A Sorcerer's Journey - Chapter 64

Chapter 64: Stray Knights

“Ah!!!”

Harry had been caught in a flame and was bawling miserably in abject pain, which was akin to the howling of the demons from the abyss. Yet his agonized screaming was not working in reducing the spread of the Eternal Flame launched by Grimm. In the blink of an eye, Harry had been totally drowned in that flame. Instinctively, he fell onto the ground and kept on rolling. The image was reminiscent of an ugly toad struggling in the slime.

“The Ivory Hunting Team will get you for this! Thunder Axe Gade will avenge me!”

Hatred filled Harry’s eyes, and he glared down upon Grimm grimly.

But Grimm was not moved by Harry’s response at all.

“Why so garrulous?” Grimm raised his hand and produced another fire ball, which then whooshed towards Harry.

A violent explosion followed. Afterwards, the whole world turned deadly silent. The raging fire had burned Harry to ashes.

Grimm sneered. Then he got out of the spot in big strides after determining the rough directions using the sun.

……

Another seven days had passed. Trekking in this forest for over ten days had benefitted Grimm greatly, especially during the past few days when pursuing Harry; he felt as if his body had a huge potential now, and that potential was being explored by the minute. He felt that each and every cell of his body was frolicking as if to lose their excessive, spare energy.

Grimm sighed with an affirmative—sorcerers did need to get some field exercise!

Continuing on his road, Grimm soon found himself at a stretch of farmland. It signaled that he had moved out of the bounds of the Bramble Forest, which was under the stewardship of the Black Isotta. In other words, he had now landed in human settlements.

In this case, this travel might require a re-arrangement.

As the thinking was done, Grimm stepped towards a farmer nearest to him.

This farmer bore incredible semblance to Old Sam in his appearance. And when Grimm asked him about the routes, he seemed very flattered to be talking to a sorcerer. He gestured quite a long time to point the way Grimm wanted to go on, and eventually, he offered to lead the way himself. But Grimm didn’t let him.

Forging ahead on a dirty road by himself, Grimm’s mind was still preoccupied by this mission’s priority.

As his mentor Norris had indicated, Grimm’s priority in this mission was to build his constitution. There had been students stronger than him dedicated in this mission, so it was not really his place to pioneer this. Besides, all the current work was being conducted for the Demon-Hunting Sorcerers qualification in 15 years.

However, Grimm decided that since this was still an assigned mission, he should at least go to the Town to have a look. It would not be suitable to simply skip this.

After having made this decision, he put some more thought into working out a plan of action.

To figure out an action plan, one might be tempted to know what constituted a Black Sorcerer. There were three types of behaviors that could confirm a sorcerer as a Black one.

First, decimation of ordinary humans in the Sorcerer Continent to do experiments for evil purposes.

Second, forcibly taking sorcerer students as their Soul Slave.

Third, violation of the fundamental principles governing the interests in the Sorcerer Continent. And there had been several such sorcerers in history.

Contacting and probing into a Black Sorcerer was dangerous. Hunting one would make it much worse. Although plentiful information had been gathered by his mentor that suggested it was just a sorcerer student who had gone bad, but no one was certainly sure of this.

If the target was a sorcerer, then raiding him rashly would be tantamount to seeking one’s death!

Therefore, it was necessary for Grimm to come up with a way of dealing with the situation, and he already had one in his mind— disguising as a stray knight.

Grimm had grown up as a common citizen, and he was familiar with certain rules while living in the city. So after getting familiar with the current roads, he masqueraded himself as a knight. He put on an armor, circled the End Sound dagger around his waist, and then hid away his mask, and his Magical Tools—his earring and necklace etc.

Grimm surveyed himself and concluded that he didn’t look fierce enough as a knight. Then he created a scar on his face. By using the Grimm Dissimilation Sorcery, he scarred the left part of his forehead, and the scar extended right down to the downside of his left eye.

After the camouflage was done, Grimm went to a blacksmith who also made weapons.

“I want a large sword, the largest one in your shop. I need it to be very heavy and strong.”

Desiring a large and heavy sword was not for killing, though. It was just that Grimm craved his 36 points of constitution to be fully explored, and carrying weight for a long time was good for building his strength, stamina and vitality.

The air was filled with a pungent smell, and the blacksmith was also reeking of a sour decay of sweat. The stubble on his cheeks was sallow and drops of sweat were dripping from them.

The blacksmith took a glance at Grimm. He did not seem to be good with words. He ripped off the blue, oily apron tied in front of him, exposing his large shoulder and his muscular arm. He then headed off to a back room of the shop and came back with a broad sword, around 1.5 meters long. The sword was dragged by the blacksmith to Grimm, scraping the ground while making a creaking sound.

Grimm took the sword and swished it in the air. The weight felt about right. He was not particular about swords since he was not a martial artist. So he said, satisfied: “That’s the one. How much is it?”

Noticing Grimm’s ease in sporting such a large sword, the blacksmith was benumbed and his pupils contracted uncontrollably.

“This knight is strong, much stronger than the ones bullying around in the taverns. He’ll land a good job working for the nobles, and he might likely become a legend knight someday.” These were the blacksmith’s thoughts on Grimm.

……

Regional cities were usually divided into two parts: the area inhabited by the nobles and the commercial area. The area where nobles lived was all about pompous luxury and high-grade elegance, to splash out their money ripped off from servants, slaves and commoners, to show their hefty status, and to slake their growing yanking for more worldly possessions and consumption.

The commercial area was profit-driven and was fraught with violence, disorder and cheap sex.

Bang!

Grimm smashed open the door of a tavern.

In it, stray knights were howling around, drinking malt beers, and spitting; good-figured tavern girls were waggling, making sweet laughs, and drunkards were bragging about their adventures.

This was the theme of a tavern these days.

Grimm had pushed the door open aggressively. This conspicuous move had drawn the attention of the knights in the tavern. Those nights found them in constant danger while working for the nobles. Therefore, when the knights concluded that Grimm was not someone to mess with, those who were teasing around with girls just grunted several times, and the rest resumed what they had been busy with before.

Grimm went for an available seat and sank down casually.

As soon as Grimm had settled himself, a scantily-dressed tavern girl with firm breasts came to Grimm. She seemed a little old for her job here—her skin was not fair, and her face was not pretty as it once was. But she, like the other tavern girls, was incredibly hot. For this reason, these girls had always been the favorites of the knights, who always brimmed with vigor.

The girl leaned and bent in front of Grimm while passing him a glass of inexpensive malt beer. The next second, she threw her upper body on the table, and her huge breasts changed shape when they were strained by the desktop.

The teasing had of course come into his view. He once made a living in Bi Seer City for years. He knew what the rule was.

Grimm pulled out a silver coin and tucked it into the slit between the tavern girl’s breasts.

The girl’s face beamed, and then, as the knights would do in this situation, Grimm reached out his hand and fondled her breasts.

Meanwhile, in a calm manner, Grimm told the girl to notify him if something related to Pamir Town came up. That said, Grimm pointed to where Pamir Town was roughly located on his map.

The girl was very happy. She then fished for the silver coin stuck between her breasts. Afterwards, she looked at Grimm excitedly. She hadn’t met a client who was willing to reward her with a complete silver coin. She was tempted to envision that she might ask him to her room that night if she didn’t have other better jobs to do, and thus she might be paid handsomely again. The more important thing was that she thought Grimm was a tough man. The tougher and more ferocious-looking a knight grew, the more manly they would become. This was a standard applied differently when judging a noble.

As for sorcerers, some of them had lost their aesthetic feelings. All they cared about was pivoted around seeking truth, essence and practicality.

However, that tavern girl would soon find her plan with Grimm being his client for the night being thwarted.

……

An hourglass later, a short, stout man, with a pair of leather shoes on, pushed open the door of the tavern.

He glanced around this scrubby, bustling place and shouted, displaying a few gold teeth: “Goods to be shipped to Bajaur. Need five good-at-fights hands. Commission is one gold coin.”

Usually, the distance from here to Bajaur was merely an over-20-days walk. The stingy kinds of business people would only offer 30 or 40 silver coins for a job like this. So one gold coin was very generous!

“Hire me! With me escorting the goods, these as-revolting-as-a-mouse thieves and bandits will get out of our way. I’ll crush their balls myself.” A knight who was smiling with a girl rose up suddenly and gave a roar. He was stripped to the waist, revealing a body as massive as a large bear.

However, this knight was immediately slandered by another knight who flexed his muscles, saying:

“Ha, what the f*ck are you? Don’t be cheated by his bloating. Once, he abandoned his hirer when bumping into a gang of robbers. He hasn’t been hired in months because of this. He’s a pushover, despite his strong appearance.”

At the time, that tavern girl who had received Grimm’s coin walked leisurely to Grimm again and told him that Bajaur was the nearest city to Pamir, slightly over 5 kilometers east of it.

“F*ck you!” The knight being slandered retorted.

……

Soon, the tavern had been thrown into a disorder. On every occasion when the commission was handsomely priced, these nights would run into a fierce dogfight. Those who were standing at last would get the job. This was the rule, and this time was no exception.

The girl who was conversing with Grimm screamed suddenly. She had caught sight of a large knight falling towards the table she was at, after he had been knocked over.

Grimm wanted this job so he decided that it was about time to make an exhibition of his power.

After having sensed the right moment, Grimm held out his arm and caught the poor man who was tumbling towards him.

Grimm’s move astonished that knight, and as he was panicking, he had found himself being raised up over Grimm’s head. He couldn’t get rid of Grimm’s hand, whose fingers had fixated him like steel loops.

A loud sound was heard, and the next moment, that poor, large man had been thrown out of the tavern’s window, creating a parabola in the air before hitting the ground.

This scene drew the attention from the other knights who were engaged in separate fights. Having realized that Grimm was someone not to be trifled with, they intentionally steered out of his way while kept on the fighting.

That girl’s eyes beamed on seeing Grimm’s valor, so she was enticed to move her body closer to him.

Several moments later, the fights were over. Grimm and four other big, burly men, whose faces were black and blue now, gathered at the tavern’s gate before the stout man.

The stout man grinned. “Then this job will be on you guys. Come quick, our girl is gonna run out of patience.”

‘A girl? So by saying goods to be shipped, he meant a girl.’ Grimm thought.

Moments later, Grimm and the others had been led by the man to the city gate.

There were four carriages waiting there. Three of them were loaded with mugwort, and there was a non-freight carriage, which looked rather sumptuous.

“Marlinton, are we good to go?” A girl put her head through the window of that carriage. She seemed to be fourteen or fifteen years old and was very impatient. Yet her outfit astounded Grimm and the other stray knights.

“She’s wearing a cloak? Is she a sorcerer student?” Grimm said to himself.

Grimm’s astonishment was not exactly about her garments. To run into a sorcerer student was common in the Sorcerer World. What had amazed him was the fact that she was hiring knights for her protection.

The degrees of energy a sorcerer’s attack could produce were a far cry for the knights to match.

But almost immediately, Grimm had realized something, and his face fell. He was not feeling any magical waves from her! Considering her mental strength, Grimm wouldn’t believe that such a little girl could have hidden her magical waves. Putting on a sorcerer cloak before one had magical waves was forbidden and would trigger an investigation from the LET (Legal Enforcement Team) of the sorcerer school in the jurisdiction. Unless one had been designated as a student by some sorcerer, the punishment resulting from this would be serious.

This was to say that the dignity of a sorcerer was not to be violated.