Chapitre 6: ~And Up the Cloudy Draw~
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"See, turns out them mercenaries wanted me for a house cleanin' job after all, and wanted it done by mornin'… they actually asked for it on my way back from huntin'. Anyhow, sorry for not showin' up when I said I would, that was mighty rude of me. I'll pay extra for the inconvenience." Clint offered as he went to pull out a few more septims.
"No, it's not that serious friend, you did us all a favor with that 'house cleaning' job, as you put it. In fact, I'm the one that should be giving you a discount." The store owner said while raising his hands in denial of the money.
Clint shook his head as he put the money away. "Well, I ain't goin' to ask for a discount, especially since that's how this all started with them mercenaries. Well, it started a little earlier than that… but, details… Anywho, how about I just buy it for the normal price like I would of anyway?"
"Fine, but don't think I will forget about this. If you ever find yourself in Karthwasten again, you'll have priority over the other customers, and that's non-negotiable. I'm sure the other merchants in the town feel the same. You're a hero." The store owner said with a sigh.
"Hero? I ain't done nothin', don't know why they'd call me that. All's I did was clean some folk's house, not my fault that when I left, everyone there was dead. That was just a coincidence…" Clint shrugged with an innocent expression.
"*Sigh* Whatever, just to let you know though, you're innocent expression doesn't mean as much when you told me your thoughts yourself. Anyway, are you sure this is all you need? You don't want some extra armor or something?" The owner asked as he looked at the items spread out on the counter.
"Yep, this is all I need. I can get the rest myself out in the wilderness, so no point in wastin' money on it. I still need to buy a horse after all." Clint said as he began putting his new equipment in his backpack.
He now had; a small silver dagger, two hunting knives, a primitive compass and astrolabe, a large hide tent, with a few add-ons for when it rained or snowed, a lantern, a map, a sleeping bag, a few books, a blank book, a bit of ink and a quill, a water canteen, and a whole lot of rope. With this and his magic, he would be fine surviving out in the wild.
"Well then, good luck with your horse, and with your travels. Speaking of, where are you heading next? I imagine you're not going home with the equipment you bought." The owner asked.
Clint smirked as he reached the door. "You're right about that! I'm headin' off to Rorikstead, cuz' I wanna see more of the world. Also, I just find travlin' around fun. Don't like stayin' in one place for too long."
He had another reason, but he couldn't exactly tell it to the owner.
"Well, I wish you a safe journey then, hunter…" The owner paused, then went to ask something, "Hey, wait, I never got your…"
But Clint had already left.
The owner crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "I never asked his name… How are we supposed to remember what he did for us if we don't have his name? Oh well, I'll just come up with something. A title maybe… he probably won't mind."
Little did the store owner know, Clint would—in fact—mind. He would very, VERY much mind.
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Karthwasten didn't have stables, so Clint found that he would have to buy a horse once he gets to Rorikstead, which was annoying, to say the least.
But Clint didn't let it deter him; he would rather spend a bit of time walking around anyway since he doubted he would be getting off his horse much once he actually got one.
So as Clint made his way out of the village, he walked at a leisurely pace, casual and with an air of peace around him. Too bad he was ever so rudely interrupted by a man walking up to him.
Ainethach stood there staring at him, wearing some fancy robes that he didn't have the last time they spoke. "You stayed a whole lot longer than you said you would… Clint."
Clint chuckled and scratched the side of his head. "Yeah, sorry about the Mister, turns out them mercenaries wanted me for a house cleanin' job, and it woulda been rude of me to turn it down. I had to spend most of the night in that cave… cleanin' it out."
Ainethach raised an eyebrow at that. "Cleaning you say? Well, you seemed to have missed a bit, since the cave was filled with blood when one of my men went to check on it this morning. What happened to making no trouble while you were here? Care to explain yourself?"
Clint just grinned innocently. "Why, I don't know what you're talkin' about. There was no blood when I got there, and I wasn't about to clean up any messes made while I was there, otherwise they'd have kept me there all week cleanin' up their filth. Not somethin' I wanted to do, understand?"
Ainethach smirked a bit at that too. "So they were just fine when you got there then? And what of after? When you left?"
"Wasn't my job to pay attention to them when I left. By the time I'd finished cleanin' I was near the entrance to the cave, so I didn't walk back through to see what the people in the cave were up to." Clint shrugged, not actually answering the question.
"Well Clint, I guess that 'answers' all my questions," Ainethach said with a sigh. "But I want you to know this, Clint. You're a damn good 'hunter', and you're kills helped us out a lot, so if you ever find the need for it, Karthwasten is always open to you"
Clint flashed a toothy grin as he started walking again, giving Ainethach a thumbs up. "I'll keep that in mind. Though, I don't see how a couple of animals could have helped out that much… especially when you've got hundreds out there just hangin' outside your borders."
Ainethach just chuckled a bit and shook his head as he turned to walk back into the village. "Safe travels Clint."
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Clint was having a good time as he walked down the road, before deciding to change course and walk alongside the path instead of on it. Foreswarn were a real threat now, and while he doubted they were all as strong as they were in-game relative to the other enemies, he was still a little wary. A little ambushing never hurt anybody.
Well…. It hurt the people that were ambushed, but… details.
As he climbed alongside the massive rocks that jutted out the ground, hopping from rock to rock as a little extra challenge and for the fun of it. He decided that it would probably be best to get his parkour and climbing skills back up to what they used to be in his youth before it was too late. He also wanted to see what he could do with said skills now that he had super-human characteristics.
'Also,' He thought, 'I need to be able to freely maneuver when fightin' dragons and such. It would suck if my foot slipped while tryin' to dodge a dragon shout and I got turned into fried chicken.'
Why would he be fighting dragons? You might ask. Well, simple…
He had to kill Alduin.
Or, he at least needed to ensure Alduin was defeated. Whether that meant killing Alduin himself using his combat spell, or helping the Dragonborn kill him. Point was, Clint needed to ensure that Alduin died, alongside some others.
That was the thing that eventually turned Clint away from reading fanfiction and things with similar problems. If you now live in a world with something that wants to end said world, how are you just going to ignore it? Not only will a bunch of people who didn't deserve it die, but you will as well!
Take Harry Potter for example. Some people say you could just leave the country if you ever ended up there, so you wouldn't have to deal with Voldemort. But that's ridiculous, and you'd have to be a brain-dead mentally-challenged moron not to realize that.
Voldy wanted to kill/enslave all non-magical people and the magical born to them. And if the rest of the magical world is as stupid as the British world is (which they'd have to be if they continue to allow the British ministry to exist), then it wouldn't be that hard for Tom to take control of all of the magical countries once he got the British ministry. After that? Well, aside from nukes and such, there wouldn't be much the non-magical world could do to stop him, especially since most magical places are hidden within non-magical cities.
Point is, he would be a threat to everyone if he won, not just the British. So ignoring him while thinking that the main character will handle it is just stupid. People who think that would work have never seen time-travel movies before, or heard of the butterfly effect.
Even if the transmigrator didn't interfere with anything in the plot, there's still every chance that random events that originally happened wouldn't happen now because the second they showed up all random/luck-based events would be reset. If, in the original, a coin landed on heads, then—just by existing there—the coin might now land on tails, even if you weren't even close to it.
On top of that, Voldemort is basically wizard-Hitler. If you were back in the 1920's, before the Holocaust, would you really not kill Hitler if you had the chance to prevent it? Clint liked to think that there was enough good in humanity that most people would stop it if they could.
He knew not everybody would go out of their way to save millions, either out of laziness or out of apathy, but liked to hope that at least most people would.
Anyway, back to the main topic. Alduin, Harkon, Miraak, Potema, Ancano, and half a dozen Daedric Princes were all looking to fuck the world over in one way or another. And those are just the ones Clint knew of!
And because he wasn't about to leave ALL of those problems on the shoulders of one guy/girl, especially since all of those problems also involved his continued existence within this plane of reality, he had decided that all of them were now his targets.
He hoped that he would have help, either from the Dragonborn or from someone else—Serana or something—but he would carry out his new task even without them.
'Besides,' Clint thought with a smirk, as he continued jumping from rock to rock, 'Huntin' all of them will take me all over Skyrim, which will satisfy my itch for exploration. Well, everywhere but Windhelm and Markarth… but who wants to go to those shitholes anyway?'
Clint's eyebrows scrunched together as he remembered a few other enemies. 'If I ever find myself in Riften or Morthal, I should probably drop by and give Movarth and Mercer Frey a bullet through the skull. They didn't seem like the biggest threats in the game, but that was because you always ended them before they had the chance to get too big or utilize their potential…'
Clint shivered as he thought of that. 'I really hope the Skeleton Key isn't as broken as the lore says it is, otherwise I probably won't win. I'll need help if I want to fight Mercer, since I doubt I'll be able to sneak up on him.'
He continued to contemplate how he would defeat some of the more powerful enemies he knew he'd be facing. But instead of being intimidated by it, he just grew excited.
He wasn't a battle junkie, or a sadist or anything like that, but he loves a challenge, and he loved adventure.
And he got all the adventure he wanted in this new life. After all, he had already lived a pretty full life on Earth, and he knew that the afterlife probably existed now, so why would he restrict himself with things like paranoia and fear?
He could go anywhere, fight anything, DO anything… So long as he didn't run away or hesitate.
And Clint refused to run away or hesitate, he would enjoy every moment of his new life… with no regrets.
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Unbeknownst to Clint; as he was climbing the rocks alongside the path to Rorikstead, somebody was 'watching' him.
A lone figure sat upon a horse, wearing steel-plated armor and sporting a war axe on his back. Both he and his horse glowed with an eerie purple light as they 'stared' down at the man jumping from rock to rock. The horse was a beautiful silver color, with a white mane and a tail; Its eyes glowed an aetherial purple.
That wasn't the most unnatural part though. No… the most unnatural thing about the duo…
…Was the ghostly riders lack of a head.
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And that's the end of the Karthwasten Arc, as well as what I have already written. Like I said at the start of this, I just found this stashed away in my notes and decided that I might as well publish it before I forget about it again. I don't know if I'll continue this, I might, or I might not, but if I do it probably won't be for months, or even years.
I only started writing this because I had some random spark of interest in the Western genre for no apparent reason, considering I never really liked that genre in the first place. If I get that spark again for whatever reason, then I might go back and write the next few arcs, but I don't know if that'll ever happen again.
Though, if some author reading this is interested and wants to continue writing themselves, you're welcome to do so. Just leave a chapter comment saying that's what you want and I'll send you all my notes and plans for this, so you can have some inspiration.
Anyway, thanks for reading.
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État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
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