Sparing one last glance at the twitching and squirming man in his late twenties, Adam left the spot and did a quick swipe through the settlements. Anything he cast his sight on, disappeared into the ring. Be it trinkets, weapons or corpses, nothing was left behind.
Within a few minutes, Adam returned with a giant loop fashioned out of thick vines.
***
At the same time, in the Farmer's Settlement.
"Elder, I heard that an adventurer came by."
A man in his mid-thirties walked into the house of the elder and probed at the old man who was sitting on the carpet. There was a cup of hot tea raising its steam near him.
"Yes. Someone came. He already went to deal with the Porcupine-Hogs." The elder nodded before answering. His eyes were closed reminiscent of a meditating sage.
The interviewee shook his head with a helpless grin. "How did he react when you gave the pouch and explained the situation?"
While taking off his straw hat and dusting off the dirt, the man saw the elder shook his head in disagreement. "He didn't accept it." Siping the tea, the elder replied nonchalantly.
The farmer who just returned from the farmland tilted his head in confusion.
"Is he really an adventurer?" He couldn't help but doubt the identity of that person.
As a farmer and a person with active social interaction with people of all walks of life, he well knows the arrogant and gold-digging attitude of adventurers.
Sensing the perplexion in the voice, the old man raised his eyelids and saw the farmer.
"I don't know. He's enough matured and well-built for the job and had a complete set of armour. He'll be fine."
After a pause, he continued, "Zian appraised him as he was leaving. He said that the man is a 26-years-old, level 31 Berserker named Adam."
"Oh, then he-"
"ELDER!"
The farmer couldn't complete his words and was abruptly cut off by a loud bellow from the outside. A second later, a young, lean man in his mid-twenties came dashing into the house.
The quick pace at which his thorax rose and shrunk indicated that he had been running like it's the last day of his life.
"What is it, Figo?"
The young man's panicked demeanour forced the duo to knit their brows. The elder who was seated peacefully rose and hurried to the man.
As a reply, the latter raised his trembling hands and pointed outside. "He-he's back."
A faint smile of content was evident on his lips.
Who?
Both the elder and the farmer were confused as the young man addressed someone as 'he' with a tinge of a smile while catching his breath.
Immediately the duo darted out and saw a figure in blood-dyed armour standing at the centre of the settlement premise. The bloodstains on the metal plates seemed fresh.
The farmer had no idea who the person was but he dismissed any thoughts that the person is hostile. Plus they could only see his backside.
But after catching the sight of two unconscious, bloodstained yet intact people tied with thick vines, he couldn't help but feel apprehensive.
"Welcome back adventurer."
His train of thoughts was disrupted as the elder stepped forth and greeted the man in the armour.
Hearing the greetings, Adam turned around and saw the elder.
"Ah, elder..."
As a gesture of respect to the old, Adam took off his headgear and the villagers saw the person in question.
Faint murmurings rose into the air but they quickly faded away.
The elder shot a confused gaze while staring at Adam with his finger pointing at the captured duo. "These people..."
Since the adventurer is back, the desire to probe automatically poked its head out.
Adam's brows knit and a tinge of anger surfaced on his face as he turned his sight to the trembling duo.
"These..."
After a pause to refine and restrain his code of conduct, Adam explained what he saw and experienced.
***
A few minutes later.
"..." The surroundings.
"..." The villagers.
"..." The elder.
Adam noticed the eerie silence and lifted his head to see the myriad of people staring at the duo like a pack of angry wolves.
'Endevil?'
[Your voice gave emphasis to their arrogant and immoral attitude, considering their comrades as footsteps. Analysing their expressions, your words had maximum effect on them. Unless you interfere, they'll be skinned alive. The healing potions you used on them will be in vain.]
Endevil could tell the magnitude of brotherhood that farmers share. As a community living together like one big family, these owners of uncorrupted hearts gave importance to loyalty and honesty. Since they expect their hard work to bear fruit with respect to the effort they put in, the word 'betrayal' was nothing short of true sin in their perspective.
"The empires look down on the kingdoms and city-states because they're smaller in size. But still, they know that an upfront war will only result in unnecessary resource wastage until the roots are severed. That's probably the reason why your farmlands are targetted." Understanding the tension, Adam stepped forward and spoke, breaking the silence looming in the air. But the words weren't his.
"But that is my assumption alone. I'll hand over these two to the officials and report what had happened. Maybe their experts can extract more accurate pieces of information about their plans." Getting a firm hold on the thick vine that bound the knight and the young man, Adam turned to bid farewell to the farmers.
"Please accept the reward." The elder extended a pouch of money towards him.
Hmm... why does it look like the pouch got bigger?
Adam's sight scanned the money pouch and deduced that the size had increased.
[He might have snuck in a few more money since you've come back in one piece and with the culprits.]
'That might be the case.'
Rather than accepting the money, Adam raised his hands and opened the pouch lying in the elder's palm.
As you said, the money increased.
With a mental note, he used his fingers and took out 15 silver coins from the pouch.
"I accepted the mission for 15 silver coins. And that's exactly the amount of money I would like to have. The rest doesn't belong to me." Conveying the explanation behind his behaviour, Adam gave a light bow if he had offended them by chance.
Without waiting for a reply, the earthling turned around and paced ahead. His steps guided him to the outside of the settlement and then towards the city at a distance.
The farmers and the elder could only stand there in awe.
Isn't this guy a little too aberrant for an adventurer?
***
Unbeknownst to the villagers' thoughts, Adam was dashing at full speed. Within a minute, he saw the city gates in the field of view.
Raising his head, Adam admired the heat that was being showered down on nature mercilessly. 'Glad that it's noon. Nobody's in the fields.'
Due to the heat of the day, the adventurers have retreated as soon as the farmers returned to their settlements. Maybe they'll come again in the evening, he assumed.
Tap~ tap~ tap~
As he was surfing through multiple miscellaneous matters in his matters, the only voice that resounded in the air was his footsteps. The previous hardened brown patch of mud had gone behind and he had stepped into a path paved with bricks.
[Yo, wake up. We're approaching the gate.]
Endevil spoke and pulled Adam from his train of thoughts. Raising his sight, he saw that the gate was only a few hundred metres away from him.
Cough... cough...
Clearing his throat and assuming a stern face, he steadied his dazed pace to a solemn one.
"Halt there!"
The soldiers guarding the gate were alerted by the person in adventurer attire dragging two people behind him. The spears and swords exited their holsters in vigilance.
"I'm an adventurer. I caught these two when completing a mission. They belong to the Aquila Empire." Raising his hands into the air, Adam gave a brief explanation of what had happened.
The expressions of the soldiers turned grave as they listened to the account. Without wasting a moment, several armoured knights stepped forward and shackled the limbs and the neck of the two. The searing sensation from the artefact woke the duo up, only to be knocked unconscious the next second.
"We'll take them from here for further investigation." The leader of the 14-knights squadron thanked Adam for his service. The man in his late-thirties had blond hair, a dense moustache and a thick beard. "Can you hand over the corpses and objects you mentioned?"
Adam nodded and flicked his wrist. Except for a few weapons that had caught his interest and the beast corpses, the storage ring spat out everything else he had collected from the base.
The leader of the squadron knelt and picked up the aquamarine flag with an extravagant lion insignia at its centre. His face was impassive but the sheer oppressive pressure exiting his body said otherwise.