Book 1: Chapter 26

Book 1: Chapter 26

Kay was not fine.

“Who’s idea was this clusterfuck!?” He screamed as he ran.

“It’s the normal way to hunt them!” Korz screamed back from somewhere to his right.

Kay saw the bright blue line of the rope coming up in front of him, and he put on an extra burst of speed as he sprinted towards it.

Korz appeared out of the tall grass to his side, also sprinting as fast as he could.

As they crossed over it, the rope pulled taut and the massive magical bison, the same one’s Kay had thought might be living in the grassy plains to the south of Tumbling Rapids, tripped over the rope, completely blind to it in it’s rage at Korz and Kay.

The Hill Bison’s massive body slammed into the dirt as it tripped, and Kay whirled around to start attacking it.

With the monster struggling to stand back up, and four people attacking it, it died quickly.

Kay stood there, panting, his hands on his knees, when Eduard walked over and patted him on the back.

“See? You’re fine.”

Kay glared up at the half-elf. “That sucked so hard.”

“Yeah, running like that is a bitch.” Eduard gestured into the distance. “But it’s better than a whole herd of them chasing you.”

Kay couldn’t argue. Hill Bison were native to the hilly plains around Tumbling Rapids, and they were a pain. With mental magic that let one member of the herd tell others about dangers, and a tendency to send lookouts to perch on top of hills, thus the name, it was quite difficult to hunt them as attacking one usually resulted in dozens of them trampling you.

For whatever reason though, if you managed to get one of them to attack you, then the rest of the herd ignored it. By being what amounted to an obnoxious asshole, you could send the monsters into a blind rage and they would chase you until one of you died. So the strategy to hunt them was to get really close, and hit them with rocks. Seriously. The Hill Bison’s hide is tough enough that throwing rocks at them felt like bug bites, and they didn’t consider it a real attack. So you hit a Hill Bison with rocks till it gets pissed off, then get it to chase you into tripping over a rope. Then you kill it. And the herd would ignore the whole thing.

“These are some weird monsters.” Kay commented as he thought about it.

Eduard nodded. “Yeah, they’re strange. But the meat’s good, and the money for thinning out the herds to manageable sizes is good.”

“How many is that?” Kay called out to Verndan, who was helping butcher the dead bison. “I lost track what with me being bait every single time!”

Verndan openly laughed at him. “This is the fifth one!” He called back. “You’re on rope duty now!”

“Thank goodness for that.”

Eduard joined Verndan in laughing at him and slapped him on the back again. “It’s break time for you, runner boy. Only five more for the day, and you’re on rope duty for all of them.”

Kay waved off Eduard’s mocking tone and sat down in the dirt. As he worked on getting his breath back, his gaze turned to the broken body of the bison getting harvested, and the blood dripping form it. A scowl slowly came over his face as he watched the red liquid drip to the ground.

The news of a Blood Mage being in the area had spread through the city at such speed that Kay had wondered if the people here secretly did have the internet. By the end of that day it had seemed like everyone had heard about it. By the end of the next, the whole city had heard about him having some kind of blood magic. The end of the third day had brought rumors that he was involved!

With some help from the guild, and some friendly adventurers, he’d traced those rumors back to the idiot from Graceful Success, Coultron. According to him, Kay was an infiltrator, cleverly using his “not-quite-a-Blood-Mage” class to sneak into areas and help real Blood Mages attack. Ignoring the convoluted logic that almost made that idea work, there was only one Blood Mage roaming around the outskirts of Tumbling Rapids’ territory, which meant an attack on the city was not eminent. But the rumor had spread through various Nelamian businesses and supporters like wildfire, and then the regular citizens started picking it up.

It had gotten to the point that people were glaring at him in the streets, with random strangers recognizing and avoiding him.

He started running towards the front of the monster, with his magically controlled blood floating along beside him. Right as he got to the site of the rest of the battle he saw an arrow shooting through the air and into the creature’s slitted nostril. The Grass Snake hissed louder than before, it’s eyes glaring down at the group. Apparently they’d become too much trouble, because is hissed again and disappeared into the grass.

The party glanced around, waiting for it’s eventual return attack. The snake was unlike the Knight Hornet from before though, because it actually did leave.

“That was fun...” Korz muttered as he glanced down at his dented shield.

“Well, that once again proved one of the most important pieces of advice in adventuring.” Verndan said as he cleaned the blade of his spear.

Everyone turned to look at him questioningly.

“Always invest in the tank and the healer.” He put his spear on his back and straightened up. “Let’s get the sled back and keep going. We’ve still got five more bison to hunt.”

Kay groaned and started funneling blood back into his flask. Then he smiled as he remembered. “Oh, right. I don’t have to run.”

Eduard glared at him. “Don’t be too pleased. We might bump into another Grass Snake.”

“Don’t joke about that. I could barely scratch the thing.”

“Still couldn’t get that cutting technique you were talking about to work?”

“No. I’m hoping it’s just because my skill level isn’t high enough to control it.”

“That probably is the problem. It’s pretty common that you can’t do more complicated things like that until at least tier three levels. But you should ask your teacher. She’s probably seen something similar enough to give you an idea.”

“Nice thought.” Kay stretched his arms and legs as they waited for Verndan to get the sled back. “I’ll need to grab her when she’s not working though. She’s been busy a lot the last few days.”

Korz had wandered over, and he shot Kay an interested look. “She say anything?”

“About her investigation? No.” He glanced at the three of them that were in earshot. “And honestly, even if she had, I wouldn’t tell you guys unless she told me it was alright.”

Alice and Eduard nodded. Korz grimaced a little, but shrugged. “Yeah, I get it. I still want to know if they deliberately tied to sabotage us.”

“If I find out and it’s cool to tell you, I will. Although if they did do it on purpose, the guild is probably going to handle it.”

“I know.” Korz waved his hand in a circle. “And they’ll do good by us. At the same time though...”

“It’s personal.” Alice said. “You almost died.”

“Exactly.”

Kay nodded. “I get it. And like I said, if she says something, and I can tell you, I will.”

“Thanks.”

“What are you doing chatting?” Verndan called out. “Let’s get going! Me and Eduard have some running to do!”

Eduard groaned and started trudging towards the party’s leader. The others laughed and followed along.