Ch.8

We depart when it’s little late in the morning after we finished our breakfast and preparation, even if I said preparation we just need to putting out the fire we used for cooking our breakfast. The reason we’re so late in our departure is because of our eating speed, I meant who would have the appetite after seeing a body with its severed head a little while ago, especially the one who’s head have been severed just a moment ago. Well I don’t blame them for that, so while waiting for the two of them finish I make myself another serving of sandwich with grilled meat. And in total I finished two sandwiches while Donald and Cicera only managed to eat one for each of them, and we continued on our journey to the south.

I asked Donald many things about the city and how it looks, I also asked him about the current lord of the city and why it’s called a Holy City. Donald only answered several of my questions because he said he didn’t know much about the city either, surprisingly Cicera open her mouth and answer some of my question, I guess she intend to get into my good side to avoid her punishment, sorry but I don’t planning to back on my word so you will have your punishment sooner or later, I’m just thinking what should the punishment be.

She tells me about Dietrich Custe Arden, the Lord of the city who’s also a Viscount. I asked her about his look, but she said she don’t know because she never met him before, well that’s a given considering where she lived. I also asked her about why the city called as Holy City of Thymel only to hear the same answer as Donald, apparently she also didn’t know why it’s called Holy City.

We went on our journey to the south and during our way we also slay some of the monsters that appear in the way, well the one who slain them mostly are Donald and Cicera while I’m just standing and watch them fighting one monster after another, there’s quite number of monster showing up on the main road, there’s one which looks like a bear but with extra two forearm, there’s a boar with red mane, and there’s also a huge praying mantis. I asked Donald whether the monsters frequently attack travelers on the road.

“Well, I wouldn’t say they never attack people on the road.”

“But this is a rare occurrence, mostly the monsters always stay away from the main road because a lot of human using it.”

“This really is strange.”

He said so after slay another red boar, I don’t know the monster called but since it’s red and looks like a boar I just called it red boar. Donald suggested that we should take the valuable part of the monster to sell in the city, but because it will take a lot of time to dismantle the monsters I refused his idea and we keep walking down the south while slaying several monsters that shows up in the main road. At night we do our routine of finding a suitable place to sleep and cook our dinner, while I summon five Hellhounds as watch dog. Finished with the dinner Donald and Cicera went to sleep early while I stay awake for more hours to practice.

And on our second day there’s barely any monster on the road, in fact we only encountered a single monster that day, it was a monkey-like monster with blue fur, but the bizarre part was that the monster has two tails. Donald and Cicera tried to hunt it down but, because the monster is jumping around from one tree to another, both Donald and Cicera failed to kill it because they only had sword and dagger with them, well it’s only natural since both sword and dagger can’t reach that far and the monkey is smart enough to keep its distance from them while throwing some kind of bluish ball from its hand. I don’t know why, but maybe because the monkey is moving around while throwing the ball or maybe because Donald and Cicera is moving quite fast that the ball the monkey throws never hit them. Irritated because this cat and mouse play is keep going on and on for several minutes I decide to cast one of the basic Acolyte skill.

“[Holy Light]”

The monkey fell with a thud sound on the ground I ended the cat and mouse play with just a single basic offensive skill from my Acolyte class. Both Donald and Cicera also jumped down from the tree, since both of them has been buff with my skills before so jumping up or down from a tree is an easy task. They walked towards me who’s right now is standing and staring at the dead monkey.

“What is this thing?”

I asked while poking the monkey with my feet.

“That’s a Chimicipan.”

“A what?”

Donald answered my question. Considering he used to be a bandit and lived in the woods I’m sure he knows one or two things about monsters.

“A Chimicipan.”

What’s with the naming sense, it’s complicated I will just call it blue monkey. Donald inspect the dead monkey as he suggested that we should take its fur to sell, while I would very much like to take its fur for collection I still decline Donald idea because it will takes time to dismantling the monkey, in fact I would like to collect some part of the monsters we killed yesterday but considering the distance between us and the Holy City is still far away we can’t afford to waste more time by dismantling every monsters we kill and delayed our journey. So we keep walking down the south, leaving the dead monkey behind.

***

James POV

My name is James Donovan and I’m what you called as a lucky man, why? Because at first I started my business only as a hobby, I started making small wooden sculpture out of my free time. I don’t know how but my crafting seems already make its way into the city and some passerby merchants started to request my crafting. Because I was young and dumb back then I was thinking, why don’t I sell them myself in the city, with that thought in my head I left the village with only small amount of handmade sculpture, surprisingly all of my wooden sculpture sells out on my first day, I keep the routine of making some sculpture in the village and sells them in the city, the reason I make my sculpture in the village is because I can get a good quality woods for my sculpture with cheap price. So I keep doing the routine of making the sculpture in my village and sell them in the city, and once the villagers know that I always going back and forth the city as a routine they started to ask me to help them sell their goods and long story short I now am a merchant, well it’s not that grand of a merchant but I can say that I’m quite wealthy, at least I can give my lovely kids and wife a good life.

That’s just a story from my younger years. Now, well right now I have a little bit of trouble in my hand now. I wait for good news in my room, it’s not really my room actually, I currently staying in one of the inns in Rookwood village. It’s funny how the current lord named all the villages in his territory based on its surrounding, just like my village, it’s named Mira Village because it’s the closest to the Mira Lake on the east and why this village named Rookwood village is obviously because it close to the Rookwood Forest, among the three village that stood close next to the forest this village is the only one get the Rookwood name while the other two up north gets random name, I don’t remember the name of the second village up north, but they called the village farthest to the north as Border Village, they always called the most outskirt village as Border Village. Just when I’m thinking about how people in the border living their lives with all those monster threat and bandits a knock came from the door.

“Sir, there’s still no good news from the hunter guild they say that there’s no single hunter accepted our request yet.”

The man reported to me after I let him in, he’s William, one of my slaves even if he’s a slave I prefer to call them as worker and in total I have 3 workers, I bought them to support me with my business but William is the first worker I bought and I trusted him the most, well it’s not exactly because he’s the first worker I bought that I trust him but because there’s this magic contract that make him do everything I tell him to do, so if I demand him to tell the truth he’ll tell me the truth willingly or not and because of that I feel reassured leaving some of my workload to him.

Earlier this day I told him to go to the Hunter Guild to see if there’s any progress on my request, but after hearing the report I guess everything I was doing is resulting in vain, I tried to raise the rewards to escort my two carriages several times but there’s still no one wanted to accept my request, is it related to the rumors. I’ve been delayed for almost three days and I can’t delay any longer so I decide to leave in the morning, if I delayed by another day some of the food will begin to rot when they reach the city even if I already taking some measurement by using some ice magic stone but still they don’t last forever and if my calculation is right, the stone will lose its power in another four days or less so we’re pretty much still in the safe zone if we depart in the next morning since it will only take three days, but if we hurried we could reach the city in two days ride but after considering all the possibilities it would be best to conserve the horses stamina in case of some unexpected thing to happen with the absence of our escorts.

I prepared all the necessary documents for when we enter the city and put them in my bag along with some money to enter the city, I separate them from other documents so I can get into the city faster. After separating all the documents to their needs I went to the inn stables to find my workers which currently tending to the horses. I told them to get something to eat when they finished taking care of the horses and hand some money to William, I also told them to rest earlier because we’re going to leave the village very early in the morning even if they’re workers I still treat them nicely. I leave them to get something to eat myself after ensuring all of my horses are in good conditions, after eating my meal I went into my room and checked if I miss something before I leave tomorrow, after checking that I don’t miss a single thing and all the documents are in their place I order some hot water to clean myself and went to sleep, even if the sky is not dark yet I still tried my hardest to fall asleep and roughly around thirty minutes later I finally fall asleep.

In the next morning when the sun is not up yet I already ordered hot water and started to wipe myself with warm towel, soon after I finished cleaning myself a knocking sound came from the door. It was William along with the other two they’re here to transport all the documents to the carriage so I let them in as I get dressed. They transported the documents one by one as I went downstairs to finished all of the payment during my stay in the inn I also order simple, take away breakfast for four and got four simple sandwiches in return, this is the best inn in the village and yet they still served sandwich as breakfast, I guess you can always be surprised if you stay for some time in other village but never in your own, I meant two days ago I saw people get killed while the other just watch and a woman throwing people around as if they’re nothing.

The sun is just up a little when William and the other two finished transporting the documents into one of the carriages just about time they open the village gates, I gave them the remaining three sandwiches because I already eat one. I climb up on a carriage with my documents and inedible goods in it and sat next to Anton one of my other workers who’s already sitting on the carriage holding the reins, I took the reins and told him to eat his sandwich first. I looked back to give signal to William who’s riding on the carriage filled with food along with Julius that we’re about to depart, after seeing him nod I drove my carriage down to the village gate in the south.

During the first hours of the day we drive the carriage steadily until noon where we take our break to fill our stomach, and today menu is just the same as usual. It was just a dried meat and some hard bread both are the best combination for when you travel because they can fill your belly quick, I could just get the food from the carriage and cook them but they’re goods for sell so we have to make do with just dried meat and hard bread. About an hour later we continue our journey but this time we drove our carriages a little bit faster than before because the farther you are from a village or a city the dangerous the surrounding will be, and just about two hour later a strange view come to our eyes.

Lots and lots of monsters corpses lying on the ground, I signaled William to drive faster as I increased my own speed, I felt nervous because a corpse will attract a carnivores animal or even worse a monster and with these amount of corpses I’m a bit surprised because there isn’t single animal or monster around. And just when I’m thinking I was lucky because there isn’t single animal or monster around I saw something on a distance. Its wolves, I saw a pack of wolves eating a monster corpse on the side of the road. I took the reins from Anton and told him to tell William and Julius about the wolves as he takes his bow and arrows. Even if we travel without escort it doesn’t meant that we will travel without weapons, we always carry our weapons even if we have people escorting us. And so with me holding the reins while Anton preparing to shoot his arrow, I charged towards the wolves hoping that they will ignore us as we passes by.