Within the residence which was at the centre of the village, the residence assigned to the Village Head, two people were having a conversation.
“How is he,” a middle aged man with a few strands of gray in his hair, asked the only other person sharing the room with him?
“He is fine – generally. Right now he is asleep, but he is definitely in pain” The person who replied the middle aged man was an old man with a hump. The old man was clad in several strange chains and amulets, and even his ankles weren’t spared from the binding of these ornaments. His eyes were completely white, and his hair was fully gray. There was a huge ring hanging on his nose, and his lower lip had been pierced with a small rod. In simple terms, he was a queer looking old man.
The middle aged man looked perturbed by the reply the old man gave him. Unlike the old man who embodied the word ‘eccentric’, the middle aged man was quite the looker. He
“Today was great. I never knew this place was so big” Back at Dan’s residence, Mane appreciated the efforts of the twins who freely showed him around the village by conveying his thanks. His bright expression and sparkling eyes revealed that he wasn’t just being polite. He truly enjoyed himself today. Although getting to blow off some steam, by butchering Tito and his friends was part of the reason he felt so at ease, sightseeing with the twins was fun in so many ways. The village was small yet beautiful, and the marketplace was filled with strange things he had never seen or heard of before.“Yeah. The village looks small when you only stay at one place. However, once you begin to explore, you realize that it is much bigger than you could ever imagine” Lam smiled at Mane and stated.“I learnt that today,” Mane nodded his head in agreement. “Are you sure that you do not want to come inside,” Mane asked the twi
Hildegarde snickered happily as she recalled the look on Mane’s face when he first saw the skill. It wasn’t happiness he experienced first – it was helplessness.“How can the Dreamscape’s Will come up with such a cheesy name for its skill,” was what Mane thought when he saw the skill’s name? It wasn’t just the name that was cheesy, even the description was weird. It made Mane wonder what kind of being the Dreamscape’s Will was. It certainly wasn’t normal if that was how it named its skills.Although Mane couldn’t say what he thought out loud since he was being escorted by the twins at the time, Hildegarde could tell what he was thinking by the displeasure on his face. It made her happy when she saw him react so negatively to the skill’s name. It wasn’t only because she also thought that the Dreamscape’s Will had a weird naming sense; rather, it was because Mane’s reaction was norm
“Yep,” Mane could finally reply to Hildegarde’s comments now that there was no one around.“Wait a minute,” Mane suddenly exclaimed and startled Hildegarde, who almost fell off his shoulder due to his sudden action.“What,” Hildegarde sounded irritated? She flew above Mane with a look of annoyance on her face, obviously from the fact that Mane had robbed her of her favorite ‘couch’.“He said we’d go hunting tomorrow. I was just thinking that it would be a shame to miss a hunt because of that meeting” Mane looked apologetic seeing Hildegarde’s dissatisfied expression. It wasn’t his intention to shrug her off his shoulder.“I doubt that would factor into this,” Hildegarde stated while waving her tiny hands. She slowly flew onto Mane’s shoulder and settled herself on it once more.“You normally wouldn’t worry about something like that. So
Mane sat cross-legged for about an hour. Before long, the light poring outside the window ceased its action, and the room grew dim. Mane was so lost in his meditation, he didn’t notice that the sun had gone down. Luckily for him, there was someone here who wasn’t meditating.“I need to light the lamp huh,” Hildegarde sighed as she flew towards the lamp next to the window. She ignored the lighter that was on the table, and approached the lamp. She blew at the lamp softly, and it lit up brightly, as though fireflies were dancing in it. This strange way of lighting the lamp wasn’t seen by anyone. If anyone had seen this, they would have been gob smacked. It was a different case if Hildegarde performed a fire breath. But she only blew at the lamp, and it lit up. It was remarkable, but there was no one present to see it. No wait a minute. There was one person around to see it.“No matter how many times I see you do that, I cannot comprehe
“Because of me,” Hildegarde pointed her finger in her face and repeated Mane’s words? She didn’t understand what Mane was getting at.Mane sighed when he noticed her clueless expression. He decided that it was time he told her why he was so insistent that Edict was available on this planet.“Have you never wondered why you could fly,” Mane started? “Have you ever considered why you are able to hide yourself from the perception of others even without doing anything,” he continued.“You could say that the concealment is natural because of the Dreamscape’s system. But what kind of system doesn’t have a power unit” Mane started his monologue. Hildegarde was stunned into silence by his words.That’s right. Why had she never thought of how all these were possible? If it was another testing ground, it would be only natural that flying and concealment would be available to her. After al
“So how are you going to go about that,” Hildegarde questioned? Mane couldn’t just walk up to Dan and say, “Yo Dan, I know that you are a Mystic Path Warrior. I just want to know if you have any more of that secret potion called Savior. It would be even better if I could get the recipe.”It would have been awesome if Mane could do that. Mainly because Hildegarde would have loved to see Dan’s expression after hearing Mane tell him he knew his secret. But something like that was a mere fantasy. There was no way Mane was going to do that.“I don’t know yet, but I would think of something,” Mane replied. He sighed helplessly. This was the first time in a long while that he hadn’t a clue what to do. And that seemed to be how things were going to be in this trial. The Chaos level didn’t focus on one’s fighting prowess. It did assess it. But it seemed to place more emphasis on how a person reasoned, rathe
Although his words were whispered, Hildegarde heard him. She really wanted to beat him up. How could someone who had an assassin coming his way be so unconcerned? She could feel the excitement seeping out of his bones, and the joy that radiated from his entire being.She couldn’t help but think to herself, “is he secretly a psycho?”Before long, Hildegarde could feel the approach of another presence. No wait. Two more presences! It wasn’t just one assassin, but two! She quickly informed Mane of her findings.“There are two people coming. One of them is on the roof. The other is going to use the door!” Mane nodded his head quietly as he hid under the bed. He began to draw a simulation of what was likely going to happen in his head. This room had only two openings – the door and the window. The one on the roof was going to break in through the window. His entrance would ensure that only one of the openings would be availab
Mane didn’t see the dagger, so he didn’t pay it any heed. He concentrated all his efforts on the head he was holding.“Status,” he softly mumbled and proceeded to look at the physical attributes of the deceased lady.Name: UnknownAge: 33Physical Attributes – Strength: 2.7Agility: 3.8Stamina: 3.2Path: Agility Oriented New Type“Just as I thought,” Mane glossed through her information quickly. He opened the window large enough so that Hildegarde could also see what was on it. Mane’s guess about her agility being her strongest attribute was spot on. However, her strength was several times lower than her stamina or agility. It seemed that she only focused on training what she was good at. That was the right call. Unfortunately for her, she met someone whose agility was higher tha