Volume 1 Chapter 4: Part 2: Fight To The Death

 

Onyx drags the fang boars back to where Vargar was. He had finished setting up the campsite. 

 

With the meat Onyx brought back, Vargar claps his hand, "Well done. We got our dinner. Since you hunted the boars, I'll be the one to cook it." 

 

Step by step, Vargar starts to prepare the fang boar. Bleeding out the monster's blood and then cutting out the meat he needs and putting it into the pot. 

 

Each step was slowly done so Onyx could see what he was doing. He adds, 

 

"Onyx, you can use the forest to your advantage if you know what you're doing." 

 

"Hmm?" Vargar continues, "There are many wild herbs edible here. You just need to know what is and what's not. See that plant over there?" He points at a light-green herb growing under a tree. 

 

"That's a mint herb. It's edible and goes great as a seasoning." Picking up the herb, Vargar grinds it down with his hand and throws it in the pot. The next second, a sweet and savory smell comes from the meat and the herb mixing together in the air. 

 

Gulp. Onyx begins to salivate from it. The aroma coming from the pot is to die for.

 

"Just leave everything in the pot for half an hour; what comes out after it will be a delicious stew." Vargar calmly says as he puts the lid on the pot. 

 

"Teacher, how are you so good at cooking?" Onyx asks. He's surprised by how good of a cook Vargar is. Vargar is a noble, so how could he cook so well?

 

When he hears that, Vargar does a ten thousand-yard stare into the sky, 

 

"It was basically a matter of life and death. If I didn't learn how to cook, I would have to eat the dark matter of death."

 

Dark matter of death? What's that? Onyx wants to ask. Seeing his expression, Onyx decides not to ask anything about it. But he does ask, 

 

"Can you tell me more about your past?"

 

Vargar has a strange expression, "Why do you want to hear about an old man's past experience? Wouldn't it be boring for you?" 

 

When he trained with the knights and talked about his past, they would have blank or bored expressions. 

 

"How can it be boring?! Haven't you heard the saying; one's past experience will become another man's wealth?!" Vargar is a hero. How can he have any boring experience? If anybody says it's boring, then those people are blind to what is good!

 

Seeing his eager expression, Vargar chuckles, "Fine, I'll tell you the story about my past and experiences. But it'll only be until the pot is finished cooking." He sits down on a log, thinking it'll be a long story.

 

Onyx nods quickly. It doesn't matter how short it is.

 

Knowledge is knowledge!

 

As Vargar talks about his past life, Onyx listens attentively to what he says, absorbing all the information and knowledge. There are some memories where Vargar talks about personal events. And Onyx thought those were funny. 

 

But as the two continue to talk, the two sense footsteps approach them!

 

"Sometimes this will happen when me and Walter adventure together. So how about it, Onyx. Do you want to have some light exercise before we have our meal?" Vargar gets off the wooden log with a smile on his face. 

 

Onyx nods his head, "Let's do this!"

...

A few meters away from the campsite, a horde of goblins gathers together. The smell coming from the stew drives the monster closer. Humans. That's what they thought. And the light from the campfire makes the goblins even happier as they are about to charge in. 

 

Before the goblin can get a meter from the campsite: two shadows rush down from the trees! They are too quick for the goblins to even react!

 

The heads of eight goblins were sliced off cleanly. Vargar takes out a cloth and wipes the goblin blood off his blade. He looks coldly at them, 

 

"There's a lot of goblins here. Onyx, I'll be the vanguard and deal with the monster at the front. You deal with the ones in the backlines."

 

"Understood." Onyx nods and jumps back into the trees. 

 

"Grawhh." The goblins growl. Then, a couple of goblins in the backline take out bows and slingshots, aiming toward Onyx. But Onyx was moving from tree to tree too quickly for him to be hit by them. 

 

"You should be looking at me as well." Vargar swings his sword through their waist, cutting down many goblins from their stomach. 

 

Changing their targets, the goblin archers shoot towards Vargar now. Vargar side steps all the arrows and attacks. Too slow. 

 

The arrows move in slow motion for him. 

 

When the goblin archers reload their arrows, Onyx takes advantage! He jumps down and kills a couple of goblin archers. And jumps back into the trees and moves around again, causing confusion. 

 

The hit-and-run tactic was highly effective toward the goblins. 

 

The rearguard was slowly disappearing. 

 

He's doing good. Seeing how quickly Onyx takes out the goblins, Vargar's proud Onyx knew what he was doing. But then he notices something off. 

 

"Onyx! Watch out in the back! Goblin mage!" When he hears this, Onyx turns his head to the back. There he saw the goblin mage. It's the same height as the other goblins. The only difference is the monster is wearing tribal clothes. 

 

A giant lightning bolt forms in front of it, and the goblin makes direct eye contact with Onyx! 

 

Shit! Too far! The distance isn't something Onyx could dodge or rush to kill the goblin mage. 

 

"Grawr!" The goblin mage screams out as the bolt of lightning shot toward Onyx! Fast! The speed of the magic is abnormal as it rushes towards him. 

 

And when it makes contact with Onyx, there's a giant explosion!

 

"Onyx!" Vargar shouts out. Only smoke surrounds Onyx's position. But what comes out of the explosion is a silver blur!

 

"GRAAAAAAAWWWR!" The goblin mage screams out in agony! In the middle of the goblin mage's forehead is a sword. It's one of Onyx's short swords.

 

"I'm fine, teacher!" Out of the smoke came Onyx's voice. His body has some scratch marks. But all in all, he's unharmed by the blast. But the goblin in his hand got burned to a crisp!

 

Thank goodness I grabbed one. With Onyx's quick thinking, he grabbed one of the goblins near him. The human shield blocked everything. 

 

"Let's clean them up quickly then!" Seeing Onyx unharmed, Vargar sighs in relief, but he becomes serious the next second. He doesn't take his time as he slices all the goblins in front of him!

 

Onyx isn't slacking off either as he continues to cut down the backline like tofu. With the two's combined power, it only took them a few minutes to kill all of them. 

 

"Onyx, you did a good job. You did well dealing with all those goblins." Vargar was surprised by how well Onyx did when dealing with the lightning bolt. It was great quick thinking from him.

 

"I got lucky." Onyx got lucky that a goblin was next to him. And he looks at his armor, "The armor helped me out a lot." He couldn't stop some of the arrows. But the armor's there to block it. 

 

"We did well. Now I'll teach you how to take the demon crystals out from their body." Vargar walks over to a goblin corpse, and using his knife, he takes out a small translucent rock. He shows it to Onyx, 

 

"This is a demon crystal. You can hand these to the guild, and they will give you money in return. Help me collect these."

 

"Yes, sir." Onyx takes out his knife and starts to collect the demon crystal out of the goblins. When he takes the demon crystal out of the goblin mage,

 

"Hmm?" The crystal is a different color from the others. The other demon crystal has imperfections in them. 

 

But the one in his hand is a clear topaz color with few imperfections. 

 

"Pretty." That was the only thing Onyx could say when he saw the crystal. But then he places the crystal into the pouch with the others. After collecting all the demon crystals, Onyx hands them over to Vargar, 

 

"Here, teacher." But Vargar waves his hand, "You keep it. Treat them as spoils from your battle." 

 

"But-"

 

"It's ok. Besides, these crystals aren't worth that much. You can turn them into jewelry if you want." Usually, demon crystals like these would be used for cheap accessories. 

 

"I understand." Hearing that, Onyx places the pouch into his backpack. 

 

"Now that we got these beasts out of the way: let's go back to our dinner. It should be done simmering or burnt, to be honest." Hearing this, Onyx quickly dashes back to the camp! Vargar laughs, seeing how fast he ran. He follows suit. But he looks back at the goblin corpses with a strained face. 

...

"I've never been so full in my life!" Onyx lays down on the ground. When Onyx comes running back, he takes the pot off the fire, and luckily, it wasn't burnt! 

 

And it was so delicious! Onyx ate the stew like it was his first meal in 10 years. 

 

"Thanks for the compliment."Vargar has a light smile. 

 

"Onyx, there's something I have to give you." He goes through his bag and takes something out, 

 

"Catch." Vargar tosses to Onyx two books. The moment Onyx caught it, a bunch of dust exploded in his face! 

 

"Cough! Cough! Teacher, why did you bring these with you?" Onyx was told to bring nothing. But Vargar had with him these two books. 

 

"Check what's inside the book before you ask me." Vargar smiles at him. 

 

When Onyx opens and looks at the first page of the book, the next second, he closes it instantly! He looks at Vargar, "Teacher, where did you get books like these?!" 

 

The books Vargar brought with him taught dark magic!

 

"I got these from the royal library. These are the only books I could find." The royal library has the largest selection of books, spanning every category. But out of those thousands of books, these two books in Onyx's hand were stuck in a corner, forgotten to time. 

 

"But why are you giving me something like this?"

 

"You have to learn some attack magic to increase your variety of attacks." Seeing how Onyx couldn't attack the goblin mage, Vargar realized the problem. 

 

Onyx needs to learn attack magic to fight at distances as well.

 

"But priest Bron told me I wasn't ready to use any attack magic." Whenever Onyx asked about learning attack magic, Bron would tell him he wasn't ready to learn it. He kept saying that he might die if he used magic.

 

"With the skills you showed, you're more than ready to use elementary magic." Quick thinking and mental strength. 

 

Onyx has both of them. Vargar knows that Onyx is ready to use magic. 

 

"..." Onyx stays silent, feeling conflicted by this. 

 

"This is a secret between you and me. Don't show it off to anybody else, and you'll be fine." Vargar says calmly. 

 

"Ok. I understand, teacher." Onyx takes the books. Comparing Bron to Vargar, he trusts Vargar more than the other. Vargar taught him a lot more and would point out mistakes he made. 

 

On the other hand, Bron praised him endlessly, not finding flaws in his work. It felt weird to Onyx. Onyx himself knew what he did was not good enough. That's why, 

 

When class ended, he would go to the royal library to study more. 

 

Holding onto the textbooks, Onyx has the biggest grin on his face. He's super excited that he's able to learn magic!

 

Breaking that excitement, Vargar informs him, "We'll be taking turns to watch over the camps at night." Monsters become more active during the night. So for a two-man group, they would have to take turns watching the night. 

 

"Do you want to take the first shift, or do you want me to do it instead?"

 

"I'll watch for the first round!" Gaining these two books, how can Onyx not stay up to read these books?!

 

"Alright then. Remember to wake me up, alright?" Should I have given him the book right now? Vargar felt a little suspicious seeing the excited expression plastered on Onyx's face. 

 

"Good night, teacher!" The moment Vargar goes into the tent, Onyx's eyes turn bloodshot as he begins to read the books!

 

Dark magic, here I come!