As Nelson watched Ben run towards the town hall he started organizing his thoughts and planning for his next course of action.
The problem with the existence of a C Rank monster near the village was that there was no one except one person that could deal with such a threat. Even though Nelson's class is called WindSlasher, it was just like any other swordsman class.
Other than just granting him a minor ability to manipulate the element of wind by using his mana he didn't have much he could do. This was why even as an advanced class holder he was limited to being just a guard.
'If he says no, should I will just have to take my family and escape the village. Maybe we can head to the main city? fucking hell this is too complicated for my brain. Amanda was always right when she said I am a meathead.'
As he was finalizing his thoughts about what course of action to take, he was interrupted by sudden pain. As looked down at the shard of stone that was impaled into his chest he decided that now was the best time to eat with this injury.
As he moved his hand closer to the shard he heard someone's remark come from far.
"Don't touch that unless you want to have a gaping hole in your body. I wouldn't risk bleeding out if I were you."
Nelson quickly retracted his hand and looked towards the direction of the voice as he spotted 2 individuals walking towards him. The first person was the village guard that worked alongside Ben and stood guard at the entrance.
Ben had mentioned to Nelson that he was gone to get the Priestess for him and it seemed like he had done exactly that as the second person walking along with him was the beloved Priestess that everyone was crazy for.
She looked young and had very distinctive features that stood out, she had dazzling bright eyes, so bright that, if you stared into her eyes you would soon be bewitched by her youthful aura and beauty.
There was a catch though, always has been, the most confusing and mysterious part about her was that no one in the village really knew how old she was. This was already a red flag, as for why people were curious about this? It was because ever since the church was created in the town and the Priestess was sent here as an envoy she had carried the same looks as she has now. Fun fact, the church was created way before Nelson was even born.
Actually, it was pretty simple as to how she was able to prolong her youth, it was her vitality stat. As the vitality stat is one of the most tedious stat to improve a lot of adventurers that met and heard about the priestess were always afraid of her.
This was because the only person that could have such high vitality stat was someone close to receiving their 3rd Advancement. They weren't exactly wrong about this speculation either as she was indeed at her 3rd advancement.
The only problem was that she had a class that only allowed her to support fighters at best, she had nowhere near as many physical stats as an adventuring class. All of her other stats could at best compete with a warrior who had maxed out her 1st advancement.
"Hey Nelson where did Ben go?"
Reigh started to look around but he couldn't find his partner here he questioned the only person that last saw him.
"He is on his way to the town hall to report our discovery."
"Wait what's wrong? That shard doesn't look that hard, it shouldn't be from a monster that you couldn't have handled."
The Priestess interjected as she knew that Nelson was a WindSlasher, which was an advancement class, and along with the fact that Nelson is an okayish swordsman who should have been able to deal with any monsters up to D Rank.
"Unles-"
"Yes, it was a C rank. We went for our usual hunting trip but this time I couldn't sense anything related to mana and was careless towards a D Rank. This is why I took Noah and quickly escaped."
Nelson's quickly explained, it really was hard to understand his words as his mind wasn't exactly in the best place, but the guard and Priestess were able to piece the words together and understand the gist of the situation. Of course, their reaction wasn't that pleasent.
"OH NO IF IT'S A C RANK AREN'T WE ALL GOING TO DIE?!"
"Shut the fuck up, Reigh, don't cause a commotion, Ben has already gone towards the City Hall to inform them. Also, there is still one person in the Village that can sort this problem so don't lose hope."
"You mean that blacksmith?"
The last sentence that came out was from Priestess Maya, and she wasn't wrong, it really was the only person that could sort this problem out.
'Call the devil and the devil is here'
Maya suddenly felt her senses tingle as there was a minuscule change in the air, it was so small that no one except high rankers could feel it.
Suddenly, what appeared in front of the group was a cloaked individual, the most surprising thing about his appearance was that he just, appeared out of thin air. He made no sound nor movement, he just appeared like a magician.
'This guy... he actually came.'
Maya started thinking about the person in front of them, no one knew the man's real name as no one was known to have a proper conversation with him.
he was famously known by his adventuring alias as he was the only B Rank Adventurer residing in the village. What actually confused most of the villagers about him is that he had been residing in this village even before Maya had come here as an envoy.
Because of his mysterious behavior, most villagers avoided him, they even went as far as to theorize that the blacksmith was actually a criminal that had been exiled from the capital. As farfetched as it may sound, this theory wasn't completely baseless as on a usual basis the guards from the capital would show up to the town and consult the citizens about the activities of this individual.
What confused Maya wasn't really the rumors and theories, instead, it was the Adventurer's current occupation... The guy was a blacksmith even though he was a B Rank Adventurer, the guy could do so much more than just sit out and waste his time hammering away. He Blacksmith had a workshop but he would never sell any of his creations, actually, no one would even dare to go to his shop even if he started selling his creations because of how scary others have made him out to be.
As Maya was thinking about him, she just repeated the guy's alias in her head as she looked towards him.
'The Flaresmith.'
"Hey there, where's the beast, I quickly need C Rank leather for something."
Hearing the Flaresmith's casual remark on wanting to slaughter a C Rank monster just for the leather, all three of the present people froze up.
"Nelson, tell him, for some reason I thought this oldie had had a change of heart but I guess he is still as selfish as he always was."
"Ah yes, umm I felt the monster's presence towards that direction, not too deep into the forest."
Just as Nelson finished with guiding the Blacksmith in the direction he saw the Blacksmith vanish instantly.
"What... What was that elemen-"
"That was his actual speed. Now, stop talking, everything will be taken care of, we don't need to worry about it. Nelson lay down, I need to take the shard out before I can start healing you. Unless you are interested in getting another limb."
"Ah, Okay Priestess..."
*****
Just watching all of this happen, Noah felt a sudden change.
Name: Noah
Race: Human
Class: Non
Strength: 6
Agility: 7
Endurance: 4
Vitality: 5
Intelligence: 8 -> 9
Charisma: 8
'Wha-'
Noah's stat had increased by one point, this was a very unique occurrence to him as from what he had learned from reading books was that his intelligence would only increase if he studied something critically.
As a surprise to him, he hadn't touched a book today since morning. As easy as critically assessing something my sound, intelligence was always one of the stats most people struggled with.
This wasn't because people were dumb but rather it was something not a lot of people had nor the ability or the choice to improve. It was because intelligence was a stat that was heavily gatekept by the nobles and the knights, this was to make sure that they could keep strength only limited to their bloodline without ever allowing the commoners to rise up and become stronger.
You could say that it is just like your everyday noble superiority bullshit where nobles go to extreme lengths to protect their ego and keep the commoners in check by making sure that the commoners never get strong enough to go against them.
*****
Noah on the other hand unlike others was paying complete attention to the mysterious individual. He didn't understand how this person could be the savior that everyone was hoping to get help from.
Now he was way more curious than before, the kid had just experienced a situation where he believed that he was going to lose his father which traumatized him nonetheless. Well, even though you guys reading knew this, he didn't this was clearly because the kid can't read inner monologues.
A/N: There goes the fourth wall. >:D
As Noah was thinking about the cloaked individual he saw a bright light coming from the direction of his father.
'That's healing magic, this is the first time I am seeing something like this. If I also knew how to heal and was strong enough to fight monsters I would be able to protect people close to me as well...'
It didn't take long before the wound on Nelson's body was healed and he stood up by supporting himself onto Noah.
"Let's go home Noah, I think your mother has the right to know what happened."
"Okay, Pa.."
Just as they took their first step they heard a loud blast behind them and a sudden flash of light that made everything hard to see. Nelson fell down because of the impact, the same happened to Noah but before he fell he had turned his body towards the blast to see what it was and with that, he fell on his butt.
'This... is beautiful.."
As Noah was too young to sense the Mana flow in the air he didn't understand what was happening, but, to him, it didn't matter as what he was seeing right now was mystical. A thin beacon of light fell down from the sky over a certain area not that far into the forest.
Suddenly, the light just disappeared and a thin pillar of flame rose up from the ground in its place. It went really high into the air before disappearing.
This made it so no one aside from the few present knew what had taken place this night, to the other citizens who were sleeping, they had just randomly heard a blast occur in the forest in the middle of the night which was still something concerning.
'What the fuc...'
As the Priestess saw the whole event unfold, she just froze in one place unable to comprehend what she had just witnessed. It wasn't that she didn't understand the attacks and such, instead what boggled her mind was the amount of mana that was used in this one attack. The fire pillar was a very concentrated attack that required a lot of control and a lot of mana. But this wasn't all, the thing was the amount of fire generated that is required for such attack- All of a sudden all the thoughts stopped, this was because they heard a loud audible cry from the direction of the forest.
Surprisingly enough, it was the sound of a Human that cried out.
"FUCK! I BURNT THE FUCKING LEATHER NOOOOO!"