swamped with work by the borders and yet a Hero like you is avoiding the battle? It would be much better if we kick you back out to the frontlines so you can show us your divine power, right?”

The black haired youth became agitated by her obvious taunts, his words became filled with doubtful reason as he refuted against her claims.

“I am only a level 1 Hero, I need to gather companions and find a Holy Sword before I fight the Maou. Let me through unless you want the blood of innoce-.”

Isbeth let out an audible gasp at the mention of the word Maou which seemed to be foreign compared to the rest of her sentence. The black haired youth glanced towards the source of the sound and spotted Roy, Isbeth, and Cerise, mainly because the area around them was cleared by Roy’s size. He saw Roy and mistook him for another Hero as he also had a Harem following him around. Though he wouldn’t question the man’s tastes as both appeared to be little girls.

“Hey! Fellow Hero! Help me out here will you?”

Roy let out a scowl of displeasure. How did he end up included in this bizarre situation?

“You there. Are you an associate of this man?”

The guard captain asked Roy, her words causing the eyes of onlookers to swerve towards Roy.

“Never seen ‘em before in my life.”

“Hold on! We met before right? We slayed an orc together by Verne a few days ago!”

“Never been by Verne in my life.”

“Wha-“

The guard captain seemed fed up by the youth’s constant attempts at saving himself. She rightfully had the ability to detain him but she’d need a few witnesses involved in the case to testify against the man. Even she couldn’t just incriminate someone and get away with it. She would if she were working for Balros but Helios has standards to uphold.

“Enough you two. I assume you are here to cross to Helios as well?”

“Of course.”

“We currently aren’t allowing access through the checkpoint but I’ll sort out your papers later if you help me testify against this man. Now… I’ll have to take care of a troublesome fellow now.

She eyed the youth still being held by her subordinates, but under her watchful gaze the man’s body blurred and accelerated away. He sped past and brought his companions with him, leaving behind words which infuriated the guard captain to the limit.

“Your butt was nice! See you again!”

“I don’t care what you do but get that man back here right now! And get his companions too! I’ll make sure they’re all beheaded!”

The three guards saw the man’s speed, and honestly, they wouldn’t be able to catch up even if they tried their best. But orders were orders and they ran after the man, their speed not even being half of what his was.

The guards woman stomped away, the loud thumps being heard even by those not in the crowd of people. Every time she heard someone laugh or smile of the sort, she looked over them and they immediately stop in terror.

“No one here has seen or heard anything today. If I catch wind of anyone spreading false words, I’ll detain you.”

She left that message behind before disappearing behind a small service door in the wall. The crowd dispersed, afraid of the consequences that would befall them if they had stayed leaving only Roy, Isbeth, and Cerise standing alone in front of the gate.

They awkwardly stood there with their plans impeded by the checkpoint’s shutdown. Isbeth was, as usual, the first to break the ice.

“So what do we do now?”

Roy looked back at the border village, the various accommodations built to accommodate a large number of people for cases like this.

“I guess we can rest for a bit. Get some proper food too, I’m getting sick of those pills.”

“What kind of symptoms? I’m sure I weeded out all the side effect-.”

Roy playfully hit Isbeth on the top of the head stopping her from finishing her sentence.

“Expression Isbeth. Not literal.”

“Oh.”

The odd trio moved down the lanes, their packed bags attracting attention from the unsavory sort. With one well timed grunt from Roy or a stare from Cerise, those types of people fled knowing better than to try to steal from them and get caught.

“The security out here is much less than the checkpoint isn’t it?”

“What did you expect? The guards have to deal with all the refugees and have no time for a few pickpockets.”

“I suppose.”

“Ah, here we go.”

They were right outside of a small smithy located on the outskirts of the border village. A young man was currently hitting a heated bit of metal with a hammer. Roy watched the man with expert eyes but he saw no potential at all in the young blacksmith. Each swing was inconsistent, always hitting the bar without rhythm and all he was doing was simply hitting the bar with all his might.

They watched the man for a few minutes more before someone else arrived.

“Need somethin’?”

A tall man, though not as tall as Roy, appeared behind him. His muscles were well toned and his hands were heavily callused.

Roy could recognize a fellow blacksmith when he saw one.

“Mind if I borrow your forge for a bit? Lost mine to a big rock a week ago.”

“Ah, Blacksmith from Viscor? Sure sure, after my son finishes of course. Don’t see why he’s so infatuated with following in my footsteps but I let him be. Name’s Balgruth if you need me.”

The man walked into the house besides the smithy and closed the door behind him.

“Heard you talking to my father, wasn’t so bad was it?”

The young man had finished hammering the lump of metal into a bar. The ingot itself was probably in one of the worst possible qualities possible. The impurities causing the ingot to be brittle and incapable of being used in actual forging. Yet the man was still confident, he stood up and threw the failure into a corner filled with countless others.

“I’ll be with my father for a bit, don’t wreck the forge alright? Ina doesn’t like it when travelers damage the resident’s homes.”

“Ina?”

“She’s the guard captain, good luck with your work.”

The young man left them, entering the house just as Balgruth did earlier. Roy stretched his arms and pulled out his own blacksmith’s hammer, heating up the furnace once again with the bellows.

“Guess it can’t be helped then. You two stand back a bit, it’s about to get hot.”

He pulled out the bags and started pouring the various bits of metal and rings into a large crucible. He had separated the types of metals before and only focused on extracting iron from steel. He moved the crucible into the furnace allowing the steel to melt in the furnace very slowly. He melted the mix of iron and carbon and removed the excess slag.

The steel had been fully melted and now came the casting. The blacksmith had plenty of ingot casts but many weren’t cleaned. To reduce impurities, Roy had to check each individual cast with {Blacksmith’s Observation} and the liquid metal itself, comparing which ones would work the best.

He poured the liquid steel out into the eighteen casts he had found suitable and let them harden before quenching them in water and proceeding to hammer them one at a time. His {Blacksmith’s Insight} allowing him to see where to strike and [Blacksmith’s Heart] allowing his strikes to hit without missing a beat. Combined with his own shifting weight techniques, the impurities of the metal were driven out in much larger droves than when the original armor and weapons were forged.

“So this is a Viscor Blacksmith. I might learn a thing or two just by watching your companion.”

‘!’

Balgruth had silently exited the house and was standing beside Isbeth and Cerise watching Roy work. His mind was filled with the constant rhythm of Roy’s hammer and how he expertly moved his weight across his body to amplify his strikes. Roy’s ability far exceeded his own allowing even an old timer like him to learn for the first time in years.

Isbeth remained silent, she hadn’t seen Roy work many times but she had viewed his works. She knew he was above the norm for a Viscor Blacksmith but Balgruth didn’t. Roy was technically a Master within reach of the realm of Artisans but she wasn’t going to expose his secrets now. Soon after Roy reached the ninth did the door open again, the young man walking out entranced by the sounds of clashing metal.

“Father, is he really that good?”

“Yes Turnel, this stranger’s a better Blacksmith than even my mentor. Watch and listen carefully. You’ll need it if you want to become a proper Blacksmith.

The young man, Turnel, watched intently. His gaze following the movement of Roy’s hands but his attention was ill placed. The true technique lied in Roy’s feet, shifting his weight with each swing onto the forge, each impact shaping the casted steel into a more perfect form. Three of the four people present watched Roy intently, but a fourth was currently sitting on a stool reading a book.

Cerise was reading The Beginner’s Guide to Introductory Magic. The words danced in her head fumbling around and twisting together. She couldn’t make much sense of them even with her enhanced vocabulary.

‘Magic is based off of Mana, the energy that exists within this world and all living beings. Each race has a special method to draw Mana from their surroundings and is limited by their own Status, never exceeding said limit.’

Just these two sentences alone had caused Cerise to be stuck for an hour. The grammar used in this sentence was simply too complicated for Cerise to understand. However, reading the sentence over and over was extremely beneficial to Cerise’s skill.

Skill [Lesser Reading] has leveled up (1)

Requirements to Rank Up [Lesser Reading] has been met (3/3)

Skill [Lesser Reading] has Ranked Up to [Reading]

Rank Up Bonus (+2 INT, +1 LUK)

Name

Cerise

Age

23 Days

Race

Lesser Devil (Scarlet)

HP

60/60 (+.024/s)

MP

166/166 (+.062/s)

SP

50/50 (+.038/s)

STR

16

INT

58

WIS

36

CON

22

AGL

30

LUK

7

Current Ailments | [Hunter’s Eyes] Sealed (96%)

Skills

Level

Proficiency

[Demonic Vitality]

1/10

64.1%

[Rendering Claw]

1/20

3%

[Hunter’s Eyes] {Hunter’s Mark}

3/10

3.9%

[Reading]

1/10

.01%

[Blood Bound]

0/5

N/A

[Twisted Fate]

N/A

N/A

And again, another stream of information flowed into her head. But unlike the last time which seemed like a trickle, the amount of information she received this time was like a rampaging river trying to invade her mind. She fell over on the stool causing Isbeth to hurriedly pick her up and hold her in her arms. She saw the girl was uninjured and the book lying on the ground made it clear what had happened. Cerise had finally obtained the [Reading] skill.

Isbeth set Cerise back onto her stool and gave her back her book after dusting off the covers briefly. Cerise deftly took the book from Isbeth’s hands and started reading the first two sentences again.

She could tell that the effects of the [Reading] skill were working, the floating words combined together forming a proper flow in Cerise’s head. She understood why those little dots and lines existed in a sentence and how words are structured and stitched together. Her vocabulary was still a bit lacking but she could work on that later. She continued onto the rest of the paragraph which described Mana itself. By the time Roy had finished purifying the eighteenth ingot, Cerise had finished the first chapter of the book.

Her mind was filled to the brim of knowledge about Mana, artificial knowledge at best since half of the terms and methodology she didn’t know of. But she opened the second chapter and got excited for the first time in weeks. The chapter would seem boring to most aspiring mages but to Cerise it was the beginning of a pathway filled with knowledge and strength.

The chapter itself was labeled ‘You can be a Wizard too!’ filled with Level 0 Spells that practically anyone is able to perform.