JUNE 29. 3567
๐๐๐ด๐ผ ๐๐๐ฐ๐น๐ฎ๐ถ๐ฟ
After leaving the guild, We were going around town buying things that we'll need for our journey.
First, we bought a bag for me, so I can store things that are not money.
I attach it to my left waist for easy access and hid it under my black coat.
We also bought fire resins, apparently, fire resins are made by mixing a sticky substance and a large amount of small compressed charcoal which was made using gravity magic.
It only has about 5 minutes before the charcoal melts sticky substance making it unusable
"Denovin are apparently weak to fire and it will keep us away from her children known as 'Denovon'"
"Wait, it has children?"
"Yes, to put it simply, the denovin is the queen of their nest while the denovons are its children and workers"
After buying those, we also bought other essentials like torches and grappling hooks.
Then we went into a clothing shop to buy cloaks.
"Cloaks? why do we need them for?"
"We need a cloak to hide your ears, you cant show those bastards that your human"
"I'm guessing there highly discriminant against other races?"
"Yep, half-elves are treated worse since those bastards see it as the highest sin for the entire elven race"
'She's speaking as she experienced it before, I guess her nightmare must be about that'
'She lost someone important there'
We bought a black hooded cloak in there but I regretted it when we left the shop since I had nowhere to put my black coat, I was forced to wear it with my black cloak making it really hot.
After we bought the rations for our journey, we once again entered the forest and go south.
JUNE 30. 3567 - JULY 1. 3567
For the first two days, we only encountered mulcurts and sometimes even a wandering hulcurt in this forest.
JULY 2. 3567
For our third day, we encountered the one of the denovin's children, denovon scouting the area.
We hid behind the forest to examine it.
Its appearance was a bipedal black mantis, Its entire forearm was replaced with flexible claws, its most of its body was protected by an exoskeleton and its body was quite similar to a human however its mantis head had two different sizes horns protruding on its forehead.
After examining its appearance, I took a look at its soul.
NAME:
RACE: DENOVON
STATS:
STR: 20
DEX: 28
END:15
INT: 14
SPD: 17
DESCRIPTION: An offspring of a denovin and a worker. A bipedal black mantis that is protected by an exoskeleton has a similar body to a human however, its mantis head has two horns protruding on the forehead and its forearms are replace with claws. Their hive collects living creatures and offers them to their queen to be eaten alive and all the leftovers will be given to the workers and children. Due to their queen eating most of the foods, most of the bigger nests destroyed itself and only small groups of 50 are the largest nest that survived for ten years.
This was not good since it was only a little weaker than me however their numbers will be able to overwhelm us excluding the denovin.
However, it looks like he was alone so I wanted to try and fight it, so I whispered to Cynthia
"Let me fight it alone so I can get used to its movements"
"Sure"
After nodding with each other, I left my hiding place and showed myself in front of the denovon.
I didn't attack him immediately and instead let the denovon attack first since I wanted to know its attacks and movements.
It immediately tried to slash me horizontally and using my blade, I blocked it with two of my arms then using the pommel of my blade, I hit the denovon in the head staggering it.
I took a small step forward and prepared a diagonal downward slash.
Although its body was hard because of the exoskeleton, my strength was enough to slash through it.
With that discovery, I was a bit more confident in fighting multiple of them and then we continued our journey to our Netherlin.
We arrived in the evening when the gates were closing, the guards were alerted when two hooded figures showed up however after showing them our quest paper given to us, they escorted us to one of the buildings in the central plaza.
When we entered one of the rooms, we noticed a young elven man in priest clothes and a woman clad in armor with a mace and shield.
We didn't say anything to each other and just waited for the one who requested the quest.
Minutes later, the doors open and a tall elf dressed as a noble glanced at us four with a calm demeanor, then another elf came in the room.
He looked like the definition of an "Evil Bastard" and after looking at us with a sinister smile, he started talking to us.
"I'll get straight to the point, currently your the last adventurers that the guild is willing to give us before the army steps in"
"So that's why we're giving you these items to aid on your extermination"
The man gave us a torch, a dagger that has some sort of a slightly glowing crystal embedded in it, and more rations.
The two elves took the rations without hesitation and started examining the dagger.
However ever since that man arrived here, I found him very suspicious but what confirm my intuition was that Cynthia was glaring at him after looking at the items
"You basta-"
I cover the mouth of Cynthia and spoke at the man with the most sincere tone that I could manage.
"Thank you very much for the items, we will try to put them into good use"
"Good"
Then another sinister smirk showed on his face.
Then the tall, calm elf told us the situation and details of our quest.
Apparently, this fortress town was positioned the closest to the border meaning if this town falls, there might be an invasion if the army continues to ignore this.
So were task to eliminate them before they started targeting more of the residents of this fortress town.
While telling us about this mission the sinister man cut in
"Haaah...if only that elf didn't die six years ago in an accident, she could have properly killed them all however it seems she was a bit too weak for it"
"You-"
"How do you know it's an accident?"
I cut in before Cynthia shouts at him
"Well...six years ago they were killed in accidents, although they weren't any evidence of it, we found that her rifle was missing"
He said progressively sounding more sinister
As he said that I felt a bit of pain in my hand, it seems out of rage without noticing, Cynthia started biting my hand that I'm using to cover her mouth.
The calm elf just looks at us then pretended to not see anything and continued with the briefing.
Then after the briefing when we were preparing to leave and find an inn to sleep in, the calm elf approach us and gave us some sort of kit.
"I suspect that man is conspiring with demonic creatures, use this to patch up wounds quickly, just in case"
Inside the kit were a bandage, some sort of liquid in a small bottle, herbs, and a thin needle with threads.
"I'm giving to you since I need evidence of him conspiring with a demonic creature"
"Why should we-"
"And in exchange, I will not tell the entire elven country of your existence human and as for you half-elf, you can do whatever you want with him using this truth potion"
He then gives Cynthia a bottle with a white liquid in it.
We both nodded silently and left then we found an inn to stay at
"Who the hell was that?"
"Hmm...I think that was the witchtaker Hanz"
"Witchtaker?"
"He has very close relations with the king because of his 'left eye of truth'"
"He's most likely saw your status without even needing to see your soul"
"That's why he approached us instead other than the other two"
"Then what about the item that man gave us?"
"The torch is not tempered however the daggers gem if activated will explode, to the naked eye it may look like a ruby however this is just a red mana crystal thats been infused by a small amount of mana to make an explosion which is also why its glowing"
"The food?"
"Most likely poisoned, it wont kill us but it will weaken us significantly"
"I see..."
After discussing a bit more about what to do we both went to sleep
"Hey...Hugo?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you for stopping me and sorry about the hand"
"It's fine, and your welcome...Cynthia"
And with that conversation, I went to sleep smiling slightly.