Three days had passed since Magni had left his old home, and he had finally found the city of Edensville, the closest populated place to his parent's home.
He had begun to wonder whether Edensville was truly in this direction or had been lost, but relief washed over him as he came across the city.
However, upon seeing Edensville, Magni was slightly disappointed at its size and stature. He almost wanted to avoid the town, but alas, he needed information and something proper to eat.
Heading over to what seemed to be the town gates, Magni quickly arrived and stood in a concise line with only three people. Not including the guard standing at a table nearby writing on a sheet of paper, all three looked at him curiously.
They stared momentarily before returning to waiting, which was unsurprising considering his comparative stature. Magni stood a full head over the guard, taller than all three men in line. Not to mention, he was considerably handsome, all except for a small scar above his eyebrow he had received as a young boy.
As he stood in line waiting for the guard to finish with the three in front of him, the second guard, a meager and uninteresting man, walked up to him and started a conversation.
"Hello, sir. What brings you to Edensville today?" He smiled as he spoke, but his stature lacked confidence. He spoke meekly and modestly, overly so, in Magni's opinion. Magni subconsciously thought less of him for these traits.
"Nothing much, just some information and something to eat. What is your name? You may call me Magni." He spoke with confidence and a stern face, appearing unapproachable to the guard.
The guard's mouth twitched almost imperceptibly when Magni answered his question, which Magni was lucky enough to catch, before the guard continued, "Ah, forgive my manners, Sir Magni. My name is Morren, Steve Morren. If you don't mind, can I take you to the best tavern after processing you? I would like to speak with you."
Magni raised an eyebrow at the question and asked suspiciously, "What would you like to speak about?"
The man closed in on himself again, causing Magni's suspicion to rise even further. Magni remembers very little about his father, but one thing he knows Thür taught him is that confidence is vital. Unconfident men usually have a good reason to be unconfident, which generally stems from a dark past. Maybe they weren't loved enough, or they were bullied as a child, or they had to turn to a life of crime to survive.
This is precisely why Magni decided to chase his hunch and play along with the guard, "Never mind, Steve, I'm sure it's something important. Otherwise, I'm sure you would've told me by now. Very well, I will join you for a round of drinks after this. And you need not worry about paying; Consider it my treat."
The guard's anxiety disappeared unnaturally before he responded with the slightest smirk, "Thank you for understanding; I'm not sure how I could explain to you out there in front of all these people."
Magni simply smiled and looked back to the front of the line, which had now shrunk to only one person in front of him. After a couple minutes and a bit of arguing between the guard and the merchant, the last man was let through, allowing Magni to take center stage.
"Hello, sir. Please speak your full name and age, as well as a description of what you have on you."
"Very well. My name is Magni Gunvaldsen, and I am 22. I have various survival equipment, a long bow, and money in my bag." Magni, of course, has yet to learn his age. Thus, he decided that making a reasonable number at the stop was the best choice.
The two guards' eyes widened when Magni said his name but suspiciously glanced at one another when he described what he carried. "Is that a spacial bag, sir?"
Magni had no idea if what he had was a spatial bag, but he decided it sounded right, so he replied, "Sure."
The two men's eyes widened again at how rich Magni was, entirely unbeknownst to Magni. Not to mention that only ten or so gold coins probably existed in Edensville, so Magni was indeed super-rich. Magni's bag had so many gold coins that he couldn't even count them all, but the guards didn't need to know this.
However, Magni had yet to learn what the gold was worth, so he was utterly oblivious to how much he could be swindled out of.
The guards decided to try to take advantage of Magni after all. " Alright, sir Magni Gunvaldsen, you are free to enter after you pay 1 gold coin, of course."
"Got it, here you are." Magni ignorantly handed the gold coin over, to which they both(very obviously) gawked at the shiny object. Neither had ever seen a gold coin in their lifetime, thus the blatant reaction to the object and Magni's lack of common sense.
Of course, Magni immediately noticed the strange reaction, which instantly doubled his suspicion. He considered taking back the coin because these men clearly swindled him; however, he decided to just wait out the storm and bide his time.
After being let in, Steve started showing Magni the tavern he had previously talked about. Of course, he wasn't really taking him to the tavern. Steve was tricking Magni and taking him to one of the worst spots in town, a hive of crime and evil that people stupid enough to walk into would likely never leave.
After walking around aimlessly for an unnecessarily long time, the guard stopped in the middle of an alleyway, surprising Magni a bit. "Is something wrong, Steve? Why'd you-"
"You bumbling buffoon! I can't believe you feel for such a simple trick! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Steve quickly turned around to face Magni, who stood more than a head taller than him. He had a maniacal grin as if he was going insane, and his eyes were slightly bloodshot.
"What on earth do you mean? Are you not a guard of this town?" Magni asked, unfazed by the short man.
"Me and my friends here are going to rob you, dumbass. You really thought it was a good idea to walk into the biggest crime town in this nation, flexing your wealth like some ultra-wealthy businessman, and expect not to get robbed?! YOU STUPID FUCK. God, I HATE rich fuckers like you!" Suddenly 6 more men of varying sizes and builds stepped out of their hiding places, looking exactly how you'd expect a bunch of criminal scumbags to look.
However, much to everyone's surprise, Magni was not scared. In fact, he was amused to the max. Magni had no clue how he knew this, but he was certain to be the last man alive in this situation. He began to chuckle lightly, much to the bewilderment of the criminals surrounding him.
"What's so funny, Jackass!? D'ya think we're a joke? Huh?! Just because you're built like a bear doesn't mean you're immune to a blade, and we've got lots of those!" One of the bigger guys yelled out, clearly annoyed. At hearing his words, all the men pulled out a blade; most were knives, but some were short swords or axes.
In summary, Magni was in a 7 to 1 fight with no weapons. At least, that's what they thought, but Magni had a trick up his sleeve; he didn't tell the gate guards that he carried his father's axe for a reason. Magni suspected something was amiss; that meek guard approached him way too casually. Not to mention the subtle glances the two guards gave each other when he mentioned what he carried. These things creeped him out to the max, causing him to be on guard for anything like this.
And meeting expectations, he was in the middle of a gang robbery. The following events went by so fast that they would be hard to track for an average person.
Moving entirely on instinct, Magni quickly reached into his bag and pulled out his battle axe. The gang had begun to charge forward, so when Magni swung his axe with one hand as soon as he got it out of the bag, three of the men directly in front of him were instantly chopped in half. And before the three men could process that they'd been bisected, Magni kicked backward like an expert, slamming the biggest in the group directly in the chest. This sent him flying back into a garbage can and caused the two men right next to him to be momentarily distracted. Using their distraction to his advantage, Magni squatted down and sent the charging Steve up and over him. Magni then grabbed the airborne Steve in midair by his and slammed him into the ground, instantly cracking his skull open. And by the time the two other men turned back around, no longer distracted, they were beheaded by Magni in one swing.
The man who'd been kicked back stood up slowly, looking around to see his buddies all killed. He was sent into pure terror and thus ignored the spiking pain in his chest to run the other direction as fast as he could. However, he was quickly dispatched as Magni fired a magic arrow from his mother's bow directly into his chest.
As the man flopped to the ground, Magni put away the bow and searched the seven men's belongings. He found basically nothing except a few bronze coins—17 in total—and one silver coin. They all had terrible-quality weapons except for Steve, who had a decent longsword. Magni took the sword and stashed it in his bag of holding, determined to use it later.
Throughout his looting session, Magni's mind was elsewhere. He had no clue how he moved like that, but he chalked it up to his broken memories. He wasn't that strong back when he was a boy, so even not having his memories made no sense, but he didn't have any answers yet.
There were more questions and fewer answers, so the search for said answers continued. And so, Magni left the bloodied alley 99.83 silver coins poorer, never to regain the gold coin he'd lost. However, he now knew he could defend himself and was clearly trained to do so. Thus, his confidence in himself soared, and he was now determined to find the answers to his many questions.
After quickly asking around, Magni found the best tavern in town. The sign on the top of the doorway read the Tussling Ardonua, whatever that means. Magni stepped into the eerily quiet tavern, and it became even more silent. The night crowd had yet to arrive, as it was only 3 p.m., but there were quite a few regulars. Not to mention the barkeep, a lovely middle-aged woman who wore a perpetual smile.
"Welcome, darlin'! You can have a seat wherever you like, but if you want the best service, I suggest the bar! Hahahaha!" The lady laughed boisterously, and the rest of the regulars joined in.
As Magni sat down at the bar, the barkeep walked over to him and handed him a glass of water and some square-shaped crackers: "Here you are, darlin'. We don't want you drinkin' on an empty stomach now, do we? My name's Jolene, and I'll be happy to serve you."
"Well met Jolene, I'm Magni Gunvaldsen. What do you recommend as the best drink in the house?" He said with a smile, to which the lovely Jolene responded kindly.
"Oh, well, I'd say the best is our Elvish sweet berry wine, but that's rather expensive per glass. Are you sure?" If she recognized the name, she hid it well, not skipping a beat and giving a well-practiced response. Magni simply nodded at Jolene, who brought out the bottle from an enchanted box under her bar, which kept items inside at a cooler temperature.
"This right here is top-shelf stuff, but it tastes best cold, so I keep it in my cooler. That'll be 5 silver a glass, Hon, a full gold piece for the bottle."
"How much for a normal tap beer?" Magni asked, to which Jolene raised an eyebrow but responded nonetheless.
"5 bronze." Magni nodded thoughtfully, now fully understanding the value of his money. He also realized that he was royally scammed out of a whole gold coin, which pissed him off slightly.
"I'll take the bottle." Magni placed a gold coin on the table, to which the barkeep's eyes widened considerably, clearly not having expected he would throw away a gold coin on some wine. Granted, it was probably the best wine on the continent, but a gold coin is still a gold coin.
"Thank you very much, darlin'! I'll be sure to give you my best service possible," Jolene quickly switched into a higher people-pleasing gear, hoping to earn even more out of him, but Magni put up his hand to stop her.
"There will be no need, Jolene; as long as I have someone to talk to, I will enjoy my time here just fine. No need to bend over backward for me." Magni wondered why he hadn't felt like a kid since he woke up. After all, all of his memories are of him as a child, but his maturity level is that of a real adult. Is this another effect of being stuck in that tree? Was that some kind of magic tree? Yet again Magni was hit with more questions about this tree, with no one to answer.
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Hours passed, and Magni lay in a bed at the inn across the street. The half-drunk bottle of Elvish wine sat inside his magic bag and the rest of his things. As a child, Thür often let Magni try some of his alcohol for testing purposes, but Magni had never felt this strange before. It was like a lot of his senses were not working properly, which for him was perilous. What if Gulven assassins found him and attacked out of the blue? How would he be able to defend himself?
His thoughts ran wild with whatever could happen, but the logical side of his mind quickly dismissed those ideas as stupid. There was no way anyone important, let alone Gulven assassins, knew he was here. People likely thought of him as dead 50 times over if they even knew he existed.
It's not that Magni was really hiding in the first place. After all, he'd told several people his real name at this point, and they'd mostly all recognized it. They may report him to Gulven, but there is no way that the reports have been delivered yet. This is a vast continent, and Gulven is a tiny nation on the other side of it.
After the massive imperialistic takeover that turned Gulven into a powerhouse that ruled the entire continent, not even a year later, the president of Gulven gave up those territories and lands back to the people they stole from. It was a confusing move for the entire continent, but it was accepted nonetheless. The only reason that was announced was that Gulven had overstretched themselves and couldn't maintain their size for long.
This was a reasonable excuse and was accepted by many commoners. However, people like Magni's parents, who knew the reason for Gulven's sudden imperialistic takeover, were incredibly relieved. However, this relief only lasted for so long, as quickly Gulven had created a secret task force, one explicitly designed to murder every last Gunvaldsen. And 20 years before he was placed in that tree, every last Gunvaldsen was presumed to be wiped off the face of the earth.
Magni had learned most of this from a combination of his memories and the lovely barmaid, who was more than happy to provide him with glorious information. Not for free, of course, but what is free in this world?
She had told him a bunch of important information, unrelated to him and related, but some of the bigger things were stuff like what year it was or if Gulven was still searching for the Gunvaldsens. According to the dates that he could pull from his memories, he was born in the year xy898 and was put in that tree in the year xy906. This meant he was roughly 8 when he was placed in the tree, and since it was currently the year xy918, that meant he was 20 years old.
Deciding to finally rest, Magni's body forcibly shut off his brain, allowing him blissful sleep. His many thoughts quieted quickly, almost like a computer shutting down, and his eyes slowly closed.
The following day, his sleep was interrupted by a loud crow pecking at his window. No, not a crow. It was larger and more sleek than a crow. It was a raven, two of them. They both seemed to stare at him momentarily before taking off with simultaneous screeching noises.
He wasn't going to get back to sleep in the near future due to the creepy ravens, so Magni leaped out of bed and slammed into the wooden floor. The entire building seemed to shake slightly, but Magni didn't care. After last night, he decided on where his next destination would be; the capital city of the Kingdom of Estrallus, Estrall. Estrall had 3 adventurer guilds operating within its borders and was a Hotspot for missions. According to Jolene, the adventurers' guilds in Estrall brought in a third of the profits that the city itself makes every year.
Magni decided that hunting monsters was not only a great way to build up his name's reputation but also a great way to earn money. And although Magni was unsure of how well he'd do killing monsters and whatnot, he still decided it was the best way to become strong.
Not only that, but Magni currently needed a goal in life, something to drive his ambitions forward. He was just meandering through life, so being an adventurer and meeting new people was likely the best way for him to find his reason.
And with that thought in mind, Magni packed his things, to which there was almost nothing to pack, and left Edensville In the direction of Estrall, the city of change.