Zarin didn't mind his new place. Even if the smell wasn't the best, it was the better option he had because of his roommates.
Oriel had ordered the guards to search for Zarin and arrest him, but Eddie hid him well. Also, some of the guards were loyal to Heymon, and even if their captain was dead, they still respected him and didn't want to harm his' nephew.'
Not many people knew the true origin of Zarin, so the lie of Lady Emlyn of him being the son of her sister had become the truth in the minds of most. Aldis was the only other person who knew the truth, and he was taken by Count Hemmet.
Eddie had actually learned that the Mayor wanted to arrest Zarin, and that was why he had asked him to stay with him. He didn't tell him about that order of Oriel until the next day, though.
After a night of sleep, Zarin had lost [Exhaustion II], and it went back to Exhaustion I. Since he couldn't spend all the time sleeping, he tried to do some light training until he would lose this condition.
Eddie didn't ask for anything and only warned Zarin to be careful, as some guards were still following the orders of the Mayor.
Zarin moved out of the village's borders and towards where his prison cell was. He had asked Heymon if he knew anything about it, but he had told him that there was nothing like that over there.
He revisited the place, and the door to the prison was nowhere to be found. In its place, there was a huge boulder. Zarin tried to examine it thoroughly in case a secret door was blended, but he didn't notice any.
The place was quiet, and there was no other wildlife in that spot other than a few small birds. He had noticed some beasts on the way there, but they didn't follow. It was almost like they were avoiding this place.
Since this was a safe place from the monsters and no villagers or guards were getting here, he decided it was an excellent place to hide. Of course, he still would go back to Eddie's place to sleep now and then, but he wanted to get used to living on terrains like that.
His plan was to live in this village as soon as he was confident he was strong enough, so he had to get used to living outside like that.
He still had the two wooden blades of Alth and Alos and kept training his [Sword Mastery] with those. He had no tutor this time, but he had paid attention to their playtime. Even if they weren't experienced warriors, they had learned a couple of moves from Aldis. Zarin tried to replicate them to the best of his abilities. As he trained and his Skill leveled up, he noticed some 'fixes' at his form happening subconsciously.
He got 2 levels on the first day since he didn't want to tire himself too much, worrying he would earn Exhaustion II again. So Zarin instead focused on reading the Journal, trying to increase his [Knowledge - Otherworlders] in the hope of earning a reward.
He didn't know what the reward would be, but until now, the rewards he earned were truly magnificent. Even if he had still to use his Empty Character Die, it was just because he hadn't found a suitable target.
As for Kester's die, even if he used it only once, it was a great tool, and he had learned a lot from it. Even if Kester used a spear instead of a sword, some of its moves and Skill had inspired Zarin through his personal training.
'Maybe I should try to find a spear instead and work on it.'
Most of the guards used spears instead of blades, but he didn't think he could easily borrow one for himself. So, for now, he worked with what he had.
He returned on the first night, back to Eddie's place to rest, and so for the second night as his Exhaustion Condition didn't expire when he had another night of rest and needed two nights instead.
After that, he returned to Eddie's place only when his provisions were getting too low.
Two months had passed since the execution, and Zarin hadn't returned to the village for two weeks.
A couple of weeks ago, Oriel believed that he had run away in fear that he would get arrested. However, he didn't mind her and didn't plan to teach her how wrong it was— at least not anytime soon.
During that time, he trained almost non-stop, except for suitable breaks to not get the Exhaustion Condition. He had been confident that when he was close to the limit, it would grant him this negative effect, so he was taking suitable breaks to prevent that from happening.
During those last couple of months, his Skills had made some progress.
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DICE SUMMONING
Level: 32/100
Description: You can summon any kind of die in your imagination, buts their size is limited to normal. Once a die leaves your hand, it will disappear after 37 seconds. If you summon another die over the limit, the previous dice will disappear in the order you summoned them.
Dice Limit : 3
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DICE MANIPULATION
Level: 42/100
Description: You can control any dice of your creation like an extension of yourself. You can also control dice not created by you as long as they are within 2 meters from you.
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SWORD MASTERY
Level: 34/100
Description: Your proficiency with the blade has increased. You can start using the true potential of a sword's blade and increase the damage dealt with one by 7%/
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Every Skill of his after it passed level 25 had received an extra value at its description. Level 25 for D-Rank Skills was, after all, the bottleneck he needed to reach for a D-Rank Skill to be considered an advanced Skill.
When a Skill entered its advanced state, it would start to show its actual effects. More effect could appear at level 75, where they would be considered a Master Skill, but that wasn't the case for every Skill.
Zarin had gotten a few ideas on developing some skills by some details from Ais and the Journal of Lady Emlyn's father.
As for his [Knowledge - Otherworlders] was currently at 25% and hadn't increased for the past few weeks. He had read the entire Journal multiple times. Still, it seemed like it wasn't enough to help him improve his Knowledge progress anymore.
He currently was cooking some meat from a Demon Wolf he had captured today. Those were the same kind of monsters he encountered the day he got out of his prison cell. He had confronted them more than a dozen times these past weeks, and he almost died at one encounter.
This type of monster tends to form packs, and it is rare to encounter one by itself only. However, there were some instances that Zarin thought that he had found one which was by itself, just to find out that there were a few more Demon Wolves hidden nearby.
Still, those encounters had helped him toughen up and raise his [Sword Mastery] skill faster than if he had just trained by himself. All the progress one could make by just using a Skill in a safe environment and during combat weren't comparable, with the latter being more beneficial and more dangerous.
Zarin also had found out something vital during these past weeks. He had more than one life.
It wasn't the same as when he was imprisoned that he could die as many times as he wanted, but it was like he had a second chance. He found out during the first time that he thought he was lucky enough to find a lone Demon Wolf and had fallen victim to their ambush instead.
His HP had reached 0, and at that point, a notification panel appeared.
It let him know that on a random roll of a six-sided die and in a roll higher than one, his HP would return to 1.
He got a 5 at that time, and as said, his HP became 1, and he had the energy to move once again. But he wasn't fast enough, as a nearby wolf had attacked him again back then, killing him once more.
A similar panel appeared, but he had to roll over two for his HP to become 1 otherwise would remain 0 and be considered dead. Again, he tried to see if he could manipulate the roll, but he felt like he had no access to his Skills during that time.
He was ready this time, ran away from the ambush, and escaped the wolves.
After a few days, he had fallen into a similar situation. This time, instead of needing to roll over a 3, he was once more required to roll over a 1. It seemed like this second chance would get reset after some time he wouldn't use it.
He didn't want to test it more to find out how it worked exactly as in the process, he could fail the roll and be the end of him.
As the meat looked almost ready, Zarin first took a light breath past his ear.
"Can I have some?"
Zarin turned calmly towards the person who just spoke, as even if he hadn't detected them, he expected to see them at some point.
"You took your sweet time Ais," he said with a grin on his face.