Ch. 76 - Meeting a certain Ogre
Opening his eyes, Jin was met with the scene of the lushy forest in front of him.
"Am I finally back?" Jin muttered to himself as he used his hand to rub his eyes so he could clear the slight blur in his eyes, and so he could see clearly.
Standing up from the grassy ground, Jin took a deep breath, taking the clean air in his nostrils before blowing them out as he exhaled.
"Yup, I'm definitely back, I could clearly remember this familiar scent of the forest." Jin said to himself as it was time for him to go back to Tigress and Rapunzel, he is sure that they're worried about him by now.
Just as Jin was about to jump and fly out in the sky, he suddenly heard rowdy footsteps and some yelling people.
"What the?" Confused, Jin looked around and saw that a bunch of people, carrying torches and pitch forks were running in a straight line and they seemed to be angry about something.
It didn't take long before they stumbled upon Jin.
"Hm? What are you doing outside under such a fiery sun, traveller?" As Jin has transformed back to his human form, the person leading the group of humans thought Jin was a human traveller.
"Me?" Jin pointed at himself and asked.
"Yes you, traveller. Is there perhaps anyone else here other than you?" The man replied and asked.
"No, I'm alone and I was just here to gather some herbs." Jin then replied and quickly made up a reasonable reason.
"Ah! You must be an Adventurer then! This is fantastic, we are on our way to kill the scary ogre! Come with us, Adventurer. We could use an individual like you!" Without even waiting for Jin's response, the man suddenly grabbed Jin's arms and took off, as his small band of men followed him, resuming their long journey but this time, they have Jin by their side.
"Hold on. I haven't even said anything yet!" Jin said but the man turned deaf on him and just held tightly on him, as if not wanting him to escape from their grasp.
Although he could just brute force himself out, however they're just humans anyway and besides, he's interested in this ogre that they're talking about. Are they really as horrible as they're described to be? Well, there's only one way to find out.
It took them a whole few hours with the sun setting off before they finally arrived deep in the forest where they stumbled upon a small but lovely home in the middle of a swamp.
"Here it is, I heard the ogre will grind your bones and use it as a filling on bread!" One of the men said in slight fear as everyone else shuddered except for Jin who was squinting his eyes on this familliar looking swamp.
'Where have I seen this?' Just as Jin started pondering to himself, an unfamilliar voice suddenly interrupted their whispering.
"Hey, only Giants do that kind of thing, not ogres." Feeling the deep voice and familiar scent behind them, the small band of humans suddenly started backing away as they were finally faced with the person they were supposed to hunt. It's a miracle that the ogre didn't outright kill them and instead, the ogre decided to let its presence known by them.
"B-back away!" The brave man started waving his torch in front of the ogre and threatened him as the green ogre just monotonously stared at him while dipping his fingers on his own saliva and touched the flaming torch, putting out the flame.
*Tiss....*
Seeing how the ogre easily handled the fire, they all smiled awkwardly at the ogre while Jin just stared at the ogre in shock and familiarity
'Isn't that Shrek?!' Jin said to himself in surprise as the ogre, now known as Shrek, raised both of his arms before breathing in deeply, gathering large amounts of air before releasing them in a roar.
"ROAAAAARRRRRRRR!" Shrek's roar was so loud that not only it caused the resting birds in the trees to fly away in shock, but also put off every torch that the humans were holding. While the said humans were no different as they were literally frozen in shock, to the point that they could only stare at Shrek in fear and shock.
"I think this is the part where you guys should run." Shrek whispered to them and only now did they register what they're supposed to do.
Without hesitation, they started runnning in all directions, dropping their pitch forks and torches.
As Shrek chuckled at their reaction, he suddenly noticed that there was still one human left. Obviously, that human is none other than Jin.
"Hey buddy, I think you should run along with them." Shrek reminded him as if he's some kind of a security guard that found a lost child in a mall.
"That's weird, this isn't the ogre that I was expecting." Jin suddenly said, making Shrek raise his eyebrows at him and take interest in Jin.
"Huh? What do you mean by that? Do you know what's more weird? You! Who is supposed to be scared silly to the point of pissing your pants in front of the scary, ugly and hideous ogre." Shrek responded in turn while pointing his finger towards Jin.
He's not actually wrong. Throughout Shrek's entire life, humans have always been scared of him. Sure there are times when they tried to kill him but none of those attempts succeeded and just solidified his reputation as a hideous and man-eating beast.
"You are not wrong about that, but I would have to apologize but I have faced worse than you." Jin replied with a smile.
This time, it was Shrek's turn to be scared of him as he had never heard of a human who isn't scared of him. Sure there are some but only if they have the advantage in numbers but in this case, Jin is alone but not scared of him. It makes Shrek think that Jin is not a normal human.
"Now that you're close to me, I think I've seen you somewhere." Suddenly, Shrek squinted his eyes at Jin before contemplating to himself.
"Hold on, I think I stashed it around here somewhere." Shrek then walked past Jin and entered his home, leaving the door open.
Jin took this chance to enter the ogre's home and be somehow acquainted with him.
Once inside, Jin saw Shrek rummaging throughout his stashes and decided to sit on the sofa and wait for him to finish what he is doing and find what he is searching for.
"Ahah! Here it is!" Shrek exclaimed in happiness as he then turned around to go outside and tell Jin when he suddenly saw that Jin was already inside and making himself at home.
"What the?! What are you doing inside my house! Get out of here!" If there is one thing that Shrek hates the most, and that is disturbing the peaceful life that he has.
Being alone in his swamp makes him at peace and seeing that Jin is making himself at home inside his home, makes him imagine that his peaceful life will now be gone.
"No worries, I won't stay long. By the way, what's the paper that you're holding there?" Jin said, reassuring Shrek before changing the topic by asking about the paper that Shrek is holding right now.
"Oh this? Right, this is you, right?" Shrek then showed him the paper showing the badly drawn picture of a grinning Jin while a large amount of bounty can be seen below his drawn picture. However, instead of a name, only his title is displayed in the paper.
[Flame Predator]
"100,00 gold? That's not enough for my worth? I'm worth more than that!" Jin complained when he saw the small amount of bounty that was issued on him. To be honest, he wasn't shocked about this. When he took the entire Firefall Kingdom down, Jin was already expecting some enemies to emerge, after all, not everyone is fond of having an uncontrolled individual who could take down an entire empire and was rumored to be capable of manipulating flames.
"Small? You call that small? My bounty is only worth two small bags of gold coins." Shrek also complained after hearing Jin's complaint. It feels like he has a rival in who among them has the higher bounty.
"That's enough for an ogre like you, my friend. But me, I am more than just a normal sorcerer like they say." Jin shrugged his shoulders in disappointment.
"Are you really a sorcerer?" Shrek asked while looking at him with a doubt.
"I'm not a sorcerer. I'm more of a fire bender." Jin replied while Shrek tilted his head in confusion.
"Fire bender? What's that? Sounds like someone who makes campfires." Shrek said, at the same time laughing at his own joke.
"Ha Ha, funny Shrek. But no, being a fire bender isn't what you think of." Jin said before opening his palms, showing a small dancing flame on the top of his palms.
"Being a fire bender means I can bend and manipulate fire to my own desires." Jin said before throwing his fist out on the fireplace, breathing out a sea of flames out of his fists.
"Woah Woah Woah! Stop that, you're going to burn my house!" Without any fear, Shrek placed himself in front of Jin's fist, not afraid of burning himself from his flames.
Fortunately for Shrek, Jin reacted fast enough and stopped releasing flames.
"I apologize for that, anyways. I'll be on my way now as those guys just decided to drag me here without letting me resist. I have someone waiting for me back at my home. If you ever need my help, you can find me either in Corona Kingdom or Arendelle." Jin said before opening the window and jumped outside.
"Arendelle? Corona Kingdom? I've never heard of those. Wait hey! Why did you jump out of the window! I have a door for god's sake!" Shrek muttered to himself as he repeated the words of the Kingdom where he could find Jin before noticing that Jin jumped outside the window instead of the door.
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[It's my exams tomorrow so wish me luck by giving me power stones muwehehehe...]
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[The next two chapters will have lemons.]
[Next Chapter: Ch. 77 - Guess who's back! [Slight Lemon]
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