Finn and Pyron walked through the forest, hoping to get to the Dragon's Maw Village before the sun went down.
Along the way, Finn used a stream in the forest to wash his clothes from all the blood and grime he accumulated by fighting in the dungeon.
To kill time, they talked to each other about their lives.
It was mainly Pyron talking, though, as Finn wasn't allowed to talk about Earth in Second Life by the system.
This rule was made so that the NPCs in the game wouldn't discover their world was just a game and have a mental breakdown.
Pyron talked about how he never met his mother and how his father was the only parental figure in his life.
He also talked about his dream of attending the BBC (Best Blacksmith Competition).
It was a competition held every year to find the best blacksmith in the entire world.
Because the competition was held every year, the title of "best blacksmith" would remain with the person for only a year, and he would have to win the competition again to get it back.
Finn also planned to join this competition in the future, but he would have to train blacksmithing more to really have a chance against some of the talented people that would attend it.
The winner of the competition would also be able to hear the teachings of the God of Blacksmithing, Hephaestus.
'Hephaestus is one of the neutral gods, and he used to be my friend before we lost contact after I was imprisoned.'
Loki nostalgically remembered how he used to drink mead with Hephaestus.
'Interesting. Now I am even more motivated to win that competition.'
Finn thought as Pyron kept talking about his life.
Suddenly, the bushes next to them rustled, and three black wolves jumped out.
"GRRR!"
They growled at Finn and Pyron, trying to scare their prey and make them start running so that they could just catch them and kill them without needing to fight.
"Get behind me!"
Finn shouted at Pyron as he grabbed a metal sword that he found in the kobold treasury and he stabbed it in the ground next to him.
He wasn't the best at using a sword, but he knew how to at least swing it.
Pyron wasn't taught how to fight, so he quickly hid a few meters behind Finn, not wanting to disrupt his fight.
"Three level 3 wolves… This should be interesting."
Finn thought about their levels and then compared it to his.
He was a much higher level than those three wolves, but he relied on assassinating his opponents rather than a frontal assault, so he had to be careful not to make a mistake here or else Pyron would get eaten.
Finn knew that he had to play it smart, so he made the first move by taking a metal plate and a dagger he had found in the dungeon from his inventory and he scratched the metal plate with the dagger.
KRRIIIIIIIIIIIIII
This sounded like when someone accidentally scratches his plate with a fork.
The sound was so high-pitched and piercing that the greatly enhanced hearing of the wolves became their bane as their ears started to bleed.
Finn quickly threw the metal plate and the dagger away.
He then grabbed the sword that he had stabbed in the ground before and slashed one of the stunned wolves, separating its head from its body.
Before the other two could leave their daze, he quickly dashed to another wolf and pierced its forehead with the tip of this sword, killing him on the spot.
Finn quickly turned to look at the third wolf, wanting to finish the job but he was forced to block with his sword as the wolf had already left his shocked state and was now trying to bite him.
CLING
The wolf bit down on Finn's sword, wanting to crush it in between its teeth, but Finn was faster, and he quickly pulled the sword from the wolf's jaws.
Finn then jumped away from the wolf, creating a slight distance between them.
As they kept eyeing each other, waiting for their opponent to make the first move, Finn made the first move by rushing towards the wolf.
The wolf jumped to bite Finn's head off, but when it did, Finn slid down under the wolf and, using his Vital hit skill, which gave him an 187% boost, he stabbed the sword into its heart.
SPLURT
"AWWOOO!!!"
The wolf howled in pain as it fell on Finn.
It then tried to at least bite its opponent before dying, but with a twist of the sword, the wolf swiftly died.
Finn crawled out from under the wolf's corpse and went to check on Pyron.
Luckily, Pyron was an expert at hiding and running away, so nothing happened to him.
[You have killed a Black wolf – level 3 and gained 50 exp]
[You have killed a Black wolf – level 3 and gained 50 exp]
[You have killed a Black wolf – level 3 and gained 50 exp]
He slid the notifications away with his finger and put the corpses into his inventory, which was starting to look pretty full.
Finn then washed himself again, and they continued walking in the direction of the village, and they didn't have to worry about getting lost because the system had a built-in compass so that the player wouldn't get lost.
Once they found a forest path, they knew that they were only a few hours away from their destination.
---
The journey after that fight was peaceful, and after a few hours of walking, they finally arrived at the gate to the village.
"I thought I would never see this place again."
Pyron had tears in the corners of his eyes as he looked at the village as if he were a wife looking at her husband come back from the army after ten years of waiting for him.
When they entered the village, all of the villagers had a surprised look on their faces as they shouted at them.
"Pyron, you are finally back!"
"I can't stand that grumpy old man, but now that you are back, I need my sickle sharpened!"
"Hey, leave Pyron alone! He just came back!"
The villagers shouted as they crowded around him. The players thought that a game event was happening, so they also came to take a look.
Pyron was overwhelmed by finally seeing all the other villagers he grew up with and who were like family to him.
He explained what had happened, how he had been captured by the kobolds but then saved by an adventurer. As he was telling his story, he pointed at Finn.
A lot of players gathered around the villagers' crowd, so Finn decided to wear his mask because some of these players saw him win the trivia game.
The villagers didn't mind that they couldn't see his face and were just happy to finally have Pyron home, so they thanked Finn profusely.
Once the villagers calmed down a little, Pyron and Finn decided to go straight to the blacksmith.
The players realized that it wasn't an event but a player finishing a quest, so they just looked at Finn enviously and went to do their own thing.
After arriving in front of the blacksmith shop, Finn could see a sign on the door that had the word "closed" written on it, so Pyron went up to the door and knocked on it.
"What do you want?! We are closed right now!"
A gruff voice came out of the blacksmith shop.
Then there were loud footsteps getting closer to the door, and soon the door was swung open with Druhan standing behind it.
"Are you blind?! Can't you read the sig-"
Druhan's words got stuck in his throat when he saw Pyron standing in front of him.
---
Druhan's wife was always weak and frail like a flower, so when Pyron was born, her frail body gave out after the hard labor, and she passed away.
After his wife died, Druhan didn't have anyone other than Pyron, so he loved him dearly.
When Pyron left to find materials, he was supposed to come back within four to five days, so when a week went by and he was still not back, Druhan was distraught.
He wanted to go find him, but he wasn't a fighter, so he knew that rescuing his son would have been akin to suicide.
Druhan had to live every day wishing that his son would come back, even though deep down he knew that was not going to happen since he hadn't arrived for such a long time.
Finn was his last hope.
He told him about his son, knowing that if Finn didn't find him, he would close his shop forever and go find him himself.
Suicide or not, it was his son, and he would rather die than not see his dear son grow up.
Druhan waited, hoping to see his son walk through the door, but nobody came.
He even stopped creating weapons, which was always his biggest passion in life, and just kept staring into space.
KNOCK KNOCK
Suddenly there was a knock on the door.
Druhan excitedly stood up, but he then remembered that there was no way the adventurer would bring him his son back this soon, so he thought that it was a villager bothering him with repair work.
"What do you want?! We are closed right now!"
He shouted as he walked to the door, wanting nothing more than to punch whoever was on the other side to release his frustration.
When he arrived at the door, he slammed it open and started shouting.
"Are you blind?! Can't you read the sig-"
But he stopped because he couldn't believe his eyes.
In front of him stood the person he wanted to see the most.
The person he kept having nightmares about.
The person that made him stop eating
And the person that made him worry.
His one and only son, whom he so dearly missed and thought he would never see again.
"I'm- I'm back, dad."
With tear-filled eyes and a voice choked with emotion, Pyron smiled at his dad.
Druhan tightly hugged him as tears also started leaving his eyes.
He didn't know if this was a dream, one his mind had created after all the emotional torture he had been through, but if it was, he wished to never wake up from it.