Despite how happy I was to finally find a clear indication where the village was located, I still had two problems.First one, it was a d.a.m.ned night!Â
While it immensely helped me in terms of finding out where my destination was, I doubted that a night visit from a stranger would be viewed kindly, forcing me to bid my time before the daytime in the forest.
And the second thing was just the sheer distance I had to cover on foot to get there.
While one could think that a few kilometres was nothing to such a powerful person like me, with how curved and constantly obstructed by trees and rocks this path was, I was unable to move faster than just a bit over the speed of an average human.
What I didn"t expect though, was that after I finally reached the outskirts of the village with the intention of spending the night under some big tree, I would be spotted by forward guards!
"Stop right there! Who are you!"
With a simple, intimidating shout, one of the poorly armed men stepped out of his hideout, as the rest of his unit kept hiding in the treetops. While I could only locate them with the help of my energy vision, as soon as I pinpointed their location, it wasn"t a hard task to notice that they already aimed their bows at me!
"I"m just a traveller! I was invited to the village by the Leicar, but seeing how its a night already, I wanted to wait for the dawn to enter."
There was no point in hiding my intention. I was willing to enter the village officially to check out if the refugees were taken there first. With how strong I was compared to them, I could enter forcefully, but that would only make things harder in the long run.
"Wait here then! We will fetch him to confirm your story!"
For such a primitive village, they really had some strict defence protocols! From what I remembered from the books I read, in the medieval times, the cities were just closed off for the night, and that"s what I based my approach on, but thinking how they were kinda in the middle of the war, I could only admit they had some reasons to be overly cautious!
Not intending to cause any disturbance, I rested my back against the nearest tree in a place that didn"t obstruct the archers" line of sight on me. In the end, I didn"t want them to feel threatened by my presence! As long as just one of them would fire, the rest would most likely follow, turning this situation from tense into an awkward one!
"I see that you"ve come, after all!"
Not too long after I was ordered to wait, I heard a familiar voice.
Turning my head around back to the entrance of the village, I saw the same officer I was talking to back on the beach. With how sleepy his face looked like, it was rather obvious that he was forced out of the sleep just for the sake of confirming my story.
That means that he either reported my appearance and his superiors decided that I was special enough to warrant an abnormal amount of care or the discipline of command in this place was simply awful!
If they would wake up the second in command of the entire army every time someone claimed to come here under his invitation, it would only take a week or so to make their entire commanding group unable to properly do their job from the lack of sleep!
"Yeah, I left those guys on the island to work on the next boat. The one we crafted could serve as a good practice, but with how far my next destinations could be, I need something far more resilient!"
Keeping up my bulls.h.i.+t about being a traveller, I swiftly made a story up on the go. With that, this guy shouldn"t pry too much into my business.
"I see that you are really keen on continuing your travels… While a part of me is kinda jealous, on the other hand, I don"t think I would be capable of solving even half of the problems you are ought to encounter daily. Anyway, let"s stop talking outside, come in!"
Moving to the side with his further arm extended towards the village, Leicar confirmed my story, making the hidden guards finally lower their weapons. With that done, we could finally step inside the settlement.
Just like I realised from the sea when we were pa.s.sing by the port town, it hardly earned its name. Even if it was the biggest gathering of people on the entire island, with half-permanent buildings taking most of the area and only a few places created with stable materials like rocks or bricks, it looked way worse than it could if only a bit of effort was put into properly setting it up.
"While it"s still night, I guess the sun will rise in just about one or two hours, so how about a drink? Even if I can"t guarantee that it would suit the palate of a traveller like you, it"s still better than nothing!"
Seeing that I was looking around with quite a bit of disappointment on my face, Leicar tried to encourage me somehow, yet when I thought about the quality fo the local drinks through the perspective of the overall development of this place, I couldn"t help but shrug.
Yet I still forced a smile on my lips.
"Thanks, it"s actually a good idea for a night as cold as this one!"
There was no point in shaming this guy with the low quality of their drink, just for the sake of preventing my mouth from being spoiled by this probably awful taste. With him being the only person knowing anything about me and sympathetic to my cause thanks to the s.h.i.+pbuilding knowledge I shared with him, he was my best bet when it came of springing up a meeting with this overlord.
After all, if those refugees were really kept somewhere in this place, I could either convince the lord of this place to give at least some of them to me in exchange for something meaningless but appearing as valuable, or take them out by force!
"Here you go!"
After reaching a sizeable tent that was apparently Leicar"s home, I could already hear the sound of the boiling water. From the looks of it, he was as reckless to leave the boiling pot unattended as thoughtful by preparing it beforehand!
In just a few moments that were required for Leicar to scope a small bowl worth of the water from the pot, before putting some leaves into the cup, pouring the boiling water inside and adding a few drops of a strange liquid, the drink was ready.
"Here, just be careful as its both hot and really strong!"
This warning got me quite curious. While boiling the herbs was a natural process in which a tea got discovered in the first place, I couldn"t imagine what kind of liquid did he add to make it strong! Or did I mistake this drink for an alcoholic one, while it was based on some other type of drug?
Accepting the cup with a slight nod of my head, I raised it to my lips, slowly feeling the texture of the drink on my mouth, before letting it in my mouth.
With my maxed out resistance, there was no way this guy would be capable of poisoning me, but as it was my first time tasting some kind of non-alcoholic yet "strong" drink, I wanted to find the best way to savour it!