บท 73: Introductions!
"Well, I'll start off I guess. My name is Morgana, and I'm your employer for this mission, I'll be in your care!" The young noble lady said with a radiant smile. As she smiled, a gentle breeze gently caressed her figure, creating quite the beautiful scene.
"Hello there, the name's Thufrat, a pleasure to meet ya! This little fellow is called Ark, he's a little prideful, but he's very loyal!" Thufrat responded with a smile.
"Ark and Thufrat huh? Well, my name is Eric, the long one with the beard is Finlay and the short fat one is Lewis." One of the guards said a little awkwardly. He looked like the epitome of average, and nothing really good or bad could be said about him. Even though they all looked like some second-rate guards, it was mostly a facade. The purpose of looking worse than they actually were, was to make their enemies let their guards down and overlook them.
This was more effective than most people would think, if one of the sides doesn't fight at their full strength... well, the result would be pretty obvious. After their introductions, everyone just stood there a little awkwardly, Thufrat and Ark didn't really know what to do next. Seeing that no one took charge, the old coachman stepped in.
"Well, we should be heading out as soon as possible, so if you're all done, then we should get going." After saying his piece, he just sat all by himself at the head of the carriage and waited for everyone to get ready to depart. Morgana and Maddy didn't idle about and entered the carriage without delay. The 3 remaining guards took to their horses, before realizing something crucial, Thufrat didn't have a horse. Their worries disappeared a second later, only to be replaced with surprise instead.
The once small wolf had instantly grown to be over 2 and a half meters tall, and Thufrat seated himself on its back. The shock disappeared pretty quickly though, the world was a big place, if they were surprised and shocked by everything they saw, they wouldn't live long. Seeing that everyone was ready, the coachman whistled, and the horses started moving. The carriage quickly started moving at a baffling speed, making it a little hard for Ark to keep pace in the beginning.
The once ordinary carriage didn't seem so ordinary anymore, it looked ordinary on the outside. But Ark was sure that it was only to deceive people. A normal carriage wouldn't be able to travel at such speeds, neither would normal horses for that part. The horses that drew the carriage were actually magical beasts, namely draconic horses. Draconic horses were a rare breed of horses that had a shred of dragons blood running through their bodies. Since dragons were natural-born paragons, sharing some of their bloodline let these horses distinguish themselves from the masses.
As Ark and Thufrat noticed these details, they both had a feeling that this mission was going to be harder than what they signed up for. Thufrat quickly put these thoughts at the back of his head though as he felt the wind flowing against his body. Traveling at high speeds like these, the wind was actually very harsh, but since Ark was an Overlord Elemental Wolf, the wind caressed them instead as they flew forward. Thufrat would have been able to easily withstand such winds anyways, but it was a lot more pleasant this way.
Thufrat probably traveled more comfortably than Morgana and Maddy to be completely honest. They had to sit in a carriage at these speeds, even though the carriage was very solid and stable, it couldn't be that comfortable either way. In comparison, Thufrat could enjoy the winds, as well as Ark's soft fur, he was basically traveling in bliss.
After traveling for almost 4 hours non-stop like this, the entourage decided that it would be for the better to take a rest and eat a little. The rest was mostly in consideration of the horses, they didn't want them to suffer or bear the risk of dying of exhaustion, even if the were special breeds. As Maddy and Morgana stepped out of the carriage, they were both a little taken aback seeing Ark's size.
"How come he suddenly grew so big? Is it a skill or something?" Maddy asked eagerly as she watched Ark's body with astonishment.
"Quite the opposite actually, this is his normal size! The earlier one was just so he could enter Ravenfront with me, it's not like we wanted to scare people to death." Thufrat answered earnestly, as he helped with preparing the fire they were going to use to cook. Everyone else was busy preparing the ingredients they were going to use for their meal, as well as some other utensils. Even though they were in the middle of nowhere, they still wanted Morgana to have best meal possible.
Ark was starving after having to run for such a long time, and now that he was in his original form again, his hunger had expanded several times over, since his body required a lot more energy after all. As his stomach emitted a sudden growl, some bushes fiercely parted! Out of them came a large bear. The bear had pure white fur, and extensive green markings covered its entire figure. The bear seemed to be in some weird ravenous state, and its eyes shone with a deadly red luster.
Everyone on the scene quickly drew their weapons and stood up. They could clearly see that this was an Emerald Bear. Emerald Bears were usually fairly gentle in nature, but it was obvious that something was wrong with this one. As it was about to rush out to attack them, Ark swung his claws ferociously. No one had a chance to react before the bears head was suddenly rolling on the ground in front of them.
The ground was dyed red from the blood that spurted out of its decapitated body, and a heavy smell started to permeate the surroundings. Before they had any more time to think, Ark manipulated the water mana at his disposal to clean up the mess that he had created. Everyone else only silently stared at the scene. Even though they would have no trouble to take care of an Emerald Bear themselves, they had barely even seen what Ark had done before it was done for.
In reality, Ark had actually used the bear's specialty against it and decapitated it with the use of wind magic, as well as his own body's power. Now that he was in his original form, his strength had returned, and he finally got the chance to test out the bonus stats he had gotten from his [Body Refining] skill. The results were a little absurd, but in a good way.
Ark's stomach started growling as he looked at the corpse of the bear he had just killed, and he started to disassemble the corpse using wind and ice magic. After getting rid of all the parts that couldn't be eaten, Ark started roasting the meat of the bear himself using his fire magic. Everyone else went back to their own food preparations, they were all hungry after all. And even though what had just happened needed some discussing, this was probably not the best place, since the party responsible was probably still around. Even if they weren't it was better to be safe than sorry.
Whilst Ark was busy preparing his own meal, a shifty pair of eyes were silently watching the entire event unfold from the distance. After a little while, the eyes disappeared into the forest...
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