章 18: Ubaste Village
For more than two months, Xan spent as much time as he could grinding to improve his skills. He began with his hammer, then he switched to a sword, an ax, and now he was working on a mace and shield. He planned on training in the spear next. As he was getting ready to look for some vicious creatures to practice his skills on, he heard the sound of a cry.
"It sounds like someone's in trouble, I'll check it out," he thought. Xan put away the mace and shield and switched to his sickle sword and the outfit he chose. He decided his new character would be a wandering barbarian. He felt like one anyway.
The sickle sword was his favorite sword. It had a savage feel to it. The lower part of the sword was straight but then it curved. There were several examples of the sword in ancient bronze age people. The sickle sword Xan was using looked more like the Assyrian sickle sword rather than the more famous khopesh sword. Most sword fighters preferred completely straight swords. The sickle sword could be used in interesting ways and even take opponents who were used to more traditional weapons by surprise.
Activating his man of a thousand faces mask, he selected the face he chose for this character. Xan rushed to the source of the yelling. His radar registered about twenty orange dots on his radar. Orange dots represented low-level threats. Xan learned to conceal himself when exploring situations. He found a place in a tree and looked down to discover a young woman and little girl being assaulted by bouncing blobs. "Bouncers, I hate those things," Xan said.
During his time in the forest, he spent a lot of time grinding bouncers. They were hard at first but he eventually realized they were stupid. These are low-level threats to him now, but two months ago they were his fiercest enemies. He nearly lost his life several times. If not for Otrera activating the fireflies on five different occasions the bouncers would have killed him.
Not wasting any time, he jumped into the mess of bounces and quickly started killing them. Bouncers weren't hard to kill, you just needed to time your strike when the bouncer was falling toward the earth. The trick was to slice through their cores otherwise they would just reassemble their bodies.
With a practiced hand, he made short work of all the bouncers. After he finished the bouncers, Xan turned to look at the young woman and little girl and did his best Wolverine voice. "What are you doing out here? If you can't even handle a bouncer you shouldn't be here," he said. He made his voice so rough sounding he almost started coughing.
The young woman was so happy she was alive that she did pay attention to what Xan said or how rude he was. "Great warrior, thank you for saving our lives!" she said with stars in her eyes. "Why are you kids alone," he asked. "Well, Uncle Shoge was here but he said he had to use the restroom and ran off into the trees," she said.
"I'm here, I'm here, what's going on girls?" Xan turned to look and a man rushed out of the woods pulling up his pants and trying to fasten them. "How far did you go into the woods?" Xan asked. The man stopped and looked at Xan and all of the dead bouncers. "Bouncers, you girls couldn't even kill a bunch of bouncers?" Uncle Shoge looked disappointed. He then looked at Xan apologetically, "I'm sorry young warrior, these little ones are supposed to be on a training mission. They needed some experience but I don't see any fighting spirit in them at all," he said with disappointment.
"A training mission, I shouldn't have interfered. Next time you should run deeper into the woods and if they get killed they get killed," Xan said. He already noticed the pointed ears on the girls and the sharp canines. These were the signs these were from the cat village. Xan was disappointed, he thought cat people would look more like cats not elves with pointy teeth. He knew Cat people believed in a Spartan style of raising their children. Fight or die was the philosophy of the Cat People. Although the Cat people didn't like being called Cat people. It was a major Taboo to call them Cat people. They were known as the Ubaste.
"I agree, but these are half-breeds and their mother is a powerful mage. She pampers her daughters and won't let us raise them properly," he said. He felt he found someone who could understand his burden. "Okay, well bye," Xan said abruptly. As he began to walk away, the young cat girl ran up to Xan. "Big warrior, please don't leave us. We must show you hospitality," she said. Xan looked around the campsite. All of their things were smashed and strewn all over the place. "I don't think you're in any condition to play host," he said. Then he disappeared from before them and continued his journey to the Ubaste village.
Back at the campsite, Uncle Shoge shook his head, "You see, even the barbarian understands. Being weak is being useless. If you can't even protect your campsite how can you do favors for others? How can you pay them back for the good they do for you. The two girls' eyes began to well up with tears. Uncle Shoge sighed and shook his head. "Fine, let's gather our things and head back to the village. You, little princesses, are only here for a few more days. You should spend some time with your father, the chief.
The girls sullenly cleaned up their campsite and packed their things. At that time, Xan was looking for some more beasts to hunt, but he discovered he was actually close to the Ubaste village. "Might as well go to the village. I've been traveling and training for so long. Xan made his decision and headed straight to the village.
Before entering the village, Xan equipped a human pulled wagon. He didn't have a horse so he had to pull it. Most of the time, he stored this in one of his storage spaces. This little wagon is what he used to store and carry his spoils. All of the Green Pelt Wolves Otrera killed and the others he killed later. He also had other animal pelts, bones, blood as well as herbs he found in the forest. Everything was properly stored. Learning how to skin animals, find herbs, and store everything to retain maximum value was all part of his training as a warrior. There wasn't much of a difference between warriors and hunters when it came to traveling. Both needed to learn survival skills, hunting, and how to process and recognize the material.
Otrera only let him store the wagon because he was being so diligent in his training. She felt forcing him to haul the wagon with him all the time would impede his progress as a warrior. Xan was thrilled she was willing to compromise. In his mind, it was the first time he won against the heartless AI.
He was in a very happy mood but as he entered the Ubaste Village he needed to put on the air of a grizzled warrior. There was an old fat Cat person waiting at the gate to the village. "Why 'ya here?" he asked. "Trade," Xan said. "What 'cha tradin'," the guard asked. Xan reached into his belt a pulled out a coin and tossed it to the guard. "Stuff and things," he said as he headed in. The guard was happy, it was his only perk. He made things hard on people until they made things easy on him. The silver coming was just what the guard was looking for.
Xan walked into the village looking for an inn. As he was heading in, he heard the sound of some familiar voices from behind him. "Mighty barbarian brother!" a young voice yelled out. Xan turned slowly to see the young woman and her little sister as well as Uncle Shoge who had an apologetic face.
"Hello," Xan said. He felt saving these girls was just a headache. He wasn't going to be able to get by quietly here with these girls constantly shouting out to him. The girls walked up to him and saw the wagon he was pulling. "What's this?" the little girl asked. "My wagon," he said. "What's it for?" she asked. "To carry my stuff," he responded. "I didn't see you with it in the forest," she persisted. "I left it so I could come and save you two weak girls," he said. He was starting to get tired of talking to the girls. The girl looked a little apologetic at his scolding. Her older sister interjected, "If you're here to trade, Uncle Shoge can help you make sure you get the best prices," she said as she pointed at Uncle Shoge. Xan looked over at him as he shrugged. "Sure, it's not a problem," Uncle Shoge said.
"I heard my daughters are back, where are they, how are they. If there's a single hair missing from their head I'll turn that old Shoge into Catsickle!" A woman yelled. A middle-aged woman floated through the streets before stopping in front of her two daughters. Xan was shocked because according to her level indicator she was a level twenty-seven three element mage! When she floated to a stop, Uncle Shoge, the previously irascible old warrior became like a bumbling servant. "Madam, they're both here and fine," he said.
After looking over her daughters she finally nodded her head in satisfaction. She finally noticed Xan standing and looking at her. "Who are you, do you believe I'll turn you to ash if you keep staring at me!" She yelled at Xan. "Old woman, you're in my way," Xan said. Everyone stopped breathing after hearing his words. Even the two girls looked like they had swallowed a bug. "What did you just call me?!"
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