Chapter 61 Granod

Walking through the woods proved to be a lot easier than initially thought. As a child, he had always been told that the forest was filled with dangerous animals or monsters, and the Scarlet Moon proved just that.

But now that he was strolling between the trees he found that it was overly exaggerated, there were monsters and animals, but they don't always instinctively hunt for human flesh. Some monsters obviously do, but he hadn't even seen a single monster during the days of traveling. A pack of wolves was easier to find than bloodthirsty creatures, but even those were hard to come by. Since his escape Lucas had stopped any kind of aura limitations, letting it free. The pressure was slight, any kind of animal or monster didn't like to be constantly under pressure, keeping away from Lucas.

He didn't have any kind of decent direction, he merely went north with the sun as his compass. It took a few weeks of traveling before finding the first signs of civilization, a dirt road. Most of these dirt "roads" were simply desire paths created due to the carriages. He could immediately see that someone rode had passed by this road by leaving a bunch of hoofmarks.

'It looks like there were multiple horses, a carriage?'

'We're at the border of two countries that hate each other, I don't think that business is thriving at the border.'

Following the trail, he found a fork in the road with a wooden sign at the intersection. It had three arrows, one pointing from where he came and two others for the split road. Lucas couldn't possibly tell which road would lead to the best destination, he just didn't know anything from the towns in the area. He had a map in his backpack and thanks to it he somewhat knew where he was, but that didn't change his situation.

The books in the library of the baron didn't contain how hospitable certain towns were, so he could only take a gamble. The trail he had been following led to the left, so he decided to go to the right. 'We don't know if anyone will ever track us so we might as well stay out of trouble.', but fate didn't like that decision.

The road he took didn't have any clear signs of passage, there were some cart tracks, but those looked very old. There were some fresher footprints, but that didn't matter much. Following the road that led to a town called Granod, Lucas kept his training up until he saw that there were other roads flowing into his own. 'We're almost there, it's time to stop our training and focus on reducing our aura.'

'Why should we hide it? Let them know that they shouldn't fuck with us.'

'And that's how you make a terrible first impression.'

'We don't have an identity, so who cares?'

'If they can match our face to our deeds, we're screwed, it would be better to lay low and amass our strength in secret.'

Lucas wasn't planning on getting into any kind of trouble, but sometimes it was forced onto him. When it came down to money, he had robbed the secret room of Venion so he had a bit of money, he wasn't rich, but he had a few silver with him. That's enough to live for luxurious years in a small town, but not close to enough to rent a room in the capital of any kingdom. Arrogance was quickly dampened when he thought about that, but wanting to stay positive he moved on.

He had a steady pace when going to the town, he disliked the fact that he couldn't train properly, forcing him to focus on other things like improving his aura reduction. Training now would put him at greater risk, but doing nothing started to irritate him. There was some positive news though, because of rigid and harsh training he had already finished the half-completed rune and was about halfway through the third one. He was close to 3 out of 15 necessary runes, making him wonder how long it would take to reach Rank 1 if it took weeks to not even get to a fifth of the necessary amount. He wanted to continue his training, so he still did a few circulations, but at a slower speed than normal. He wouldn't force it anymore.

After a bit he found a small wooden gate, 'Looks like a typical outskirt village.', Lucas was reminded of his hometown. The sights were different yet had the same feeling, the atmosphere was similar. There was a typical bakery, a small market for vegetables and stuff like milk, and a single clothing store that provided for the entire village. A mansion for the mayor and a bigger home for the Coin Changer. Guards were non-existent for these kinds of villages, at most there would be some hired mercenary that protected the mayor, but even that was rare.

Walking into the village he was greeted with a few strange looks, his blond hair still stood out a bit, 'Apparently, the north does have more blonds though, so it shouldn't be such a strange sight, or are we still too close to the Holy Kingdom?', checking his map, he had already entered Frigus, but the border wasn't very clear.

He wasn't planning on staying too long, he needed to find a decent city to find more information on how to grow his core, but he wasn't alone in that regard. Entering the local bar he found a child close to his own age surrounded by younger boys and girls.

"Listen up everyone, I will be going to the Blue Flame School in a few days, when I return I will be a powerful mage that will save all of you out of poverty. I will become a savior to all!", it seemed that his arrogance knew no bounds, but the children didn't think that. The boys were in awe of the fact that their friend would become a mage, while the girls started to get flustered that they were so close to a future mage. 'To the people in these outskirts magic is the stuff of legends, they are still so innocent or naive. The world of magic isn't so nice as you might think.'

'Let them enjoy the innocence while it's still possible, no need to shower them in despair.'

'That innocence could lead to their death you know?'

'Shouldn't that be more of a reason to let them enjoy it?'

'Wai-What?', even the more pessimistic side of Lucas was caught off guard by that statement.

"That's so cool Thomas", "Yeah, awesome", he was being showered in praise from ignorant children, so Lucas didn't feel jealous in the slightest. Even the girls that looked average, even for an outskirt village were getting closer to him. "H-hey Thomas, please don't forget me okay? He-here, you can have my handkerchief."

"I will accept anything from a maiden such as you!", his passion flowed through his words and mannerisms, and the girls definitely didn't mind it. Blushing from the compliment she went back to her girlfriends.

'What a bunch of horseshit.', but Lucas didn't want to interrupt them. The problem was that Thomas was going to a magic school, or so Lucas assumed. He didn't want to attract the attention of every young adult surrounding him, so he waited until he would be alone.

Ordering a simple glass of milk since he didn't know a lot about drinks and ordering water would be very strange, he looked around the bar. He didn't have any kind of hood to hide, but he would buy one as soon as possible. The other customers in the tavern were your ordinary work folk, some were farmers, and others smelled like bakers or shoemakers.

There was only a single person that was out of place, next to Lucas of course. An anonymous person hiding their face with a hood that Lucas was looking for who didn't order anything. Their silhouette revealed the identity to be of a woman, but that's where the useful information ended. Her posture showed she was nervous, moving her head left and right searching for something, or someone. Every time someone entered, her head snapped to the entrance to see who it was. Her face was hidden due to the magic cloak, but her head movements gave away what she was doing.

'If you're hiding at least try to be inconspicuous, everyone here knows you're hiding or running away from something. You didn't even order anything or tried to blend in, what an absolute amateur.'

Lucas waited until the other magically gifted kid would be alone, but his fans were quite persistent, not leaving his sides for even a moment. 'Let's just get this over with, the earlier we have directions, the faster we can leave this place.'

'Anything social is your expertise, so go for it buddy. If it fails we can torture him for a bit, he looks like the kid to spill anything when his parents are threatened.'

'Can you just shut up for a moment?'