The third day has come and he put on the armor that the Mayor had given him and equipped the sword and 2 daggers.

 

[Defense: 5]

 

Unconsciously Ray thought what the defense stat was and a menu popped up.

 

[The Defense stat determines how much damage the user takes]

 

“Woah, I didn’t even ask it for information about it”

 

“Okay now that I’m ready, I need to mentally prepare for the hello I’m about to go through”

 

 Ray took his time to get to the town’s exit. He went on thinking about how he could better use the system and a name for it. Ray is not good at naming things, he once tried to name a rat ‘ratto’, Zinnia burst out in laughter.

 

For now, he has other things to worry about as he is getting closer to the west gate. The opposite direction that Zin had gone in.

 

Ray notices that everyone has gathered around the gate but he can't see the twins.

 

'Was I too early?'

 

He tries to get a better view by moving through the crowd to get to the gate. As he struggles out of the crowd to an opening, he sees a carriage.

 

The carriage was a black with gold outline and complicated designs under the windows. Two doors on each side of it with the Kingdom's crest under the window of the door. A winged person is on the crest but Ray doesn't recognize them.

 

Then suddenly the door opens and Jome comes out with an angered expression.

 

She starts to look around and spots Ray trying to come towards her.

 

"Can you explain why you are late! We've been waiting here for quite a while. You were supposed to be here before the sun rose."

 

Ray tried to remember if they said what time he should have been here but couldn't.

 

"No one told me what time I should have arrived"

 

"Then you should have asked. What's the point in telling a clueless rat if they aren't smart enough to understand."

 

Everyone who could hear what she had said started to chuckle.

 

"I apologies for being late, if you don't want to arrive any later let's get moving"

 

Ray tries to leave before things get worse.

 

"At least you know how important the situation is."

 

She goes back to her seat and slams the door shut

 

When Ray gets closer he sees a seat for the driver on the outside and 2 horses pulling the carriage in the carriage there are enough seats for 4 adults.

 

Ray opens the door and about to spend however long with the twins in the passenger area 

 

"What are you doing here? You aren't allowed in here"

 

Frin looks at Rayburn sternly.

 

"Then where am I supposed to go?"

 

“Jome, I didn’t think rats were this dumb”

 

“No, regular rats are smarter than this. He must be a sewer rat, they don’t have experience with humans as often since they live in a dump. You must get us to the kingdom, so you are the coachman. The map should be under the seat with directions that even a child could follow”

 

Ray looks at the horses and is worried if they would even listen to him.

 

“These are trained horses, they shouldn’t be a problem for someone as incompetent as you. Now go up to the front and let’s go, I don’t want to see your face anymore”

 

He wanted to talk back to her but with so many people here he decided not to.

 

Going to the driver’s seat he notices a note coming out of the driver’s seat.

 

Food for the horse is under a compartment under the carriage. This should last the trip and thus you should feed them around twice a day after you leave. Let them eat grass whenever you can to preserve food. Under your seat, some rations will last you the trip, my children have their food inside the carriage. There are also first aid kits in case of emergency. Last but definitely not least, there is an M.D.B, Monster Deterrent Beacon, this will keep them safe when you have to stop for the night, make sure the black button is facing upward, after that you don’t need to do much but keep guard.

 

At the bottom right of the note, there is an arrow pointing to the right. He flips it over and it gives him instructions on how to get the horse to do what you want.

 

He goes to the seat and follows step by step to how to use the reins to make them walk, run, go left or right and stop. He whips the reins slightly to signal to the horse to start walking. They start making their way out of the town and out the gate. Ray gets up and looks in the seat for the map to The Siegfried Kingdom and is now following the map.

 

"Could you go any slower,  speed it up, I don't want to be late to the Crimson Dragons ceremony."

 

Ray whips the reins harder than before and the horses start speeding up, now leaving Rimefold.

 

•    -       -        -

 

"Mam we are about to arrive"

 

"Thank you for the heads up, can you see if they are still fighting those dire bears?"

 

The soldier takes out a magic item resembling a monocle and looks around the village to see if the fighting had stopped.

 

"They either seemed to have won the battle or they lost. I can't tell which it is since there are dead bodies of both the red dire bears and people. We will send one of us out to scout the area."

 

The three soldiers got together and played rock, paper, and scissors to decide who would go. The shortest of the three soldiers lost both rounds and had to go, scout, the area.

 

"Man this always happens, I get stuck with the worst jobs. Next time, you guys go against each other and I'll go relax a bit."

 

The soldier begrudgingly walked over to the village. As he gets closer, he starts to hear people talking and crying. Once he gets to the entrance he sees many injured, dead, or crying. No sight of dire bears in the area.

 

He signals them that it's safe and they head over.

 

"Honey, you will be treating the light injuries, any major injuries they come to us. You need to learn how to efficiently use your magic because you are wasting a lot of mana trying to heal small wounds You would be passed out trying to heal a lost limb and not even fully heal it."

 

"Yes dad"

 

Zin has passed out from not properly using her magic, even though she has gotten better there are still instances of when she passes out. Even the stab wound that Rayburn had on his leg took a large portion of her mana.

 

Everyone has reached the village and they see how collapsed this place looked. The walls keeping this place protected are broken or stuck inside someone's house. Buildings crumbling down and blood everywhere.

 

Zin's dad, Yarrow Orcharsdale, looks around to see who the person in charge is. To no avail he couldn't, however, someone did approach him.

 

"Are y'all the healers sent from Rimefold?"

 

"Yes we are, and who might you be little fella"

 

The boy in front of them seemed to be 13 or 14 years of age, he black hair in a bowl cut. The boy didn't come too close to them since they were just attacked by a pack of dire bears and didn’t know if they were friendly or not.

 

“Fa- I mean the Village Chief is this way. We were struggling here, we never expected dire bears to appear in these areas. It’s usually those damn wooden wolves and some critters nothing too bad.”

 

“Dire bears are usually spotted down south since it is a colder climate, something must’ve happened down south to have driven them here.” One of the soldiers had stated.

 

They reached what appeared to be the town hall of this village. The boy opens the doors and now they can see that most people have lost their limbs or have huge bear claw marks on their bodies. Both Yarrow and Valerian rushed to the closest people to them and started healing the individuals.

 

A man covered in blood comes and checks who opened the door and sees the Orcharsdale’s starting to treat people.

 

“Y'all from Rimefold right, I see you met my son already. I’m the Chief of the Village, Levin Charlesworth, that’s my son Bolt Charlesworth.”

 

“My name is Valerian Orcharsdale and that’s my husband Yarrow and my daughter is over here is Zinnia. Could you tell us more about what happened? Bolt had informed us a bit of what had happened.”

 

Levin explained to them how the dire bears came and ravaged their place destroying everything and killing most of the people who lived here. They had ordered an M.D.B about a week ago but they were told it would arrive in a week and a half.

 

“But wouldn’t it take about a few days for them to arrive here?” Zinnia asked.

 

“They, unfortunately, didn’t have the one we needed. The one we requested was the one that Rimfold uses to keep monsters out, these beacons are made to stay in one spot permanently. They had to build one and it takes time”

 

She was a bit embarrassed, thinking she asked a stupid question. She goes to heal someone with minor injuries to distract herself.

 

* * *

 

After a couple of hours, everyone that could be healed was healed. And the Orcharsdale and the soldiers were getting prepared to leave but were stopped by Levin.

 

“Could y'all perhaps stay a few more days until the M.D.B arrives in case something else happens? Especially since my wife, the doctor of this village, had died and have no one else to help us.”

 

Yarrow and Valerian took a few seconds to think.

 

“We will provide food and other necessities for free”

 

“Oh, we weren’t thinking whether we wanted to stay or leave but we were thinking if everyone could fit in our small M.D.B.”

 

This calmed Levin since he was worried that they couldn’t survive another day without medical help.

 

“Well, let us have a feast for all the hard work y'all did today. Everyone must be tired and hungry from this terrible event.”

 

They all agreed and headed to the town hall again but this time it was set up for the feast to actually take place. Their food supply hadn’t taken a hit since they have a storage space underground to put the majority of the food. For the rest of the day, they all started cooking and eating while not worry about being attacked by monsters thanks to Orcharsdale’s M.D.B. keeping them safe.

---

Today's my birthday, not doing anything special, After I upload it I will have to go to class then to work. Now chapters will come out every other Tuesday. Thank you guys for following the story I'm very thankful for you guys.