-----
My will was too strong, and my mother was incapable of changing my mind, I understood her concern, but Eleanora convinced her at the end, saying that she would protect me at all costs, while I told her that I wasn't going to actually fight, but dedicate myself at healing, which was obviously a big lie.
She believed it nonetheless thanks to abusing Eleanora's Charm over me. She's capable of conjuring the effects of this Skill, and by putting them over me, I am capable of becoming more convincing to others, and even my mother cannot escape such a power, at the end, she let me go.
Erika, Chris, and Eric wanted to join me as well, but I was not willing to hold responsibility for them, if they were to get damaged, I didn't know what I would tell their parents, and because this is being done publicly and not secretly, I didn't wanted to risk this.
I rejected all three of them and left them in my house with my mother, father, and grandmother, as I made my way into the forest with the rest of the hunter group.
The forest seemed calm today in the morning, and the hunters all had grim faces, they seemed worried about what was to come, and my presence didn't seemed to calm them, even by considering the abilities I had to heal wounds.
I can already tell that these people were very worried about the future and its prospects, there were many things that could go terribly wrong today, after all, there was nothing saying that the same demon from before wouldn't show up, or something even worse.
The invasion of demons into the forest is a serious issue, and it is already well known by the people, Adventurers sometimes adventure into the forest to hunt them down, but most of the time they only come back with a single imp or two, they're terrible hunters because they're very low-ranked adventurers.
What they can do is very limited, and high-ranked adventurers simply are not even around, they go to other places with bigger prey to hunt and more missions to do, usually in the capital or the duchy is where they gather the most, as the Adventurer Guild is there.
Although there is a small building here which could be said to be like a small Adventurer Guild, what they offer cannot compare to the things in the duchy.
Therefore most of the hunters' forces are just the serfs, who have polished their strength over the years of hunting wild animals and growing stronger through leveling up, or well, as they call it here, blessings.
I didn't knew the exact Talents of the people in here, but I knew that based in their postures and auras, none of them had one that boosted the power of using weapons or physical abilities, and their Summons were also not impressive.
Only the leader had something that seemed useful, a Red Flare Dog, which he had been training and leveling for some years by now, and was a loyal and powerful companion.
The rest of the hunters had small and often useless spirits, because we are serfs after all, you can't expect them to have great Spirits and Talents, if they had, they wouldn't be here to begin with but would had become adventurers, earned money with their power, and might have better lives.
After all, your life in this world seemed determined based in what sort of spirit or talent you got from birth, like a random thing, those will be born at better conditions than others… sometimes, bloodlines of family might enhance the chances for children to have better spirits or talents, but it is never a guarantee.
The spirits that I saw from the other dozen of hunters were mostly lesser creatures, such as Dragonflies, Horned Rabbits, Small Turtles, and Swimming Fishes, which were mostly smaller than a house cat. There were some that had weird and even more useless-looking things which they didn't even summoned, such as Chopsticks, Handkerchief, and Grass…
Certainly, I believe everyone would be able to awaken some sort of strength out of their spirits, even as strange as they are, but I am not willing to simply train the entire village, and I prefer to concentrate in a small group of my family and friends at most.
These people's fates are not my problem, but that doesn't mean I will let them die pointlessly today, and well, I also wanted to see if I could gain EXP out of this hunt, and perhaps some recognition of the hunters. If so, I could gain the ability to join more hunts, where ethe possibilities of surviving against powerful monsters increases as I have many other allies to rely on.
These people were quite admirable, despite the Talents they had, which were not focused in fighting, and despite the Spirits they had, which were mostly not so useful, they all held a great strength nonetheless, leveling by slaying monsters over time still built up power in their muscles and bones, and just like my father, they had become good at the spear.
"I can't believe we brought a child… Blake, make sure to watch your back and step aside whenever something appears, alright, boy?" asked the leader, his name was Gradus, and he was a renowned hunter in the village.
He had actually retired from hunting as he had grown too old, but he was forced to participate by the Duke due to the lack of hunters.
"I am a good friend of your father, Joan. I am not planning on risking your life today, nor for you to fight, so you better keep yourself behind us, Blake. Did you heard me? I am taking responsibility for you today." Said the man.
"I understand. Thanks for letting me join." I said.
"Geez, you're such a well-mannered kid! All my kids grew up to become punks, seriously, they never give their old man a break… Ahaha!" he laughed.
"Ah, I see…" I said.
As we spoke, the bushes in front of us began to move suspiciously.
"There's something there!"
-----