The tattered mud road made the group’s travel to Modega slow and arduous. Thankfully, Damon had a spell which worked well in this situation, earth flattening. It was one of the three basic earth magic spells he learned in the church. The two others were earth pillar, and stone throw. To activate it Damon made his mana circulate around the border of his feet twice. The ground then flattened in a radius of half a meter around his feet. The only problem being it took one mana point per activation so he couldn’t flatten the entire road.

After two days, they hadn’t encountered any stray beasts. At night they set up camp near the roadside and Sakura stood watch all night without issue. In the morning she slept four hours before they headed out once again.

“Hey, aren’t these wolf prints?” called out Pythias.

It seemed that he’d learned to recognize them on his hunts with Sakura.

Sakura approached and nodded. With a hoarse voice worthy of a minotaur she answered, “There doesn’t seem to be many of them, maybe four or five.”

Pythias’s eyes twitched, “We’ve only ever faced three at a time.”

“We’ll be fine,” said Sakura, “Did you see that earth pillar yesterday. It’ll take care of one wolf.”

“True,” said Pythias.

Damon quickly interjected, “No, I can’t decide where it—”

A wolf’s howl resounded close by, “The moon isn’t even out,” murmured Pythias as to not attract its attention.

Sakura turned to Damon with an apologetic smile. “Make sure to prove him wrong.”

Everyone got behind Sakura. She had replaced one of her hatchets with a large rectangular shield. It seemed to be custom-made for her size.

“Don’t worry my little prince I’ll make sure no one hurts you this time.” Stolas patted Damon’s head. The owl hadn’t left Damon’s side since they left the church. He seemed content perched on Damon’s shoulder.

“Can you even do anything?” asked Damon.

The owl stopped patting him. “Well, not right now, it’s your fault for being weak. I’ll have to watch my beloved get killed in front of my very eyes if anything happens now. But don’t worry, in revenge I’ll send my legions to kill all the wolves on the planet if it happens.”

“Legions?”

“Oh, look the wolves have come, such convenient timing. These are good wolves. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

The six wolves formed a semi circle around the group.

“It seems our perception isn’t any good.” Pythias scratched his head. “Well, it’s not like we could have out run these guys.”

The leader of the wolves took the right most position and charged at Sakura. Damon who stayed behind had a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. He activated his earth pillar for 10 mana points. Unfortunately, he had drained a large amount of mana by flattening the ground. He only had 31 mana left. The meter tall pillar erupted from the ground under one of the wolf’s hind legs. As the wolf was about to jump the pillar emerged from the ground and made the wolf jump even higher than expected. Sakura missed her strike on the wolf and it landed behind her, in front of Damon, “Fuck.”

Damon tried to slash down on the wolf’s head. However, he missed and cut into the wolf’s right shoulder. The wolf rushed regardless of his minor wound to sink its teeth into Damon’s leg. Thankfully, Damon managed to lower his shield and only suffered a minor wrist injury due to the blowback force. This gave enough time for Sakura to turn and plant her hatchet into the wolf’s head.

Another wolf took this opportunity and bite her ankle. Damon quickly thrusts his sword deep into through its eyes into its brain.

In the meantime, Pythias aimlessly swung his sword to keep the four other wolves distracted.

Fortunately, the wolves noticed the death of their leader and retreated.

“What a fucking mess.” Yelled Sakura, she sat down to inspect her wounds. Thankfully, her thick leathery skin prevented the wolf from giving her lasting damage. Since the town was close by, they could get there today and find something or someone to heal her.

Damon apologized, but she didn’t blame him, probably because he had been hurt much worse off last time.

The group arrived at the town an hour before sun set. The guards manning the entrance looked somewhat surprised to see a group composed of an elf, dark elf, and minotaur, but didn’t question them and let them through for one large, small silver each. The price was rather steep, most likely to reduce the movement of serfs and poorer commoners. On the other hand adventurers and merchants had the right to move freely; however, their funds were siphoned through other means.

They went straight to the apothecary who used a bit of holy magic to close the wound and applied an orange ointment on the wound. It seemed that everyone had their own mixtures, as such health care in this world was analogous to a game of Russian roulette.

The group then found an inn and slept like rocks.

The next morning Sakura’s wounds seemed fine.

“I think I’m going to go find the others,” said Sakura, “but first I’ll go get my guild card. The guild might also know my friend’s whereabouts.”

“I need to talk to you,” said Damon to Pythias before Sakura finished speaking.

“OK, I gotta do something first, I’ll be there soon,” answered Pythias in response to Sakura’s invitation.

“Sounds good, I’ll be waiting.” Sakura waved goodbye and left.

“Is something wrong?” asked Pythias when she left.

Damon nodded, “You see, apparently the Guild is directly affiliated with the crown and…”

Damon told him the rest of the information he obtained from his talking bird. Pythias nodded, “So you want me to check if it’s true.”

“You don’t need to, I was thinking of going myself, but if it’s true I don’t think you should join either.”

Pythias thought about it. “Well, it’s true that being shackled by the state is a bit annoying, but it’s not too different than how things were on earth, No?”

“Well, that’s true, it’s just that—”

“You wouldn’t be able to learn black magic.”

Damon nodded to his friends’ words.

“This whole black magic is really a hassle, but you saw how the fight went. I can’t even deal with a wolf. Even if I try to improve my earth magic, its capped at level 5. That’s barely good enough to become an adventurer.”

“What about dark magic?”

“It’s mainly a support class, I don’t see how I’ll be able to do much. Even if I completely restrain one person or a few animals, I’ll get surrounded and hacked down by a goblin. If someone throws a fire ball my way, how am I supposed to defend? I can’t ignore my strongest magic, who knows what kind of weird demonic creatures we’ll encounter.”

“That’s probably because that church didn’t have any information on how to properly use dark magic, I’m sure you’ll—”

“Thank you for trying to help, but I’ve been thinking about it on our way here and I don’t want to waste my potential. I promise I’ll find you when I know how to defend myself at least. We still have the telepathy skill; we’ll be able to stay in contact if we don’t stray too far from each other.”

“That’s true,” answered Pythias; however, he still didn’t seem convinced. As an adventurer he would most definitely go on distant trips, and he didn’t know where Damon would go.

Damon continued his explanation, “The thing is, even if I become a first-rate dark magic user, they’ll eventually call me to the capital. There they have devices that can see your skills and potential. They’ll find out that I possess black magic, and level 10 potential at that. Although some may have black magic potential, if it’s under five it’s no big deal so they might look the other way. But mine is ten. They might just burn me on a stake. Did you see the priest change in attitude when he discovered I could use black magic? Plus, he sees me as a messiah of God himself. Now imagine the royal family, which has nothing to gain from me.”

Pythias’s gaze grew solemn.

“How about this?” said Damon in a light tone. “You go to the adventurer’s guild ask them the question. In the meantime, I’ll head to the library and see if there’s anything on dark or black magic. If not, I’ll leave tomorrow. I think you should keep going with the rest of the group. Even if just with Sakura you should be fine.”

Pythias hesitated, “I’ll just go with you.”

Damon shook his head, “I’m going to learn black magic. You should understand that where I’m going isn’t going to be somewhere you can go without the skill. They’ll see you as an outsider. I doubt a group which has been pushed out by everyone else would welcome others so easily.”

Pythias nodded, “I’ll find someone else with whom I can practice my telepathic skill. Each time you level up try to see if were in reach.”

“Sounds good,” answered Damon.

Pythias nodded and left for the adventurer’s guild.

“For fuck’s sake, are you sure you guys aren’t lovers.”

Damon grabbed the bird standing on his shoulders by the head, “It’s called being friends for twenty years, now lead the way to the library.” Damon released his grip on the owl. It landed on the ground and led the way.