Bab 9: Tom
'I am Hungry' seeing the man asking for food, Arthur stood there dumbfounded 'Maybe I am being too paranoid, a bit too much on edge lately'
Arthur relaxed his guard and pulled out his ration and share some with the Auburn haired middle aged man.
"What should I call you? " Arthur asked
"Any name is fine, whawch yer name? " the man asked while stuffing the food in his saliva dripping mouth
Feeling a bit disgusted, Arthur replied "My name is Arthur and since u don't remember your name, I will call you Tom"
'Nice and simple' Arthur though but Tom thought other wise
[A : (ಠ_ಠ) ]
"Tom and Arthur? u have a weird naming sense " Tom replied while stuffing the food in his mouth
'Well he should be chinese since it is a cultivation world, so the system is also an auto translator huh' Arthur assessed
Arthur watched as Tom choked while stuffing food inside his mouth and was desperately asking for water, "Easy there! " Arthur gave him his water bottle and continue watching Tom who was somehow choking on water now.
"Huuuh... " Arthur sighed and started hitting the back of Tom to stop his choking
"Thanks a lot" Tom grinned
'Have I taken in an idiot? ' Arthur wondered
'Well atleast I will have a companion to talk with' unknowingly Arthur smiled a little, humans are sociable by nature so meeting someone he can talk to inside this horrid Forest eased his worries a little
"So where do you keep my pants ?" Tom asked out of nowhere while stretching his body a little
"It must be on the northern side " Arthur felt weird the way Tom said that sentence
"Why are my clothes there? Don't tell me you carried me naked all the way here, that's not normal at all !" Tom was rather talkative
"You are a 30 year old grown ass man saying such weird sentences to a teenager, aren't you the one who is not normal? " somehow Tom was irritating him
"How so? " Tom was talkative and clueless and Arthur was definitely irritated
"Btw, why are you living alone inside this forest? " Tom asked while chugging down the water again
"Because I am lost" Arthur stated as a matter of fact
"Oh, that explains a lot" Tom replied instantly
'We both are lost ' both of them thought and became silent for a while but Tom soon broke the silence
"Btw how can we retrieve my pants? " Tom asked
"What is up with you and your pants? " arthur asked
"It's because my pants-" tom jabbered on and on but Arthur stop focusing on his weird talks and went straight to the point, "The point is, your clothes were bloodied and I was afraid that the wolves could track us through the scent of blood so I left it there along with the wolf's corpse, now that area should be filled with grey wolves so we can only delay the retrieval of the map. "
"And my clothes" Tom added in and Arthur decided to ignore that
"It was very wise of you to ditch my clothes there since it reduced the chances of being tracked, Grey wolves noses are very sharp, they can pick up scent even near rivers!" Tom suddenly bowed down his head "And although I am late to say this, I am very thankful that you decided to save me even at the risk of your own life, not many are righteous enough to do that, I am deeply thankful to you and will surely repay this gratitude" Tom bowed towards Arthur to show his respect.
Arthur only nodded but he picked up a vital information regarding Tom, 'He is knowledgeable about grey wolves, was he a hunter before he lost his memory?' Arthur speculated.
"You said that we were here since yesterday night right? " Tom asked
"Yes, what of it? " Arthur asked
"You know it's really weird that we have not encounter any monster beast yet especially in this forest" Tom said in a serious tone
" ! " Arthur quickly draw out his nameless sword and activated his sharingan, his one tomoe slowly spun while scanning his surroundings.
"Ah I get it! it's due to those eyes! " Tom exclaimed as if he had just solved the greatest mystery case.
"Those eyes.. they release a threatening ancient aura, that's what keeping those monsters away as their senses are far more sharper than us human beings. " Tom elaborated.
" That makes sense" Arthur puts down his sword, he didn't try to hide his sharingan as he released it on instinct and Tom had already seen it anyway.
"What are those eyes...? " Tom marvelled at the crimson eyes but Arthur didn't replied.
"It's okay, you don't have to tell me. Everyone has their secret" Tom tried to change the topic
"So what's the plan? " Tom asked
"We will scout the area for grey wolves and possibly retrieve the map if we are lucky enough to not encounter any wolves near the map" Arthur calmly replied
"Hey! that's the same as suicide! what if we encounter a whole pack of grey wolves? " Tom hurriedly question the sanity of the plan
"That's why we will move in stealth and besides shouldn't my eyes deter them from approaching us? " Arthur replied back
"That's true but isn't it still a bit reckless? " Tom asked
"Our situation is already worse, we don't even know if the wolves had torn up the map while eating your bloodied clothes, delaying any longer will only decrease our odds of survival besides I also know that there are countless other monsters stronger than body forging grey wolves in this forest and my eyes won't be able to deter them for long" Arthur answered seriously.
"You make a fair point but I don't even have a sword so how can I fight? where's my sword btw? " Tom asked
"It broke. " Arthur reply nonchalantly
"BROKEN! what did you used it for? to cut diamonds? " Tom asked
Arthur remembered his heroic descent on the grey wolf and how the sword snap after piercing the skull of the wolf.
"I will give you a new one so stop crying" Arthur bought a sword for 3 points and made it looked like he pulled it out of his shirt.
"Do u carry swords inside your shirt? ever heard of the word called bag? you can store your stuffs there" Tom sincerely instructed but Arthur handed him his sword while ignoring his jibber-jabber
"Nice sword! " Tom exclaimed while admiring the sword's craftsmanship and Arthur took note of his behavior.
"Let's get going then" after saying that Arthur jumped up on the tree and so did Tom
2:00 AM, under the forest shades, a young man with crimson eyes and a mummy were jumping from tree to tree, it was truly a peculiar sight, even for a forest full of monsters.
Arthur thought while looking at Tom who was closely following behind him 'His strength is high genin level and he didn't said a single word after we started moving, quite a rare sight for a talkative person like him, the chances of him being a mercenary is high'
Feeling Arthur's gaze, the mummy or Tom signalled with his eyes asking what happened but Arthur just turned his head back which annoyed Tom a little.
Tom thought, ' This little friend is almost at the foundation establishment realm and coupled with his peculiar eyes, I am pretty sure he is a young master of a renowned family ' Tom furrowed his brows to remember the names of the powerful families around this area but..
'MAN! I can't remember anything! damn you my brain' Tom cursed at himself?
"We are here" Arthur whispered as he quickly hid inside the tree canopy and Tom quickly followed behind.
"There are 3 grey wolves here.. " Tom whispered
"There are 5 of them, two are hiding among the bushes" Arthur replied seriously while activating his sharingan
"So that's the ability of your eyes.. but why are the 2 of them hiding? " Tom furrowed his brows trying to come up with a solution and suddenly it clicked inside his mind "Territorial wars! Those must be the scouts, they will soon bring the whole pack here !"
Arthur nodded while deactivating his sharingan to preserve chakra
Bone forging Grey wolves are fairly intelligent animals and highly territorial, they form packs of 10-20 grey wolves which can even scare away some foundation establishment beasts. They participate in territorial wars over the smallest disputes, this time the dispute was over the corpse of a neighboring pack's wolf that was found inside the enemy pack's territory but we all know that Arthur was the one who killed it.
"This is bad! we should run away from here, soon this place will be teeming with grey wolves" Tom panicked.
"But if we leave now then the surrounding area will be destroyed along with the map due to the territorial war, we will never be able to retrieve the map, turning back now is the same as asking for death" Arthur reasoned.
" Then what are we supposed to do? " Tom calm down a little.
"You act as a distraction while I retrieve the map" Arthur told his 'plan'.
"What! that's the same as asking for death! "
Tom protested.
"You are strong, you were able to handle a frenzied wolf while being heavily injured so it shouldn't be too much for you distract them for a moment" Arthur left out the part that he almost died fighting the frenzied wolf but he was saying the truth when he mention that Tom was strong. He might really pull this off!
"Well... if you put it that way~ " Tom was a bit embarrassed when Arthur mentioned him as
' Strong ' and stroked the back of his head.
"You don't have to distract them for long, just make it happen that the 3 wolves and the 2 wolves hiding behind that bush came face to face, then you can just escape during their infighting " Arthur said seriously
"Seems like a plan to me" Tom grinned which
made Arthur fell a little guilty but he didn't wanted to risk his life if possible..
Arthur sucked in a cold breath, 'Is this my true nature? or is this due to the system' Arthur was feeling a bit lost
"Oi Arthur, I am ready! " Tom pulled up his imaginary sleeves.
"Be careful" Arthur nodded a little and instantly activated his sharingan.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone