After getting his and Snowy's food, Daron sat down on the table with the rest of the gang and began eating.
"Mmm? What is it Daron? You look down today." Rachel was the first to notice.
"If it is because of the magical beast then I will kill it for you." Spoke Tom with a mouth full of food.
*****
In this continent, humans had an instinctual fear of magical beasts. Not because they are bloodthirsty or have a wild nature, but because of the strength they had. It is recorded in the books of history that before the three large kingdoms controlled the continent, and even before the church was formed, humans had to live in small groups of no more than 5. Any larger than this amount would attract magical beasts.
During those times that were known as the Dark Ages, humans had to live in constant fear of being killed by a magical beast. During that time, Rank 3 and Rank 4 magical beasts were just cannon fodder in front of the truly mighty Rank 8 and Rank 9 magical beasts that controlled the continent. It was only until the high-elves decided to come out of hiding and achieve their ambition of taking over the continent were there magical beasts killed off one by one over hundreds of years of cruel war and slaughter.
This was known as the War for life where not only the high elves, but normal elves, dwarves, humans, and even the ever-elusive dragonkin fought a bloody and prolonged battle against each of the Rank 8 and 9 magical beasts, sacrificing countless lives of countless masters in order to wear down the enemies and finally kill them off.
However, that was not the end of war, since the high elves did not stop at killing off all the rank 8 and 9 beasts, but even took over the entire continent, and even pointed their swords at the gods. Their arrogance was not baseless, and a few gods did in fact fall at the hands of the high elves and their magical technology.
However, after killing a total of 2 gods, the entire high elven race became silent and vanished from the spotlight of the continent just as quickly as they had appeared. Without the support of the high elves and their technological advancements, the elves could not control the continent. Around this time, mages began appearing within the humans, and even the church was formed. With these two new kinds of powers, humans pushed back the elves and took over most of the continent.
However, since the battle with the gods did not happen on this continent, not too many people understood its magnitude. Instead, the battle scars left by the battle against the rank 8 and 9 magical beasts were clear as day to even the normal humans in the form of valleys in the shape of claw marks and mountains in the form of bones.
Therefore, magical beasts left a greater impact on the humans of the continent of Maradona, compared to the untouchable gods.
*****
Excerpt from 'The Historical Chronicles'
Daron knew what Tom was trying to say and shook his head.
"It is not because of Snowy. It is something else that is very strange and I cannot describe how I feel this, but the feeling I am getting is incredibly strong. It is the same feeling you get when something is about to go horribly wrong…" Daron patiently explained, but the rest of the gang could not understand that not only was Daron's gut feeling telling him that something was going to go horribly wrong, Sirious had also come a terrifying conclusion a few moments before.
[Your dream has been analysed. Although the last bit was caused due to your mind's imagination after receiving the stimuli from Snowy's licking, the rest of it seems to have originated from the Bloodline Inheritance energy. Even though you have sealed it, it was able to send over a faint message to your subconscious, which was portrayed in the form of a nightmare.]
'What? So, Bloodline inheritance is trying to tell me something?'
Daron could not ignore something that was being sent over proactively by this mysterious energy, which had helped him a lot in the past despite being a slight inconvenience. He knew something was going to go wrong with him soon, and maybe not only limited to himself. He needed to become stronger as quickly as possible. To stop that.
With that thought in mind, Daron finished up his food and went to the blacksmith. Today he would begin his first forge on his own. To become strong, all he needed to do was to buy more 'herbs', and to do that, he simply needed more money. He did not have to waste time digesting and taking control of his Internal Energy after eating 'herbs' like others, and only needed money to buy the herbs. For that, he needed to begin churning out weapons and other tools as quickly as possible to earn as much money as possible.
*Ting**Ting**Ting*
The rhythmic hammering of metal resounded in the blacksmith union as the 3 blacksmith who worked at this remote branch office were crowding around Daron who was the only one hammering while murmuring every now and then. The one who had taught Daron everything up until now was pointing out mistakes Daron was making in the process of forging.
After almost 3 hours of continuous hammering, Daron finally completed the shape of the sword he wanted to make. Just like before, once a mistake was pointed out, he had not made that same mistake again, resulting in the process that would take an apprentice blacksmith like Daron almost 4 hours, only taking 3 hours.
And now, Daron was confident that if he redid the process, he could complete it within 2.5 hours since he would eliminate the possibilities of making mistakes using Sirious.
However, he was currently too exhausted to do anything for another few hours at the very least, and so he decided to just call it a day and went to the union bank after half an hour of rest to get money to buy more 'herbs'.
"Little Daron… are you buying herbs to feed a whole army of knights in training?" Karlos could not help but ask after seeing the ridiculous amount of 'herbs' Daron was requesting. This much would normally last a group of 10 knight in training at least a few months.
"Let's just say that I need as many of these as possible."
After a moment of hesitating, Daron whispered to Karlos.
"I have a feeling that some sort of disaster is going to befall Bard city."
"Haha! Nothing can happen to this city as long as Sir Zack is present." Karlos laughed directly into Daron's face.
Daron had already told this to the Blacksmiths at the union, and they just laughed him off, just like Karlos did just now.
Daron just sighed, took the 'herbs' and returned to the castle via carriage and described his feeling of disaster approaching to Knight Fals who simply remained silent before nodding and sent him off. Seeing such a reaction, Daron decided that it might be such a great disaster to everyone as he thought, and might only be something like his business suffering some sort of loss.
Although he wished to stop that as well, he could not do anything about it, and therefore he decided to focus on the 'herbs' he had bought. Since he had this feeling before, he had brought out a lot of his reserve money even from his incognito account at the Union bank and bought as many herbs as he possible could. Now, he would absorb them all.