"So are we headed back to the city?" Zane asked.
"No, the sun is almost setting so we will spend the night in the village" David said.
After walking for a few minutes the group made it back to Kiot village. As soon as Krine and his son saw them on the horizon they ran to them with worried looks on their faces.
"Well..?. Were you successful?" Krine rubbed his hands in nervousness.
"Yes, your village will not be bothered by the spiders anymore" David assured.
A tear of happiness left Krine's eye while several left Krone's.
"Thank you so much!" Krine fell down to his knees. The group simultaneously raised an eyebrow. 'That's not how a chief should act' they thought.
"It's okay Krine, stand up. We were only doing our job" David pulled Krine to his feet.
"The girls can finally get out of that hole" Krone suddenly said and Krine looked at him with a reprimanding look.
"I thought you said all the women were taken?" Chris questioned and everyone nodded.
"I'm sorry. We lied, not all of them were taken. When we realized the spiders were after the women we dug a hole under the village hall and hid them there" Krine explained.
"Why did you lie to us?" Clara asked.
"We wanted you to know how grave the situation was. We thought that maybe if you saw how desperate we were you would do your best to help" Krone answered.
David just sighed, he wanted to tell the chief and his son that it wasn't necessary to lie to them but decided to just let the matter slide. Them lying didn't affect the mission in any way anyway.
"It's okay, we understand. However, as punishment for lying to us, you are going to have to give us rooms to spend the night" David smiled.
"Of course!!." Krine said. He had gotten worried when he heard the word 'punishment'.
"As soon as we get back I will tell what's left of our hunters to go hunt some food, we will have a celebratory feast" Krine exclaimed.
"Oh there is no need for that, I can go hunting" Zane offered.
"No please, you have done enough for us" Krine said.
"I insist, There is a new weapon I would like to try out. So even if there was no feast, I would have went out anyway" Zane insisted.
"If you insist, I guess it's fine" Krine accepted.
"I will leave immediately then" Zane said.
"Can i come?" Chris asked.
"Sure let's go"
Zane and Chris ran towards the village but didn't stop when the reached it. The animal Zone was on the other side of Kiot so they just passed through.
"Hey Zane can I ask you a favor?" Chris said as they entered the animal zone.
"Sure what is it" Zane said as he took out the bow from his back and an arrow from his ring. Adam had also given him special arrows made precisely for that bow.
"Can you teach me how to use a bow?"
"Sure " Zane said.
"That's it!?. Aren't you gonna ask why i want to learn or something?"
"You want to learn because you are useless to the team. So when i killed the spider you thought maybe you can do the same thing" Zane said nonchalantly.
"Well... yeah" Chris admitted.
"Here take this" Zane handed Chris a bow he had just taken out of his ring.
"But this is your bow, are you sure?" Chris said.
"Drop the act Chris you are not a considerate person"
Chris chuckled "Don't mind if I do" he then snatched the bow out of Zane's hand.
"Hey! hand over those sticks you shoot with" Chris stretched his hand.
Zane laughed, this was the Chris he knew.
"For your first lesson. These 'sticks' are called arrows" Zane tied the arrow bag to Chris' back since he didn't have a storage ring.
"Hold the bow with your non dominant hand" Zane said and Chris put the bow in his left hand.
"Take one arrow and rest it on the fingers which are holding the bow, Then you place the notch of the arrow on the bow str..."
"Woah wait what the fuck are you doing!!"
"You don't put the sharp side of the arrow on the string. You put the back of the arrow!!. The flat side!" Zane shouted.
Two hours of shouting later and Chris got the hang of using a bow. He wasn't as good as the average archer but at least he now could shoot a straight arrow.
"It's probably late, let's get the meat and return" Zane said. It has been a while since he last felt the setting sun.
"Sure" Chris said with a dejected expression. He was really enjoying the lesson.
It didn't take long for Zane to find and kill two deer. Chris had asked to take a shot but Zane refused. Chris would definitely miss and scare the animal.
Zane and Chris then walked back to the village, only to find a large bonfire in the middle of it. The villagers where all sitting around the fire listening to someone tell a story.
"Then we used one of our strongest spells on the vicious beast. However like the brute it was, it managed to survive the heat."
"Step by step it moved towards us, at this point we were out of mana and energy. Death was approaching in the form of a deadly spider."
"Then suddenly from the sky we saw our savior. He hovered a hundred meters high with a golden bow in hand. Pulling the string, he let loose an arrow made of crackling white lightning!"
"Boooom! the lightning arrow exploded in the spider and it's corpse scattered into the surroundings. A shower of black blood dripped off the saviour's body as he landed, the grade two mana core in one hand and the golden bow in another!."
"And there he is right now ladies and gentlemen... Golden Archer himself!!" Adam finished his story with a shout while pointing at Zane.
"I thought mages don't get drunk" Zane whispered to Chris. However Chris wasn't listening to him as all his attention was on the ladies who had come to welcome him and 'Golden Archer'.
"Thank you for saving us Golden Archer. We would be happy to reward you with anything you like" one of the ladies said with a wink.
Zane just smiled and joined the party after delivering the meat.
"How is he drunk?" Zane asked David as he took a sip of his drink. The spiders might have plundered the food but they left all the alcohol.
"We choose to be drunk whenever we want. He can just use a little mana to eliminate all the alcohol in his blood." David explained, Zane could tell that he was also a little tipsy.
The party continued until the late hours of the morning when Zane decided to sleep. After being shown his room, Zane left the others and went to bed.
However before even falling asleep, Zane heard someone opening his door. The person then tiptoed to the bed.
"Who's there?" Zane said. He could see the outline of a woman, but what would Clara want at this time?.
"Ohh h...hello, Golden Archer" the woman said.
'Definitely not Clara' Zane thought.
"Yes?" he said. He had no intention of correcting the villagers about the 'Golden Archer' nonsense.
Zane heard the subtle sound of cloth hitting the floor "I was sent as a reward for saving our village."