It was a five-day walk to the nearest town. Villages were scarce and mostly avoided, especially by hunters. Even since Dallion had joined the hunting party, the group had only gone to a village twice and, in both cases, it was at the local chief’s request. Villagers didn’t particularly trust hunters, seeing them as mercenaries that stirred up trouble, and hunters knew that even a wealthy village didn’t have the means to hire their services. As Euryale had put it, there were only three cases in which to consider passing by a village: when scouting for information, when the village hired their services out front, and after an extremely bloody and exhausting battle when there was no other choice. Dallion found the attitude somewhat callous, but he understood the logic—it was pointless trying to mix oil and water unless absolutely necessary.

“Smoke column,” the gorgon said, pointing at the horizon. “Better be on guard.”

Dallion tried to focus, but he still couldn’t see it. Even after all his training and improvements, he couldn’t hold a candle to Eury’s perception.

“Think it’s something interesting?” Rei-Alika asked. Officially, she was designated as the group’s sharpshooter, although her weapon of choice was a heavy crossbow and enough ammunition to bring down a mammoth.

“Unless it meddles with us, we don’t get involved,” Eury said firmly.

“What if the village needs help?” Dallion asked.

Several people sighed. Despite keeping his empath stat secret, it had become obvious to everyone that he had a “rather helpful” nature. Back in Nerosal that might have passed as a compliment, but in the world of hunters, it was an outright insult.

“We’re no longer in the empire,” the gorgon replied. “It’s up to their army to fight terrors.”

The same old story: “traders trade, hunters hunt, and the army does everything else.” The issue was that because of the Nerosal event—and following the imperial announcement—most of the armies were focused on remaining in readiness rather than focusing on chainlings and other creatures roaming their lands.

“I’ll take a look,” Jiroh said. “Keep going to the town. I’ll catch up to you.”

A blink of the eye later, the fury had vanished from sight. The town they were headed to was called Merr. Supposedly, it had been a dwarf fortress at some point in the past, but right now it was just a common fortress town, occupied predominantly by humans. This was supposed to be the first stop on the party’s journey to the Glass Mounts. The plan was simple: go in, rest, restock, potentially find a quick job, then leave.

Reality proved slightly different. As the group moved to the town, a gathering of clerics from the Order came into view, waiting at the gate. This wasn’t a simple case of a small procession of monks making their way through the wilderness, as they sometimes did; the people gathered were several hundred battle-clerics, clad in full metal armor. Several of them held banners of the Order, along with the flag of the Apllicio kingdom.

Nil, Dallion began, as everyone kept walking forward. Does that happen often?

It’s not unusual, the echo replied. The Order constantly sends missions into the unknown beyond the boundaries of the known world. Most likely they’re just passive through like us, although I must admit there are quite a lot of them. Haven’t seen such a large group since my youth.

So, they just go about building shrines and monasteries in the wilderness?

That’s oversimplifying it quite a bit, dear boy. They are one of the major powers in the world. Say what you will about it, the Order is one of the reasons humanity has achieved its dominant status. We’re the weakest race, so our strength is entirely dependent on our relationship with the Moons.

While that made sense, Dallion still felt uneasy. When Dame Vesuvia had come to Dherma village, she had brought a single cleric and several dozen soldiers for just one wounded chainling. If this group was here to hunt a monster, there was no telling what that creature was capable of.

There was a brief gust of wind, after which Jiroh had once again joined the group, appearing just as suddenly as she had left.

“Creature attack,” the fury said.

“Any survivors?” Dallion asked.

“Hopefully. Everyone was gone. None of the area guardians made it, that’s for sure. Half the buildings were burned down. The place is just part of the wilderness now.”

“Dragon?” Rei-Alika asked. “Maybe that’s what they’re here for?”

“Could be. Hopefully, it stays away.”

The closer the group got to the clerics, the more tense they became. Dallion could feel the air thicken with tension and it wasn’t coming only from his party. The clerics also seemed displeased with the chance meeting.

“Dal,” Euryale whispered to him. “Leave us do the talking, and whatever happens, don’t get provoked.”

Before Dallion could ask why anyone would provoke him, one of the clerics waved, politely ordering the hunters to approach. That was one thing Dallion knew even back in his home village: when a member of the Order asks for anything, the only option was to obey. Even Aspion, when he was the village chief, didn’t dare do anything against the visiting monks.

“Blessings of the Seven Moons,” the cleric said.

“Blessings, Initiate,” Euryale said. “May we be of service?”

“What’s your business here?” the cleric went directly to the point.

“Restocking.” The gorgon didn’t have any intention of playing his game. “If you’re willing to spare some food and water, we’ll skip the town altogether.”

“Where are you going?”

“The Glass Mounts.”

The answer was plausible enough to be accepted and removed enough to be deemed insignificant. There was a bit of a stir, after which the cleric who had been asking the questions looked at the rest of the hunters one by one. Most were given a glance, but when his eyes fell upon Dallion, the cleric stopped. The instant that happened, Dallion already knew that there would be trouble.

“The hero of Nerosal,” the cleric said, as he walked past Euryale. “Destroyer of chainlings.”

Dallion recited the names of the seven Moons. This had to be the provocation the gorgon warned him about. Not that there was any reason for the order to be annoyed with him. As far as they were concerned, Dallion saved the city without any external help. However, standing in front of the initiate now, there was little doubt that he had attracted a lot of attention.

“Do you have the device with you?” the Cleric asked.

“Always,” Dallion replied. He was quite confident that the device in question was the kaleidervisto, and if so, he indeed kept it close at hand.

For several seconds, the cleric kept glaring at Dallion, then he turned around without a word. As much as Dallion would have liked to say that his witty answer had to do with that, he knew better. The Cleric had just issued him a silent warning: don’t cause ripples or there will be consequences. It was bad enough that it was officially known that the Star had appeared several times—twice, as far as the public was concerned, although that still made it two times too much.

“There’ve been cult activity in the region,” the cleric said, the hundreds of his subordinates still quiet, “Be careful when you’re in town. And guard your items. Imps are known to sneak into items around here.”

“We’ll keep that in mind, initiate,” Euryale said. “May we be of service in some way?”

The lack of an answer suggested that the group was free to continue, which it did.

Congratulations, dear boy. You just had the pleasure of seeing how the Order deals with Starspawn.

Am I in trouble?

I doubt it, but they are keeping an eye on you. The quick chat was to tell you that much.

“What was that about?” Largo asked once they had entered the Merr.

“They were checking to see whether we were corrupted,” Jiroh said. “That’s why they've left a group outside the city: they want to be sure they check everyone who comes and goes. There'll likely be a lot more of them here.”

“Change of plans,” Eury said. “We get food and water, try to find a gig, and move on. We won’t be spending the night here.”

Soon enough it became obvious that that would be a bad idea. Walking through the crowd, Dallion found that there were more clerics than common people. All had identical clothes to the people outside. There were no fights, no threats, no questions, just clerics in full metal armor with the symbol of the Order woven in, walking about, carefully observing everything around.

The prices were exorbitantly high, even for a town on a major trade route. It didn’t help that there wasn’t a dedicated hunter inn. Ultimately, everyone had to pay a bit more to get the supplies needed. Dallion wanted to get some basic hunting equipment, but Euryale was against it, ordering him to buy some temporary armor, instead. Several of the local smithies and armories were checked out, but none offered anything remotely useful. Dallion considered buying a pickaxe or a shovel, but in the end chose against it—he wasn’t going to the mountains to mine.

During that time, Jiroh and Largo had gone off in search of potential jobs near the region they were going. According to the party’s maps, the fastest way was to continue east along the trading road, until they arrived in the town of Croya—the last settlement before the mountain chain.

Several guilds, taverns, and merchant representatives were visited and, in the end, an acceptable job offer was made: a convoy task, requiring that the group protect a caravan traveling between Mer and Croya. The merchant was only going to provide food, drink, and a modest sum for each hunter. The benefit was that he was also going to provide them with horses for free, reducing the time it would take by a third.

By evening, the caravan, along with its normal and hunter escorts, was on its way. Everyone, including the merchants themselves, felt relieved once they were as far from away from the battle clerics as possible. Everyone, except Dallion.

Astreza, Berannah, Centor, Dararr, Emion, Felygn, Galatea, he recited.

In the last few months, he had made vast strikes when it came to real life hunting and fighting. However, at the same time, he felt he was lagging behind. He knew first-hand that Euryale had been increasing her level a few times per week. The fight against the Overseer had also been a watershed moment, showing pretty much everyone in Nerosal how weak they were in comparison to the creatures of the wilderness. That had made the gorgon do everything in her power to improve as fast as possible. In contrast, the effect it had on Dallion was to replace his focus on internal training with external… or rather, that was what he tried to convince himself. The truth was that it had made him wonder whether it wouldn’t be better if he remained at his current level, if only to avoid attracting more attention. For a while, the logic had worked… until the conversation with the cleric showed him the obvious: he already had gathered too much attention. From now on, people would be watching him, regardless if he tried to hide or not.

I better make it difficult for them, Dallion said to himself, and entered his awakening realm.

PERSONAL AWAKENING

The green rectangle disappeared, replaced by a blue one that hovered in the air above Dallion’s head.

YOU ARE LEVEL 31

BODY: 20

MIND: 30

REACTION: 18

PERCEPTION: 20

EMPATHY: 9

SKILLS

- GUARD: 40

- ATTACK: 40

- ACROBATICS: 40

- ATHLETICS: 40

- MUSIC: 40

- FORGING: 24

- ZOOLOGY: 2

“Back at last?” Gen asked the moment Dallion appeared in the realm. All the echoes, guardians, and familiars were there, eagerly waiting for him to make the next move.

“I don’t know,” Dallion said. “But I’m willing to try.”

He looked around. Five walls stared back, displaying the various skills he had learned throughout his awakening. There were a fair number of them, though not as much as Dallion would have liked. His zoology area was particularly empty, containing the picture of a syllablight in a metal frame.

“Let’s face the next trial,” Dallion said, and walked into the corridor.