Chương 13: (13) B1 C13: A Wild Patrol!

Once the sun went down, I left Lucia to rest in the cave while I left for the docks. She protested, of course, and begged to join me on my trip through the woods. Although I would've enjoyed the company, I wasn't sure if it was wise for her to leave the cave before she was fully recovered. Surprisingly, she didn't press me on my inability to walk in the sunlight. She was curious about it, I could tell, but I was extremely glad she didn't feel the need to say anything when I left.

It didn't take me very long to find the docks again, after which I began to follow the road leading to the northwest. I was briefly tempted to investigate the remains of the docks themselves—perhaps for loot or clues as to who the elven attackers truly were—but the path leading away from them was a higher priority for me. The path was wide and flat, contrary to much of the wild forest around me, though I made sure to keep to the side of the road so I wouldn't be surprised by any unexpected travelers.

It took me nearly two hours of walking before I finally caught sight of a slaver patrol. The road remained flat and even throughout that time, to my great surprise, as it seemed to carve into the earth when the earth wanted to disagree with it. Whoever was responsible for its construction and maintenance wasn't playing around. Turning my attention back to the patrol, I found three men huddled around a small campfire, each of them crouched near the flame as they roasted what I could only assume was a small wolf.

Two tents were set up nearby, though both were uneven and must've been constructed with inexperienced hands. Two of the men were unfamiliar to me, yet I immediately recognized the last as the older of the two slavers I had followed on my first day in this new world. He was still wearing his usual leather armor, though the other two men were wearing lighter gear, almost like mages' robes. None of them, other than perhaps the familiar one, seemed like vanguard material, which was… okay news.

I would've liked a good serving of BP, but I didn't look forward to fighting a slaver that tough anytime soon. The familiar slaver was perhaps the one with the highest health pool, so although I couldn't guarantee how difficult he'd be to kill, he was quickly becoming my highest priority target. As I snuck closer to the patrol, I began to wonder what they were even doing out here. Maybe the three of them were survivors from the dock attack? None of them seemed to be injured, so I felt doubtful of that.

Maybe they were moving toward the docks? Doubtful—the docks were only two hours away. Even in the dead of night, this path was trivial to follow, so those two hours spent in the dead of night were less of a dangerous gamble and more of an inconvenience. Once I moved closer, I dropped lower to the ground and began to slow down so I could listen in on their conversation.

"—cking camp orders, sending us out like this. It's all bullshit," one of the mages groaned. The slaver I was familiar with nodded in agreement as stabbed at the campfire with a long stick. The third member sighed as he slowly played with a wand he held in his hands.

"Shouldn't they be here by now?" the second mage asked as he looked up at the other two. The first mage shrugged while the slaver I was familiar with finally tossed his stick into the flames.

"I don't know, maybe they're just being lazy?" the first mage chuckled.

"No, he's right. Something's wrong," The familiar one—I think his name was Dave—nodded. He stood up, his attention directed to the road leading to the docks. The second mage, the one without the wand, looked toward the treeline with a wary gaze before turning to Dave with a nervous expression.

"What if something happened? Shouldn't we go over there and try to help?"

"Without knowing what went wrong?" The first mage chuckled, "They probably fucked up their ledgers. Guys, it's nothing. Just sit down and relax."

"I'm going to investigate," Dave stated as he began to walk forward with confident steps. The first mage sighed and quickly rose to his feet. Then, he grabbed at Dave's shoulders before pulling his fellow slaver back to the campfire.

"By the six, David, the sun's already gone down! We can't see shit with how dark the forest is, nor will we be able to defend ourselves if a wild beast attacked us," The mage reasoned, "Do not go wandering off. It's suicide." So they weren't even able to see the path? That… huh. It was visible enough for me, but was that because one of my boons was giving me an edge I hadn't noticed until now? Uncanny Perception, I think it was called? But didn't that specialize in hearing, rather than sight? Ah, whatever.

"What if somebody attacked the docks, and everybody there died because we didn't go help them?" the second mage asked, his voice quivering with fear.

"There are nearly three dozen of our colleagues over there. If something like that happened, and they couldn't handle it, the three of us wouldn't be able to help," The first mage sighed, "Besides, who would attack us? The Osmorians? As if they'd stop their war against the Eldians to focus on us. Besides, they'd have to cross the Sea of Silver and we all know the Osmorians hate the ocean."

As I listened to the three slavers communicate with each other, my brain quickly picked up on the familiar words exiting their mouths. Osmorians. Those were the citizens of Osmoria, a small nation located on the southern edge of FFO's game map, specifically on the continent of Ancient Eldia. In the game, they were a militaristic nation, and upon hearing that they were currently at war with their northern neighbors, the Elven Kingdom of Eldion, it seemed they still carried that trait.

"Huh? I thought the ancient Osmorians migrated across… nevermind," Mage two muttered, "What about the Veilarians? Didn't we source our most recent shipment from them? What if they changed their minds?" Veilarians. Elves that belonged to the Free Republic of Veilarus, as well as the neighbors of the Kingdom of Eldion and Osmoria.

Osmoria, Eldion, and Veilarus were the three nations that comprised the continent of Ancient Eldian, which was one of the game's six continents, as well as the one closest to the three human-led nations. Yet, upon hearing that the Osmorians and the Veilarians were seemingly the closest to us, rather than the Eldians, I began to suspect that I was probably more likely to be located within the borders of one nation rather than the other.

"They'd be foolish to try it. When the Veilarian Senate isn't too busy fucking each other or obsessing over worthless pieces of art, they spend their time trading with the Consortium to increase their personal wealth. If the Veilarians decided to attack us, not only would such an action leave them open for an attack from Osmoria, but we'd immediately halt all trade with them.

Veilarus wouldn't dare to do something like that," Mage one explained, "I don't think trying to free a few slaves would be worth the effort if it ended in extreme financial loss. It would be pure foolishness." This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Well, that confirms it. I'm in the Highmarket Consortium. In the end, the mage in charge managed to calm Dave long enough for him to willingly return to the campfire.

Around two hours of waiting later, the group finally decided to go to bed with a plan to investigate the docks the next morning. The mage who'd managed to convince Dave to settle down, whom I quickly learned went by the name of Norman, was the one to extinguish the campfire. Curiously, he used his wand to extinguish the flames rather than a cantrip. Eddie, the other mage, slowly circled the camp to set up protective traps while Dave, the only non-magical person in their group, watched from a distance.

"Are you not going to do anything?" Eddie was the first to voice his complaints. He swung his staff and a glowing circle appeared on the ground. I didn't recognize it, but the magical circle seemed to be designed to pop up some sort of trap when stepped on. A basic spell and simple to avoid. Perhaps it was meant to deter wild animals, rather than hostile enemies that'd be able to recognize it for what it was.

"I'm supervising," Dave answered. His explanation didn't seem to satisfy the mage, as Eddie shook his head in exasperation while he was setting up the next trap. I continued to watch from a distance as the three slavers finished their camp preparations. Then, two of them, those being Eddie and Norman, disappeared into the tents behind them. Dave, meanwhile, settled himself against a fallen log and turned his gaze to the forest.

He twirled his sword in his hands, almost as if he were treating it like a fidget toy, as he began his night watch. So Dave was taking the first watch? That worked well for me. As he made himself comfortable, I watched closely from the bushes nearby. I didn't have any way to sneak up on Dave while he was watching the forest, so I stayed far from the campfire and waited patiently for him to relax. Among the three, I expected Dave to be the laziest.

Not because he had a bad attitude—Dave seemed too disciplined to be a slaver—but rather because the man was incredibly action-oriented. The sword twirling in his hands seemed to be the most exciting thing to happen to him tonight, and after an hour of silence, to my lack of surprise his shoulders began to relax. His body slumped as his posture began to push against the log he'd been resting on.

After another thirty minutes, four hours after the sun first fell behind the horizon, the boredom finally became too much for Dave. His mind struggled against the monotony, and soon he was sleeping peacefully upon the fallen log. Then, after waiting another ten minutes so that Dave could truly settle further into dreamland, I stood up and simply walked into their camp so I could have a look around. It wasn't even hard—I didn't have to bother with trying to stay silent.

As they slept, I took a moment to search for their respective weapons before moving them away from the campsite. I didn't want the group to be able to prepare themselves for battle when they had an emergency. I couldn't do anything to disarm the two mages, as each of them carried their weapons on them. Dave was still wearing his leather armor, but I did manage to sneak up on him to steal the sword from his hands. Dave was the only warrior in the group, so his weapon was the only one I could use.

Had he been using a longsword or a greatsword, I would've been disappointed that my attributes wouldn't scale well with it. Instead, I was greatly surprised when I found that Dave's sword was surprisingly short. He used it almost as a dagger, which meant it was as long as a shortsword for me, and therefore scaled almost perfectly with my current build. I picked up the sword and began to test its weight.

As I held the weapon in my arms, a part of me wondered if this body was given enough muscle memory to properly wield it. I doubted that, considering Evelyn was supposed to be a brand-new character, but even the bonus stats from the weapon would serve to increase my strength. As I held the weapon in my hand, I began to slowly swing it around to test its balance and feel.

The weapon didn't feel like a third arm, as some swordmaster's would describe, but it certainly didn't feel like a hunk of metal like some novices would describe. I wouldn't be able to swing it around like an expert, but I probably wouldn't be so idiotic to treat it like a baseball bat, either. I was somewhere in between, so I would only be skilled enough to not be incompetent. Hopefully. Then, I checked the weapon's stats.

Slaver's Iron Shortsword - Worthless Prototype A small Iron Shortsword that's seen more battle than the one who wielded it. It's old and rusty, yet still sharp despite its age. — Specialization: Precision +3 Devour Damage +120 Critical Devour Damage"Damn. It's only level one," I whispered as I observed the weapon's pitiful stats. Weapons in FFO were simple, yet they didn't scale in levels like players did.

Instead, they were organized into seven rarities that somewhat followed the usual seven hundred levels, and then more specifically into five qualities. The weakest Quality was Prototype, which would grant the weapon a single level. A Treasured Prototype, therefore, was level 601 while this Worthless Prototype was only level 1. Honestly, it wasn't that different from the usual level system. I'd never understood why the devs had even bothered to design the weapon classification system like this in the first place.

The Specialization, located at the bottom, was the system's way of telling a player how the weapon scaled with their attributes. The Specialization of 'Precision' meant it was a rogue's weapon, and would therefore scale better with a higher Agility Attribute, or Thirst in my case.

A +3 bonus to my base Devour Damage was insignificant compared to the +120 bonus to my Critical Devour Damage, yet I was already going for a critical build anyways, so I was very glad to find myself equipped with a weapon as nice as this, even if it was only level one. So, as I gently tucked the weapon under my arm, I looked around for a set of clothes I'd be able to wear.

I wouldn't be able to put on any armor, considering everybody was still wearing theirs, but I couldn't help but become excited at the thought of finally getting myself some fucking clothes already. I'd spent nearly two weeks without a single thing covering my body, and my poor skin was beginning to get sick of it.