"Stayed back you fiends!!"
In the mist of this small Grove that no one would have bat an eye to normally,a group of two man and a young girl is currently facing a crisis that could end their short journey on life in a very gruesome manner.
"Larra,in five seconds we are going to break an opening for you to escape,take the herbs and run as fast as you can out of this cursed place."
One of the two man sternly told the young girl next to him, larra a young girl who seemed no older than 18 resist the urge to shake in fear,holding the few basket of herbs in her hands tighter as a result.
"No,I know you too well to fall for this trick peo"Her grey eyes waver in doubt but she desperately tried to think of a way for them to escape this place in one piece.
"Stop butting head with me for once,you need to get these herbs to the village now!!!"Peo spoke again,this time much louder than before which made larra tensed up in surprise.
"Please...!!just listen to me this once larry.Don't let this be all for nothing!"Peo struggled as he desperately tried to fend off another mountain cat's lunges with his worn-down quarterstaff.
These creatures are rated to be class D threats, but that is only by subjugators's standards who trained all their life and have powerful fighters and mages in their ranks.
For normal peasants and civilians like them,one of them would take at least two stronger experienced hunters to reliably subdued one.And infront of them, there are four of them lunging at him and his friend furiously in repeats.
"...Okay..."Gritting her teeth,she can only compromise for the situation in frustration and grief,she sworn that once the village have gotten better.She will make sure to send subjugater to avenge them.
"In Five!!"blocking another waves of attack from the feline creatures,peo swing his staff around widely,trying to prevent them to get close for the time being.
"five...Three...on-"
"Livikloom Asana(mana pellet)!"
As peo and his friend were about to crash into the creatures,a tiny blue sphere blized into the ranks of the beasts and swiftly exploded after it landed.
The loud thunderous sound of a close explosion rang as the four beast was mostly incinerated in an instance amid the explosion,but it's radius wasn't big enough to harm any of the three if only to knock them down.
The qroup stared dumbfoundedly at the scene despite the painful ranging in their eardrum,shocked and wondering what in the world just happened as they stood back up.
"...Ah that time was just enough,thank god…or goddess? Hey! are you okay?"A young boy with a head of short neatly trimmed pitch black hair slowly dashed out of a bush.
Larra turned towards the voice and met the pair of violet coloured eyes that were as clear and reflective as a pair of gem owned by royal families,her mouth gasped in shock and her body was stilled as a statue.
"...A mage…?ah...Thank you,young man,what a display of poweress that was,thank you for your much needed help!"
The first to recover was peo,he shakes off the doubts,fear and shocked he experienced and bow to properly give thank to the young powerful mage who lend his hand in their grave time of need.
"O-oh!Don't worry about it,were you injured in anyway?maybe I can hel-ouc!!"
Lucas was flustered for a moment at the great praise and grateful attitude towards him that he had never experienced or seen before.
"...Stupid kid!!"
Right when Lucas was about to come closer,he was stopped in his track when a pair pair powerful wing slapped his head harashly.knocking him forward a few steps.
"You need to consult me before you do things like this!Do you not understand wh-"Fel felt the few stared of great fear on him and sighed in defeat,he porched himself on Lucas's shoulder and compromise with the situation.
"Lucas,right now they think I am another hostile beast,tell them that I am f-amil-ar…of yours,tch.…So they won't suspect you too much."
Lucas rubbed the back of his handed softly and nodded at his voice of suggestion filled with apparent annoyance.And do as he was asked to,it would be a great hassle if they start suspecting things so this would be for the best.
"I am Lucas and this is my familiar fel,do not worry he is not as mean and dangerous as you think…"
Lucas grinned as he saw his tease mange to annoyed fel quite a bit,but the qroup of strangers nodded in understanding and somehow he felt that their marveling faces is getting even more intense than before.
Afterwards,they were guided out of the Grove by Fel,peo,Lucas and his friend viox chatted with each other on their way out,mostly with Lucas trying to steer conversation away or having to lie when the two were asking about something more personnal.
"Hey…hey!Larra!Stop staring at sir Lucas,you are creeping people out!And you haven't even thanked him yet,what's wrong with you."
Peo having took noticed of how larra has been trying to sneaks stare at Lucas when they weren't noticing pinched her cheeks softly when he had enough of her rudeness towards Lucas.
"Ouc…!Quit it!I k-know already!"Slapping his hand away,Larra eyes wavers as a faint pink colour raise in her cheeks when Lucas took notice of the them,taking a deep breath she walked towards him.
"Thank you for your great help earlier sir Lucas,we are forever in your debts."Bowing as peo and viox does,she gave her thanks to this mysterious powerful younger mage gratefully.
"Don't worry about it miss larra,oh by the way your wrist seems quite scratch up,do you mind if I take a look to see if I can help?"
Lucas raise his hand out towards larra as he suggested ,which seems to startled larra quite a bit when she almost took a step back.
"Oh…sorry about that!"
Having seen her state,he noticed he might have come off as too strong for a stranger.Because he was mostly alone in his bed and only ever interacted with Leah for the past few years,he had forgotten the fact that doing things like this might scared the opposite gender that never known him.
"Ah!!wait no!It is okay,totally fine!Please take a look if you want….!"Larra almost wanted to bites her tongue when she noticed what she said in her last phrase might imply and wanted to dug a hole to escape the situation
"Hmm...uhh…Axie－"Lucas sweated profusely when the pair of steel talons grips his shoulder strongly before he can call his sigil out,noticing that his sigil might have a look that leak unfavorable information towards outsiders.
"Just chant along with me,Zuliaaelligio Cisba Beneba(minor healing radiance)…kid."Fel send the words needed for a incantation to him without any further comment.
"...…Zuliaaelligio Cisba Beneba(minor healing radiance)"Coughing to hide his unnatural reaction,he held her wrist gently and put his right palm above the light gashes that covered her forearm,never took notice of the slight quiver on her arm when he touched it
A radiant light burst forth from his palm and casted a warm golden glow on her wounds.Under the mortified gazes of everyone there,the gashes closed up at a rapid pace until only the dried blood were left around the sealed wound.
opening her eyes,even Larra who was hiding her completely flushed expression until now,took notice of the lack of throbbing pain from her wound and turned around to see what was going on.
"...…!!"Once she saw the radiance of gold stream flowing from his palm,the shocked she felt was quickly converted to hope and determination,she exchange glances with peo and volx who nodded to her.
"Please!Sir Lucas,come to our village and help us!!How ever shameful it must be ask this of you after getting saved already,we will bear the cost whatever it takes…."
Larra took a deep breath to calm her haywiring heart and grasp his hand tightly,Bowing her head along with viox and peo,praying that for whatever reason he would decided to come help them again.For this is their and many villager last's last ray of hope.
"wait …No…What?…no!!"The various danger senses of Fel were flared up when he notice the situation at hand.A dreadful feeling crept up his spine as fel tried to stopped Lucas from speaking what he is about to say.
"What does that entails…?"Lucas frowned slightly as he slowly try to retreat the hand that were being grasped.
"eh?"Fel wasn't sure if he heard it wrong,prehaps he was hallucinating out of hope that lucas wouldn't do things in such a rash manner again.But with a little expectation,he decided to watch how he would deal with this situation for now.
"I am sorry,you need to tell me the whole situations first before I can decide to do anything…"
Voicng out his concerns and questions,Lucas felt bad when larra show a pained look when he tried to retreats his hands,but he isn't so gullible as to trust strangers easily out of a pitiful appearance
"…ah yes…you are right…Larra we should tell him first...I am terribly sorry about that sir lucas."
Peo sighed and apologized,he knew what they did was out of desperation but it was not right to try dragging him into their mess without even telling him about what it was,especially when he has already given them a great deal of help.
"…R-right,we apologized for that misconduct sir Lucas…the truth is…"Larra recovered her composure when she heard his words and decided to tell Lucas the problem.Hiding the shame among other things she felt earlier.
Afterwards,Lucas patiently listened to their problems until he get the gist of what was going on in their village.During all this,fel was glancing at the conversation while pretending to be a giant bird pet,abid reluctantly so.
"I see…so in short, there is a epidemic in your village."
From what he was told,a month ago larra's village was attacked by a small herd of glaive horned wolf at night.But because their number and threat rank was not that dangerous,the villager in great numbers manage to repel them themself with no casualties.
Unfortunately,even if they were not too dangerous themself,they still manage to bite or scratch a lot of people.Overnight those people started displaying conditions ranging from coughs to violent vomiting.
They all have one common symptoms,and it were a hard,almost metallic like scrabs or shells forming on their body and limbs.Their skin would went from being just a little ticklish to a burning painful sensation.
"epidemic …?What's that?"Larra asked curiously.
"What?Oh…no that's not important,anyway…I am not sure what can I even do for you guys but maybe I can take a look?"Lucas changed the subject and once again realized how different these people were from his worlds.
"Thank you!We will go get the carriage ready now "He turned to face fel apologetically who is still immersed in his role play ,while the group of three were filled with hope at the prospect of Lucas coming to help them.
"…do what you want,it's your life."Hearing that response,Lucas sighed in relief and follow after the group of three.
"But,fel is there a incantation tha－"
"No"
After a few minutes of walking in silence,Lucas decided to ask fel to teach him a new incantation like he did earlier with the healing magic,but his request was mercilessly shut down.
"What?! really?I thought at the very least you could design a similar spell with the sigil?"
In the book,he had read about how high ranking mages have been known to developed brand new incantation on their own,but prehaps it wasn't as easy as it was made to be believed
"…Sigils isn't your wishing star that will grand your every need and desire.They were built in a way to help you create miraculous effect with many many limitations"
Sighing,fel goes on to explain the usage and limitations of a sigil to Lucas,who slowly understood how this seemingly wish fulfilling power really works.
In short,for mages to create a new spell,they need to have great amount of understanding in the elements they are trying to manipulate,a sigil that is aligned with that element in the spell and after many dangerous trials and error to maybe create two or three spell in a decade.
"I see…"
After obsorbing all these new information, Lucas grimly realized that prehaps there is nothing he can do for them.
He might be able to use that healing spell because someone in this world had spent a lot of resource and time to developed it which he doesn't have.
"And there is no one in this world who have a sigil that can manipulate and aligned with diseases or enough knowledge about it to know what they are doing...is what I would have said if you didn't exist"
"Right...Huh?"Lucas stared dumbfoundedly at fel,confused as to what he meant by that very last sentence.
But slowly a realization dawn on him as he stared at the center of his chest where his sigils was imbued at,prehaps he could do much more than he imagined than just a walking explosive launcher.