Born From A Divine Gamble

The impact of learning that Marcy"s lost lover had been Chijou all along made him stop dead in his track.

Just saying that he had not expected this was more than an understatement. He felt like his entire brain froze when the information registered.

The huntress walking behind him b.u.mped against him because of his sudden halt and the three leaders he was talking to turned back to look his way.

"Don"t tell me, you didn"t know about that!" Connie exclaimed in shock. "She adopted you and you didn"t even know she was about to marry a Muracier?"

Emp was still frozen but the subject seemed to interest the other two.

"Wasn"t that old news? Aren"t they already married?"

"Nono, rumor has it that Chijou Muracier wanted to give her a perfect wedding gift and went on a long hunt from which he didn"t come back yet. They say he just hasn"t found anything worthwhile yet."

The rumor was wrong, Chijou was very dead.

"It"s been a long time though no? No one heard anything about him since back then, isn"t he just dead?"

Yes, he had died sixteen years ago. She had been waiting for him for sixteen years and no one told her what had happened. Even Chinui forgot her and ran off.

"Of course not, there"s no way he can die, he"s a Muracier after all! Trying to kill one is like trying to punch down the wall of a fortress with your bare fists." Connie Claimed.

What a strange turn of events. What should he do about this?

"Oy, young master, we don"t have the time to daze off. Get it together and move it."

Was this all why they called him young master too? They saw him as someone soon to be adopted in the Muracier household. It would not make a true n.o.ble out of him but maybe for them it was enough to warrant the t.i.tle of young master.

He forced his feet to move and started walking again. He felt stressed about what he had learned. Would this knowledge affect his relations.h.i.+p with Marcy?

She had told him that whatever his name was didn"t matter to her and that she wouldn"t change the way she saw him because of it. Muracier however, wasn"t just any name to her. Would she be angry that no one came to tell her and lash out on him? Would she feel betrayed?

She would probably feel horrible too from the news. Should he just not tell her? Would it be for the best?

He made up all kinds of scenarios in his head on how what he had just learned could change what he currently had. He did not want things to change, he had said as much to Marcy already. This information though...

He pictured a million new situations in which he didn"t decide to tell her now and she somehow discovered it later. It would be much worse then would it not?

Somehow, that simple connection between Chijou and Marcy was far more disturbing to him than anything aside from the death of Vesa. Was he thinking too much of it? Maybe it would not matter at all. He had never been so anxious about simple words before in his life.

He didn"t feel very good right now. Anxious was probably the best word to describe it indeed. He felt nothing about the creature they set out to hunt but was trembling from a simple fact everyone seemed to have known but him.

He kept thinking about it and didn"t pay much attention to the small fights that broke out between the hunters and some common monsters on their way. He did however offer to pay for the corpses they didn"t want, as long as they had some edible meat on them. He stored many of them in his bag along the way.

"Ahhh, those magic mags are amazing aren"t they? If we had a few, we wouldn"t have to drag all those carts around with us." Complained Tacey.

"Not only that but that kind of bags keep the things inside fresh so the meat won"t spoil like ours do all the time." Added in Jaska.

"Maybe if the pay"s good this time, we could all go to Bêtéclair to see if we can find something similar." Proposed Connie.

"As long as it"s not too expensive. How much did that one cost?" Tacey asked him.

"Nothing, it was a gift."

"Come on, that"s not the answer I wanted!"

"I don"t know how much it"s worth exactly"

"Fine."

The whole group went back to casual talk and explored the woods in high spirit.

The weather was good for a stroll in the woods. It was sunny, and the air was refreshed by a slow wind. Last time he traveled in that forest, it smelled like blood, or rather, he was soaked in blood and it was the only thing he could smell. This time around, it felt quite similar to the village. The scent of wood was strong and deeply mixed with what Emp would call a fresh "alive" scent. The smell you get from all plant life.

It had been a long time since he had not walked through a forest like this. He was happy to see it. Last time had not been enjoyable at all so he had not realized how much he missed his calm travels among the ancestors.

The only disappointing thing to him was how much noise a whole group of hunters could make. He would have preferred to enjoy the birds chirping and the noise of the wind through leaves and gra.s.s over the clanking of armor and small talk.

They walked around relatively slowly. There was no way for them to know where the creature lurked so they could only explore the surroundings with care and hope to find some clues on its whereabouts. They didn"t even know yet in which direction it hid.

With two long breaks for food and many skirmish with easily defeated creatures, they had not explored that far into the forest when night came. Hunters from the village could probably travel much further then them in a day since they knew the terrain well.

But, even without any deep knowledge about these parts, their abilities as huntresses could not be underestimated.

Their group was well used to camping and so shelters were erected all around using the larger trees as support. Connie decided who would guard the camp in which order and the tired group disappeared into their shelters.

"Oy, young master, are you sure you don"t want us to make you something quick? We still have some spare cloth."

The commander seemed concerned that he had not prepared any sort of shelter for himself.

"No need, I"m truly used to sleep up there."

As he said it, he started climbing up one of the larger trees.

"You mean, in the tree? But, what if you fall?"

"Then I"ll wake up."

She was left speechless by his answer. She didn"t know whether to laugh or cry. The mage walked up to her side and looked up towards his climbing silhouette to ask her own question.

"But what if it starts to rain?"

"Then I"ll be wet?"

What sort of silly question was that? What did she expect him to answer? Anyway, he couldn"t see any clouds around, there was no way there would be rain. On the other hand, the two girls seemed to think that his answer was just as crazy as the question.

"Aren"t you afraid you"ll catch death?" Asked Jaska.

"Won"t it wake you up?" Connie added.

"I won"t wake up with just a bit of rain. Speaking about waking up, I sleep very deeply. Someone will probably have to throw rocks at me or something to wake me up."

"... Throw rocks at you?"

"Yeah, or make me fall off somehow, maybe shoot me with one of those crossbows?"

"There"s no way we"re doing that!" Panicked Connie.

"It"s fine, I don"t think those can pierce the armor."

"You"re sleeping in your armor?"

"Yes, it takes too much time to put it back on afterward. I don"t mind how you do it but I must tell you that you"ll have to try hard to wake me up. Even if there was to be a battle here, I"m not sure it would wake me up."

"Is it some sort of nonsense or is he really serious?" Asked the mage to her boss.

"I"m sure he is, he"s the guy who the great Marcelia chose. As expected of him, there"s no way an ordinary skirmish could wake him up! Hahaha!"

Emp waved them goodbye and brought himself up to a large limb in the tree. He placed a note stating he was ready to combine with the other him inside the bag and sat as comfortably as possible.

Bellow him, the many huntresses were whispering about how strange it was to have a guy sleeping so close to them, in a tree no less. They must have been used to camp together, maybe some of them usually undressed outside of their shelters because removing equipment in such a diminutive s.p.a.ce must have been annoying. Emp didn"t have that kind of problem though since he didn"t remove it. He knew he would feel sore in the morning but the extra safety was worth it considering how hard he slept.

He rested his head against the pillar of wood and looked up to the sky. He had thought about the same thing through the whole day. He had pretty much decided what he wanted to do now. Once he came back to the village, he would apologize to Marcy for hiding his name and tell her everything he knew.

She was someone important to him and she deserved to know what had happened. Even if the empire felt it should remain secret, even if she might not believe his crazy story, he had to tell her. He would feel miserable if he hid the truth from her.

Now that he had made his mind, he felt much better than in the morning, even though he had done nothing as of yet.

As if to conclude his reflection, the two Emps combined for an instant and he was sent back with some very interesting knowledge.

The spars on the other side were done and he had greatly benefited from them. In particular, those fights had him come to the realization that he could do what he did with a bow with any weapons at all.

He would have never noticed if not for Celtine"s intervention. When s.p.a.ce gave him that ability, he told him that he could do much more than move fast with it. He had been told to be creative but he had not paid attention to s.p.a.ce"s power at all.

Now that he could see how effective it could be, he was wondering just how much he was missing out on. What were the true limits of this power, how could he use it best? For example, could it be also used the other way around?

If he could hit far with it, could he stop something close from hitting him by perceiving it as far from him? If he could hit something far while perceiving it as close, could an opponent do the same if he attacked at the same time? If he used it too much, would he end up thinking that everything was just at his side naturally, just like how he felt that any kind of distances were short? That would be annoying to live with.

He would need to practice a lot with this to learn about all of its different uses. Maybe he could make it even more effective by using a long weapon, like a poleaxe. Or maybe the opposite was true and it was best to use the power of a shorter but st.u.r.dier weapon and give it an impressive reach with the ability.

He wondered what was the best way to test all of this out. Should he just go against some monsters to practice or enlist another student for it? Maybe a dummy would be enough for most of it.

He quickly fell asleep thinking about this.

As expected, his wake up call had to be a bit rough for him to notice. He woke up as he was cras.h.i.+ng down into some large fern. he hit the ground hard and his armor made an impressive sound clas.h.i.+ng against some overgrown roots.

Around him, a bunch of huntress gasped in worry and rushed towards the spot where he fell.

"Jaska! Why"d you have to cast a spell at him!"

"Nothing else worked! It was either that or the crossbow like he suggested!"

Emp had never fell off a tree before, he had not expected it to be that painful. He hurt his elbow a bit and felt dizzied from the shock but still managed to get up on his hands and knees with a groan.

"Are you alright?"

"We"re so sorry!"

"I"m fine, the fall woke me up. If not, I might have slept all the way up to noon."

Around him, the women all made wry smiles or raised an eyebrow at his words. They seemed to be unable to choose between worry and relief.

From what he was told afterward, Connie first tried to call him but when they saw it didn"t work, Tacey started throwing rocks at him like he had suggested. She hit him about five times but none of them managed to wake him up.

In the end, everyone got either very amused or very annoyed and Jaska ended up having to use a spell to shoot out a small rock at high speed to wake him up. It was that that had upset his balance and made him fall off the tree.

He had a heavy breakfast with everyone and Connie kept asking if he had hurt himself through the whole thing. She seemed way too afraid of hurting Marcy apprentice.

"No, it"s not really about being afraid of hurting you. Look at everyone around." Jaska told him before biting into a juicy blue fruit.

They all seemed to have mostly regained their calm but looking closely at their faces, he could see lingering fear and nervousness.

"Tacey"s daughter fell and died after b.u.mping her head. People around here get nervous when someone falls." She explained.

Emp glanced her way when he heard what had happened to her daughter but she neither noticed the words or the gaze.

He already knew her daughter died so he wasn"t that surprised but he understood better now why everyone was so nervous about his fall.

"Thank you for the explanation, I"ll try to not scare everyone so much from now on."

"Mnh, its good if you understand."

The group resumed their hunt and explored deeper into the forest.

He spent most of the day listening to the stories of the huntresses.

Connie had been raised among death seekers. She would see them go on adventures and come back with amazing stories all the time. She said that she had admired many of them but none came close to the Gladius siblings.

The pair of brother and sister had learned how to make equipment from their father but far surpa.s.sed him. In order to supply their craft and ambition, they decided to go hunt for materials by themselves. They had teamed up with Palonia who ended up marrying Tiberius and went on many adventures with the three of them. (1)

Marcy was essentially her idol. Connie had dreamed of becoming as strong and brave as her, she had gathered companions everywhere and built herself a large group of reliable huntresses. She felt that if she gave it her all and raised great achievements, her too would one day be able to impress a n.o.ble and marry into a good family. Even if not, she hoped that she would find someone or something interesting in all her travels or at least, help all her subordinates find what they desired.

Tacey was the opposite of her. She had joined them out of necessity rather than desire after the death of her husband in the thundering pa.s.s. She wanted to offer as good a life as she could for her daughter but in the end, she had died too.

Now, she didn"t care much about anything. She followed the group because she had nothing else to do. She didn"t bother with much, didn"t make much effort for anything and wasted all her money thinking she had nothing to look forward to. When she wasn"t wasting it, she was leaving it for the others to take.

Jaska was the most talkative of the three and he learned most of what he knew of the rest of the group from her. Still, despite all her words, in the end, he knew almost nothing of her. She spoke in length about the man who taught her magic but not a word on how she met the others or for what purpose she traveled with them.

From what she said, her master in magic came from the other side of the tribes land, far north of the empire. The man was a great warrior and mage but spent most of his time and wealth a.s.sisting orphans and testing the magic affinity of every child around in search of someone with an earth affinity high enough for him to take as a disciple.

He had helped many on the path of magic. The more talented a child was, the more he spent efforts and time on them to have this talent bloom. Jaska had been one of those who stayed with him for the longest. All that he had asked in exchange for his vast knowledge was for them to continue his work and teach to more people still.

Jaska believed he must have gone back north by now. It was true that he cared for everyone but the Steelwood empire never was his home.

"Master always said the same thing to every disciple he left behind. Magic will be your rise and fall. It will let you achieve far more than what destiny would have otherwise given you but in the end, there is only so much you can steal from life before it decides to take it all back. Don"t mind it too much though, the more you help with it, the more worthwhile the journey is. How many can you save with your talent? I"m sure that what my master meant was that using his gift for greed would do more harm than good, however tempting it is to do it."

That guy seemed to have been very impressive. Helping the poor orphans, teaching them magic, knowing powerful spells and able to keep many active at once using special martial arts. No wonder Jaska was proud of him.

He felt like he was probably for her a bit like what Marcy was for him. She was a kind woman teaching him things and housing him just because she could. She may not have been helping every single orphan in the world but she did her best to keep the village around her safe.

While Jaska kept talking to him about all the things that crossed her mind, the true huntresses were hard at work searching for clues about what they were going against or if they were getting any closer.

So far, they had not found much.

One time, one of the girls felt she had found something interesting when a tree extended its limbs towards her and captured her in its branches.

Emp dreaded it was a woodland horror but it turned out it wasn"t. It wasn"t even a lumberjack eater, the others called it a falsestor. A demon trying to trick wanderers into thinking it was an ancestor. It wasn"t even really made of wood.

The girl screamed in panic and dozens of crossbow bolts flew from all sides immediately, turning the beast into a pincus.h.i.+ons. Because of its size though, those bolts didn"t bother it that much.

Huntresses rushed from all side and cut down a myriad of its limbs. Axes dug into its "trunk" and the falsestor retaliated by sending most of its root-like tentacles to attack them.

Emp wished to help but felt that in such an hectic fight, it would be more than likely that he would end up being in the way instead. Even if he was strong, his presence would disturb the coordination they had cultivated between them all over the years. The best he could do was get his bow out of his bag and shoot high up into the creature, far over the heads of everyone to make sure he didn"t hit any of them. The arrows weren"t that effective but he felt it was better than nothing.

While the leader and the second in command engaged the monster in melee, the mage fetched a vial of black sand from one of her pockets and started chanting a spell, spilling the sand onto the ground to form a large square on the moss in front of him.

She then picked a piece of flint and a small rock reflecting the sun from two different pockets. She raised them over her head as she was chanting and suddenly crouched to smash them both into the earth in the center of her square. Even then her spell still wasn"t over and her mouth kept moving.

Her companions were hara.s.sing the beast from all side to keep it from doing anything to the one it had first captured. This gave her a lot of time to complete her attack.

She rose back to her feet and stomped hard in front of the square, everything in it collapsed on itself like a house of cards, swallowing the other two items.

She made a grasping motion and raised her arms up, the earth followed and floated up in front of her. The dirt had been changed into hundreds of sharp shards of crystalline stones, Emp could easily guess what they were for. All the moss, foliage and roots that had been mixed with the dirt fell down the new hole helplessly. Jaska drew back her arms, bringing her hands to either side of her chest.

At this point, another girl that had stood by at her side took action.

In small groups of coordinated persons, the teammates of a spell caster knew them well enough to feel when a spell was about to happen but in any sort of large groups, some form of warning was necessary. However, more often than not, a mage could not both chant a spell and call out when it was ready. It would either ruin the spell entirely or they wouldn"t be able to hold it.

It was for this reason than every organisation attached what was known as a warner to their mages. The warner here was a girl that was otherwise too young to contribute in any meaningful way in a fight. Her job was to know the spells of the mage like no other could and warn everyone when it was about to happen. More often than not, a warner was also the apprentice of the mage but Emp had no idea if this one was or not.

"Out of the way! Incoming shards!" She yelled, loud enough to cover the sounds of the fight.

All the huntresses knew what this meant and they all jumped away from the beast. As soon as they started moving away, Jaska threw her hands forwards, forming claws aimed at the beast with her fingers.

The shards flew out at high speed and punched the falsestor full of holes. Many pa.s.sed on either side but most of the shards that had floated towards the middle of her square blasted the monster apart.

The creature emitted a high pitched wail out of an unseen mouth. It was loud and piercing, a chill ran through Emp"s spine and he saw the warner step back with a s.h.i.+ver.

Chunks of flesh, brown blood and skin imitating bark flew everywhere as shards upon shards cut through it like heavy rain through thin paper.

Emp feared that the girl the creature was holding would get hit as well but she was a bit too high up and luckily ended up unharmed.

When the hail of stone ended to reveal its battered shaped full of holes and craters, Tacey wasted no time and rushed back to it again. She wielded her axe with both hands and with a scream, swung with all her strength into the weakened part of its trunk.

With all the newly made weak points and most of the bark blasted apart, the axe easily dug into it. It"s blade wasn"t large enough to sever the trunk entirely but she managed to slash through a good half of it, weakening it and forcing a new wail out of it.

Tentacle-like limbs trashed everywhere, Tacey got hit in the face and was sent tumbling back while the rest pushed onward from all side to end the creature.

The girl that had been captured at the start got squeezed hard and after a yelp of pain got released so that the limbs holding her could focus on other huntresses.

"Someone drag Hal out of there! The rest aim for Tacey"s mark!"

Connie didn"t have the best weapon for the situation but she remained surprisingly effective with her spear. There was nothing to pierce but she could split the air while using it like a staff, battering limbs away by droves and helping her team push forward.

It was at that moment that Emp saw an opening, not in the monster"s defenses but in the huntresses formation. Two of them picked up the unconscious victim Hal and carried her away, leaving a pretty enticing s.p.a.ce on the front line.

Emp didn"t want to disturb their usual battle formation but that s.p.a.ce was an invitation he couldn"t refuse. He would deliver one strike and back away to make sure he wouldn"t be in their way.

He released the grip over his bow to get a two handed sword out from his bag. That one was one of those he had bought after the first hunt. It had no real use aside from being extremely long and heavy. It had no magic on it and no ornaments, it was a plain sword made to kill.

He easily raised it over his head, stepped into the empty s.p.a.ce and slashed downward with all his strength. He severed everything in his path, scrawny or large limbs, fake roots and false foliage. Everything was cut through for almost two meters in front of him. Then, his blade dug into the ground with a thud and moss flew everywhere.

Wasting no time, two huntresses jumped in the wide opening he had just made by vaulting over his sword and swung their axes into the main body of the creature, right at the spot where Tacey had first attacked.

The falsestor didn"t have the time to bring new limbs in the way to s.h.i.+eld itself and was cleanly split in two by the middle. The creature collapsed under its own weight and everyone backed off from it in order to not be buried under it as it fell while flailing wildly.

While the team cheered towards the creatures death throes, Connie gave some final orders.

"Jaska, take a look at Tacey and Hal, the rest wait for it to die before chopping it in bits."

The rest nodded and threw some "aye" her way before setting up to do their tasks. Emp placed his sword back into the bag and walked up to the three leaders. Everyone took their time to calm their breaths.

"That was a good swing." Complimented Connie.

"Thanks, I liked your spear work too, you were able to keep all those limbs away easily."

"It"s all about experience. So your weapon"s a two hander?"

"Not really, I like hammers better but this one was more apropriate for what we were doing."

"I see."

Connie nodded and Tacey b.u.t.ted in the conversation, disturbing Jaska who was trying to apply some ointment on her face.

"You didn"t really help."

"I didn"t want to be in the way. I"m not really part of the team, I don"t know how it works."

"Hmpf."

"So... was this the thing we were looking for?" He asked.

"No, no way. That thing is a stealth hunter, it can"t intimidate everything else out of its territory. I"m not even sure it moves all that much."

"So we gotta keep looking?"

"Yep."

That would have been great if it had been this easy. At least now he knew better about how they all worked together and what it was that a warner actually did.

The girl Hal turned out to be mostly fine, she had a few ribs cracked but not broken. Bones were easy to repair for good earth mages so Jaska fixed all of them in under two hours.

After that, the search resumed until a few hours before noon on the next day. It was then that they found a huge patch of forest covered in a strange matter. None of it was coherent, it was like lines of purple crystal had been carved through the woods.

When Emp came close to it to take a look, he was strongly reminded of gla.s.s. It was as if Juniper had decided to reshape the forest with a huge amount of dark purple gla.s.s sculptures.

"What is that?" Asked Tacey.

"Gla.s.s, crystal? What the f.u.c.k is that doing here?" Asked another one.

"What could have done this?"

"Connie, whatever did this isn"t on the list we gave to Marcelia. Should we go back?"

Jaska didn"t seem thrilled to continue.

"Does anyone have any idea of what could be the cause of this?" Their leader asked.

They all looked at each other but no one could answer.

"Alright then. I feel like it would be pitiful to go back without even taking a look at what sort of monster is the source of all this mess. The village over there is counting on us to fix this so I feel like we should at least scout out what it is. If we feel like we can take it on we"ll do so but if not, we"ll just run. Anyone as another suggestion?"

No one voiced anything. Emp didn"t really care either way so he had no reason to speak. He wasn"t afraid of whatever laid in wait over there.

"Then lets go, speak in low voices, no sudden noises, stay sharp and signal the rest if you catch a glimpse of anything suspicious. From here on, the true hunt starts."

***

(1) There is also the way one of her weapons ended up changing Connie"s life but that"s more about how she admire Marcy than about why she is here so I didn"t talk about it.