17: The Front Lines
The journey was uneventful until we stopped for lunch. I climbed out of the wagon, glad to stretch my legs. Even though it was the third time I’d seen Milo create a basic structure, the wonder never faded. I pulled out the stew, still warm from my storage, and placed it on the stone table Milo had formed.
“Milo,” I said as he shaped stone bowls for everyone, “after we eat, I want to test a new ability I got yesterday—Arcane Foraging. I might need to go into the trees for it.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Milo said, grabbing a bowl of stew. “I can keep an eye on you, but you might be better off going with Jen. She’s pretty good at foraging and hunting, so it’ll probably work better. But either way, happy to help.”
Deciding to break the silence and get to know Jordan better—the only other guy my age on the trip—I slid over and sat next to him.
“What made you decide to travel to Boltron?” I asked.
He looked a little surprised at the sudden conversation, having been mostly quiet so far. The only person I’d noticed speaking less than him was Saddie’s driver—and I still didn’t even know his name.
Jordan shifted a little, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.
“Uh, well, I have to find work, hopefully,” he said timidly. “My family couldn’t keep feeding me, and they said I needed to make my own living. Now I have a class,” he mumbled, almost like it was an afterthought.
I wasn’t surprised—stories like his were more common than I thought. A few of my classmates at Borgons Academy had similar situations, families unable to support them anymore.
“Couldn’t you find any work in Dunhearth?” I asked genuinely curious. I always assumed they were looking for new apprentices.
“No, everywhere I went, they didn’t have room for any more live-in apprentices,” he replied dejectedly. “I’d need my own place to live and food to eat.” He glanced down. “I’m hoping Boltron, being bigger, will be easier. My family made a deal with Saddie to take me along if I fixed her wagon.”
I nodded, understanding how tough it was out here for someone just starting out.
We continued eating our stew in silence for a while before Jordan asked, “I saw you had an Academy uniform earlier. Did you escape from it?”
I blinked, a little thrown off by the wording, but figured it was just me misunderstanding. “Oh, yeah. I was part of the Academy for ten years. They adopted me as an orphan, but I got a cooking class, and here I am.” I laughed nervously.
“You’re a lucky one,” Jordan said quietly.
“Lucky? I’m not sure I’d say that. The cooking class has been pretty tough to figure out,” I replied thoughtfully.
“Better than being dead, though,” he said bluntly.
His words caught me off guard. What did he mean by that?
I sat silently for a long moment, considering his words. What did he mean by “better than dead”? I had to ask.
“What do you mean?” I said, confused.
He looked sombre. “My dad said that nearly everyone who goes through that place is trained to die on the front lines of the demon invasion.”
I let out a small laugh, surprising Jordan. “I don’t think that’s true.”
I mean, sure, we were trained to be on the front lines, but we were trained to fight and survive, right?
There was an awkward silence between us for a moment before I couldn’t help myself.
“Why did he think that? I know plenty of people graduate as soldiers, warriors, and so on, but we’re trained to fight for years.”
Jordan shrugged. “Well, my family had the option to adopt me to the Academy because of our struggles, but my dad refused. He said he’s seen the front line — thousands of brand new recruits getting cut down by vicious beasts and demons. It’s haunted him.”
I didn’t know what to say. Surely that couldn’t be true. George wouldn’t fall so easily.
There wasn’t much conversation after that. I just didn’t know what to say, and my mind was racing. Before long, Jen came up to me, breaking me out of my thoughts. I had barely touched my food.
“Milo said you wanted to test a new foraging ability? I’ll come with you—I’d love to see it in action,” she asked.
I got up, shaking my head to clear the thoughts away. I’d deal with that later. I needed to ask someone else—they couldn’t all be sent to die, right? That wouldn’t make sense.
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Heading out of the shelter, I followed Jen out of the clearing and toward the more densely forested area.
“Right, so how’s this ability work?” Jen asked as we stood before the trees.
I laughed a little. “Honestly, I don’t know. My skills are all so vague in description. I don’t even know how much mana this will cost. It just says it’s a magical eye for the freshest ingredients.”
Figuring there was no harm in trying, I activated the ability.
Would you like to active Arcane Foraging for 5 mana? Yes/No
Five mana seemed really low. I selected yes—and immediately fell on my ass as my vision was flooded with glowing items. It was too much to take in at first.
“Woah,” I muttered, mostly to myself. “This is intense. Nearly everything is glowing a little.”
Jen looked me over. “Your eyes are glowing a faint blue; that’s cool. So, what’s glowing and where? I’ll tell you what is what,” she said excitedly, reaching out a hand to help me up.
“Well, nearly everything is glowing a little—except the dirt. But I think there are roots glowing beneath the soil. And over there,” I pointed toward a cluster of trees on my right, “there are berries glowing super bright.”
I could clearly see small clusters of berries shining among softly glowing leaves.
As we walked toward the glowing berries, I glanced at my mana and noticed I was down 10 instead of just five. So, it seemed this ability cost mana continuously while active, not just on activation. Definitely something to keep in mind.
Jen sighed as I pointed at the berries.
“Nah, you can’t eat those. They’re poisonous,” she said, a bit dejected.
“What if I purified them?” I asked, then remembered Jen had gone to sleep when I chose my abilities last night. She probably didn’t know about that.
“Oh, I should probably explain. Last night I got two new abilities—this one, Arcane Foraging, and another that lets me purify ingredients and gives immunity to poisons and toxins,” I told her.
“That sounds super useful,” she laughed. “I just don’t know who you’re going to convince to test it. Someone’s bound to get really sick if it doesn’t work.”
I thought about it for a moment, then reached up and grabbed one of the glowing berries, popping it into my mouth before Jen could stop me.
It was surprisingly sweet—the seeds were soft and barely noticeable, and the berry was full of juicy sweetness.
“They taste great,” I said, glancing over at Jen, who looked absolutely horrified.
Figuring it was a good time for a general test, I picked the whole bunch off the bush and held them in my hands, activating Culinary Transformation.
Would you like to purify Common Dilwater Berries for 10 mana? Yes/No
Selecting yes again, I checked my mana once more—265 out of 300. It looked like the foraging was draining about five mana per minute. Not bad at all, I thought.
The berries glowed brightly in my hand, intensifying the soft blue light they were already giving off. Deciding I’d test them properly later before storing them, I said with a smile, “Okay, they’re purified. I’ll see if I can convince someone to try them.”
Jen just shook her head. “Not gonna be me! Let’s keep searching.”
Looking around, I noticed most leaves and roots had a faint glow, but some, like the berries, shone with a bright blue light. I figured the brightness probably showed their quality as food, though honestly, I was making it up as I went along.
As we walked a bit further, I spotted a couple of curious things: an area with several grass-like plants glowing brightly a short distance away, and a fist-sized lump underground near—or maybe under—a cluster of roots. It was glowing the brightest of all.
“I see two interesting things,” I said to Jen, pointing down to the ground. “There’s a fist-sized blue blob glowing brightest under or near those roots, and over there,” I gestured toward the grass-like plants, “there’s a bunch of those glowing blue too.”
Jen paused, thinking for a moment. “The grass plants—I think I know what those are. It’s a common herb used in teas once dried. It has an almost citrus-like taste; really nice. But that blob you’re talking about? I have no idea. I don’t usually go digging, but I know someone who does!”
Excited, she turned and ran back toward camp. “MILO!” she called out. “Come here! We need your abilities!”
“Milo will help us get it out. Let’s find out what it is.” She said.
A short moment later, Milo came over, looking rather confused, but Jen took charge.
“We need you to dig right here,” she explained, standing on the spot. “But don’t destroy what’s in the dirt—we need a fist-sized blob of something down there,” she added with a shrug.
Milo got to work, raising the dirt carefully. After a short while, the soil lifted neatly and piled to the side, exposing the roots—and there, sitting among them, was the blue blob. Even with my foraging ability active, I couldn’t quite make out what it looked like.
As I pulled it out, Jen gasped and practically bounced over to my side. “I know what that is! It’s a Mana Truffle! I didn’t even know they grew here, where the mana isn’t dense. These are very expensive,” she said, almost in awe.
“You can eat this? It’s not poisonous or anything?” I asked, eyeing the bright object in my hand.
“You use just a tiny bit to add an earthiness to a meal, but I’ve never personally tried it. These are beyond even our budget,” Milo added. “Very rare indeed.”
I looked around to see if anything else stood out. “Besides the grass, nothing else is showing up,” I said. Jen nodded and headed toward the glowing grass.
“After that, we should probably head back to the wagon. Troy’ll get angry if the trip gets delayed—unless you manage to get him a truffle or two. He’d probably sell that for a gold or two if you could keep it fresh,” she said with a grin.
Following her advice, I placed the truffle in my storage and walked alongside her toward the grass.
As we approached, Jen confirmed it was indeed Lemon Tea Grass. I deactivated my foraging ability, noticing it had used a total of 105 mana. We gathered the grass, and Jen told me she’d show me how to dry it properly tonight so it could be used for tea.
On the way back to the wagon, Jen joked I should get Milo to try one of the berries.
Okay, so Jen joked—but I didn’t realise it was a joke. I walked straight up to Milo and pulled a berry out, offering it to him. “Here, try this. It was glowing blue, and I purified it. It tastes really nice.”
Before Jen even realised what I’d done, and before she could say anything or stop him, Milo popped the berry into his mouth and started chewing.
“NO!” Jen yelled, running over. “That’s a Dilwater Berry!”
“What?” Milo asked, confused, swallowing the last bite. Jen repeated herself, and Milo’s face went pale with horror.
“It’s okay, I purified it. It should be perfectly fine to eat. Plus, you said I should get Milo to try it?” I said between them, a bit puzzled by their reactions.
Jen let out a big sigh. “If I have to waste an antidote potion on this, you’ll owe me one of those truffles,” she said with a glare.
I was still pretty confused but went along with it anyway. I grabbed what was left of the stew—which wasn’t much—and stored it, while Milo went around dismantling all the structures he had put up.
Before long, we were back on the road. I was up front this time, sitting next to Cee. Milo seemed fine to me, but I really didn’t know how the poison would react. At least he didn’t look too concerned about it all.