Chapter 23: Everyone needs that kind of bath
"I should stop being the hero, dammit. What did Harvey Dent say, you either die a hero or live long enough to be the villain. Damn you, Jonathan Nolan," Aric mused as he looked at the dead wolves lying around. The men behind him, who held their sticks high as if they could protect themselves, lowered them.
"Thank you... Thank you, great mage, for saving and protecting us. We will be eternally in your debt. If you want us as slaves, we are ready to do your bidding," one man slowly came forward and said while Aric still had his back turned to them. Aric, who had been lost in his thoughts for the past few moments, was brought back to reality.
"Why am I spacing out? I’m not even in space to be spacing out so much," Aric thought as he turned around to look at the group of people. When he turned around, everyone was on their knees, looking at Aric as if he were a god.
They were thankful, but among the gleam of their eyes in the dark night, one could also see that they were a bit afraid of him. Most of them had their heads low, but the children and some of the women stole glances at him, especially at his ’ears’ over his head. Aric knew for a fact that he couldn’t utter a word and just looked at them through his red eyes.
This made the situation awkward for Aric and a bit frightening for the rest. They couldn’t understand why the mage here was silent, and thus, in the end, they slowly looked up, and he just hinted with his hand for them to get up. The men and women were confused, but they did get up in the end.
"City... Direction..." Aric spoke in the most hoarse tone he could conjure and spoke as loudly as possible. They didn’t expect the first words to come out of the mage’s mouth to be these two words. One of them took the courage and pointed in the direction where the road was leading.
"If Sir travels for a day on foot, he would reach the city of Distant Wind in a day. I hope this helps, Sir," one of the men, who seemed to be a bit intelligent, said. Aric nodded to signify that he understood and then slowly walked away. One of the men wanted to call him, but the one who spoke up before stopped him.
"Sir-mage is probably tired. We should go back home and bury the dead," one man came forward and said. They looked around and felt like the last half-hour had passed like a dream. They had been leading simple lives until these men showed up, looted them, massacred them, and took them as slaves.
They had given up on life, but then this man in a dark suit, which looked like fine leather, came and destroyed the people who had done them wrong, saving them from immediate danger and oppression for the rest of their lives. Though they voluntarily asked if they could be the slaves of mage, in their hearts they knew well that a mage like him would never be interested.
And they were right. The mage didn’t even bother to look at them and walked away after finding the information he needed. But regardless, they were grateful.
"Simon, Arthur.. Take the male whirlwind wolf’s body and deliver it to the city. You will be able to earn 250 gold coins from the body itself and use that money to buy necessary tools for the village. We have lost many people in this struggle. And also tell the guards of what happened to the village."