Chapter 38 - Encounter

There was a faint trembling, a prelude to the disaster to come.

The meteors were unrelenting, shaking the earth as they landed.

Trees were blown away, and massive craters were left in their wake. The earth cracked, revealing magma that started to rise.

Chunks of the earth rose and fell like boats in the raging sea.

Then... It was calm.

The earth melded back into a flat plain. The only evidence that anything happened was a peculiar space in the forest where there were no trees.

...Why can he just... do that?

Small pillars rose around the platform and the roof returned.

The massive pillar started to lower, making me feel as though I was constantly on the edge of falling.

In the middle of the platform, various gemstones started to burst out, they looked like the one Leon was holding in his hand.

There were many tiny ones that were about the size of a pea. There were quite a few the size of a tennis ball, like the one Leon was holding. There were even a couple that had a diameter that was over double the previous ones.

Leon took one of the bigger ones and threw it to me.

"Here, for the information."

My hands hastily caught it. My eyes examined the gemstone, it looked so delicately made.

"Say, Leon. How did you get so powerful?"

Leon smirked.

"I had a journey, and eventually my destination ended up being here."

...How was I going to understand something so vague?

Oh, maybe that's the point.

"Which direction should I go?"

Leon raised an eyebrow.

"How about this way?"

Leon slowly raised his finger towards the opposite direction of his bombardment.

My head turned in that direction.

"Alright, thanks Leon."

The room started to fill with stone until Leon's body was almost submerged. Only his face was above the rock, and he was staring at me.

"No problem Jay."

The stone sealed him up, leaving me to walk back down the stairs.

...

I had left the village and was now going through the snow in the direction that Leon pointed. The sun was beginning to set.

Wait, I forgot to ask Leon if he knew the use of those gemstones.

...Ah, whatever.

In my hand was still the potato that Lucas and that woman gave me. It was currently being roasted in my hand. My coat was covering my hand so that the heat didn't burn it.

After a sniff, a big bite was taken out of the potato. It was not bad.

My stake was in my hand and it was out of the blast radius, thankfully.

Once again, my visage melded with the trees to stalk the forest.

From one tree to another, my foot would land behind. Constantly my head was down circling around, to see if anything was nearby.

Yet, there was not a living thing for quite the distance. Well, other than trees.

It seemed that most of the wildlife were still shaken up by the tremors and were in hiding.

My body was getting weary.

When was the last time I slept?

...Night had soon approached, but other than darkening, my vision was not obstructed. The black crystal was tied onto my arm.

Perhaps it would have been smart to sleep, yet my steps continued forward.

My eyes could make out a clearing in the distance.

My head was lowered and peeked from behind a tree, while my heart rate slowed.

There was a large pond of ice. Two people were in the middle of the ice pond... talking to each other.

Osric, the king of wolves, was talking to... Mark?

They both had smiles and were glaring at each other. They were around two meters apart.

Mark had his hands behind his back while Osric was rubbing his hand on his chin.

Was Mark not... cold?

He was only wearing some rags, but that didn't seem to bother him.

There was no way for me to hear what they were saying without getting much closer, but that didn't seem to be the best idea.

What is Mark doing out here? Talking with Osric no less...

I should leave.

My head was pulled back slowly. But, in the corner of my vision, Mark suddenly turned to look at me.

My heart clenched. Did he see me?

"You know, you're just like an assassin but don't seem like one at the same time."

There was a voice above me. Mark was in the tree above me, standing up straight. He had a big smile on his face. A shaky smile appeared on my face.

"Ah, well... I mostly picked up some things from animals, I'm not really one that does assassin work."

Mark laughed.

"Techniques you learn from animals should be used for animals, not people."

A white mist approached and coalesced into Osric.

"Hmm... What an interesting lad we have here. I'm surprised you were able to see us so easily. You are wearing a coat made from a wolf?"

Beads of sweat formed on my head despite how cold it was.

How did I get myself into this situation?

"S-Sorry, I only killed one wolf ok?"

Osric raised an eyebrow.

"Haha, why are you so concerned about whether or not I care about wolves?"

My head tilted.

"Aren't you the king of wolves, Osric?"

Mark chuckled. Ignoring Mark, Osric narrowed his eyes.

"...May I ask how you know that?"

Ah, right I forgot.

"...Well the name of Osric spreads far, you are the wolf king after all!"

There was a moment of silence. Osric's eyelid twitched.

"...I have yet to tell anyone my name."

...What the.

Why did you tell me your name so casually before then?

Mark laughed.

"So your name is Osric? I suppose you could have chosen worse names."

Osric was frowning.

"Do not interfere with my business. How did you know my name?"

My hand scratched the back of my head.

"...Well you kinda told me."

Osric grit his teeth.

"I haven't told anyone!"

Mark was smiling.

"Haha... he's not lying."

Osric's lip twitched.

"What?"

Mark sighed.

"Come on... Osric, we have business to take care of."

Mark suddenly disappeared and Osric frowned but turned into a mist and started to travel somewhere.

...That was a strange encounter. A bit of sweat formed on my forehead thinking of how bad that almost was.

Thankfully, they seemed to have something more important to do than deal with me.

Taking one last look around me, my curiosity made me approach the ice pond.

There was nothing in particular that made the place look special.

Yet... I wanted to step in it.

My foot was set down in the ice pond.

For a second, a realization came to me. There was no reason to go to this place, there were no trees to hide behind. It would only needlessly expose me.

Massive ice walls rose at the edges of the pond. The land began terraforming into a hill-like structure.

Those two were just casually in this place?

While my time was spent thinking, skeletal hands rose from underneath the ice. The hands pulled themselves out to reveal skeletal bodies.

My eyes looked to my stake, then back to the skeletons.

This might be a little difficult.

Ten skeletons slowly turned to me and began to walk in my direction. The skeletons awkwardly twitched as they walked and loudly made grinding sounds as they moved.

Wind wildly whipped around me and my skin tore open.

I prayed in my heart and threw Alyx's spell that was prepared beforehand.

Surely there was some sort of magic at work right?

The spell landed on a group of skeletons that were approaching me... and did nothing.

After clicking my tongue, my legs raced towards the right edge of the encirclement.

The skeleton at the farthest right reached for me with both of its bony hands.

Mana spread across the tip of my finger and ice encased both of the skeleton's hands. The skeleton froze in place, giving me time to run past it.

My eyes peered over my shoulder to see the skeleton crack, then shatter the ice in a few seconds.

...Maybe using ice against skeletons that could climb out of solid ice was a bad idea.

The skeletons did not follow any strategy, they simply took the most direct path towards me. So long as my steps are planned, they shouldn't be able to encircle me.

As my footsteps went around the hill, my mind was casting a firebolt. The skeletons started to scale up the hill to take a path straight towards me.

My firebolt was thrown to the skeleton closest to the right edge again as it could cut me off the easiest.

My eyes followed the firebolt as it collided into the skeleton's chest.

The skeleton took a few steps back, but there was no visible damage, and was up and ready to run towards me again.

A deep frown appeared on my face.

This was bad...

None of my spells seemed to have any meaningful effect on them.

From how easily the skeleton could shatter the ice encasing, their physical strength seemed to be a little unfair.

Do they have a weakness?

....Mark and Osric. They were standing in the middle, maybe that meant something would be there?