Chapter 59

Chapter 59: Survive the freeze, please! part

Four men walk at a slow pace dragging two sleds uphill, the road is broad and vegetation is scarce allowing them to see everything from afar. They’ve kept quiet the whole time to avoid getting caught mid way by beasts.

Bob told Luke almost everything he could about the massacre that occurred last time, but Luke’s mind omitted every tragic part. He was a hero after all, if he was there his fame would be even higher than Bob’s and people in town would acknowledge him.

About half way the mayor signals everyone to stop and he sits on a rock.

“We should take a small rest in here for a while”

“Are you tired already old man?”

Luke sneered.

“You shouldn’t speak like that to the mayor, Luke”

.....

Rudd grunted getting closer to him, but he wasn’t easily intimidated. Not only his stats were better than an average person, but also he had an idea of how strong everyone was since he used his consider ability on them.

While the mayor was indeed strong by Ironwoods standards, he wasn’t even near Bob, giving Luke enough confidence to speak casually to him. In his eyes, everyone at Ironwoods were below him.

“It’s alright Rudd, we’re not at Ironwoods now and they graciously accepted our request. Also, I’m not here as the mayor, I’m just another hunter so we are in equal footing. This kind of behavior only shows how immature you are”

Contrary to Rudd’s expectations, the mayor wasn’t offended in the slightest by Luke’s lack of respect. Instead he found it refreshing. He started as a hunter just like Rudd, he had all kinds of adventures along with his companions but they were all long gone and those times were nothing but memories from the good old times. Everyday he spent at the office pushing papers he longed for just one more adventure, he was always a man of action and being trapped inside killed him slowly.

Now it’s been so long since he ventured out of the city that he already forgot what was it like to speak with other people as equals.

“I’m Karl by the way”

He said as he stretched Luke’s hand. Rudd was flabbergasted, the mayor was very strict as a father and he couldn’t remember the last time he saw him smiling the way he was smiling at Luke now.

“Anyway, we need to rest here because we need to be in top shape from now on, most attacks happen a bit further up this path, most beasts should be already in their caves or nests, but the ones that couldn’t find enough food to last through the freeze will be desperate”

Rudd explained while taking out a meat stick from his sled and started chewing on it.

“yes, but why here?”

“Because we have a nice visibility from here and the road starts to get narrow from this point on”

Bob and Luke sat on the empty sled and Rudd stood still scanning the area. They tried to talk as little as possible to avoid distracting him, even Luke was starting to get anxious since nothing has happened so far.

At first he expected the trip to be some sort of beast slaying adventure where they would find enormous amounts of weak creatures that he could kill in order to level up. He had a vast experience grinding his way to the top on several MMORPGS back on his world, but so far it’s been more similar to a hike.

So far almost everything he had experienced in this world has disappointed him. At first he was joyful when he found out that two of his companions were hot girls about his age, but everything went downhill as soon as he tried to flirt with them. He was rejected, and not in a subtle way that he could have thought that he just needed to try harder.

When Ryu joined them he was already desperate for attention, so when Anne told him she preferred to sleep with him rather than with Ryu, once again his hopes were sparked. But when he tried to have some fun with her, she kicked him out of the tent forcing him to sleep in the cold.

Magic was real, but it wasn’t flashy like in the games he’d played, Ayumi just placed her hands over some firewood and it would ignite.

They all had classes, but he was a thief, the one class he always thought was crap.

Water would make them sick if they didn’t boil it and gathering food was hard work, he felt more like a castaway than a hero.

And to make things worse, everything took a long time, even walking.

The one good thing he found in this place was the brothel, he could play with girls all he wanted, eat and drink his full whenever he wanted and he was even able to buy slaves. This made him think that maybe it wasn’t all that bad.

Now the only thing he needed was to succeed in leaving a good impression on this trip.

But it was too cold, tiresome and boring for his taste.

They resumed their walk, only this time a lot faster. Even if it was for different reasons, everyone was impatient to get to the mines. But walking faster also meant being louder, the few beasts that were not in hiding were actively seeking for prey and soon enough the group was surrounded by wolves.

“Wolf!”

Rudd managed to scream as he unsheathed his sword skillfully, but before anyone could move Luke had already taken care of the enemies.

“Good job Luke!”

Bob exclaimed, but the mayor and Rudd were stunned. They didn’t even notice when did Luke move, all they saw was four wolves standing and in the blink of an eye they were already dead on the snow.

“Don’t say that, I didn’t even break a sweat”

He said with a smug smile as he was getting ready to keep walking.

“What are you doing Luke? we need to take the corpses with us”

“isn’t that just a waste of time?”

Bob asked.

“Not at all, you may not know this, but people at Ironwoods are already starving and the freeze hasn’t arrived yet. Every year I make sure to give every single citizen that needs it a bag with supplies, but even on a good year it’s not enough to keep them fed during the freeze and this has been our worst year so far. The last caravan didn’t make it so all I could do was give them as little I could, but people were already hungry. If we somehow manage to bring back some meat to Ironwoods by the time the freeze is over could mean the difference between life and death to many”

Said the mayor as he and Rudd tied the wolves corpses and started dragging them uphill.

Not even an hour passed when they realized the mistake they made by bringing the corpses with them as every single carnivore started following them, forcing the group to go from walking to running full speed.

“Father cut the rope, carrying the wolves is useless if we don’t make it!”

Rudd exclaimed desperately, and the mayor had no choice but to do so, but it only bought them a few minutes. The hungry beasts were already on to them and wouldn’t let them go easily.

The mine was already on sight when they noticed that something even worse than the wolves was standing right outside the entrance.

It looked like a huge grizzly bear, but it had protruding fangs coming out of its maw and its eyes looked fierce.

The group stopped in their tracks without caring about the dozens of wolves following them close.

They turned back to face what they thought were the weaker opponent and started delivering deadly blows to every single small wolf that got near, but their howls drew the attention of the bear who started to sniff the air.

Karl and Rudd were strong and made quick work of the smaller wolves, but among those were some mid sized wolves and those were a lot more troublesome for them.

They were all unscathed, but it took them time to fend off all the incoming attacks from every direction and time flew by until the bear finally found the source of the noises and the smell of blood.

Luke was having trouble dispatching a mid sized wolf that was biting his dagger while Bob separated from the group and started heading towards the bear that was running in all fours straight towards them.

“Luke, whatever happens, make sure they reach the mine safely”

He said as he walked towards the bear, wielding his warhammer firmly with both hands.

“What are you doing! it’s going to kill you!”

Luke knew the bear was stronger than Bob, because he used consider on it as soon as he saw it, but all Bob did was turn back his head and look at him in the eye smiling.