Chapter 5: A new village

Ranulf checked the boy and found that he was uninjured. Taking a sigh of relief Ranulf began to look around the cave. At a corner of the cave Ranulf found a pile of clothes probably from the previous victims of the Ape. Ranulf found a paint in the pile slightly smaller but usable and wore it. After that carrying the fainted kid, Ranulf gets out of the cave and sees that the children were waiting for him with face full of anxiety. When the kids saw that Ranulf has come out of the cave all of them ran toward him but as soon as they saw his friends body in Chirs’s hand lying motioinlessly, they all began to cry.The fatty immediately knelt down and started shouting

“Why did you have to die so early wasnt your wish was to become a knight now you have gone to another world how will you fulfill your dream. What am I suppose to say to your parents”

After that the little girl started sobbing and saying

“I always hated you but I didnt wanted you to die even when I said it.”

And the skinny kid was just crying, but he was crying most loudly than the other kids.

Ranulf was quite ammused with the antics of the children.

Due to the noise around him the fainted kid slowly woke up and was quite surprised to see his friends surrounding him a crying.

“Why are you all crying?”

The moment the children heard the voice all of them immediately looked at him. Then, they shouted the only word that came to their mouth

“ZOMBIE!”

Ranulf just smiled at this amusing conversation of the children and explained them that the kid is not dead.

After the entire fiasco was over he asked the kids for their name

the kid who was taken away introduced himself and the other followed.

“I am Jef leader of this group and future Guardian knight, the girl over there is Elsa, the fatty is Ed and the skinny guy in Arc. Thank you for saving me. And I am so sorry for the previous misunderstanding.”

Ranulf looked at the kid thinking

‘For a kid so young he does have some manners.’ Ranulf told the kids he didn't mind what happened and told them that he was looking for a place to stay so the kid's happily asked him to come to their village. Ranulf agreed to their request but before following behind the children Ranulf decided to wash himself and wipe out all the goblin blood from his body to stop the misunderstanding from the occurring in the village.

While going with the kids, Ranulf learns a lot about the place he was going to the name of the village he was going to was called the xromo. As the name suggest every year during the spring time the valley behind the village will be full of flowers of different varieties thus naming it Xromo village(Village of color). According to the kids most of the men in the village have the job of hunting wild beast and some small magic beast to sell them to the merchants while others just depend on their farming. According to them the merchant's comes once every few months and trade the monster skin for the necessity supply and other things. They said that few men and most of the women in the village are engage in farming and animal rearing which also helps the village a lot. Listening to the description of the village from the kid Ranulf began to have hope in his heart thinking he might be able to stay in this village.

Well it doesn't even matter if he wants to stay in the village or not he must stay in the village as all of his belonging have already been stolen as the sun started setting the view of the village was also seen.

As they got closer to the village they saw that most of the men in the village were carrying spear and sword in their hand looking at them vigilantly. The kids were surprised at the situation but Ranulf couldn't be more familiar with the situation as this kind of situation has occurred in previous villages as well

“Sigh, some villagers may have saw me from far distance with the kids and thought that I was orc or some kind of monster kidnapping their children or trying to attack the village by making the children show me the way. Why does this keep happening to me”

After they got closer to the village the villager could clearly see the face of the children and the man behind them confirming that he was not a monster the villager decreased their vigilance toward him. The kids ran toward their parents who were at the gate with face full of worry. Ranulf watched as they were being scolded by their parents with smile on his face.

“Who might you be sir?”

Ranulf turned around and saw a man in his 50’s walking toward him

“My name in Ran…. Rakins, a retired Knight.”

‘I probably shouldnt tell them my real name as the king might send a search party to find me.’

“Oh, my name in Oliver, I am the village head.Could you please tell me what happened with the children?”

After that I told the village head all that happened after I met with the kids the more I told the village head about the incident the more the children started to be afraid and more the parents started getting angry.

The village could only sigh after hearing it

“Thank you so much for saving the children Mr.Rakins, this village owes you a debt.”

“No need to thank me I just did what I must do.”

“Mr. Rakins why dont you stay at my house for tonight as a thank you for saving the children.”

“The Please excuse me for my intrusion.”

“No need for formalities please follow me and you lot properly discipline your children this kind of incident will definitely lead them to their death.”

All the villagers nodded and went to their home.

Ranulf followed Oliver to the northern side of the village where the home of the village head was located it wasnt grand but was a little bigger than the houses in the village. Oliver told his younger daughter to take him to the back of the house to be freshen up and then to take him the guest room. He was washing his face when the youngest daughter came and provided him with some clothes of the village head. Looking at those clothes He actually felt like he found some kind of huge treasure. After that he went to the room changed his clothes and went to have dinner with the village head.

The village head asked him about his story. So, he decided to change it a little bit. He told him that because of some injuries he wasnt able to continue being a knight so he was planning to find a village to retire and on the way when he got lost in the forest due to mist and accidentally went deeper in the forest and had to fight a swarm of monsters and in doing so lost most of his belonging and destroyed his clothes.

After a few minute of silence the village head finally said

“You’ve been through a lot.”