Chapter 17 - Sneaking around

Zarin wanted to put his two new Skills to the test, but there was a problem with doing so. Both used MP, and his was at 0 since the beginning. His upper limit wasn't 0, but unlike his HP and SP, which regenerated while he rested, his MP's value hadn't changed at all.

'Could it be that I need some type of Skill to restore my MP?'

Lady Emlyn's Father mentioned nothing about a way of restoring MP, even if his class was clearly at least partially Mage-Based. He hadn't asked Ais about that since, till now, he had no need of MP.

It was getting late, so he had to call it a night for now. So he climbed up a tree that he had taken as a base. He had used some planks to make a simple floor up to its branch and have situated it so that he could hide within the tree's leaves.

Demon Wolves, luckily, weren't good at climbing, but there was another beast that Zarin had his guard and avoided. It was similar to a bear, but some significant alterations from the Earth's beast were like with the Demon Wolves.

Its claws were nastier, not as long as the Demon Wolves, but its hits contained more force because of its size.

The Demon Bear was close to three times of an average Demon Wolf. An average Demon Wolf was almost half the size more than Zarin's, meaning that the Demon Bear was a giant compared to Zarin.

He had encountered only one Demon Bear during one of his encounters with the Demon Wolves. Luckily the two creatures didn't seem to like each other and had fought to see who would keep the prey— him.

He had escaped during the fight, but he noticed that the Demon Beat was way more powerful than the Demon Wolves and fought six of them by itself with no problem. He wasn't sure what the result of the battle was, but he mainly had heard the wolves letting out sounds of pain.

He had tried to scout and find more about the Bear, as if he could kill it, the exps would be more plentiful than killing a team of Demon Wolves. He had paid it safe and only scouted for a few days and had found out some details of that enemy.

The Demon Wolves were monsters that used their number and speed to their advantage, while the Demon Bear used its massive strength instead. It also had a much more impressive defense that the wolves.

Its fur looked like an average's grizzly bear fur, but if one paid closer attention, one would notice that there was some movement on it. It seemed like the was a stone surface that moved around the fur and was used by the Bear to deflect incoming attacks by putting it in the way. The surface could be separated into four pieces, which covered a smaller area. However, its defensive capabilities looked to be pretty strong still.

Of course, since it was such a huge beast, its speed wasn't too fast, but it still could hit something at a decent pace. It also looked to have a massive amount of SP and HP, meaning that it would take a long time for someone to kill it, given they could pass its defense.

He had found most of those details with Eddie's help, who had learned these pieces of information from the guards. Demon Bears and Demon Wolves mostly stayed in the forest hunting other beasts. Still, it wasn't uncommon to attack travelers coming or leaving the village. So the guards had studied them to know how to handle them if there was an attack on one of their people or someone they were tasked to protect by the Mayor.

Zarin knew that if he could handle the Demon Bear, he could leave this place, as there shouldn't be any higher level of danger till the next town. But he had no suitable weapons to face it.

Of course, he could use [Kester's Die] instead, but he had only two uses, and he didn't plan to waste it like that.

If he could find a solution to his lack of MP, his chance of winning by using the two new Skills would be great.

An idea popped up in his mind. He remembered that the tools Lady Emlyn had couldn't be used outside the kitchen because the source of energy that the enchantments used to power themselves was in there. Its range seemed to be barely the space of that room, and it didn't look to be something easily movable.

'Could it be if I come in contact with it, I can recharge myself?'

He had been near the 'mana battery' a few times since he had helped in the kitchen when needed, but he never tried to see if he could draw the energy to use it himself. He didn't know the chances of success and had no clue if it was even theoretically possible, but this was all he currently had.

Since it was late at night, it was the perfect time for him to go. Mayor Oriel had left guards outside the house of Lady Emlyn and didn't let anyone get in it. She had been trying to find people to move the 'mana battery' to her place, but it seemed like to get a person like that here took a long time,

Zarin was on good terms with some of the guards, but still, a lot was loyal to the Mayor, especially after Heymon's death. There wasn't any new Guard Captain yet, as Oriel considered it not to be a necessary title to give to someone since they were a small place.

In reality, Zarin and Eddie had concluded that Oriel just didn't want to have someone with power in a place she didn't trust.

Heymon was a guard captain before she was arranged as a mayor there and couldn't take his title without a good reason since she needed to report it.

That worked to the advantage of Zarin, as the guards were becoming lazier as they had nobody to keep them on a strict training. But, of course, Mayor Oriel didn't care to train them, as she only cared for them to follow her orders and be where she told them to be.

Still, even if they followed her order to keep watches, watching their surrounding was the last thing they had in mind. Mostly they were playing card games, having a drink, or getting a nap, which made Zarin's sneaking around way easier.

Still, he tried to be as quiet and careful as possible, as he was a strict believer that things could quickly turn sour.

It took a couple of hours to reach the house, and he knew that the best way to enter the kitchen was through a door at the back. As he went around carefully and reached the door, he heard footsteps coming toward him around the corner.

He didn't have time to open the door and get it, as it would make some noise that the individual coming could possibly hear. Fortunately, there was a shrub nearby, which was big enough to hide within.

Not long after finishing hiding himself, two figures came around the corner. One of them was a guard, while the other was a female showing more skin than Ais did. Though her body was from reaching the divinity of Ais', that didn't mean she wasn't good-looking.

The guard had his arm around her waist, and she had her head resting on his chest.

After taking a few steps, they stopped, and the woman looked confused about their sudden stop.

"Is everything ok? You know your hour is almost over," the woman said.

"I just need to check something over there; wait there."

Zarin's forehead started heavily sweating as he noticed that the guard was heading his way.

'How could he have noticed me.'

He was confident that he was well-hidden and had made no noise to draw his attention. He got ready for combat as he had his hand on one of his wooden swords.

The guard kept getting closer to him and was actually heading straight to him, but Zarin kept his place.

As the guard reached the shrub, and Zarin was ready to attack, something that Zarin didn't think would happen happened.

The guard lowered his pants and started relieving himself on the shrub.

Zarin couldn't do anything as the shrub wasn't that big, so he couldn't avoid the incoming stream.

His luck had betrayed him this time.