Chương 14: Past the Fated Path

'The God of Implements' Of the Seven Curator Gods, Enmar, the Smith of the Artifice Wing, is perhaps the easiest to please and the hardest to impress. His ritual circles resemble a bronze spider, and—much like a spider—he cares little for the colour of the thread so long as the web remains intact. Rust does not offend him. Scratches do not offend him. Dents, soot, grime, and years of hard use do not offend him either.

If a magic material still performs the purpose for which it was made, then Enmar sees value where others might see only trash. For this reason, his Impelement-Class relics are the most numerous out of all seven relic classes. While the other gods may demand pristine or high-quality materials, Enmar is far less particular. He does not care for appearances.

A cracked piece of songiron, a soot-blackened lantern core, a worn beastbone pulley, or a bundle of weathered components may all still find equal consideration in his eyes, and it is this accessibility that has allowed his relics to proliferate throughout the world. Indeed, Implement-Class relics are commonplace tools for housewives, farmers, merchants, artisans, soldiers, and travelers alike.

It is almost impossible to find a settlement nowadays that does not possess at least one relic originating from the Artifice Wing. Of course, one should not mistake a lack of standards for a lack of discernment. Enmar simply knows exactly what every material is worth, and he has never once been known to pay more than that. —Excerpt from 'Observations on Relics and the Divine', Written by Naghari the Sage As it turned out, the woods outside of town had a pretty nasty way of swallowing time.

A week after leaving Rusalka for the first time in his life, Orland figured out that much at least. The forests here weren't like the one he was used to hunting and sleeping in. For how 'dense' he thought Rusalka's woods were, he could always kinda see who was coming and who was watching from where.

Out here, though, the trees grew taller, closer, and their branches knitted together overhead into a shifting green canopy that filtered all sunlight into scattered motes of light, making it difficult to see far ahead even in broad daylight. It really felt like he could walk for hours on end and not know if he was any close to getting out of the woods, which begged another question he hadn't really thought to ask before leaving Rusalka: Where the hell was he supposed to go? He didn't know.

The voices that'd spoken to him thrice before hadn't said anything ever since. Kazimir hadn't said anything either. At first, he'd thought the man would start talking about roads or routes or something of the sort once they got past the town, but Kazimir had simply… walked. And he was slow as hell at that, too.

The man cared more for taking steady, uneven steps with his metal-braced leg than he did for making good time on wherever they were heading, and the only reason why Orland hadn't asked him anything was because he thought it'd make him even more suspicious if he didn't know where he was going as the Hero. So for the past week, they hunted small beasts and ate when they were hungry. They slept inside tree hollows when the sky went dark.

They drank from streams that looked clean enough and hoped nothing inside them would rot their guts from the inside when they were thirsty. Every once in a while they'd wake up in the middle of the night to heavy footsteps rumbling the forest—the steps of that sunmane lion, no doubt—and then they'd go back to sleep, hugging their blades and gauntlets.

But now, as the two of them cleared another thin stream of crystal-clear water by walking over a massive fallen log, Orland stopped in his tracks and stared back at the former soldier.

"... Seriously. Where the hell are we going?" Kazimir looked at him for a long second, eyes always narrowed.

"You're asking me? You're the Hero. Shouldn't you know the journey you have to make from the prophecies and divinations you received in Relikov City?"

"Well… of course I know." Orland scratched the back of his head, forcing a careless shrug.

"I just wanna hear it from you, too, to see if you know." Kazimir sighed at that. The man still held that long, steady stare that said he wasn't fooled by Orland in the slightest, but before he could say anything, both of their stomachs growled loudly. Both of them blinked.

"... We'll hunt for food first," Kazimir said, trudging past him on the fallen log and glancing around the woods as he did.

"Then I might consider entertaining your 'test'." Orland clicked his tongue but didn't argue. His legs were starting to feel hollow anyway, and the last scrap of toad meat he'd eaten this morning had done nothing but remind his stomach how empty it was. The sun was falling anyways, so it was just about time to start looking for an early dinner. They moved quieter after that.

As a former hunter, Orland knew just how soft his steps needed to be to not scare away any potential prey, but he shot a few glances at Kazimir taking the lead before him, surprised that the man knew how to walk quietly as well. Well, somewhat surprised. As a former soldier in some northern war or something, Kazimir had probably had his fair share of living out in the wilds as well. Still, even with that leg, he's walking with so much control, he thought. Is that some special walking technique or what?

The sound of a sudden snapped twig made both of them whirl to the right. Without a word shared between them, they both hunched and lowered themselves, creeping through the woods with even more care now as they searched for their prey. And soon, they pushed through a patch of brush until the trees thinned just enough to reveal a clearing ahead. Orland's breath caught as they hid behind a tree for cover. Evercoat deer.

Name: Evercoat Deer Grades: Common-3 ~ Common-4 Might: 15 ~ 16 Dexterity: 10 ~ 11 Resilience: 6 ~ 7 Clarity: 16 ~ 17 Mana: 38/38 (+2/hr) General Description: Evercoat deer are mild forest grazers whose pelts fluff up in cold weather and thin down in heat. Their hides retain this property after proper treatment, making them suited to changing climates.

A small herd of them grazed lazily in the clearing, their bodies lean and pale with faint streaks of silver along their sides. Their antlers curved back like swept branches, and even standing still, it was obvious to anyone looking that their thick fur were shifting and ruffling by themselves, making them look fuzzy at times and lean at times. Of all beasts to stumble upon, evercoat deer? Orland's mouth twitched into a grin.

"We're moving on," Kazimir muttered, already shifting his weight away.

"Let's find something slower that we can actually catch—" Orland scoffed under his breath.

"We can catch them."

"No we can't. They're blasted evercoat deers. They move—""Like the winds, yeah." Orland knew very well they were some of the faster deers out there. He'd tried—and failed—many times to hunt them in the woods around Rusalka, so now he really, really wanted to know what they tasted like.

"What are you, coward? Scared a buncha deer'll kick your face in?" That got a tongue click out of Kazimir.

"You hunt them, then," the man grumbled.

"Show me how powerful the 'Hero' is." Orland didn't need to be told twice. He crept forward, circling the edge of the clearing and keeping his breaths shallow as he studied the small herd. They were still grazing, flicking their ears out every now and then to hear if they needed to be spooked—he'd been defeated by that attentiveness of theirs so many times before.

They may look like they weren't paying attention, but the moment he darted out with a knife or a spear, they'd take off like they were the winds themselves. So, no chasing them. That was a stupid idea. He'd tried setting rope traps for them before as well, but they were always fast enough to power through anything he rigged. If he didn't have his gauntlet now, he wouldn't even think about trying for traps again. Alright, he thought, looking around the edge of the clearing once more.

It's probably impossible for me to hit them with any projectile. They'll just dodge whatever I throw at them even if they seem like they aren't paying attention, so maybe I can… He raised his gauntlet slowly. Naturally, he started small. A quiet groan came as he pulled a wall of soil out of the ground beside him—making it about half a meter tall—and then he worked his way around quietly, raising wall after wall in a loose circle around the entire clearing. I see.

Small manipulations of earth like this don't cost too much mana. Maybe about three to four mana per section of the wall? And the deer didn't notice. Not until it was too late. Once he raised the final section of the circular earth wall to box the deer in, he ripped another small clump of earth free from the ground, made a crushing motion with his fist to compress it into a ball, and then chucked the ball at the center of the herd with as much force as he could muster. This story originates from Royal Road.

Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Within a fraction of a second, the deer snapped their heads up from the grass and dodged out of the way. The boulder shattered and hit nothing even with its shrapnel. Then the entire herd scattered and bolted in every single direction—a move to shake off predators he was too used to seeing—but it wasn't like Orland was trying to hunt all of them.

Just three or four of them would be enough, so when five of them sprinted towards the wall directly opposite of him, he waited. He counted his seconds. He muttered under his breath, readied himself for the right moment, and when the five deer leaped over the wall he intentionally made to be easily leaped over, he uppercutted his gauntlet. The section of the wall they were leaping over immediately surged up, slamming into their underbellies with a sickening crack.

All five of them squealed, dropped hard, and hit the ground with flailing legs and tearing cries. Yes! The rest of the herd cleared his wall, but he'd rather they leave than think they were really boxed in and had no choice but to fight back. He was pretty sure they'd beat his ass if they all rammed into him at wind-speed. So, he vaulted his own wall, sprinted across the clearing, and quickly slid next to the immobile deer to finish them off with a small one-mana earth shard he ripped out of the ground.

He frowned when the tiny earth shard couldn't even pierce their throats though, so he yanked up and condensed a bunch of earth into a six-mana earth shard instead. One stab into each of their throats with that, and they finally bled out, squeals dying into nothing at all.

"Got you," he muttered.

"Finally… got you."

"And still, that was completely unnecessary," Kazimir said aloud, dragging his bad leg through the clearing as he approached the fallen deer as well.

"You wasted, what, at least thirty mana on them? Three mana for each section of the wall, so twenty-four mana for eight sections, and then throwing that earth ball cost you one or two mana. Then your uppercut to raise that one section of the wall probably cost you another four mana, and then you made an earth shard just to finish them off." Orland was too busy grinning at his catch to glare back at the man.

"They're evercoat deer. They're worth all the mana."

"You'll know they're not if you suddenly encounter enemies you actually need your mana for." That was true, to an extent. Orland had noticed it a while ago, but he only confirmed it just now: the amount of mana he poured into each and every construct determined the 'density' of the construct, and generally speaking, it seemed as though if he wanted to do damage to something with a resilience level of six, he'd need an earth construct with a density of at least six mana.

Likewise, to block an attack swung with a might level of six, he'd need an earth construct with a density of at least six mana. That was why his one-mana earth shard couldn't even break the deers' hide, but his six-mana earth shard could. He blew a lot more mana than he liked just trapping and finishing these deer off. Still, he'd rather not give Kazimir the satisfaction of being right.

"Don't matter." He shrugged.

"I got us our dinner, didn't I?" Kazimir watched him for a moment, then shook his head and moved to work. They set up a campfire in the clearing quickly. Orland gathered wood, stacked it, but let Kazimir spark it while he was a fair distance away. Soon enough, flames were crackling softly.

The division of labor afterwards was always the same: Orland was responsible for butchering and cooking anything they hunted, while Kazimir was responsible for scouting out the area, checking for potential threats, and making sure they wouldn't be jumped while they were eating. Today, though, Kazimir didn't bother to scout.

While Orland crouched by a small stream by the side of the clearing, rinsing strips of meat from one of his butchered deer and skewering them with sharpened sticks, Kazimir skinned the rest of the deer with his blade, peeling their pelts free in long and clean pulls.

"Should be good enough offerings, I think," the man muttered to himself. Orland glanced over his shoulder as Kazimir folded all five pelts into neat, bloody piles before walking over to the center of the clearing to sit down. Curious, Orland watched as Kazimir unwrapped the heavy cloth bundle he'd been carrying on his back the entire past week, revealing seven rectangular wooden boards the size of shields. All of them were framed in gold, but that was where the similarities ended.

Each of them were etched with different runes and circular patterns, and as far as Orland could tell, the patterns were all… beasts. He paused when he realized what the boards were.

"... Are those Altars?" he asked.

"Yeah," Kazimir grunted.

"I thought they had to be big? And pretty?"

"Like the ones in Belograd Manor?" Kazimir scoffed at that.

"As long as you have the magic materials to create the carvings and power them with mana, any flat surface can be an Altar. I used these portable ones back in my Bratstvo Morosov days. You'll be using these, too." While Orland returned to the campfire and started jamming the skewers of meat into the ring of stones—making sure he never got too close to the fire—Kazimir clapped his hands together and knelt before the wooden board with the crest of the spider.

"Greetings, Great Enmar," Kazimir began.

"I am Kazimir Kharinov, Second Son of the Kharinov Household, and I call to you today for a trade of tools most worth your time and patience. I hope you will accept my offerings." First, the man removed his fur coat and folded it neatly despite its wear.

"This coat, made of zorin pelt from the high plains of Akhemir, has served me well in many long years of battle. It has endured the coldest steel, the warmest blood, and the harshest of winters in the far north, so with great respect, allow me to present it as my base offering." Then he placed his coat on the board, and he lifted three out of five deer pelts next.

"As for my main offering, these are three full pelts harvested fresh from evercoat deer. They are known as the swiftest herbivores in the common woods of Ostravia, touched by the currents themselves. It is often even said that their ever-changing fur carries the wind's trace, allowing them to adapt to all temperatures without worry of overheating or freezing to death." With that, he placed the deer pelts onto the board as well and dipped his head even lower.

"In return, I ask only for an Implement-Class relic coat that will offer me more resilience against the climates," he said.

"The exact details of the relic's ability shall be decided by your divine judgement, of course, so please accept my—""Wait!" Orland interjected, skipping over and taking off his own coat as he did.

"Do mine as well. Turn my coat into a relic." Kazimir clicked his tongue.

"Don't interrupt when I'm—""The gods don't care, right?" Orland picked up the remaining two deer pelts and tossed them onto the board before clapping his hands as well.

"Great Enmar! Please give us two relic coats! And, uh…" He searched inside his pockets, finding the vial of leftover golden dye he'd bought from Baba Marza and tossing it onto the pile.

"Make my coat gold with this side offering! You can keep the glass vial if you want!" The old wolf looked ready to strangle him when all of their materials sank through the board, and moments later, two new relics floated back up. Both were folded coats. And unlike Kazimir's old grey coat, his new one was more brown than dark, trimmed with faint bronze lines and soft tufts of deer fur around the collar.

Orland's own coat was almost identical, but the fur collar was gold instead of brown because of his side offering.

Name: Evercoat Coat Type: Passive Implement-Class Relic, Common-5 Attribute Addition: +2 Resilience Ability Description: The holder is granted better cold and heat resistance. When the surrounding temperature is hotter than usual, the coat will lighten to allow better heat dissipation. When the surrounding temperature is colder than usual, the fur collar will thicken to allow better heat conservation. The passive drain is 0. 5 mana regeneration per hour.

"... Thank you, Great Enmar," Kazimir said, snatching his coat from the Altar and scowling at Orland as he did.

"Get your relics one by one next time. You're liable to confuse the gods when you try to get multiple relics at the same time." Orland grinned as he picked up his new coat and slid it on. The fur collar was beyond comfortable around his neck.

"It worked, didn't it? What's this coat's ability, anyways?"

"Read it yourself with your mask of identification."

"I want you to tell me, though?" Kazimir sighed exasperatedly.

"It gives you more resistance to heat and cold, and the fur will automatically adjust its thickness depending on your temperature. Evercoat coats are extremely common Common-Grade relics worn by many traveling merchants across Ostravia." Orland hummed in satisfaction. He still couldn't read the ability description in full, but he saw plus two levels in resilience, a cost of point-five mana regeneration per hour, and knew it was a relic he wanted to have. With this, I'm just a little bit stronger than before.

Can you see me now, Baba Marza?

"But… what do all these Common-Grades, Uncommon-Grades, and Rare-Grades really mean, though?" he said out loud, deciding this was as good a time to press the topic while they were already at it.

"Like… uh, tell me about the grades again? I just wanna compare between us. What's your grade, anyways?"

"Like I said. You can just check my tag with your mask, can't you?" Orland squinted at the old man. Kazimir said that only to mock him, because he had tried many, many times over the past week. Every time he'd tried, though, nothing would show up—it was as if the old wolf existed in a realm of his own. But now, as if reading Orland's mind, Kazimir reached under his shirt and pulled out a small medallion he'd been wearing around his neck as an amulet. It was oval-shaped and patterned like a closed eye.

"... You can't read my tag, if that's what you've been wondering," Kazimir said.

"This is a Rare-Grade Trinket-Class relic used by the Bratstvo Morosov. It's called a veil of the closed gaze, and it stops people like you from reading my tag. Your mask of identification does the same thing, because one half of the recipe used to obtain it is a veil of the closed gaze."

"Oh." Orland eyed the amulet for a bit.

"So… you're not gonna tell me your grade?"

"In your dreams."

"Then, at least tell me about grades?" Kazimir's brow lifted slightly—as if he couldn't believe Orland was still trying to push it—but whether it was because he was impressed at Orland's audacity or annoyed by it, he sighed and shook his head after a while.

"Grades are the Curator Gods' measurement of a relic's general rarity and strength, but it's also used to measure a living being's general strength," Kazimir said, stuffing his amulet back under his collar.

"The lowest possible grade is Common-0, which goes up to Common-9, and then it goes up to Uncommon-0, which goes up to Uncommon-9, so on and so forth." Orland nodded.

"Uh… Yep. That's right. And how many of these big named grades are there?"

"It goes from Common to Uncommon, then to Rare, Exquisite, Masterwork, Epic, Legendary, and Mythic. Eight grades in total with ten subgrades between each of them." Seems simple enough. Orland quickly glanced down at his wrist again.

Name: Orland Grade: Uncommon-1 Title: None Title Ability: None Acquired Skills: None (0/10) Might: 9 (+5) Dexterity: 8 (+1) Resilience: 9 (+3) Clarity: 9 Mana: 74/117 (+5. 5/hr) Relics: Evercoat Coat (Common-5), Regenerating Apparel Set (Common-8), Sylph Shoes (Common-9), Bloodreturn Flask (Uncommon-2), Mask of Identification (Rare-0), Star-Element Gauntlet (Epic-0)

"I'm… Uncommon-1 right now," Orland mumbled, looking up at Kazimir.

"Is that good or bad?"

"The average human without any relics is around Common-1 to Common-2, while the average Rusalkan guard with one or two relics and decently high attribute levels is around Common-5 to Common-6. You're a whole five subgrades higher than that, so you're decently strong… for Rusalka, that is," Kazimir said bluntly.

"But for the 'Hero', you really are nothing at all."

"Oh yeah? What's your grade, then?"

"None of your business." Before Orland could taunt Kazimir back about being secretly weaker than him, though, something cold suddenly touched his cheek. Kazimir's head perked. Orland looked up, too. Tink. Tink. Tink. His first instinct was to frown, because shimmering metal flakes had never rained from the sky in Rusalka before. Then one of the flakes cut his chin as it drifted past his face, and he winced, a finger immediately going up to touch the wound. The blood on his fingertip was black.

"... Quickly!" Kazimir barked, scrambling off his ass.

"Find cover!"