Chapter 16: Be my Warrior!
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Southeast Beltir...
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Seven riders are moving along a dirt road beside a wide river.
Sir. Baches is in the lead followed by Eric and Gallahan, while Drake is holding the reins of a horse beside him with an orange-haired young woman riding it. Spencer and Norman are at the back of the line, while the former has a visibly annoyed look on his face, which is mostly caused by his companion's non-stop talking.
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Last night at Eric's campsite...
The group concluded that the girl was from around the central region of the continent, people in southeast Zevia call them "desert dwellers".
"She's an awakened but doesn't know what she's capable of? ", Baches asked unconvincingly.
"Use your aura vision, but this time triple the amount of aura", Drake instructed them.
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"A masked or head?", Norman asked.
"It's an image, something like a curse or a will made out of aura. Another person's strong desire or will in a form of aura was placed on to her. But in her case, act's on its own when it feels the girl is in grave danger.", Eric explained.
"How and when did you knew, milord?", Norman asked, drawing everyone's attention to Eric.
Eric looked at them and sighed a little, "knights should be always wary of their surroundings, especially in strange places. When something doesn't feel right you need to always instantly use aura vision, to confirm it thoroughly."
"Even I didn't have any idea what it was at first, only after she said she's a warrior", Eric continued and smiled.
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The girl was unconscious for more than a day and only woke up few hours before supper. She looked around warily until she found and faced Eric, "w-what you! To me!", she asked.
She waited for an answer but, Eric instead gestured towards a bowl of soup next to her. She stood at her spot looking back and forth between Eric and the bowl of food. She eventually sat down and started eating. During her meal, she silently looked around and gave everyone a curious stare, examining them.
The girl calmed down after eating, maybe because this brown-haired young man always presents her with food before starting a conversation, like in the house when they first met. Ferth can't explain why but she feels somewhat comfortable around him.
Ferth spends a lot of time around fighting men in her tribe, so in a way, she thinks she knows "Men", strong men that only cared about fighting other strong men and nothing else. Different from those scoundrels that had disgusting looks on their faces, leering at her.
However, she suddenly remembers being pulled out of nowhere and thrown to her pursuers, she immediately went back to her vigilant self glaring at Eric.
"My name is Eric, what's yours?", the teenage boy didn't receive a response, only a death glare from the orange-haired girl. He then continued, "Come work for me WARRIOR!"
The girl's glare became a probing look after hearing Eric's invitation.
"I'll help you understand what you have. You won't be a slave!", Eric announced firmly.
After an hour of silent staring contest, "Ferth!", the girl finally said something.
Eric smiled and nodded, then threw a short sword next to the girl, and said, "good, use that as a weapon for now".
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Eric asked about her family and if they were with her in the caravan, she just shook her head. The other Naziad slaves were already sold off before they enter Beltir and the other remaining Naziad slaves in the caravan are two men to be sold in the capital. Eric made a mental note of this.
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During their travel, Eric has come to know the status of Viscount Vallen's territory. It has a coastal town, one fishing, and a farming village, with a population of a thousand and a half overall.
The viscount has three knights in his service, this includes Baches, Norman, and a man named Moris, with five amateur knights, and twenty trainees. While having only a hundred and twenty soldiers, which is below average when compared to other viscounties. In fact, a number of rich barony around the southeast region has almost double Viscount Vallen's military strength.
Furthermore, there are also some problems with the finances due to the decreasing trade coming to the territory. By Baches's estimate, the viscounty won't be able to sustain its fighting men after a year.
Moreover, there is a bandit group that settled in the north of the territory and is terrorizing the area, with around sixty members. Baches displayed an embarrassed look, since being one of the Viscount's knight, it should've been their job to eradicate this scums of the earth, but are unable to do so.
Baches elaborated that they had clashed with these bandits before, the offensive was lead by Moris, along with Norman and Baches, with them are eight amateurs, and eighty soldiers. However, they were led to an ambush, and during the fight, Moris was targetted by an enemy knight and sustained a fatal wound, and is still trying to recover. At the same time, they lost two trainees and twenty-four men, while a number were injured.
Then, there is also the issue of the neighboring baron that continuously harrassed the travelers going to Piran, mostly merchants moving towards the viscounty travelling through his land to the west, decreasing the trade coming to the viscounty.
Finally, some of the viscount's relatives are trying to manipulate and influence the politics in the territory, which hinders proper governance of the town and villages.
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Later, a few hours before the sunset...
The group has reached the coastline, on horseback, they are on a rock cliff overseeing the ocean.
The image of the sun setting on the horizon of an ending body of water looks remarkably majestic.
'I guess this kind of thing still makes me feel something', Eric thought, then later glanced at Spencer and Ferth who are looking atthe scene with widen eyes.
"First time seeing the ocean?", Spencer and Ferth gave Eric a nod.
"I believe it's your first too, sire", Gallahan said while giving Eric a strange look. He knew that the young lord never traveled far from Evgrad, which means he could'nt have seen the ocean.
Eric just gave Gallahan a faint smile.
"Well reached Piran tomorrow before noon, milord.", the talkative knight announced.
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