章 30: Smoke on the horizon

Leo opened his eyes, and took a deep breathe before getting up for the day. It had been almost two months since he and Iris got engaged. Just another week before the full moon. Things were awkward for them at first, but they soon realized that nothing was really different. Iris tried to get him to share the bed at first, but Leo remembered elder grandmas warning and adamantly refused until they were married. He didn't want to say that she scared him though, so he had to tell Iris that it wasn't proper on earth to share a bed until marriage.

Over the course of the last few weeks, Iris started learning English as well. There's wasn't too much a reason behind it besides that she wanted to learn more about Leo's world, and he thought it was cool there'd be a language that only the two of them knew. He was quite enthusiastic until she recalled what he said to her the first couple times they talked, and asked what {how beautiful} meant.

Leo had started to learn how to fight with chi recently as well. It was commonly accepted that due to his increased strength he was a capable fighter when using chi. But due to his lack of experience, his training usually meant he was a punching bag for the others. While practicing though he trained in combining mana with his partial transformations, he hadn't had a breakthrough yet but figured he was close to one.

Leo opened the door and stood outside while taking in the view. The snow had continued falling and had piled up to three to four feet in hight. He took a deep breath again and turned to face a distant mountain.

"Is that smoke I smell? It's so faint I can't tell if it's from a forest fire, or maybe from a houses wood stove." As he continued looking he thought that with his enhanced vision he could see a cloud of haze in the distance, but wasn't sure. He shook his head and walked to the blacksmiths. Jack had said that one way of learning good control for mana and chi was forging, but Leo wasn't sure if he made it up or not just to get him to learn under him. After reaching the forge, he smelled so much smoke, that the potential forest fire was pushed from his mind.

***

Many, many miles away in the closest town to the village, was a young man surrounded by many cheering townsfolk. He had dark black hair, and light blue eyes, he wore a set of robes and had a sword hanging from his waist. This man was William, the champion of Kebechet, goddess of purification. Which was why the people sought his help with this particular problem. When he was asked to help them though, his first thought was 'what does this have to do with purifying?!'

His main activities revolved around preventing undead, but due to the fact that Hades would create them whenever he fancied, it was an endless job. And that was before taking the necromancers who followed him into account. What the people here wanted him to "purify" was a monster, plain and simple. He tried to tell them that he wasn't a warrior that killed beasts, but a warrior who fought undead.

But they begged him to help rid them of the monster that would ruin them during the winter if it wasn't taken care of. He eventually agreed, but declared that depending on the monster involved he might charge extra for his services. Of all things, they needed help with a damn behemoth! Williams face twitched noticeably when he heard this but forced himself to keep calm and listen to their story.

Apparently the behemoth had always lived on a single mountain several miles away from the village. It never seemed to harass them in the past, but for some reason it started coming down to eat livestock in recent months. They were worried that the behemoth would either consume all of their emergency food for the winter, or even finish it all and start eating them instead. When the people were starting to despair, they heard that there was a champion nearby. They didn't bother seeing if the champion was one that could help them, and immediately Tried to contact him for his services.

When he tried to explain that he only fought undead, the townsfolk begged him not to abandon them. They said that if he didn't help them, then who would be able to before the behemoth brought the town to ruin? William thought for several days before arriving at an idea to oppose the monster, one of his abilities he got from Kebechet made him more capable of using fire. While others would have to study years, he would only have to work days or weeks to match them. He thought that instead of fighting the behemoth directly, he would burn the mountain it made its home and drive it further into the mountains.

The people didn't argue against his plan, due to the fact that they couldn't even use the mountain the beast made its home to begin with. And so William crept to the base of the mountain, and using the powers he obtained, created a wall of fire snaking its way across the base of the mountain. After moving several hundred feet in both directions, he sent it forward into the home of the monster. As the fire crept forward, it melted the surrounding snow and set the tree tops ablaze. He suddenly heard a massive roar vibrate the surroundings. Several seconds later another one sounded out through the night, but this one sounded slightly further away.

After nearly an hour, William could barely hear the beast anymore and knew it had moved on like he planned. He let out a deep breath in relief. He had hoped that he wouldn't have to fight the thing. Now that the thought about it, if this was all it took to get rid of it, then it was also the easiest money he had made in quite awhile. Feeling proud of himself, William headed back to town to join in the celebration.