20 Bath and food
As they finally entered the Inn, Celia couldn't help but question Penta after pulling him aside as the two young girls sat at a table near the counter.
"Are those seriously your sisters? Were they the ones you told me about earlier during lunch!? What the hell happened earlier?" Celia started bombarding the man with questions.
"Relax Celia. Breathe first. I'll explain it. Haha, na they ain't my sisters." Penta smiled as he replied while looking over to the two who were nervously looking over to him.
"What the hell? So all of that earlier? That was all an act? HOW THE HELL WA" Celia was about to blow but Penta simply placed a finger on her lips stopping her from continuing as he smiled towards her and decided to properly explain. He led her to the table with the two nervous sisters.
"Alright, all three of you look like you need an explanation," Penta said.
"Obviously" Celia muttered while the two kids looked over with expectation as the little one was curious about this long lost brother of hers while the older one really couldn't understand the man who declared they were family and beat up those brothel workers.
"Simple really, I saw that you two looked to be in trouble and it kind of reminded me of my, well my own siblings that are unfortunately all gone. I don't really know why I chose that approach but I really didn't like the two guys especially scar-face so I decided to get them into more trouble while getting everyone else to believe my side of the story. Sorry if I ended up confusing you three."
"I never knew you could be so dramatic and especially such a manipulative liar..." Celia was shocked at the man's ability to dramatize the situation while lying through his teeth. She saw freaking tears for god sakes.
"T..Thank you!" The older sister mentioned while she nudged her little sister.
"Thank you bwatha!" The little thanked with a smile as well but it came off as one the most adorable things Penta and Celia had seen.
"Haha, your very welcome my cute little sisters! Anyways, Celia mind bathing the two girls for me? I'm gonna go catch something for later. They look to be starving!" Penta smiled again as he asked Celia for the favor while gently rubbing the two girls' heads.
"Sigh, I don't what you plan on doing with them but I'll wait till they are fed before questioning you," Celia replied.
"Alright you two, follow your big sister Celia and get clean, while I go get us some meat to eat!" Penta told the girls as he started heading out.
"T..Thank you!" The emancipated older sister said while the little one jumped off her seat and hugged Penta's leg.
"Bwye Big Bwatha!" The little one was still a growing child and simply believed the man to be her brother since he said he was going to get her food.
Penta looked at the two and just sighed before smiling and heading out.
Celia looked at the man who just left and couldn't help but shake her head as she never thought he would be so odd.
- Cloud Forest -
"Aya I finally get to test you out hehe." Penta smiled as he held his new sword in his hand and excitedly ran through the forest.
He had been coming here every day and was quite used to it. His strength was steadily rising as he still hadn't stopped daily training from "Nature's Evolution" while eating whatever oddity he found in the forest while hunting.
Celia had helped him know which were poisonous plants and not but Penta's digestive system was on a whole other level as even poison just got assimilated or destroyed once in his body.
As he rushed around at blinding speeds, he finally spotted what he was after.
Ahead of him drinking from a small stream was a large antlered animal that resembles a deer. If deers were 3 meters tall and had saber tooth-like teeth with white hooves that shone an icy light.
They were called Ice hooved Roe as the species was the icy hooves were only apparent on females and only they grew so large. The antlers were also deadly looked as they were extremely sharp looking.
Penta had spotted them a few times but they always eluded him with their speed but recently his speed had been barely able to catch them as he had a lot more practice these past few days maneuvering through the forest.
Penta ran through the bushes while keeping a distance of a few hundred meters from the ice hooved roe as he was planning on flanking it.
As he slowly got towards its rear, Penta inched closer ever so slowly and when he was finally a hundred meters from the beast, he threw a rock with blinding speed towards its hind leg. Luckily for Penta, his throwing speed was abnormal as the rock was akin to a bullet just like he was, and even luckier was that the rock hit its leg leaving a bruise right on its back calf.
Penta had shot out simultaneously alongside the rock while gripping his sword in one hand. The Ice hooved roe was shocked and roared at the pain from its hind leg before turning around and noticing Penta bolting towards it.
It wanted to run but seeing Penta's speed it knew it couldn't outrun him with the leg injury as the bruise hit it quite strong and a small piece of the rock was lodged in there.
Seeing this man coming, it decided to fight.
The ice hooved roe raised itself on its hind legs before stomping the ground causing an icy mist to form.
Penta was surprised that it could do such a thing but he knew better than to get distracted as he continued his rush wanting to end this quickly.
However, the roe would not be having it as it shook its head left and right with a glow appearing on its antlers which made small icy spikes to form before getting shot out towards Penta. He was shocked at the speed of the ice spikes and immediately shot to the side to avoid the spikes.
Not giving up, he continued from where he dodged while taking a quick peek next to him only to see the trees getting pierced with the spikes before forming a layer of frost on them.
He knew they were bad news as even Celia mentioned they had ice type attacks that could slow one down.
However, who was Penta, he was The Agaran Emperor Roach. As if a simple ice hooved roe could match his level of power. Having taken into account the need to dodge the spikes from hitting him and especially slowing him down, Penta weaved through the attacks as he got closer and closer before slashing with his full might against the roe's neck.
Sadly, the roe wasn't new to threats and jumped to the side while clashing with its icy antlers towards his sword.
A sharp metallic ring echoed as small sparks formed from the contact between the two. Yet Penta was still a beat faster as he had quite the reactionary speed and the moment his sword missed the neck and clashed against the antlers, his free hand shot another rock against the roe's eyes with blinding speed.
The roe's sense of danger tingled but it was only able to barely dodge the rock from hitting its eye but its face was still hit causing it to feel slightly dizzy for a second which Penta more than took advantage of.
He shot into the air above the roe and before it could recover, he threw his sword directly towards the base of its neck.
The sword left his hand and shot straight towards where the body met the head and pierced through it like butter and with the force of the throw, it actually went all the way to the hilt of the sword.
The roe managed a final cry of pain before slumping over. Penta landed next to it and gave it a simple prayer before pulling out his sword. It was an extremely fast beast but Penta was much, much faster than any other Advanced level apprentice. His body was molded from much denser fibers than any other human and his path here was through immense pressure having condensed his muscles and body to a much higher level.
The fight may have seemed easy but it was only through Penta's past efforts were such results achievable as even Celia was extremely worried about him facing blood bears and ice hooved roes as they are some of the most dangerous apprentice-level beasts in the cloud forest.
-Mirage Feast-
"Uhm... we really are sorry for the inconvenience..." Kaya the older sister said as she was in a bath with her younger sister while Celia was scrubbing them with a wet towel.
Celia had found their names. Kaya was 16 this year. They were both very cute girls but fortune didn't seem to have favored them much. Kaya had short black hair with a freckled and oval-shaped face which showcased that she was a rather pretty girl after having gotten the dirt off her face while only the lack of food seemed to cause the beauty she had to fade. While Sana was six and had shoulder-length black hair with a cute dimpled face of a child. Though she looked better than her sister it wasn't by much.
"It isn't a problem, I don't see why you two pretty girls don't deserve a bath at least," Celia replied to the fearful Kaya while smiling but inside she was sighing at the difficulties these two must have faced until now.
"T...Thank you." Kaya said softly.
"Pwetty! Pwetty! Big sister Pwetty!" Sana on the other hand was having the time of her life while bathing as she could finally see her original skin color after so many days being dirty.
"Thank you little Sana, you're pretty too." Celia was happy that at least the little one wasn't too affected by everything and was simply enjoying herself.
As the girls were finally washed up, Celia found some old clothes of hers and passed them over to the girls while Sana was quite small so she had to get creative and just cut some of the clothes up for the girl to wear without it dragging all over the floor.
Walking down the stairs with the kids Celia sat them near the counter but only to get a surprised look from her father who was standing behind the counter.
"Celia... I told you to enjoy yourself... I didn't tell you to have kids with him!?" Claud said shocked at the fact that there were two young girls now in the Inn.
"You think you're funny huh? How in blazes am I to have such old children within the span of a day!?" Celia said irately at her father's bad joke.
"Haha, anyways who are these kids, and is the barbarian bringing something back too?" Claud asked as he started preparing some tea with biscuits for the two. He was a chef, he could tell they were horribly malnourished from one glance and decided to start off with something light for now.
"Yeah he went to catch something and it was also him who picked them up and my god, you should have seen the drama he created near Ther's. These girls were originally going to be taken to the brothel forcefully but Penta started claiming they were his lost sisters and beat the guys up and somehow even convinced the crowd and guards to arrest the two brothel guys while bawling his eyes out at the injustice. It was better than the plays near the City Lord's palace." Celia described while giggling.
"Wow... didn't see him being able to pull that off after only a week of learning the language." Claud was just as surprised as Celia kept going on about how it all went down. A few minutes later he finally served the two young girls some tea and biscuits.
"Thank you!" " Thank wu!" Kaya and Sana thanked Claud for the tea and biscuits but of course, Saya already had a biscuit in her mouth as she thanked.
