Chap 3: Travel and first contact

Author's note: Well, hello there! First time writing a story so don't expect an amazing one, but I will do my best. If you have some complaints, please give me constructive critique so I can hopefully improve and give you a better story down the line. I write for fun and to relax so don't bother with powerstones, but I appreciate comments so don't hesitate!

English is my second language if it can even qualify as is so sorry but don't expect amazing grammar and all of that. I will do the best I can.

I was wondering if I should give him down the line the true form of Chastiefol for the ones he has. What do you think?

Although it will be in a relatively long time away, where do you think he should go next after Sumeru?

Alright, it's time to read and enjoy for you.

*Sound*

(System)

'Thinking'

"Talking"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If one were to look at the sky of Sumeru, a small figure resembling a butterfly could be seen flying lazingly.

Yes, you guessed correctly, it was Gloxinia flying without care in the sky enjoying the feeling of freedom.

Where is Basquias you ask? In the form of a small bracelet with a rose on it on his right wrist.

'Those clothes are really comfortable' he thought staring at his new travel clothes.

Gloxinia choose to wear the original Gloxinia's clothing for travel, meaning a beige and black baggy pants with black shoes and no shirt.

But his clothes aren't ordinary. It was made by his magic Disaster, sewed from reinforced grasses and trees and further enhanced by his friends the Aranaras. Its durability would make all the fighters greet their teeth from the lack of tear after a tough fight.

Looking forward again, he thought out loud:

"The view sure is amazing up here. And I can even see the Divine Tree of Sumeru City from here."

'According to my memory, Sumeru City wasn't that far in the game. It makes sense tough, a game can show only that much compared to reality.'

"But there's really a lot of forest area… I can't even imagine the horror of the deserts, even with the ability to fly I think I would be lost in the middle of all the sand."

"At least there's huge monuments to guide people, the Divine tree for the forest area and the Mausoleum of King Deshret for the desert area."

'When I get to the city, I will need to obtain a map to compare my knowledge to the real deal. Maybe I will encounter a caravan that sells one.'

'Hm? And just when I think about it, one appears, even if it seems like it's in trouble…'

"Should I just watch, or should I save them?"

"Hmmmm…"

"Let's save them. I should get rid of my habit to ignore people from now on, travel is something enjoyable mainly thanks to the people we meet." He said with a nod.

'But I should observe the power of their fighter to get an idea of my standing among normal people at least.' he thought, narrowing his eyes.

As Gloxinia descended toward the battle, he could better analyze the situation.

'Two carts with two Sumpter Beasts, one dead, three coaches and seven Eremites. It seems like only five are fighting while the other two are protecting their likely to be clients and the goods.'

'They are fighting a group of Hilichurls and two Mitachurls huh…'

'They killed all the Hilichurls Fighters with only the two Mitachurls and one Hilichurl Shooter remaining.'

'How weak… Although they are more powerful than humans from Earth, compared to me they are like ants. Their form is sloppy, with only one having some technique, likely to be the leader and the oldest member.' Thought Gloxinia with a disappointed face.

'And why exactly are they targeting the two Mitachurls instead of the Hilichurl Shooter… At least they have a somewhat good enough coordination… if only it wasn't perturbed by the Shooter.' he thought with desperation.

'They struggle too much against the Mitachurls to target the Shooter maybe? But one of the two staying back could go and deal with him instead of staying here doing nothing.'

'Haaaaaa… Maybe I demand too much of them, seeing as they aren't very experienced.'

'But good news, if they are what most people are like, that means I'm powerful. Now it remains to see the strength of the Vision holders.'

'Time do my entrance.' He thought when he saw the one of the Mitachurls about to bash his shield against an open Eremites.

"Disaster"

As Gloxinia announced his presence, numerous thick vines full of thorns sprouted from the grounds and began tearing apart the two Mitachurls and the Hilichurl Shooter spraying a huge amount of blood everywhere.

Unfortunately for them, the five fighting Eremites were not spared from the blood and were soaked head to toes with piece of flesh sticking to them from the monsters.

The Eremites and the coaches stood frozen, not registering what happened until one of the woman Eremite screamed, waking up the others in the process.

It was precisely at that time that Gloxinia decided to greet them.

"Hello!" he exclaimed cheerfully with a big smile on his face, crossing his leg in the air like he was sitting down.

In his mind was another thing tough: 'First greeting is everything in a relationship, I need to make a good impression. They are the first people I see after all, so let's smile and appear relaxed."

Hearing a voice, all of them slowly turned around and looked up to see Gloxinia relaxed, flying in air with a smile that sends shivers to their spine.

The same woman screamed a second time while the rest felt their knees buckling and some even fell on their butt.

'Am I that scary?' he thought with a frown.

"What the hell are you?!" said the most experienced, fear etched upon his face as he weakly lifts his sword.

"Hehehe… Isn't it obvious? I'm your savior!" said Gloxinia smiling even wider, not knowing he didn't respond at all to his question.

"Ri..Right…" muttered the Eremite, disbelief and fear in his voice.

As an awkward silence took place, Gloxinia took it upon himself to dispel it.

"So, how are you? It sure is sunny today, right?"

An even more awkward silence took place right after, to Gloxinia despair.

'Urgh... Me and my incredible social skill sharpened by my interactions with the Aranaras…'

Calming down a bit, the apparent leader of this group put down his sword and with a shaky breath said with a nod:

"Thank you for your help, traveler. May I ask who you are?"

"Urgh.. Don't call me traveler, that's the name of somebody else. Call me Gloxinia! I'm just a passing fairy heading to Sumeru City."

"Don't worry, I won't attack you. If I wanted to attack you, I would have done so when you were fighting those things. And even if I wanted you dead right now, you wouldn't be able to resist anyway." Said Gloxinia with a teasing smile, seeing their guarded reaction when he answered.

"Understood, sir Gloxinia."

With some hesitation, he asks him then: "If I may, what are your goal in going to Sumeru City?"

"Me? I'm just gonna explore it and see what it has to offer. Maybe joins the Adventurer's Guild, who knows..."

"I see… Then I wish you good travel sir." Said the leader, a bit more relaxed at the mention of the Adventurer's Guild but still wanting to get rid of this external menace.

"Now now, don't be so quick to say goodbye. You didn't even tell me your name and the full situation."

"My name is Mazaar, member of the Blazing Beasts!"

'Blazing Beasts? Isn't that the group of Dehya?' Gloxinia thought, intrigued.

"You see sir, we originally planned to take a safer path to Sumeru City, but an incident happened on our planned path and we were obliged to take this one. This travel was supposed to be easy to give the new member of our groups experience. But unfortunately, we found ourselves ambushed by this group of Hilichurls without enough manpower to fight them back."

"But it seems like fate didn't abandon us today with your arrival."

'At least I hope so' thought wryly the Eremite leader.

"You sure know how to please people, Mazaar." said Gloxinia in a teasing tone.

"How about I accompany you on your journey? With one of your Sumpter Beasts dead, you will have trouble traveling all the way to Sumeru City."

"That would be an honor sir!"

'Not like we have a choice to refuse…'

"But how do you intend to help us with our problem?" said the leader, a bit intrigued.

"Hehe… Just watch and enjoy."

"Disaster: Flower Doll"

Just as he finishes to talk, a huge golem with the form of a round Aranara made from foliage formed near the carts.

"It will take the place of the dead Sumpter Beast and pull its cart"

"Incredible…" mutters the leader as he gazed at the golem.

Following the encounter, the group continued their journey with the addition of Gloxinia flying above them.

"So, who are you all?" he asked the rest of the group.

"I'm Nasir! New to Glazing Beasts, but I'm sure I will be in a high position soon hehe…" said an outgoing young man full of ambition. Gloxinia remarked that his ember eyes closely resembled his previous ones, matching his brown hair and his standard clothes.

"And I'm Asilah, also new." said a somewhat cold woman. She also had brown hair, tied into a bun, the same color as her eyes.

"He..Hello, I'm Nesmil. I'm also new in the group." said a shy woman, still a bit afraid of our protagonist.

'Not for long after this thought…' thought the brow haired woman.

""We are Sharaf and Sharif, also new!"" said the two young twins with black hair. (I'm sorry, I suck at inventing name…)

"And I'm Shatha, new to the Blazing Beasts." said another young woman with braided brown hair.

"Well, nice to you meet you all." said Gloxinia.

"But even you're all new, how come you suck this much at fighting?" he asked, much to the embarrassment of the young members.

"You see, before today, they were only trainee with limited fighting experience. Not taking into account that they weren't the best, they had next to no interactions between them limiting our coordination. And you've seen the results…" said Mazaar with a sigh.

"Hmmm, I understand…"

'Still, they should train more before going on a mission like this.' thought Gloxinia with a bit of mirth.

While exchanging between them, time seems to slip rapidly until Nasir, the outgoing young men, asked a question that other seemed to avoid.

"Hey hey, Gloxinia. What kind of race do you come from, and aren't you a little too young to travel?" he said with a big smile, frizzing the others.

"Fufufu, you really have no filter huh? But I guess I could answer you." said our protagonist with a teasing gaze.

"I am what you call a Fairy, the only one in this world actually. And even if I look young, I'm older than you. I'm only 728 you know?"

(The system gave him the body of Gloxinia at 700, he was 1400 at the time he was sealed with the demon, so I took a relatively long age. He also was 20 as a human and lived 8 years in this world. Having the body of gloxinia at 700 explain why he has good technique with his Basquias even if he only trained a bit more than 5 years with it)

"NO WAY!" Nasir exclaimed, "Damn, I didn't think you would be so old, and did you say a fairy?!"

"Hey now Nasir, its rude to say that." berated Mazaar.

"It's fine, it's fine." Said Gloxinia as he waived his hand.

"And I'm still young you know! I'm not even above the thousand." he said with a pout.

"And that's right, a Fairy. I mean, isn't it obvious with my wings and body?"

""A thousand…""muttered the twins.

"Well… Normally a fairy in the stories is really small you know, like the palm of my hand." said Nasir.

"But you, you're more like a small man with wings! Like, what are you? 1.6 meters?" he said as he examined closely Gloxinia.

"I'm 1.62 meters actually, quite tall for a fairy right?" teased Gloxinia

"Your wings are also really beautiful." Said shyly Nesmil, staring at his back.

"Thanks, but they're a bit too showy, not good for sneak attack you know."

"I don't think you need to sneak around someone to kill them…" said Asilah.

"Anyway, that's enough talk about me. Tell me about your travels, Mazaar." said Gloxinia, diverting the talk.

"Well, there was a time…"

As Mazaar talked about his travels, our group continued slowly but surely to march toward Sumeru, traversing forests and rivers.

And just when the sun was about to set, our group could see in the horizon the outline of city.

"At last, Sumeru City…"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And the third chapter is finished!

I didn't think I would finish today honestly, guess I was pretty inspired lol.

What did you think? First time writing about a fight, even if it was quick.

I have the impression to suck a describing thing lol.

Did you think the dialogues feel weird or is pretty natural?

Also, no chapter tomorrow I think, with halloween and all of that.

I appreciate all your help in the comments, it honestly warms my heart seeing your response. I'm all giddy when I look at recap of the story lol.

Anyway, thank you for reading this story and I hope you will enjoy the rest even more.