63 Hunters from the north

"Because of all of these reasons, I believe that you are a bad influence on the youth of this village. If it was only depending on me, I would have thrown you out long ago."

Emp had been caught by Sophus on his way to meet the others. Like always, he was very vocal about his distaste of him and his presence in the village.

"I do not understand why you are always complaining about me. If this is really all about Marcy, wouldn't it make more sense to be courteous with me rather than insulting?"

Sophus just glared at him and left. He had been complaining for a while already, he must have ran out of things to say.

Emp watched him walk away for a moment and turned back towards the open field were the others were passing time.

In the village, things had mostly went back to normal.

Calla was back outside with the group, the injured were almost recovered and even Willow had been released.

It was Calla that had managed to convince her to go back out with them after Winnie decided she had been punished enough. Willow had been afraid of how the others would look at her since she was the main cause of this whole catastrophe.

After a lot of convincing, she finally accepted to show up. The rest were mostly relieved that she was fine just like they were when Calla finally got out of her room.

Gilbert still had a jaw shaped mark on his forearm and Emp wondered how bad the scar would be.

Cuthbert had been made full of holes and bruises but now he was mostly fine. There were just a bunch of small bumps were the fangs had pierced his flesh.

Since he didn't want this to happen again, he had taken it upon himself to teach them all about some of the sword techniques he had learned. He would have liked to teach them about self magic too but he didn't use that sort of thing himself so he had no idea how to teach it.

At that moment, he was joining up with them to show the group some new tricks.

He understood that he was not the best teacher and that only knowing a bit more about how to properly use a sword wouldn't help that much in the grand scheme of things but he felt that it was at least a start.

They weren't that into it and only listened when they felt like it but at least now, they knew how to stand properly with a blade.

When he reached them, he was greeted enthusiastically like usual. They waved at him and he approached them while they were watching over a group marching into the village.

That group was made up of many women riding wagons or walking alongside them. They all wore light armor and most of them had crossbows. By their general shape and the way they talked, Emp was convinced they were warriors, or at least, a group of effective hunters.

The teens were all grouped on the roadside. They were always curious to see people come and go from the village. They were very interested to see what brought all of those muscular women to their village. Usually, for groups like that, they were just passing through towards or from the howling hills.

Emp was very curious too so he didn't insist on practicing the sword and just joined the other observers instead. As he sat down on a tree stump besides Gilbert, he noticed that someone was missing.

"Where's Willow?"

She had just recently been freed and she was off again?

"Her mother said she was sick today." Eda explained. "I hope she'll get better soon."

Getting sick was no laughing matter. Even Calla wouldn't risk coming close to comfort Willow if she was truly sick. Emp nodded in answer and moved on to the next subject.

"So who are they?"

"I don't know, they just got here, Lars went to get Bor so we'll know soon." Gilbert answered.

"They look a bit scary." Complained Calla.

"They aren't too bad, they could have been dressed in heavy armor instead. They're all in a good mood as well so I feel they're more reassuring than scary." Manley answered.

As Manley said, they were all well equipped but it could have been much worse. As for their expression, most of them seemed fine, only one looked way more gloomy than the rest.

That gloomy one was one of the three women who went ahead of their group to meet with Bor.

The one on the left was a short women who wore grey robes full of pockets, she was clearly a mage and held a hood over her head to protect herself from the wind.

The middle one was the tallest, she wore a steel scale armor, a huge crossbow and a long and slender spear. She had removed her helm to meet Bor. Under it, short blond hair stuck to her scalp and steel grey eyes scanned Bor fearlessly.

The one on the right was the unfriendly looking one. She was muscular, and fearsome, combined with the dark look in her brown eyes, she would scare away any and all children. She wore a layer of beast skin over her armor, a crossbow across her back over a shield and an axe at her hips. Her blonde hair was a strange mix of free flowing strands on the left and a long braid on the right.

The one in the middle was probably the leader of the group because she spoke first to Bor when he met them.

"Welcome to Dark-glint. I am Bor, commander of the Dark-glint garrison and village chief. You wished to see me?"

"Yes, we are pleased to meet you commander Bor. We are a travelling group of huntresses, death-seekers in our spare times. My name is Connie, I'm the leader of the group, this is our earth mage and healer Jaska and this is my second in command Tacey. Forgive her mood, she's been like that ever since her daughter died."

The three made a small bow as their names were said and Bor extended a hand to greet them politely.

"I can understand that, no one is safe from death. Our village too suffered recent catastrophic losses, both in the ranks of our soldiers and hunters and even some of our kids. No one here will blame miss Tacey for her grief."

Connie nodded in appreciation and removed her hand from Bor's.

"Thank you, speaking about losses, we came here after we heard some rumors. They say that the woods around here aren't as safe as they should and that the creatures that should live deeper south were pushed over here by something more dangerous. With your approval, we would like to go there and hunt that creature, bringing back peace to your village."

Bor expressed difficulty on his face.

"We would like the help for sure but I do not think we have enough to pay for the services of your whole band, even if we did, we would be unable to buy back the materials and meat you'd collect by helping us."

The huntress's leader moved her mouth to the side in some weirdly disappointed pout and started thinking with a hum. While she was doing that, their mage followed the conversation.

"We've had some really bad luck lately. We don't have much money left either. The thing going on here is the most likely to yield any profit at all. Do you perhaps have any idea on who would be willing to offer any reward at all in the village? Who do we talk to about materials?"

"Mhn..." Bor thought about it for a second.

It was obvious he knew who they had to talk to for that so he was probably thinking instead if it was worth it to tell them. In the end, Connie gave a final push in the direction she wanted.

"Even if no one is willing to pay or buy the loot, We might still hunt the creature down. If it's big enough to cause an exodus, we should be able to sell its corpse in Bêtéclair."

He nodded and turned his eyes towards the group of teens at the side.

"Emp, come here."

Since he was already close by, and had heard everything up to now, it was easy to guess what he wanted. He walked up to them as Bor introduced him.

"Emp here is our blacksmith's apprentice and also, the richest man in the village."

Both the mage and the leader asked for more details with a mirrored expression of skeptically raised brows.

"Man?" "Exactly how rich are we talking here?"

Emp wasn't that annoyed of the fact they didn't believe Bor's claim right away. He would probably have the same sort of reaction if he wasn't the subject. He still wasn't that tall and didn't look like anything special, at least from his own point of view.

"Yes, he looks small but he's a good man with a long kill list. Honestly, if Dark-glint is going to pay you anything at all, most of the reward will come from his pocket. I suggest you talk to him and Marcy about it rather than me. If you manage to convince them of something, I'll chip in as well. In any case, I'll give your group the rights to go in there and search for the beast. I just ask that you do not hunt too many of the smaller critters."

"Yeah yeah, we know how this works, people got to eat." Tacey said with a dismissive gesture of her hand.

Bor nodded and turned to Emp again.

"Would you please bring them to Marcy?"

"Sure."

"Who's Marcy?" Asked Connie, just to be sure.

"Marcy's our blacksmith."

"Alright then, lead the way kid, I mean, you, Emp. You guys, find a place to set up camp while we're gone." She told the others as she stepped after Emp.

He hadn't really planned to waste all his free time leading a trio of huntresses around the village but it didn't really bother him and he had a big interest in Jaska, their earth mage.

Her features were hard to see because of her oversized clothes, for all he knew, she might have been a thin man instead of a woman. Her nose didn't seem to have any sort of curve to it and looked more like a big triangle starting from her brows, even though it wasn't that large. Her eyes were thin and bright brown and she had some rather prominent cheekbones.

What he was interested about though was the fact that she was an earth mage and that he hadn't found yet how to focus on his first earth spell. He decided to ask her about it after he started leading them towards the forge.

"Miss Jaska, if I heard correctly, you're an earth mage right?"

"Yes, I am."

"That's great, maybe you can help me then."

"Sure, help about what?"

"I was studying magic and I've been stuck on the first earth spell I was thought for a long time now. How do you keep focusing on the dirt for a long time?"

"You've been studying magic?" The woman wasn't sure if he was speaking the truth or not. If he was though, she would find it really interesting.

"Yes, look."

He fetched the stone from his bag, stopped walking and cast the hardening spell on the road in front of them. The magic was activated without any noticeable effect and was almost immediately dissipated.

"Was that supposed to do something?" Asked Tacey.

"It was, and he actually did cast the spell flawlessly too!" Jaska didn't share the skepticism of her friend and was very impressed instead.

Tacey and Connie were surprised to hear burst of excitement coming from their mage. Jaska had not expected to find another earth mage here, even if he was just a novice. Since she was in front of one however, she was more than happy to give him a tip, and more if he asked.

"You can cast it but you're unable to keep it in effect right? That's because you are mistaken on how you are to maintain it. It's not about keeping your focus, it's about dividing it."

"I don't get it." Told her Emp, looking forward to hearing more about this.

"Look, watch this."

She took a few step away from her two friends and did something that earned her the puzzled look of them both and the curious gaze of Emp.

She raised a leg in the air in front of her, placed her right hand on her chest and her left on top of her head. Then, she started doing squats while taping the top of her head and having her other hand doing circles in front of herself. Not only that, all of those actions were happening at different rhythms and she still managed to speak normally through it all.

"It's true that many more scholarly mages can keep their focus on one or two spells at once but obviously, a battle mage like me can't do it. If I don't pay attention, anything could happen to me or my friends. Rather than focusing on it, you have to split your thoughts.

I'm mostly thinking about what I'm telling you now but my leg is still bending, my hand is still doing circles and my head is still getting tapped. Doing that, I'd be able to keep three spells up at once instead of those three useless moves.

The maintenance of the spell needs to be a reflex rather than a conscious thought. I'd suggest practicing doing something a bit like I'm doing now first. When you're able to do that kind of stuff right, it will mean that your head is able to keep track of more than a single thing at once more efficiently than it could before. Then, you need to replace all those dumb moves by the actual spell you want to maintain. Did you get all that?"

Emp had not expected that kind of advice. He was very impressed by the way she resolved the issue. Heinrich had told him it was a bit like how he could breathe without thinking about it but he had not thought it was literally what he meant for him to do.

Emp thanked her with a small bow.

"Thank you for your help, I would not have thought of that by myself."

She gave him a proud smile.

"No problem, I'm happy to help a fellow earth mage."

"So, has your magic always been about all those dumb moves?" Tacey asked with a confused frown. Obviously, she had never seen her do this before.

"Of course not! It's about multi-threaded focus and deep understanding of the earth. The gimmicky moves are just a way to practice safely and efficiently."

"Does it have to be those movements exactly or can it be anything else?" Emp asked.

"Could be anything, as long as they don't share the same patterns, if you swing your two arms clockwise in the same rhythm, it doesn't help at all. My master for example could do so many more things at once it was crazy, he called himself a spell blade.

He told me that he tied every movements a sword can make to a spell in his head and so he could maintain as many as he wished as long as he was focusing on his martial arts, that was crazy. I can't even begin to understand how it worked, there's no way he can keep all of those in his head at once. It would be so many split in his consciousness that just thinking about it gives me a headache."

Her master must have been really impressive. He was about to ask more on him but the leader cut him off.

"Can we talk while moving?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry."

Emp turned around and started walking towards Marcy's house again. Connie kept the conversation going out of interest.

"So you're a earth mage, is this how you became a man?"

"No way." Objected Jaska. "He can't keep his focus and the spell he used is the basic of basics. He's just a beginner, he wouldn't be able to kill anything with it."

Connie nodded in understanding.

"Then, you killed something the old fashioned way?"

"Yes." Emp nodded.

"What was it? A beetle? A false leaf?" Tacey asked.

She didn't expect anything in particular. Asking for the first kill was a common conversation topic when meeting someone after all.

"It was a woodland horror."

Their three reaction were colored. Tacey sneered at what she thought was an attempt to joke around, Connie straight up laughed and Jaska snorted before shaking her head.

"No seriously, what was it?" The mage followed.

"I was not lying, it really was a woodland horror, look."

Emp got his hunting card to appear and turned it towards them.

Shock and surprise spread across their faces. Even with the proof in front of them, they didn't want to believe it.

"Are they smaller than what I thought?" Asked Tacey, trying to figure out how it could be possible.

"No, I saw one once, close to the tribelands, north of the thundering pass. That thing was as tall as a tower, it walked through a village and erased it all effortlessly." Her boss answered.

Looking at her face, it was clear she kept a strong feeling of fear towards it. Tacey gulped, further shaken by the reaction of Connie.

"How?"

"Mostly luck." Emp answered honestly. "Then I kept its head and sold it in an auction and that's why I have so much money."

None of the tree visitors found anything else to say and stayed both mute and shocked until they all reached Marcy's house.

Emp took a look in the forge, saw that she wasn't there and walked up to the workshop on the side. If the door was closed, it meant she didn't want to be disturbed but luckily, it was open. He knocked on the door frame as he walked in.

"Marcy, there's three death seekers here that want to talk to us."

"I told ya to call me mom."

She did, Emp just kept forgetting. It was very hard for him to remember because he was so used to calling her Marcy or Marcellia that it felt unnatural to call her anything else. Plus, everyone around them called her Marcy as well.

This was also part of being part of a family she told him.

"Sorry, Bor asked me to bring them here, they say they want to hunt the thing that's scarring off everything else. Do you have the time to talk."

"Sure, bring them in."

He walked further inside the room and started gathering some benches to let everyone take a seat.

"What's up with them?" Marcy asked.

Emp looked behind him while he was moving a bunch of tools out of his way and saw that the three were still dazed.

"I told them about the woodland horror."

She laughed out loud and gave them a beaming smile. The laugh seemed to have a strong effect on them and mostly woke them up.

"It's true that it should be a huge shock if they know how strong that thing really is. Have them sit down on-, oh, ya already got the benches? Great."

She ruffled his hair and everyone sat down. Thinking about his hair, it was getting pretty long, he had to cut them soon. He'd ask Harriett to find him some scissors and cut them tomorrow morning.

"Hi, I'm Connie, that's my second in command Tacey and that's our earth mage Jaska. Like he said, we're here to hunt the unknown threat."

"I sure would like to know that our guys are safe but what do you want from me exactly?"

"Well, commander Bor said/"

"Before that, can we go back on the woodland horror thing one last time?" Jaska interrupted Connie. "If you can kill that thing, how come you didn't get rid of that other thing hiding over there already? Could it be more dangerous than we thought?"

"What are you even doing in that small village? Aren't you supposed to be rich?" Added in Tacey.

"I told you already that it was mostly luck. I don't think I'm all that strong and I didn't really think of testing it out. I don't even know what sort of thing it is."

"I think ya might be a bit stronger than ya think my boy."

Emp shrugged. There was no real way to objectively test his strength.

"About the other question, I was passing through and Marcy asked me if I wanted to be her apprentice. She's the best smith there is so there was no way I could say no."

"Wait, Marcellia as in 'the' Marcellia?" Connie's eye became so round Emp felt afraid they would fall off her face.

"Yeah, don't think there's many of me going around. And no, I don't take orders, I'm not doing anything for you."

The three woman were shocked once more. Insane news kept taking them by surprise since they entered the village. Connie in particular was very excited.

"I can't believe it! The Marcelia! I never thought I'd have the honor of meeting you in my life! Now I'm sure this trip was worth it, even if we don't get anything."

"I know you like her but, I'd rather be paid really." Tacey said with a blank look.

"No, you don't get it, it's 'the' Marcelia!"

"Yes, I believe we got that the first few times you said it."

Jaska too seemed to not understand what was going on with her boss.

"Are ya alright? Ya heard me when I said I wouldn't make ya any equipment right?"

"Yes but, your skills are the stuff of legends! You became famous almost immediately after your first work and even the emperor praises you highly! I heard that people came from even the other side of the Tribesland to request your work.

They say that whatever material one brings you, you can make a treasure out of it. You can work with materials that no one else would even dare look at!

You made the spear that Twain Greathorn used to pierce the belly of the stone giant in Tallarch and you made the sword Sir Galagan used to win the grand imperial melee eight years ago. Even if you don't make us anything, just meeting you is like a dream come true!"

Everyone else was a bit taken aback by her great enthusiasm. She was now standing, barely containing herself from rushing up to Marcy. Emp found there was something very funny in seeing a tall and muscular woman act like a child.

"I understand that ya are a fan of my work but isn't that reaction a bit excessive?" Asked Marcy.

"Yeah Connie, you're not just embarrassing yourself, you're going to embarrass all three of us, what's wrong with you?" Tacey Told her as she tried to yank her back onto her seat.

"Hmn, sorry, I just... Your creations are important to me, they changed my life, in a good way."

"Well that's great and all but we have business to talk with her. Keep your sad story for later." Tacey told her, finally achieving to bring her back down.

"Fine." She said with a pout.

There was a short silence while they all waited for the other group to talk and Marcy was the first to get annoyed by it.

"What are you here for, not in the village, I mean, in my workshop."

"Oh, uh yes, we were hoping we would be able to strike a deal with you and uhm, the young master Emp."

Young master Emp? Had he forgotten to remove his family name form the hunting card when he showed it to them? he felt unease while Marcy asked almost the same thing he was thinking.

"Young master?"

"Yeah, he is your apprentice and... he's your son, is he not?"

Emp felt relief wash over him. It was just about her obsession to Marcy, it had nothing to do with the Muraciers.

Marcy accepted the explanation with a groan even though she felt the title to be a bit excessive and let Emp give her a summary of what Bor had told them. She let him explain the whole thing before she spoke again.

"So ya hope that I'll buy whatever material you can get from the forest down there."

"Yes, and we would have liked a reward for our efforts." Tacey Answered.

"There' s no way I can guaranty that I'll buy what you bring back, we don't even know what is there."

"But if it is interesting, will you consider it?"

"Hm, maybe. It's been a while since I've had anything fancy to work with.

Connie accepted that as a confirmation. If they found only weak creatures, it wouldn't be worth selling anyway.

"What about the reward then, how much are you willing to pay?"

"Depend on if ya're fit for the task and what's hiding over there. I'm willing to give some money on account that the whole village will be able to breathe properly again but as long as I don't know what we're dealing with, it's hard to put a price on it."

"We have about thirty huntress and a mage, I believe we can take on almost anything, as long as it's not an unnameable... or a woodland horror." She added the last bit after shooting a glance back towards Emp.

Jaska chimed in to propose a deal that seemed fair to Emp.

"We could establish a scale of danger appropriate to most things we could possibly find. As long as we defeat it and bring it back, the village could pay us for the corresponding amount we would agree on each possibility."

"Seems reasonable." Nodded Marcy. "Bring me some sort of draft of it all later and I'll negotiate with you. Before that though, let me take a look at yar hunting cards."

The three agreed and the information appeared in front of them. Marcy and Emp looked through the list, they were very long. There were a lot of creatures he didn't recognize in it and Tacey also a significant amount of cursed-bloods in hers, mostly from the wolf tribe.

"Ya've been fairly successful before. This could work out."

Connie repeated the whole thing just to be sure they were all on the same page.

"So we have a deal? We'll get a reward corresponding to the threat we encounter, you will buy the materials if they are of any interest to you and we have the permission of both you and the commander to go hunt the creature. We will be paid upon our return."

"Yes but I'd like to ask one more thing of you."

"Anything for the greatest smith of all time!"

"I want you to take my boy with you on that hunt."

Everyone expressed surprise, including Emp.

"What? Why do you want me to go?"

"I have a few reasons. First of all, you lost a bit of confidence since... the new year. I want you to go with them to see just how strong you are compared to a group of professional hunters. You don't really need to fight, I just want you to take a look and see for yourself how strong or weak you really are."

"Is it really that useful? I would rather stay here and learn something new."

More importantly, he felt that the duels he would soon be involved in back at school would be a safer way to check all that.

"It is useful. Plus, I need ya to force Sophus to shut-up."

What did Sophus had to do with any of this?

"Who's Sophus?" Interrupted Connie.

"The mage who lives in this town. He's been very... loud about his dislike of Emp lately. It only got worse after the new year. If the return of the safety of our southern forest can be attributed to Emp, he will be forced to keep it down."

"I do not really care about what he thinks though."

"But 'I' do. And it's not just about what he thinks, it's about what he makes the others think."

Emp wasn't really following. What did she mean by what he makes the others think? He had not noticed anything in particular. Marcy explained further.

"It's clear he want ya to go away. Those that really know ya know what kind of person ya are but ya've only been here a year. There are many who barely know ya. If the great mage protecting the village keeps telling everyone how he dislikes ya and how supposedly untrustworthy ya are, the others might change their minds about ya."

"Can this really happen?"

The rest of the village inhabitants had been kind to him up until now and he had been under the impression that they enjoyed his presence and the small bit of protection he could give like in the attack from the blood-spitters.

"It can, Vesa's mother is already on his side."

"What?" He gasped.

This came as a shock to him, Vesa was, had been, one of his closest friends in the village. He could hardly picture the friendly woman that was his mother side with the annoying mage.

"I'd rather not repeat what I heard her say about ya. I want ya to do something so that the rest don't just see ya as someone who made a mistake but someone who can still be useful."

He nodded halfheartedly. Marcy turned back towards the three visitors.

"Can ya do it?"

"Uh, sure, I don't see why not. His card says he can hold himself and from what I understand, he will be the one to pay most of our wage at the end. As long as he doesn't get in our way, I'm more than willing to take the young master for a hunt."

"Uhg. So Emp, are ya fine with this too?"

"If you want me to, I guess."

With that, the deal was mostly done. Connie wanted to talk some more about Marcy's achievements but she was dragged out by Tacey and Jaska.

They all came back the next morning with a list creature that could cause unrest in the forest and negotiated fair prices for them all. Emp wasn't too concerned for the cost, even in the worst case scenario, the price wasn't that high to pay for him, even if he was to pay for the reward and the materials alone.

It took them most of the morning but once it was done, they didn't waste their time to leave. Emp put on his armor as swiftly as he could and followed them back outside the house.

"Emp, whatever happens, ya come back here with all your limbs attached. Ya get it?"

"Yes, do not worry Mar-, mom."

She made a growling noise because of what he called her and waved him goodbye. Emp understood what she meant, run if you have to. Don't die in a stupid way is what she really meant.

He followed the huntresses to their camp as they were all finishing packing their stuff. They couldn't bring all their horse pulled wagons in the forest after all.

From what he heard, they mostly hunted close to the plains of the tribelands where there was a lot of space between the trees. Here was different, they would need to walk. They were strong though and didn't fear a bit of walk.

"Emp? What are you doing with your armor on?"

He was about to walk into their camp when he heard the voice of Gilbert behind him. He turned around to greet him and answer his question.

"Hi Gilbert, Marcy told me to go hunt the thing with them."

"You're going on a hunt? Wow. Did you tell Calla?"

"Uhhh no. Should I?"

"Of course you should! What the fuck is wrong with you? How do you think my sis is gonna react if she brings you food and you aren't there?"

Emp hadn't thought of that, it would be a waste to cook for three if there was only her and Marcy.

"Right, where is she?"

"Back home, in the kitchen, where else?"

"Right, uh, boss Connie! I need to go see someone before we leave." He called at her back.

"Sure, we'll wait outside the gate, and don't call me boss, just Connie's fine."

Emp nodded and his helm made a clanking noise. Then, he had to walk all the way back to the other side of the village to the Champom house.

Instead of walking to the door, he decided it would be quicker to just see them through the kitchen window. We walked up to it and peeked inside. Calla was there with her two smaller sisters and her mother.

The older two where cutting down apples and vegetable while the two small ones were doing all kinds of small tasks for them. Emp was happy that they got to cook with their sister in the end.

Fleur was the first one to see him through the window and raised a sharp scream of surprise and fright. Her reaction spread through them all, making them jump and scream in turn before they even had the chance to see why she screamed. Emp raised his hands as a sign of peace and called out to them.

"Hi, it's me, Emp."

"Big bro Emp! You scared me! That's so mean!" Fleur yelled back at him.

"Sorry sorry Fleur, I didn't mean to."

"He scarred you but you're the one who scared us all Fleur. Why are you wearing that?" Asked him Fiona, after the surprise had passed.

"I'm going out with the huntresses to hunt down whatever it is that's scarring everything in the woods. Gilbert pointed out I should probably tell you all I was leaving for a bit."

A frown of worry appeared on Calla's face. That frown meant "why". He thought it was surprising how easy it was to tell. Was it because he knew her well? He saw her everyday after all.

"That thing is in part responsible for Chase and Vesa, and probably Dean too, we have to get rid of it before someone else gets hurt. Also, Marcy said I needed to do it so that Sophus would shut-up. I don't think we will be gone for too long, maybe a few days."

"You think it's going to be safe? How trustworthy are those huntresses?" Asked Fiona, in lieu of her daughter.

"Enough to have Marcy ask them to let me follow. Even if it ends up too dangerous, she had me promise three times since yesterday that I would run if something went wrong"

Fiona nodded, satisfied by his answer and Calla relaxed a bit too.

"So... I'll see you when I'm back, bye."

He started to turn around but got called back by Calla.

"Emp!"

She ran up to the window and trusted an apple up to him. It was green and not that big but it looked fresh and tasty.

"Thank you Calla. I'll eat it later when I'll get hungry on the way."

He turned back and left.

"Bye!" Called the two small Champom.

"Don't worry Calla, he's too fast to get in trouble." The mother told her.

That was exactly what he thought as well. As long as he wasn't forced to stand, there weren't that many things that could catch up to him.

He caught up to the hunting group and left towards the forest with them, the rest of his friends threw good lucks and waves of their hands at him as they left.

Emp didn't feel that worried. This time, he wasn't scarred that something bad would happen to one of his friends, it was much easier for him.

The entire group of huntresses seemed to know what they were doing. they had trained a long time with their crossbows and knew well how to use their melee weapons.

Apparently, they used crossbows because when they were hunting too far north of the empire, the protection of the ancestors made itself thin and bows became much less accurate.

For them, the crossbow was more practical, it wasn't that hard to target something with them, they could use the strength of their legs to reload them and it displayed way more power than they could have achieved with a bow. The only downside was that it took a long time to reload.

The groups of women talked to each other with energy as they walked but the three leaders decided to converse with him instead. Either out of curiosity or just to be polite, he didn't know.

"So, you're the apprentice of the legendary smith Marcellia, you any good in a forge?"

"I think I can handle steel."

Marcy had showed him how to do the more simple things related to steel and even let him try to do some basic objects with it. She had also told him about a bunch of different strange alloys she wanted to show him how to handle but, she did not have any close at hand. Some of them were very rare in the empire, or even nonexistent because the minerals they required couldn't be found inside its borders.

"And you can cast magic too, was it that mage Sophus who taught you?" Asked Jaska.

"No."

Not only he wouldn't have done it, from what he understood, Sophus was mostly a fire mage.

"But why is he trying to get you evicted? Does he think you'll be a menace to his position?"

"I don't really know, I was told it's because he loves Ma-, my mother, and he feels I'm in the way."

"Pff, The guy has no chance!" Claimed Connie loudly. "After all, everyone knows she is supposed to marry the great general's brother! How could a small village mage be worthy of her?"

A shiver ran through him, the great general's brother, Chijou!?

Her lover was Chijou!