Luke unbuttoned his shirt, and was now looking at his bare chest.

The silver hourglass tattoo looked the same as usual, still enveloped in the pure white whirlwind, but what surprised Luke were two new, smaller tattoos.

‘What could these signify?’

The silver hourglass tattoo was now surrounded with two smaller whirlwind tattoos.

They looked exactly the same as the pure white whirlwind tattoo that was enveloping the silver hourglass, only difference being that they were smaller in size.

‘They must have something to do with the big chunk of that wind elemental I absorbed from the mother Gleem...’

Luke bit his lip.

‘What would’ve happened if I managed to absorb it in its entirety? Maybe the tattoo would’ve changed into another shape again?’

Thinking about that, Luke buttoned his shirt back up, and returned to the small house.

He entered the house, and sat down at the table.

Luke pulled out the map that he’d found on the old man’s corpse, unfolding it and laying it out on the table.

‘The problem is, I can’t read these letters…’

The map’s scale was also unknown to Luke.

The areas around the forest seemed to be inhabited, and had people working and living there.

‘The old man said that this is the Exul Empire, so these territories probably all belong to it.’

The majority of the forest on the map had some kind of red diagonal lines drawn over it, with a big red exclamation mark right below.

The rest of the forest only had some small pictures of bird-like creatures.

Luke glanced at the Gleem illustrations.

‘This must be around where I am. This area is basically on the edge of the forest.’

According to the map, Luke was around the north-eastern part of the forest.

Luke was looking at a small circle with some text above it.

‘There seems to be a town or a village to the east of here… It might be worthwhile to go there and take a look.’

Luke took the compass out of his pocket.

It was currently pointing to the south.

‘If I exit the house, make a right turn, and then just run straight, I should be able to reach that place.’

Luke’s initial plan was to stay here, and fight a bitter battle, hunting Gleems over and over again just to get stronger bit by bit, very slowly, for who knows how long.

He did do just that, but then he discovered this map, giving him many new possibilities.

‘My initial plan is still viable, but there’s a bottleneck to getting stronger by using only those tiny wind elementals.’

Luke would probably need to slaughter at least a hundred Gleems more at this point just to get slightly stronger.

‘If I could absorb the wind elemental from the mother Gleem multiple times it would be perfect, but it’s still too strong for me alone to kill it with just my wind elemental.’

Luke remembered something that kept coming up in his conversations with Mark.

‘The capturing artifact… Maybe there exists an elemental market or something similar in this world?’

This thought alone was enough for Luke to reconsider his initial plan.

Luke put the compass and the map back into his pocket, took his food, water and lantern, and then exited the house.

‘I should be strong and fast enough now to make it out of the forest before night-fall.’

He couldn't wait until tomorrow morning, since it seemed like meeting Alissia and Mark was unavoidable, at least as long as he was in this forest.

Luke turned to his right and started running at his top speed.

His legs were enveloped in thick wind, giving him a large speed boost.

He was almost as twice as fast as before, and he had just noticed that his field of view increased by a bit yet again. It was because of absorbing a large chunk of the mother Gleem's wind elemental.

‘It was definitely worth it.’

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Luke’s calculations proved correct, as night was only now encroaching on him.

The dry and bare forest was slowly being replaced by lush greenery, the trees seemingly regaining their lost vitality.

The forest was getting thinner and thinner, until Luke was just running through an open, green plain.

‘I can see something up ahead.’

The green plain around him slowly molded into farmlands, with various crops sprouting out.

Luke’s guess was that it was currently around early spring season, based on the temperature, and seeing these crops proved him correct.

‘I do have some experience with agriculture myself.’

Luke used to help out his grandfather in the countryside when he was younger.

Although, after his grandfather died, he didn’t have much of a reason to go out to the countryside anymore aside from reliving old memories, and soon after, he enrolled in college, pursuing a career in IT.

Luke smiled bitterly as he reminisced about his late grandfather.

‘He was actually very similar to a certain geezer I’ve recently met…’

Luke was now approaching a village.

He scattered the wind around his legs, and started walking towards the houses.

‘I wouldn’t say that this place is small, but it’s not that big either.’

The sun hadn't completely set yet, so there were still some people outside, finishing up their various tasks for today.

Stablehands were tending to the horses, while farmers were rolling up bales of wheat.

'I remembered just now how my grandpa used to teach me all about the various chores on a farm... That feels like a lifetime ago now.'

Luke was walking on a paved dirt road, as people glanced at him.

‘This village seems to be pretty poor.’

The people Luke saw wore tattered clothes, their hands full of calluses and wounds.

The horses appeared to be malnourished and old.

Some people were even lying down on the cold and dirty ground, sleeping in between houses.

Luke also noticed that the people here were all pretty skinny, which couldn’t be a coincidence.

‘I see... These people are barely surviving...’

He felt bad for the people in this village, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Luke soon noticed a wooden sign hanging off a building.

‘I can't read that...’

There was some text made out of the unfamiliar characters that were also on the map, along with a burly man holding an axe in one hand, and a tankard of beer in the other.

'A tavern?'

He could hear loud cheering and laughter from the outside, so he decided to enter the building.

Luke opened the door.

No one inside even noticed that someone had entered, let alone said anything.

There was a big table across the entrance with five soldiers laughing, cheering and drowning themselves in alcohol.

Luke could tell they were soldiers because they wore light leather armor with insignias, and were carrying weapons.

They were surrounded by above-average looking women, laughing along with them.

Luke sat down at one of the tables, and kept looking over at the soldiers.

A man soon approached him.

“Welcome to “The Drunken Woodsman”! What can I get you, sir?”

“I just need some information. Where is the nearest town?”

The man narrowed his eyes, before forming a smile. He was a bald man with a French moustache and a large build.

“Sure, I could provide you with some information… As soon as you order something, that is.”

Luke sighed.

“Look, I’m new here. I have no money, so even if I order something, I won't be able to pay you.”

That’s when one of the drunk soldiers who overheard their conversation yelled out.

“Ish fine! Pour ‘im one on us!!”

The bald man looked over at the soldiers and nodded.

“As you wish.”

The bald man then walked over to the bar and started pouring the alcohol.

Luke glanced at the soldier that yelled out and nodded at him in appreciation.

‘They’re not actually that bad, huh.’

The bald man soon came back with two tankards full of alcohol, placing one of them in front of Luke, and sitting down across of him.

The bald man took a big gulp of alcohol, and started talking.

“You can call me Boldee. What’s your name?”

Luke also drank a mouthful of alcohol and then answered.

“My name is Luke.”

Boldee smiled.

“Luke! So tell me, what is it that you wish to know?”

Luke started organizing the questions in his mind.

“As I asked earlier, where is the nearest town from here?”

“That would be the town of Millef, just north of here. It’s pretty close. Is it your first time in the Empire?”

‘I’ll need to mark the name of the town down on my map later.’

“You could say that. Anyways, would you happen to know anything about silver robed people who use wind elementals?”

“Well, of course! They are the famous priests of the Wind Temple, the pride of our Empire!”

‘The pride of the Empire? They seem to be a pretty powerful organization. Why would the old man make an enemy out of them though?’

“Could you tell me more about this wind temple and its priests?”

Boldee grinned like a child.

“I’d be delighted to! The head priest of the Wind Temple carries the title of the “Wind God” and is known to be the strongest wind elementalist on the whole continent!”

Boldee was so excited to talk about this that he stood up, sat down closer to Luke, and then continued explaining.

“The elite priests, including the head priest, all have indescribably beautiful golden embroidering on their robes! You really need to see them in person to really be able to appreciate it…”

‘I saw it in person, alright. Multiple times.’

“Can you tell me what the head priest’s name is?”

“Of course! It is the head priest Alissia!”

Luke’s heart skipped a beat. He almost wanted to laugh out loud.

‘It does make sense though… She was so fast that it seemed like she was teleporting and she could also kill me with a twirl of her finger.’

Luke gulped two more mouthfuls of alcohol.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why do the people in this village look so tattered and starved?”

Boldee smiled bitterly.

“There has been a drought throughout the Empire for the past two years, causing many citizens to die of starvation, or lose all of their money and get sold into slavery to repay their debts…”

‘Slavery exists here, huh…’

“Anyways, do you reckon I could earn some money around here?”

“Your best bet would be to travel to the town of Millef. You might be able to find some work there. Even if you were to help the people around here, they sadly wouldn’t have anything to pay you with.”

“Alright, thank you for your time Boldee.”

“Anytime! Just remember to visit again!”

Luke stood up and exited the tavern.

It was night-time already.

Luke glanced at his pocket watch.

’9:55, huh.’

Luke was exhausted.

‘I really need to rest, but I’m broke. Maybe I could go back to the small house, but it would be pretty risky.’

He looked between the houses and saw people sleeping there.

Just as he thought about heading there, someone suddenly grabbed Luke from behind, and he felt something cold and sharp against his throat.

Before even managing to conjure a wind blade, the sharp iron blade slid across his throat.

A massive stream of blood started gushing out of Luke’s throat.

“Glooh!! Blough!”

Luke tried muttering something out before slowly collapsing, bleeding out on the cold ground.

He could feel someone patting his body all over.

“Pffft, nothing useful.”

Luke heard a rough voice, full of disdain.

He could see a silhouette of a skinny man standing in front of the moon.

He used the last of his strength to gather a wisp of wind, forming it into a tiny wind spike, but before he could shoot it out at the man, it dispersed.

Death enveloped Luke, slowly singing him a silent lullaby.

The silver hourglass rotated upside down, causing the blue sand to shine out brightly before starting to flow in reverse.