A couple of weeks had passed, and spring was in full swing now. Evren had passed the time between hunting for meat, fighting monsters, and making modifications to his wagon. He had built up the sides of the wagon and added shelves with doors to keep things in place during travel. A false floor had been built up with compartments below to allow for more storage. Two boxes had been built on the sides of the wagon that were removable in case he couldn’t fit the wagon through some area. More boxes had been built and were set inside to be easily removed to gain access to the deeper sections.
It would still fit through the gates of the town, so Evren hoped the wagon would be able to fit inside the dungeon as well. Evren had packed the wagon up with everything he could but stayed in town to finish his preparations. Three days later, Evren set his bow and sword on their holders on the front of the wagon and finalized the departure from Plinth. The meat he wouldn’t take he left outside of the gate. He didn’t have any room left in his wagon.
Ultimately, he decided to take his rune crafted tools with him, including the anvil. They were in the wagon under the false floor, as they were some of the items he wouldn’t be needing immediately. Other than that, most of the supplies consisted of dried meat and vegetables. He had plans to eat less than normal, and spend less time looking for things to hunt, with his focus on getting as far as he could, as fast as he can.
He headed out towards the gate, straining a bit against the load of the wagon. His strength and stamina have improved considerably in the year or so he had been on this world. He felt like although he couldn’t compare to a horse, he wouldn’t fall short on being able to get his wagon up to the dungeon. Even though he knew it was an almost continuous uphill route.
He exited the gate and barred it shut from the outside. He then pulled the wagon along the wall to the west where the north gate and the road to Aernide dungeon led. As he pulled the wagon, he spread out his sensory field to a large radius around him. As he was actually going to follow the route now, he wanted to make sure nothing would come up from behind him either.
His movement speed was slow, his muscles straining against the additional weight. By the time he reached the forest’s edge, he had begun sweating profusely. He would say to himself, “This is good exercise. Don’t think about what you’re pulling!” or, “This is nothing. You got this!” or other self-motivational phrases from time to time.
As Evren travelled on, he would stop from time to time to rest, or fight off monsters. He didn’t come across an ogre again. He had avoided two groups of orcs and one group of goblins, but the ones he had fought, he had no other choice. For the orcs, he could take out one or two with arrows before they arrived, and the goblins didn’t like fire, so even something as simple as a fire ball would drive them away.
As evening came, Evren didn’t go to find a good place to camp, he simply stopped pulling the wagon, blocked off the wheels and camped in place. He figured that if someone came along and he was blocking their way, it would give them a good opportunity to talk. For Evren, that was a positive thing. He wouldn’t even mind if a thief came along at this point. He had been practicing going to sleep with his detection field on, but he didn’t know if he kept it up subconsciously while sleeping, or if it went away with his consciousness.
When Evren was in the military, there would usually be a guard on watch all night, but he was still a light sleeper. When sleeping in town, it was always very quiet. On the rare occasion some noise would be heard, he’d wake immediately. Since he had gotten used to sleeping in the deafening silence of Plinth, he was confident he would awaken if something happened. Still, he didn’t take any chances. He didn’t light a fire, instead opting for dried foods, and when he did sleep, it was on top of the boxes inside the wagon.
He awoke before sunrise, again feeling surprisingly refreshed, and began his march towards Aernide. He avoided monsters when he could, fought when he couldn’t, and took breaks when he needed to. Late on the second day, a pack of wolves started following him. They kept their distance but were close enough to keep an eye on him. He didn’t want them trying to take advantage of him during the night, so he resolved himself to either drive them off, or finish them before the night fell.
He grabbed his bow and hunting arrows, after he blocked the wheels, took aim and shot one of the wolves. The wolf didn’t die immediately, and the others scattered. He shot another one and the others seemed to have understood he was dangerous and fled into the woods. Evren didn’t want to attack the wolves. He needed neither their meat nor their pelts, and it left a bad taste in his mouth to just leave the carcasses there. Still, he retrieved the arrows and returned to the wagon. He wanted to move away from them in case they attracted scavengers, and he wasn’t sure if wolves in this world were cannibalistic or not.
He pulled the wagon until long after the sun had set, his mind set on his destination, but still aware of his surroundings. When he had finally stopped, he could sense something moving in the distance, but it didn’t seem to be aware of him. He made it through another night and moved out before the sun rose again.
He was behind schedule a little. Without the wagon, he would have made it to this point in half of the time, so now Evren was thinking it would take another four to five days at this pace. He wasn’t going to increase the pace, but like he had done the night prior, he would continue to travel into the night. The road had also started to incline. It wasn’t all at once, but he would have moments in which he suddenly felt like something had jumped onto the wagon while he was pulling.
Today, he was facing a new monster. They had been following him for a while now, as the wolves had done, but they were bipedal. There were three of them. When Evren figured they were more than just curious, he stopped and blocked the wheels of the wagon. He picked up his bow and quivers and moved to the side of the wagon, waiting for them to come into view.
They had shorter but muscular legs, their arms ended in sharp claws, and they were covered with fur. A tail peeked out from behind as they walked. Their backs were hunched, or rather their necks were thicker, and their heads ended up with a dog-like face. Evren had read up on these before, they were gnolls. Taking a breath as if there is no other choice, he drew back his bow and put magic into it as he released. The first one fell before he could nock another arrow, but he didn’t stop getting ready to shoot. The gnolls charged at him and he aimed at the trailing one. He fired the bow as he had the previous time, with a burst of magic as he released the string.
The lead gnoll was still twenty-five meters away, but Evren laid the bow and quivers down at the wagon, and drew out his sword, approaching the gnoll. As the gnoll swung its claws at him, he stepped forward and to the left, swinging his sword down, cutting the arm off. Without giving it a chance to react, Evren swung his sword to the right, cutting the head off the gnoll.
He looked down to the dead gnoll, then back to the other two he had shot with arrows, then back down to the one on the ground, “Why can’t all the fights be this quick?” he said as he wiped his blade clean and put it back on the wagon. He set the bow and quivers in their place and went to remove the cores from the gnolls. The cores were a dark shade of yellow. With the pearlescent shimmer, you could even say they were gold. He returned the arrows to the quiver, unblocked the wheels and pushed on.
The next day, Evren saw an ent for the first time. It was on the right side of the road, its wooden eyes staring at Evren as he pulled the wagon past. When Evren passed the ent, it uprooted itself and started to follow Evren, but even with his slower speed, he was faster. Eventually the ent turned around and returned to where it had been previously rooted, taking root again on the side of the road.
“How do you even fight a tree? I’d have to dig in the wagon for a while to find the axe. Would my sword work on it?” He shook his head, “I wouldn’t want to try that.” Evren paused and glanced back where the ent would be. “I wonder if that’s the wood my arrows were made out of.” He shrugged and continued on.
Two days later, the incline got brutal. Evren had gotten used to pulling the wagon with only a few inclines from time to time, but now it was a consistent rise in elevation. “Shit. This is going to slow me down even more.” He complained. He could now see the fortress over the trees. But since it was above the trees meant it was all uphill from here on out. He couldn’t see the one on the right, but the tower on the left was visible. It had collapsed, which Evren had thought might have happened. The fact that it hadn’t been rebuilt didn’t bode well towards Aernide being inhabited by people.
When the road curved back to the right, he could see that the right tower fared much of the same fate. Its collapse didn’t seem as severe, but it was just as prevalent. Evren also had a better view of the fortress now. It stretched from one side of the steep valley to the other. A gate was on the far-right side with a path leading up to it that would wind along the right side of the valley to the left and back again. Buildings could be seen behind the inner walls as they rose higher up the valley. And at the top, the valley seemed to end in a cliff that spread from one side to the other.
Damage could be seen, even from this distance. Some walls had been breached, and buildings had been collapsed. There seemed to be scorches, evidence of a fire, on the second wall. Evidence of siege weapons could be seen on the field before the fortress. Occasionally Evren would see something on the side of the road like a broken-down wagon, or a stacked pile of logs that would show evidence of the Holy State’s march through.
As Evren got closer to the fortress, it seemed like he wasn’t getting any closer at all. Evren would have to spend the night being able to look up at the fortress, but not able to reach it. The sky started to darken as he approached the edge of the wood line. He planned to stop for the night after exiting the forest. He would make it into Aernide fortress tomorrow. He wouldn’t let himself get excited and make a mistake. Plus, if he could observe the fortress at night, he might be able to tell if there were signs of life from within.
When Evren finally exited the forest, he blocked off the wheels and planned to stretch out and relax before eating. He could hear something strange though. It was a rustling or a clicking sound. It seemed to come from many different places around him. The strange thing was that he couldn’t sense anything with his sensory field. He thought it was bugs at first, especially since the sounds didn’t appear to get any closer or farther away, but that thought disappeared when something rose out of the grass behind him.
It was strange. It seemed like a human, but not. It was both as if it was there and wasn’t at the same time. Other things of similar make would rise up from the grass at various locations around him with the same foggy presence. Evren was confused but remained calm. Curious as to what was approaching him, he held his left hand in front of him and cast light on the palm.
“What the fuck!?”
