Ch 29- F***ed
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You know, I had the drive to write once again some time ago, but I read “Magic-Smithing” by Kosnik4, and the feeling vanished to thin air. Comparing his work to mine left me ashamed.

Aela POV

“Here you are.”- I muttered from the shadows of the fern I was hiding behind.

It was big; bigger than any of its kind I had seen till now. Even though I knew it was going to be huge from the size of the prints it had left in the snow, I didn’t expect to hunt this 8 feet tall monstrosity anytime soon. Its silver fur made it hard to spot it from afar without magic, but lucky for me, the Silver Wolf had made a mistake: It had failed to sense me and gone ahead and hunted itself a Styg Moose, painting the snow red with its blood.

Keeping my eyes on the wolf, I lifted my bow and knocked an arrow.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

 Normally, hunting a beast on same Tier as me would be simple, but not this time.

I aimed at the hunter-turned-prey and closed my eyes. Visualizing my mana Core, I drew some energy from it, and willed it into turning 26 Runes, creating 2 spells:

“Sharpen” and “Muffle”.

I ordered the 2 sets of runes to fly out of my Core and to coat the arrow I had drawn.

As I opened my eyes, I saw the Runes gently shimmering around the shaft of the arrow, so close to touching the wood, yet never managing to.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

I made the last minute adjustments as much as I could before spells wore out, and loosened my fingers.

The shaft of the arrow slid past the right side of the bow, racing toward its target while glowing blue.

150 or so yards away from me, the Silver Wolf dropped down to the snow with a “thud”.

“FUCK YEAH!”

I rushed down from the hill I had shot the beast from after putting my bow away.

It took me seconds to reach the corpses, and what I saw put a smile on my face.

The arrow had gone half way through the neck of the Silver Wolf, nicking the spine and tearing its windpipe.

Perfect shot!

First, I recovered my arrow, only to see that it had chipped. Flesh was still fine, but the bones of high tiers were as hard as rocks, often destroying normal tools.

“I knew I should have used adamantium heads!”

Dad is so going to nag me to death. Again…

I had planned to drag my hunt back to the village, but I ran into a problem. The problem was that I was stupid.

“Shit.”

The Silver Wolf was over half a ton… Dragging it back to village would be pain in the ass, if even possible in the first place.

Having no other choice, I salvaged all I could before other beasts were drawn by the smell of blood. Winters were cold around here, and carnivores were already starting to hoard food before winter wiped out all of the smaller critters.

I first cut open the beast’s chest and took out its core.

“Oww, man… It was Tier 4 after all!”

This one was a big beast, bigger than most Alphas of Silver Wolf packs, but it was alone by itself. I had hoped that it would be a Tier 5, but it turned out to be a peak Tier 4 in the end. I put the core into my backpack.

Next, I pulled out its nails and fangs before pulling out my skinning knife. The colour of its fur made it ideal choice for hunters to make it into a coat.

There was also the corpse of the Moose too. Even if the flesh and the hide were ruined, its core was still there.

. . . . .

3 Hours! It took me 3 hours to make my way back to outskirts of the village. That bastard had made me chase it dozens of miles north, wasting all of the daylight, forcing me to trek back in night. Still, it was worth it.

“Are you going to come out or not?”

There was someone in the snow covered trees, but I was not worried. For one, I was about 5 or so miles away from the Village- no beasts would dare approach this close. And with Grandma keeping an eye out, no spies or enemies that I could detect could even reach the outskirts.

No, it was either another hunter messing with me, or one of the kids in patrol duty.

“Che.”

An elf jumped down from a tree 10 yards away from me, an elf I recognized from her voice.

Urgh.

“What do you want Njada? Don’t you have better business than messing with me? Or have you already sucked dry all the goblins in the forest?”

She was a typical girl as far as appearances went. Standard yellow hair, 6 feet tall or so, and a thin waist.

I walked towards home without paying much attention to her.

“Big words coming out of a virgin. You left for the whole day, so I thought you were going to bring back something nice. Yet you crawl back empty handed.”

Why did I ever become friend with her in the first place…?

I took off my backpack so I could take out the fur.

“Bah, if not fucking everyone with a dick makes me a virgin, then sure, I am a virgin. Is there a single unmarried man left in the village that you haven’t ridden yet? Also give this to your daddy for me.”

I threw the fur of the Silver Wolf at her. Her father was best tanner of the village, while my dad was the only smith we had. This forced them to work together a lot, leading me to become friends with this sex fiend.

She caught it, but she didn’t seemed to be pleased.

“This is it? You wasted all day for a common wolf? I am ashamed for you, sister.”

“Whore,  have your eyes rotten away from all the fucking? Look at its size.”

Now, the look she had on her eyes when the coin dropped was priceless.

“Hmm? Oh shit! It’s from an Alpha! How in the oblivion did you manage to kill an entire pack?!”

Heh, I wish! A normal pack has over twenty Tier 3 Silver Wolfs, and they are especially aggressive this time of the year.

“Nah, it didn’t have a pack. It was alone when I managed to find its tracks. Whether it lost its pack in a fight or it was kicked out, I don’t know. It was not a normal one either, here look at this.”

I took out the core from the backpack and threw it to her. I got to see her ears stand in attention once again. Her ears were very long, almost like goblin ears. This made her expressions especially comical.

“Daaamn, girl. This is almost Tier 5! And you hunted it alone?! Didn’t you just got to 4th tier, like, a week ago?”

Praise me more, foolish creature!

“Hehe, I am great after all! Now give it back, Dad will grill my ass if I am any later.”

She threw the core back with an amused face.

“Oh, you have bigger worries, Aela. Take a guess.”

Shit. There was only one thing worse than an angry dad…

“Don’t tell me…”

“Yep, I saw her before my shift, and believe me, she was not smiling.”

FUCK.

I stuffed the core back to its place and took off towards home.

The 16 Mana trees and the single Elder Tree of the village came into my sight in minutes, but there was only a single though in my mind.

I am fucked.

Making my way toward the furthest Mana tree took more effort from me than I spent in the last 3 hours. And it was not the muddy soil that slowed me down/

There is no running from this.

I knocked on the door of my home, one of the 4 houses that were nestled between the thick roots of this Mana tree, roots which were holding its trunk above ground.

Not waiting for or expecting an answer, I opened the door and walked in.

First thing I saw was Dad, whittling wood for some weapon at the end of the corridor.

He stopped his hands, lifting his eyes to meet mine for few second. He was neither angry nor worried, but his gaze made one thing clear.

I am sooo fucked.

“H-Hi.”

“Aela Maryon! Get your ass over here right this second!”

It was mom, shouting from kitchen a door over.

Gathering all the courage I could, I marched towards kitchen without saying anything. Shit. No beast was as terrifying as the one cooking in the kitchen.

“Now, tell me, young lady, where were you whole day?”

“I-I was hunting!”

“Keep your shoulder straight and look at my face when talking, Aela! There is nothing to fear. Tell me, what was the mighty beast that made you forget your promise not to leave the village without telling me?”

Liar! You are the terrifying thing I know!

Trying to get out of this as fast as possible, I took out the core and put it in front of her. It was a mistake. Her ears rose up enough to get glued to her head, and her face contorted in anger.

“AELA MARYON! WHAT DID I TELL YOU BEFORE?! Why did you chase after creatures stronger than you?! What would we do if you fell to a random bear or wyvern?! Huh?! Did it ever occur to you not to mess with creatures stronger than you?!”

It had been years since she last shouted at me like this. I knew it was partially my fault, but so what?! She knew why I did it! She knew why I tried so hard to cultivate for all the time. She knew what I wanted to do. So why was she shouting at me like this?!

“YOU KNOW WHY I DID IT! YOU KNOW BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE!”

Before I knew it, it become hard see. Tears had filled my eyes. They raced down my cheeks before I knew it, leaving behind a small trail.

I didn’t realize how, but I was already hunkering behind the table when I heard mother sigh.

“Aela… We talked about this, didn’t we? You are still too young to leave us. Just wait few more years.”

Putting her chopping knife down, she came towards me, pulling me into a hug.

“B-but I am a-already 34! When will it be enough?!”

She let out a small chuckle, hugging me closer. It had also been years since we did this. I had almost forgotten how safe and warm her embrace could be. My tears finally dried up, but not before wetting her shirt.

“You are barely out of the crib, my little baby. With your talents, you will easily live up to 400. What are you if not young? Little girl, outside world is not kind, especially now. You are not ready to face it.”

I had heard these excuses dozen times already. ‘You are too young’, ‘You are not strong enough’ and ‘The world is a cruel place’. Yet, I had not seen a glimpse of the world. I had never been allowed to go south toward the famed Empire they spoke of, nor have I ever gone close to Maki.

“When?! When will I be strong enough then?! You two are at Tier 5, yet I reached Tier 4 before fifty! Tell me, when will I be strong enough to wander the world, leaving behind this cursed village? Even hunting that Silver Wolf had been as easy as pie!”

SHIT!

I realized that I had fucked up big time when she released her hold over me. But it was too late. Her eyes locked onto mine, but there was no anger in her eyes. I couldn’t spot a single emotion on her face.

 “Aela. Where did you hear that phrase from?”

Fuck me!

I just broke one of the taboos of the village, the one about never using the words of the humans. It was fine still fine using it among kids, but you would get a good spanking if others heard you speak the phrases brought by the corruptors. And spanking was only for the kids, adults had it much worse; they would be banished at best case…

“I-I…”

While I was looking for a way out of this mess, I was saved by someone knocking on the door.

Father put down his tools to answer the door, but the mom’s steely eyes were still on me.

The one on the doorway was one of the hunters of the village.

“Grand Elder sent a summon.”

Father being the only smith here, he was often called by the Grandma Maru, the Grand Elder of our village.

“Alright, just give a minute to get ready.”

Father replied as he invited the hunter inside. But fate had something else in mind for me.

“It’s not for you, brother. Grand Elder wants to see Aela.”

I am waaay beyond fucked.

 

 

 

This chapter takes place earlier in the story, so I will move it to an appropriate place in the list, probably around chapter 10~.

Also, one little thing you might have missed in the chapter: As you read, this village is more “traditional” Elven village according to fantasy, while the rest of the world is more medieval-fantasy-esque. As most of you understood, this means that rest of the elven society got changed due to humans. There is also a small Easter egg that in the chapter. If you got it, you surely came to 2 possible conclusions. And no, it’s not the dull one, but the other possibility…

Also, I graduated from using random name generator and started to rip-off names from ESO. Hail Skyrim!

PS: 2361 words, making this one of the longest chapters I have ever done.

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