Before nightfall, he finally arrived at a small farmhouse on the outskirts of Baldur's Gate.
This should be the manor of some big noble in Baldur's Gate, and the wilderness was opened up with big chunks of leveled farmland, glowing with oily green. The manor is spread out along the coastal avenue, with farmland on both sides, and the manor's main building is on a hill not far away, with a path leading there.The great nobles of Baldur's Gate basically live in the city, and seldom leave the city to stay temporarily in the countryside's manor, except for the hunting and socializing seasons in the fall. So right now there was mostly just the butler presiding over everything.
In a country where magic flourishes like Faerun, most villages like this have one or two low level spell casters.Luna is just a small first ring mage, so of course she can't just go and bother the local lord. After walking along the coastal road past the manor for a while, Luna found the village where the farmers of the manor lived. Here lived the lords of the manor and some free folk, and this was the place where Luna could rest.
Although it was on the Golden Road, it was only five hours straight to Baldur's Gate, so commerce was not well developed here, and Luna only found one place to stay that had a pub, inn, and grocery store all in one.
It was such a great place to stay, and Luna only saw a few customers.
"Please give me a room, hot water, and food ... Well, what does the grocery spot have, stock me up on what you use for a long trip, please."
Luna rambled on as she followed the owner upstairs.
"Looks like you're having some trouble with your trip?" The owner, a middle-aged older woman, soothed him in a very kind tone.
"Those wolves ... rain ... forest ... forget it." Luna waved her hand in dismay and gave up on the idea of telling.
Took a hot shower, ate, and changed clothes.
Despite being exhausted and wanting to sleep so badly, he persisted with his meditation training. With this meditation program, he didn't need to rely on sleep to recover his mental strength. When he prepared the spell again, he easily touched the second layer of the magic net, the threads that were like streams of light.
After that, Luna wore a smile and finally fell into a deep sleep.
...
"Flint, cloak, rope, torch ... Why are there iron nails?" Luna asked as she examined the traveling supplies prepared by her boss and held up the brazier that was five inches long.
"For setting up the tent." The owner replied calmly.
"There are tents here?!"
"Doesn't it?" The owner continued calmly, pointing to a roll of dirty and old looking canvas.
"This is a tent? How do you set it up?" Luna exclaimed.
"Get some sticks to support the ropes, put up the tent cloth, pull the ropes tight, and secure it with nails." The boss continued to be calm.
Luna gesticulated half-heartedly with the ropes in her left hand and the nails in her right, and threw herself down in frustration."That, Auntie, do you have any mercenaries in your village? I think it's better to hire one to help me."
"We don't have any here, but there was also an adventurer staying in the store yesterday, I think it's from Baldur's Gate, you can discuss it with her."
"Her?"
"That's her," the owner pointed calmly behind him, and as soon as he turned around he saw the woman who was so beautiful and dangerous as a female panther that Luna felt herself and her system shudder at the same time!
Splendid long blonde hair about a pull, tied into a ponytail hanging behind, scattered forehead broken hair is still stained with crystal water droplets, slightly hard facial lines and quite a compact nose makes the whole person heroic, while the blue eyes are as bright as the sky after the rain. Seeing the shopkeeper and a strange man looking at her, she also looked back without avoidance, with some provocation and wildness in her eyes.
She had just come in after her morning exercise, carrying two long swords and wearing only leather pants and a tied up linen shirt. Her cheeks were flushed with some redness, some steam was still slightly rising from her shoulders, and her thin shirt could not hide a beautiful figure, full of strength and elasticity as she walked around.
Luna felt that this moment Enrico meets Rapunzel, Awkward En meets Mephistopheles.
With a swipe, a holographic screen popped up, flashing wildly in bright red bolded letters.
...
Pick her up! Pick her up! Pick her up!
This is the S you were destined for! Hug 200xp, smooch 400xp, touch 600xp, bed 800xp, blowjob 1000xp ...
If you don't succeed, you'll be erased!
It's a wipeout! Asshole!
...
Luna slapped her forehead heavily. The system had no limits and no sense of humor, and the sense of amazement she felt just now was all gone.Luna then went to view it again, and sure enough, it was a great beauty with a perfect body and a wild nature. At this point it was obvious that the woman had just come back from practicing and probably had to wash up, and wasn't really in a position to talk, Luna just made an inviting gesture from a distance, signaling that she needed to have a word with her.
The woman glanced this way and turned to go upstairs.
"Get me a beer and some breakfast."
Luna found a table by the door and sat down.
"It's not good for such a big boy to drink, Auntie get you some fruits", the store owner's amah chimed in, directly replacing the beer he asked for with two local fruits.Luna scratched his head a little and felt a little warm, the hotel amah was a bit like a neighbor back in Nasakai.
It wasn't long before the woman came downstairs in her leather armor and Luna made a gesture of invitation. She first ordered a breakfast at the bar, then brought it over and sat down graciously across from him.
Luna scrutinized the young woman, she was probably in her mid-twenties, and judging by the longsword she used, she was probably a melee type of profession. Although she wasn't very old, she handled things with sophistication. Apparently she also had an initial judgment of Luna, so she seemed natural and casual. There wasn't the superficiality of beautiful women who had a stern face that just rejected people, she was signaling a clear distance in gentle movements, a very mature display.
"Luna, a newly minted young mage who is preparing for a tour." Luna introduced herself. That is, she didn't stand up, nor did she go to help pull out a chair like an aristocrat would, that kind of etiquette would be full of silliness when used in a small countryside store.
"Evinstar, servant of my lord Aerona."
"Twilight Star? You're an elf? Ah, sorry, I ... was just curious, beautiful name." Luna said a little awkwardly, he had been reading some books about elves lately and saw this elf style name in passing, not thinking to inquire about someone's privacy.
"Thanks, that's nothing, I don't really look like an elf." She seemed to be quite used to this and said indifferently. "Live like an elf to grow like an elf, there's always truth in proverbs. I'm not sure myself, maybe an elf, maybe a half-elf, just a forgotten child in the forest that raised me. Now, tell me about you."
"I ... well", Luna spread her hands very baldly to show her up and down, "as you can see, I am a rookie mage. Used to walk out of Baldur's Gate with great bravado, and now, look, I can't camp, I can't calculate distances, I can't read the weather ... everything, and I messed up the whole thing and made a mess. Now I'm stuck here, I don't have the confidence to go on, and I don't want to roll back to Bordur's Gate in disgrace and make a fool of myself. So I'd like to hire a veteran to walk with me for a while and teach me these things along the way, and that's what I'm looking for from you."
"Very ..." she said, forcing a smile to hide it as she looked down and poked at the potatoes with her spoon. "very honest, and I'm sure that's a good start!"
Twilight Star looked up again and looked carefully into his eyes before saying, "Well, I'll take the commission. It seems like you're an okay guy, and if you can wait two days for me, I'd be happy to accept your employment."
"No problem, I like it here, it's as safe as my home." Luna quipped as she dug a spoonful of potatoes.
"You can wait here for me, I have one more trip up north and I can definitely be back in two days."
"Oh, can I ask a little about your goals? I'd be happy to help. What do you say we move together? Don't look at me like I'm a bit of a mess right now, I'm a full-fledged mage too!" Luna cheered up again, ah, it's good experience to see how adventurers work.
"Ha, then I have to take care of you, that won't work." Twilight Star refused dryly, looking at Luna's frustrated head down to eat, and reassuringly said, "I'm going to track a pack of wolves migrating from the Cloak Forest, it's too dangerous for you to follow, there's no way for me to take care of you."
"North? Wild wolves? That sounds familiar." Luna tentatively stretched out four fingers fingers to gesture, "Four?"
"You met? Are you ... they ... still alive?"
Twilight Star looked up first in surprise, then a bit lost. Apparently, wizards always carried a generous traveling bag. When they went out, their satchels were stuffed with scrolls, and all ten fingers carried magic rings that could be activated by a keyword. The four wolves were no threat to them at all, and Twilight Star was sad for them.
"I'm sorry, that ... Could you be a druid? But you just said you were a servant of Lady Elona, I thought you were a priest ..." said Luna.
Twilight Star didn't answer, poking at the potatoes in silence, and for a while the atmosphere at the table steeply cooled down.
Luna certainly didn't think there was anything wrong with killing wolves, but now the pressure was on.
"They ... they just migrated to the neighborhood because their home was destroyed. I'm friends with them, White Reed and they've never attacked a human before. This time I happened to have something to leave, otherwise I wouldn't have sat back and watched them get kicked out of their home, and it's all my fault." Luna heard Twilight Star whisper as the young girl lowered her head, a little crystal tear dripping into the dinner plate in front of her. The young girl who had seemed so strong in the morning was soft all of a sudden.
Luna was embarrassed as hell, like the kind of embarrassment that comes from killing someone's family and having to eat with someone else, mentally chanting "Befriending a wolf, are all those who believe in Elona perverts?"
"That, I'm sorry. You know, I'm just a small level 1 mage, there's no way to make them leave me alone even if I wanted to, so ..."
"Exactly!" The young girl raised her head fiercely, her aura shot out in all directions, and the strong girl returned in an instant!
"If you promise that you won't just hurt animals in the future and love the forest, I promise to train you properly! Can't let such a tragedy happen again!"
"Okay, okay." Leaning back, pressured by her aura, Luna replied.
...
"Up and down, up and down, up and down," the young girl shouted the slogan, the wooden sword in her hand casually blocking Luna's attacks before finally sending Luffy's wooden sword flying with a forceful blow. "Not enough power! Haven't you eaten! Again!"
"You sure don't let me eat!" Luna wailed, nimbly picking up her wooden sword to hold Kurenai's slashing sword, and following the girl's slogan, she continued to practice her offense and pace.
The wolf incident was "solved", but the two of them didn't leave the village right away. On one hand, the girl wanted to "understand the basics", on the other hand, she also saw that the village fields had already sprouted, but there was no druid to take care of them, so she took the initiative to go and help out. She was able to cast some divine spells to care for the plants, which could be very helpful in breeding and sprouting the crops.
When Luna was resting, the young girl ran to help nurse the seedlings again, and Luna couldn't help but feel emotional. A believer like Twilight Star was the kind of perfect believer that the gods loved the most. She didn't just believe in you, she made your creed a way of life, or rather, her way of life happened to fit seamlessly with the gods' creed.
Over the course of a few days, Luna had gotten a general idea of the young girl as well, and Twilightstar wasn't shy about talking about her past. Abandoned in the forest as a child and raised by a druid, she had continued to help those in need in her travels ever since. She prefers people with pure hearts, and is more than willing to deal with the lower class of hired peasants and free folk, still getting along even with coarse language. Despite this, Twilight Star has mastered the art of language, and is able to speak eloquently with the local lords to gain some advantage for the farmers. Before she met Luna, she had been active in the Northlands for many years, helping many villages and many people, and was known as the "Morning Star of the Green Field".
As for her age? Would you like to taste the iron fist of a young girl's justice?
Whether she is a druid, a priest or a warrior, Kurenai can't tell, or she doesn't really care. She could pick up a pair of longswords and fight, as well as shoot a hundred times from a distance. She could cast divine spells to help children get rid of illnesses and injuries, and she could also raise seeds and support seedlings in the farmland. It was almost as if one person was a warrior, a druid and a priest, could it be that this was the legendary god moonlighting as a nomad? To be able to fight and resist and still be able to cast all divine arts, this is not scientific!
The feeling she gave Luna was so versatile that it firmly caught Luna's gaze.
If she was said to be naive, she was able to skillfully deal with all the nobles and stewards of all sizes, and her skillful maneuvering allowed everyone to profit without aggravating the conflict between the lords and the lords. That's why her reputation as the "Morning Star of Greenfield" is so popular, even with the lords.
If she is complicated, she is just doing things according to her own heart, not forcing herself and not forcing others. She could shed tears for a few of her wolf friends who had died away from home, or she could hurt Luna when she trained up as if she wanted to avenge those wolves.
That last point was what nagged at him the most.
Luna decided he couldn't go on like this or he'd fade into oblivion like a minion, and he needed to do something to catch the young girl's eye.