Vincent hummed happily as he leafed through a book. Alba looked at him with worry written all over her face. He had been acting strange ever since he exited the forest. She let her imagination run wild as she wondered if he ate a mushroom that made the consumer high or hallucinate. She had heard about these mushrooms before, the barbarians from the north ate one such kind before a battle. It was said to give insane strength along with dulled sense of pain. The barbarians also acted weirdly after their battle frenzy ended."Master Vincent. A... are you alright?" Alba asked after mustering her courage.
"Hmm of course, I haven"t felt this good in a long time."
"Did something good happen?" She inquired further as she recalled how he had let the siblings go after teasing the young girl and laughing. His actions had been far from normal then. Even now, he was acting weird.
"I guess you could say I found the answer to a question that had been p.r.i.c.king my mind for a while now. It was a very satisfactory one at that. I suddenly feel much wiser. Hahahaha."
The laughter at the end only served to heighten her sense of unease and worry. She attempted to probe further in order to get to the bottom of the situation. It would be incredibly taxing for her if Vincent continued to act like this. She tried her best to put on a smile and asked, "What question?"
Vincent looked at the girl and was a little shocked at the sight. Her smile was incredibly stiff, it looked funny and weird at the same time. It was the first time he was seeing her smile. Even if it was fake and a bit scary because of the bruises on her face, he found the smile refreshing. He tried his best to stop his lips from curving upwards and answered, "Nothing much, I was just wondering why people tried to hurt me."
The memories of her darkest moments were jogged by Vincent"s answer. She still couldn"t understand why the man beat her when she didn"t resist. She had made up her mind to be obedient in order to avoid the pain, but the treatment she received was far worse than the girls who had resisted earlier. She couldn"t understand where she had gone wrong. She wanted to know the answer to the same question as well. WHY? Without her realization, her body had started trembling and it felt like a knot had formed in her throat. She felt relieved after making sure that Vincent hadn"t noticed her unnatural behavior.
"What answer did you find?" Alba tried her best to suppress her cracking voice and questioned.
"Because they wanted to. Isn"t it so simple? And I had been wasting my energy pondering over such a stupid question."
"But isn"t that wrong? How can the answer be so simple and pointless?" The girl"s voice increased by a pitch. She couldn"t accept the answer. How could the pain she suffered be justified by such a worthless reason. Tears started flowing down her cheeks and she felt a pain from deep inside her bosom.
Vincent was surprised at the sudden outburst of the girl. The girl who just obediently followed him hadn"t revealed much emotions except for fear. He was getting worried about her. He had no idea how he should address her emotional issues and help with it. She kept her emotions bottled up and locked herself in a cage to feel safer. From the look of things, at least she vented for now. Despite not knowing how to proceed further, he felt a little happy.
"That"s just an answer I found for myself. You don"t have to take it as the only answer. Why not continue searching until you find one that satisfies you?" Vincent smiled and spoke to her gently. He would have preferred giving her a hug like how Brian or Rachel did to him when he felt low, but Alba would start shaking all over if he approached her.
The girl wiped her tears and ran away. Vincent sighed and got back to his book. The strange behavior of humans were hard to understand and he had no intentions of following the girl. There wasn"t much he could help with anyway. His focus slowly moved away from the books and he started thinking to himself.
"Hunting doesn"t feel feasible anymore. I have no experience with it and I will probably just waste my time if I tried again. Thinking further, I would rather not kill the animals myself. Guess I will go find the hunter and talk with him. I have enough money for now anyways. Let"s just focus on breaking through to becoming a second circle wizard for now. It"s almost time for my sixteenth birthday as well. I hope I advance before that time."
Deciding on a few things, Vincent got up and dressed to head out. After a quick stroll, he was already in front of the village chiefs" house. The old man looked at the unexpected visitor and got out of his house. Understanding the nature of the young man, the old man got right to the topic, "Master Vincent, what a pleasant surprise. How can I help you?"
"Old Morsen. I was thinking of striking a deal with the hunter. While I am at it, I can take a look at Cecilia as well."
Morsen smiled and called his daughter out. Vincent gave her a quick check up. The old man was looking at him expectantly. His daughter was completely fine, but looking at Morsen"s smiling face, it seemed as if he wouldn"t feel satisfied until Vincent actually prescribed something. Vincent had asked a favor from the old man, might as well satisfy him. He spoke in a professional manner, "The child looks healthy. There is nothing wrong with Cecilia as well. The only thing to do now is making sure she eats well. Add more nutritious food to her diet. Everything else looks good."
Morsen nodded and lead the young doctor towards the villages" hunter. He was happy since an actual doctor said that everything was fine with his daughter and his unborn grandchild. It was hard to get a doctor to come here and travelling to the doctor with a pregnant woman was also quite troublesome. His smile was specially radiant since all he had to do in return was lead the young man to the hunter.
Soon, the duo were already in front of the hunter"s house. Vincent could see a girl of about six playing with flowers. A woman was trying to calm down the toddler who was crying in her arms. Morsen approached the woman and asked her about her husband. He headed to the back of the house after talking with the woman.
Vincent just stood there, a bit embarra.s.sed. Morsen had been gone for a while and there was still no sign of him returning. The woman stared at him curiously and he felt uncomfortable. He was the exact opposite of a social b.u.t.terfly and he felt the need to do something to dispel this awkward atmosphere. He crouched down next to the girl playing with the flowers and asked, "Are the flowers pretty?"
The girl looked at the young man and nodded her head. Vincent felt helpless. He was hoping to keep himself occupied by talking with the girl. Little had he expected her to just nod and go back to admiring the flowers. He coughed to get the little girl"s attention, "Do you want to see something interesting?"
"Okay."
Vincent celebrated in his heart after he managed to get the girl"s attention. He took out a coin and placed it in his palm. He made fist and blew into it. The girl looked at his silly actions and giggled. He slowly opened his fist revealing two coins. Watching the coin turn into two stupefied the girl and her eyes opened wide. Maintaining the momentum was the key to a good performance and he closed his palms once again. The girl watched excitedly as Vincent slowly opened his fist again. The coins had disappeared and the girl examined his hands thoroughly. Finding nothing, the girl was puzzled and she looked at the stranger in front of her expectantly. Vincent smiled at the girl"s cute reactions and put his hands behind her ears. The girl heard jingling sound and she was shocked as she watched the stranger pull two coins from behind her ears. She put her hands behind her ears to check if there was more coins there. Vincent closed his palm again and made the coins disappear after opening them. He moved his hands behind her ears again and pulled a beautiful flower, which he handed it to the girl. The girl received the flower with her little hands, she was flushed with excitement after the performance.
"Haha what a splendid performance. Master Vincent sure has his way around kids." Morsen clapped as he praised Vincent"s little tricks. Behind him was a muscular man who was a head taller than him. "He is Bruno. A iron ranked warrior. He is also a very capable hunter."
Bruno nodded and asked, "Master Vincent, what business do you have with me?"
"I would like to hire you. I will purchase any game you hunt as long as they are in good condition. I will also buy rare herbs off of you."
"If that"s the case, why don"t you buy the game like all the villagers do? I don"t see the need to hire me for this matter."
"No, I need all the good cuts of meat. I also need them regularly. I am sure you wouldn"t agree to sell me all the good cuts if I didn"t hire you. Don"t worry, the pay will be more than satisfactory and I will pay for the hunting tax as well. It would be even better if you can hunt magical beasts. I will pay you five silver for a grade one magical beast. How about it?"
Bruno didn"t need to think much to make a decision. The hunting tax paid to the feudal lord was what cost him the most. As long as Vincent paid for it and bought all the good cuts of meat, he didn"t mind hunting every day. Though he couldn"t be sure that he could get a game each day, it was worth it either way. It would be specially profitable if he could hunt a magical beast. He suppressed his greed and reminded himself of how dangerous magical beasts were.
"Of course, Master Vincent. The offer you put forth is difficult to reject. I will do it."
"Good!" Vincent smiled and shook Bruno"s hand.