Leyla looked at him suspiciously. “You are not thinking about anything lewd, are you?”

“What?…No!” Edward stammered, not expecting this kind of answer.

Leyla smiled ambiguously. “Go on then, I’m listening.”

Edward tried to regain his bearing. “What I wanted to say is that you know I used runes to seal the ruins, right? I could teach you how to make runes if you are interested. But I would be the only one you are selling runes-enhanced equipment to. Is that something that would be alright with you?”

Leyla’s eye opened wide, her expression frozen in surprise for a moment. Then her eyes glowed with interest “How interesting. You would give me such knowledge for free. I must say I’m quite surprised.”

“I’ll need good equipment in the future. I’m already using special daggers, and I can see the impact it has in my fights. I would like you to make me light armor first, something like chain mail so that it doesn’t impair my mobility. Having advanced belongings with runes could make the difference between life and death for me. And, although I’m quite not there yet, I feel that I would hit a bottleneck soon enough in runes crafting. You see, runes are more fitted for a craftsman than for an adventurer. The rules to mend runes together are quite complex and you need time to engrave them, it’s not really something you can do in a fight. Giving you this knowledge would be a lot more interesting than keeping it for me.”

The more Edward talked, the more interested Leyla got. “I see…that makes sense in a way from your perspective. Your offer is quite generous. And I must say I’m starting to get fed up with the activities offered to me in this place. I became a craftsman to create and innovate, not to make the same tools again and again. I would be a fool to refuse such an offer. I can tell you already you won’t regret it.”

Edward paused before issuing a warning. “There is something else, I talked with Greta, she has a rudimentary knowledge of runes. She warned me about the runes' dangers. As you said, such knowledge is precious, and some people are ready to kill to either steal it or to stop a concurrent. You’ll have to keep your knowledge a secret. I know it might be difficult for an artisan not to be able to flaunt her best works, but in this case, it will be necessary.”

Leyla was still smiling brightly. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I didn’t take this craft to show off. The innovative process of creation is all that I’m interested in. When do we begin?”

This answer made Edward relax. “I would like to enjoy the celebration first. Tomorrow, I can start to make a copy of the book for you. Once it is done, I will give it to you for study. Then I will go back to the ruins to retrieve the weapons and armor from the expedition. When I will come back you will have the material to do your first experiments. I will be able to tell you about the runes' basics, but you have to know that I’m only a beginner in the field. You soon will have more knowledge than me in this area.”

“That’s fine for me. I was never afraid of self-experimentation. Cheers to our partnership!” Leyla exclaimed enthusiastically.

“Cheers!” Edward answered before gulping his beer.

***

The next day Edward woke up groggily. “Uhhh…I must have drunk too much.” He remembered having joined back Caspian, Balin, and the other guards for the celebration. Almost everyone was there. Greta was missing but she wasn’t the most sociable person, she must have likely celebrated the event at her home or with a group of close friends in her own way.

Carlson was also noticeably missing, he wasn’t the kind of person to miss such an occasion to show off and tell everybody what he was thinking. However, after how he had behaved, almost lining on the beast’s side to ‘appease’ them, he had been deserted by his own camp. He was probably hiding somewhere thinking about how to make a comeback. But the villagers would remember how he acted. He wouldn’t find support here. And without support, people of his kind weren’t able to do much.

The morning was already advanced, and the sun was glowing high in the sky. I should get out to clear my head. Edward walked out of the garrison where his room was located. Guards were already training in the open field next to the buildings. Several of the new awakens were other there too, they were training their aura and giving tips to each other. They already had the basics, and they were now able to teach each other without assistance. The future of this village is assured. They don’t need me anymore. Edward thought while watching them exercise diligently.

After a small walk, breakfast, and cleaning, he was ready to copy the Damkinan tome about runes. He had been able to buy blank pages, ink, and a nib. It was the first time he would use a nib to write. He looked at the size of the tome, then at the big stack of paper waiting for him. He let out a sight. How much time will it take me to recopy everything? This is when I miss computers, a simple translation application, and a copy-paste would have been enough. The matter would have been done in a matter of minutes. He sat reluctantly on his chair and got on the task.

The first page he wrote was a mess filled with ink stains. He had to redo it completely but at least it had made him more familiar with the way to use a writing nib. He took breaks regularly, watching as the sun was rotating in the sky hours by hours, written pages accumulating on his side slowly but steadily.

In the end, he had to take another full day of writing before finishing his task. He stood up and stretched making his back creak. It took some time but it should be worth it. Leyla will be able to go a lot farther than me with this knowledge. And in the end, I will be the one getting the benefices, so I shouldn’t complain.

As promised, on the next day right in the morning, Edward went to deliver the freshly copied tome to Leyla. This time he was warmly welcomed, as she was already waiting for him with glowing eyes. As soon as Edward gave her the book, she rushed to her desk to read its content.

“Aha I’m glad that you like it, but you don't have to worry you will have time to read it. I still need to go back to the ruins to fetch the iron and the equipment used by the expedition.” Edward laughed watching Leyla’s enthusiasm. I also have to recover Adrien’s remains. I didn’t forget you, I will give you a proper tomb.

Leyla paused her reading and looked straight into his eyes with a smile “Thank you.” She let out in one breath. Edward wiggled awkwardly “You are welcome. Ok, I have to go now.” He left the forge quickly, his heart beating fast. Calm down, Edward. You beat down monsters. You can deal with a beautiful girl thanking and smiling at you. Leyla watched him leave, the smile still on her face before focusing back on the rune tome in front of her.

Edward refocused on his side too. The ruins were sealed but it wasn’t impossible to meet with monsters on the way. Also, the forest wasn’t only filled with Bloodmaws, there were other more dangerous monsters and he didn’t want to get ambushed because he got distracted. He quickly left the village to find himself once more on the forest path, surrounded by trees on each side.

He only encountered a single Bloodmaw, that he easily killed and drained of its power, before reaching the ruins. It’s time to delve inside once more. Normally the monster’s density would have decreased a lot with all the monsters that we killed. It should be doable to travel through the ruins without having to run for my life the whole time.

Edward had to push away the corpses of the monsters blocking the way in front of the draining barrier. It had already been a few days since they died, so they were starting to smell. Ugh, this is disgusting. Actually, I’m glad I came this soon after the celebration, if I had waited for more, the corpse would have started to decay. The smell is already bad, I wouldn’t like to be bathed in rotten fluid while removing those bodies. He shook his head in disgust, I should better not think about that.

The corpses were as heavy as ever, so he had to pull them one by one, dragging them on the floor behind him. To avoid dealing with the corpses the next time he would come, he had to pull them all the way to the forest and cast them aside from the second barrier.

Once the way was free, he was finally able to tread into the ruins. The corridor’s limited size would be detrimental to his fighting style so he hurried to reach the library which was having a lot more space to fight. He was using his aura to sense his surroundings since some of the lights had been destroyed by the expedition and the surroundings were quite dark.

When he set foot in the library, the rest of the broken bones could be seen scattered on the floor. Among the bones, leftover armors and weapons were laying down in a bad shape. Edward picked them up one by one and stored them in an ample bag he had brought with him for the occasion. He threw a glance at the entire wall of books facing him. I will come back later for you. Right now, iron is the priority.

While he was picking up the equipment, one Bloodmaw lazily entered the room. The monster and Edward faced each other under the red lighting provided by the library decorations with the remains of the dead expedition between them. As was the norm for them, the monster roared before charging at Edward. The latter threw his bag aside, pull his daggers out, and teleported on top of the monster just when it was about to ram him.

Edward punched him with the daggers, each time using his aura on top of the daggers draining power to weaken the Bloodmaw. The monster tried to throw him off, going as far as ramming into walls to do so. However, Edward simply jumped away before teleporting back on top of it. The Bloodmaw had no way to effectively attack Edward while he was on its back. Inevitably, the monster was slain without even injuring Edward.