Chapter 82 - [Invincible]

Concentrating on a spell for long periods of time was a lot harder than you would think. Plenty of mages throughout Ferrum couldn’t maintain concentration on a spell for longer than a minute. To describe holding concentration to a non-mage, I would say it’s like holding an image in your head for a long period of time. If you stop focusing on the image for a second, then the spell dissipates.

Luckily for me, I had spent all fifteen years of my new life concentrating on spells. I had practiced maintaining concentration on Hellfire for a long period of time, and my practice with the [Fly] spell over the past few years also helped me maintain concentration for long periods.

All of this is to say that I did not drop concentration on the [Lift Object] spell for the entirety of my journey back to camp. I was quite proud of that. I was probably about two miles away from the camp based on how long I had walked to get there. Walking through the forest while navigating a giant head through dense foliage, it would take me about thirty minutes to reach my destination.

After many minutes of tiresome walking, I heard a large creature approaching from the direction of the camp. Based on the sound, it was bipedal, and it was about the size of a man. I was almost entirely certain that the approaching creature was a person, but I held my wand at low-ready just in case.

The approaching creature broke through the tree line, revealing the armored form of Sir Eadric Vanta. He had grown older and stronger in the time we had spent together in the wilderness of Etronia, but his optimistic attitude had not changed. It had been good to have a person with an easygoing disposition on the road to counterbalance my own bookish and severe personality.

“Hey, little lord,” Eadric said with a smile.

In the year 630 CA, Eadric Vanta was in his late twenties. When I met him the first time, he was still a teenager. More than a decade later, Eadric had grown into adulthood. Before, he was tall and thin. After six years of training, his body had filled out, giving him a muscular physique. He wore thin chainmail under a plain green tabard, and he carried a simple one-handed battleaxe at his belt.

Two years before, Eadric had been cut in the face by a wyvern’s claw, giving him a deep diagonal scar on his face. The scar made his resting face look intimidating, but he often ruined the effect by smiling widely whenever he met new people.

“Hello,” I said, matching Eadric’s smile. “I got him.”

Eadric let out a low whistle as he matched my stride. “Hell of a kill,” he said. “That thing’s gotta be a three-star or above.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“That’s what I was thinking,” I responded. “When we get to Etron, we’ll claim it was a four-star. Remember, the skull is for the nobles, not the Hunter’s Guild.”

Once scouted by the Hunter’s Guild, monsters were typically given a rank between one and seven stars. By the time a monster reached the five-star rank, it was typically a major threat to all nearby human settlements.

Orcs were typically between one and three stars, most great beasts were between three and six stars, and the few dragons that remained were ranked either six or seven stars. Whenever a seven-star monster was detected, a message was sent out to all local hunters’ associations on Rubigo, and a bounty of 10,000 gold coins was placed on the monster’s head.

“I meant to ask before, but,” Eadric said, scratching his head, “how did you know a great talpa would appear in this area? The Hunter’s Guild hasn’t put out a bounty yet, and I don’t think there have been any reports of caravans being attacked.”

I couldn’t tell Eadric how I learned that a great talpa would appear south of Etron. In [Ferrum Online], the territory of the talpas was in that area, so it was only natural that a great talpa would naturally appear there. The people of the Etron region only had to deal with great talpas when they got so big that their normal diet of struthins became too lean for them to live on. At that point, the great talpas had to expand their territory and start attacking caravans.

“I read about it in a book,” I lied.

Eadric smiled in an annoying inscrutable way as if he knew more than he let on. “You’ve always known more about the world than any person ought. Do you remember when I pledged my loyalty to you nine years ago?”

“Of course,” I said. “That’s not something you forget about easily.”

“A normal person at that age would have forgotten,” Eadric said simply. “You were six years old. Yet, for just a few seconds, you had the countenance of an old man. You have that same countenance now, but it looks less jarring on a fifteen-year-old body.”

“I was a smart kid, what can I say?” I said with a shrug, beginning to become concerned at the course of the conversation.

“You were special then, and you’re special now. I’m grateful to have you as my master,” Eadric said.

“You probably won’t be grateful soon,” I joked, trying to move the conversation away from my unnatural intelligence. “We’re going to start working in earnest soon. There will be hard battles and difficult political situations ahead.”

An expression of worry crossed over Eadric’s face, but the expression carried an edge of earnestness. “I hope to meet your expectations.”

We walked through the forest for another few minutes. Occasionally, Eadric would swing his battleaxe and cut down any obstructing trees in two clean cuts. I didn’t think of Eadric as a particularly powerful fighter, but he had already reached a superhuman level of strength and speed.

Soon, we reached the clearing where we had set up camp. Three wagons had been set up on the edge of the clearing, and three people were present inside the camp. I didn’t recognize one of the wagons and two of the people.

Stretching my shoulders, I put the great talpa’s head down at the edge of the camp and approached the two people standing in the center of the clearing. I didn’t know who they were, but I didn’t care. After killing the struthins and the great talpa, I felt invincible.