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An Otherworldly Scholar - 42
🕑 Added 2023-08-09 22:11:05 +0000 UTCWith the Ice Wraiths vanquished, the mist vanished leaving the lush vegetation untouched. I cleaned the blood from my hands with the trickle of water flowing under the frozen slime. My mind worked overtime as I scrubbed my hands. The wounded orc had said Byrne’s name. Mr. Byrne, the eccentric millionaire whose fortune was managed by the law firm I used to work in, and the owner of the cabin lost in the woods concealing a magic portal in the basement.
I energetically rubbed my hands together, ignoring the pain from the freezing cold water. The orc’s blood was a deep red hue just like mine. Realizing my hands weren’t going to get any cleaner, I returned to the camp where Elincia was preparing a fire.
I wasn’t going to get answers until the orc woman recovered from the wound.
“How is she?” I asked, kneeling by the orc’s side.
The wound showed signs of frostbite and her breathing was still labored.
“She’ll survive. Orcs are a tough lot, they live here in the Farlands after all.” Elincia replied but her expression was of deep concern.
The sun set behind the western mountains. As the sky darkened, a million stars flooded the night sky forming constellations never seen before. I tried to locate Ursa Major, Cassiopea, and the North Star with no success. With the ambushes and the monsters, I had forgotten about the simple pleasures of nature.
Once again, the idea of being in a completely different world struck me.
In comparison to the vast sky, our struggles were small affairs, and yet, the orphanage had become important to me.
Elincia sat by my side and covered our shoulders with the ragged non-enchanted blanket that had partially survived the Giant’s attack.
“Stone Giants this far south, Ice Wraiths and a Greater Slime roaming inside Mr. Lowell’s secret valley… I’m afraid Farcrest will soon experience a Monster Surge.” Elincia said over the cracking of the campfire. “We have to go back.”
“What about the ingredients?” I asked.
“They will be useless if we die here.” Elincia replied. “A lot of people died during the last Monster Surge, both combatants and crafters. It’s hard to forget. Waves of monsters flooded Farcrest from the north while the forest moved to cover the southern road, cutting off the city from the rest of the kingdom. It only lasted a couple weeks but we had to burn the dead instead of burying them, there were just too many.”
Someone had told me Farcrest was there to act as a first line of defense against the Farlands. At first, I had thought it was all about pushing back one or two wandering monsters while keeping Black Wolves far from crops and farm lands. However, after facing the destructive powers of the Stone Giant and admiring the huge body of the Greater Slime, I could tell the Farlands had even nastier things.
As much as I disliked the man, the Marquis must’ve done a hell of a job to turn Farcrest into a busy trading hub less than a decade after such a disaster.
“With a Monster Surge or not, the orphanage will not survive the winter without money.” I said as I got up. Every single muscle in my body complained and the soles of my feet threatened to go on a strike.
Elincia pouted as the cold winter air snuck under the blanket. “Come back, it’s cold outside.”
As much as I wanted to cuddle with Elincia under a blanket, I couldn’t. Instead, I stretched my legs and arms, trying to get rid of accumulated fatigue from the previous days. The campfire burned hot, and the forest blocked the cold winds that came down from the snowy mountain range, but the night was even colder than the cave.
I pulled up the hood of my cloak and coiled my scarf around my neck.
“What are you doing?” Elincia asked.
“I’m pulling an all-nighter.” I replied. “Just give me the list of ingredients we need and I’ll be done by dawn.”
Elincia shook her head. “You don’t have to do this Rob. If this is because of your father–”.
“I survived college pulling all-nighters every week, I think I can do it one more time. I’m not an old man who needs to take a nap every other day.” I tried to sound reassuring. “Come on, this isn’t even close to the craziest thing I've ever done.”
A smile tugged Elincia’s lips against her will.
“You are right, there is no time to waste. Let’s do it.” She said.
I shook my head and pointed at the wounded orc. “I got this. You should make sure no monsters feed on Dassyra.”
Elincia’s eyes opened like plates. Then, she crawled towards the orc woman and brushed the hair off of her face. Whatever was happening, I wasn’t following.
“This might be Wolf’s mother.” Elincia muttered.
“Wolf has a mother?” I crossed the camp to kneel next to the orc.
I couldn’t say I noticed any similarities. Other than the tusks, the kid was just a green muscular teenager. Dassyra, on the other hand, had a strange facial structure. Her jaw was strong, her cheekbones solid, and even her eye sockets seemed to be sturdy. Her whole facial structure seemed to be designed to endure a beating.
Despite how different she looked from Elincia and I, there was a certain harmony in her features.
Elincia examined Dassyra’s face before speaking.
“Wolf is technically not an orphan. Dassyra brought him to the orphanage when he was seven, during the last Monster Surge.” Elincia explained. “Wolf’s human blood makes him weaker than other orcish kids, so the Farlands weren’t a safe place for him in a time of crisis.”
Despite my attempts to keep [Awareness] to a minimum, the skill let me know Elincia was just eighteen when Dassyra knocked on the doors of the orphanage to leave her son.
At first, I had attributed Wolf’s distance from the other orphans to his private personality. I was wrong. Unlike the rest of the orphans, Wolf had a family waiting for him somewhere in the Farlands.
“It must have been hard for him.” I said.
“You wouldn't imagine the number of times I had to track him down all the way to the Farlands because he ran away from the orphanage.” Elincia covered her face with both hands and took a deep breath.
I put my hand on her shoulder.
“It already happened, and you did well.” I softly said.
Elincia gave me a look like she was a wounded fawn and took a deep breath.
“Alright, my favorite madman. Bring me two or three rods of Spirit Fox’s Tail and I’ll concoct something for your bruises.” She said with renewed spirits. “If we are going to pull an all-nighter, we better be in good shape.”
I gave her a thumbs up, a gesture that still puzzled her from time to time, and walked towards the stone terraces. The Spirit Fox’s Tail was a clump of tall red rods that ended in a fluffy structure similar to the tail of a fox. Despite the fact there were hundreds of plants, the search for a nice specimen with at least medium magic concentration resulted to be a pain in the ass. I figured out it would be easy to find a cane with high magical concentration in a bundle of a hundred canes, but I was wrong. As every cane belonged to the same plant so I was surrounded by hundreds of low magic weeds.
After climbing down several terraces, I accepted the reality that I wasn't going to find anything better, so I cut three canes from a plant that looked healthier than the others and returned defeated to our camp.
Focusing on handwork was a remedy for a worried mind.
“I have failed as a provider. I didn’t find anything with a high mana concentration.” I announced.
Elincia giggled and rolled her eyes.
“Spirit Fox’s Tail is a low rank ingredient, it doesn’t store too much magical power inside.”
Elincia was already boiling water in an old pot. By the side of the bonfire there was an extended old cloth with her portable alchemist kit on top. Various knives, a mortar, vials of oils, little bags of powdered substances, and small wooden containers for liquids were neatly organized to start brewing.
“It’s just an anti-inflammatory ointment, not a reviving potion.” Elincia laughed as she received the canes and cleaned them with a wet rag.
“Reviving potions are a thing?” I asked, sitting by the fireside.
“According to legends, yes. According to any Alchemist that isn’t batshit crazy, no.” She shrugged her shoulders and cut the long canes in small palm length sections. Then she put a single cane on a squeezing tool and extracted a milk-like substance. She repeated the process for each cane until she had filled half a bowl.
“Should I help you with the brewing?” I asked, readying my mana.
Elincia shook her head. She was a Copper Alchemist, which meant she had already mastered the art of brewing low grade ointments. I sat on the sideline and watched her working. Elincia adopted a gesture of deep focus and forgot about the outer world. Then, she mixed the white substance with the powder from one of the bags and green mana sparks came from her hands.
Elincia stirred the mixture at a constant pace until the white liquid turned into a red and brown paste similar to dry blood.
Spirit Fox Ointment. [Identify] Alchemy ointment. Effect: Low Toxicity: Negligible. A basic ointment to combat inflammation and help small wounds heal.
The ointment had to rest for a moment, so we focused on preparing our meal.
Elincia refilled the waterskins while I filled the pot with water. My body yearned for a warm meal and a good cup of cheap instant coffee. The Blue Moss had the ‘edible’ label, but I wanted to save it for when we returned.
Elincia unpacked a small brick of a substance similar to pemmican and threw it into the boiling water with a few strips of dried meat and crumbs from the hard bread. The soup thickened and became an appetizing amber color.
With the warm meal and the ointment prepared, Elincia and I sat by the campfire enjoying the smell of soup and burning wood. We ate in silence, each lost in our own thoughts. As I sipped the hearty soup from a wooden bowl, I couldn’t help but think about the orc woman, about the Monster Surge, and about the kids.
There was so much beyond our control.
Elincia put her empty bowl by her side and reached for the ointment. Then, she took off her socks and rolled up her pants, revealing a giant green bruise on her calf. A reminder of how close call the fight against the Stone Giant had been.
“What? Are you into ankles?” Elincia asked in a playful tone as she smeared a generous amount of ointment over the bruise. Not a second had elapsed when a relieved expression appeared on her face.
“I’m not into ankles.” I replied as I extended my hand to reach the bowl of ointment.
The playful banter was much better than silence, even if she was forcing herself to sound jolly. Hearing Elincia joke around made me feel as if everything was going to be alright.
I smeared the paste over my shoulder and the relief was instantaneous.
Part of my logical mind still wanted to rebel against the idea of magic, the other half was just grateful for the comfortable sensation. Meanwhile, Elincia took off her jacket and partially unbuttoned her blouse, revealing her pale shoulders and a massive bruise covering her entire shoulder blade. A shiver ran down my spine at the thought of a pebble doing that amount of damage.
If anything, the sight of Elincia’s wounded body made me feel sad.
“Care to help me? Make sure it covers the whole area.”
I sat behind Elincia and gazed at her shoulder. She deserved more than this.
“With these potions we are going to be filthy rich, and the orphanage will be set for years to come.”
I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince Elincia or myself.
“That’s the attitude. I might as well buy hair dyes, I’ve always wanted to have normal colored hair but they are quite expensive.” Elincia replied as she pulled her hair out of the way.
“I like the way it is. It suits you.” I said before realizing my input might not have been required.
I bit my tongue and smeared the red ointment over her bruise.
Effects of Denial are subsiding. You have obtained Denial Lv.2. Temporary.
Thanks System.
“Moon Laurel, Night Lily, Barrel Root, Brizetree Bark, Elkadia Roots. If you find Fiery Vine Pods, I can brew something for her frostbite.” Elincia blurted out without even turning around to face me. “That’s what we need. Now go before it gets any later.”
