The final stretch

Mendo quickly ripped his Galver out of the fullbears throat and put it back into the rope belt he had on. He then turned around to see the man named Jonas, who sat in the middle of the gravel road. The man looked into the direction they had to go to finally reach Fontechia, Mendos home. As Mendo further looked at the guy, his gaze eventually fell onto the man's right leg. The silver leg, which helped the man walk like a normal person, was completely unrecognizable as it looked more like a piece of scrap metal then anything else. It was bend into oblivion while the the metal spirals Jonas called "springs" were nowhere to be found. His pants on somehow seemed to have survived. As Mendo looked closer it seemed to be because Jonas rolled his right pant leg up, probably expecting it to be torn to shreds otherwise.

Mendo felt extremely guilty for some reason. This random guy he had met just one day ago, who was weirder than anyone he had ever met, not only jumped in to save his life but even lost his only means of walking normally. Jonas looked at his destroyed leg and took the initiative. He loosened the prosthetic and took it off. He looked over to Mendo who was still watching him with his guilt ridden face. Jonas asked in a sarcastic voice, "Can you help me a bit over here? I'll need an extra pair of legs to get to Fontechia it seems". Mendo was taken aback by the cheerful attitude of the man who just lost an incredibly important device for himself. He instantly went over to the sitting man and helped him get up, he took the others arm and lifted him.

The both of them looked behind them, seeing the gigantic corpse of the fullbear. In that moment Jonas remembered what Mendo told him when they first met one day ago so he swiftly asked, "Wait, when we first met didn't you say that fullbears hunt in packs? does that mean this was just one of them?!" Jonas had an extremely uneasy expression on his face. Mendo looked him into the face, his appearance blank. A familiar silence came back. After a while, Mendo finally answered with, "To be honest, normally they live in packs with 6 members, but if you encounter one you just need to strike towards their belly with a Galver and they run away. That is also the reason why i was so confused. Normally, when they get attacked, they run back to their pack and alarm them of threat and thereby removing the pack from danger..." he paused again for about 10 seconds "But this time, he just got more aggressive... that never happened to me before nor have i heard something similar happening to anybody else. Not even in the villages most popular tavern! That's crazy! normally that tavern is filled with low-magicians from all around the country! They specifically come here to the north because of the forest's unique wildlife that is threatening us humans". Mendo looked quite distressed, well, it was understandable as it was apparently so out of the normal behavior these creatures showed. Jonas didn't look any better though, as Mendo knew the area better then him and even he was confused as to the fullbears weird behavior.

After the both of the walked for some while, footsteps were heard infront of them. Mendo looked a bit suspicious, the village should still be about half an hour away, so why were there already footsteps. As the footsteps came closer and closer, Jonas had instant flashbacks to the traumatic experience he just had. Although the footsteps were clearly human, Jonas just couldn't get the noise of the loud running and the trembling of the ground out of his head.

The mere thought of the scene send shivers down his spine and induced a slight cold sweat. As the steps were almost impossible to not notice, a group of 3 men and 2 women, all equipped with the weird sword that was apparently called a Galver, came down the road. The two men in the front were a little surprised at the sight of Mendo and Jonas and were even more surprised to find a man without a his leg. One man came closer, he looked to be about average height, maybe 1.80 or 1.81 and was well built. He had a thick brown coat like the other two men on and had something that looked like a distorted scabbard on his back. In the scabbard a Galver could be seen although it looked much better then the one Mendo had around his waist.

The man approached the two and spoke in a modulated voice which was pleasant to listen to. "Hey, have you two by any chance encountered an insanely aggressive fullbear? Sorry for the hasty question but this is really important" The man struck out his fist, almost like Mendo did on his first meeting and as expected, Mendo lightly touched the fist with his. The man quickly switched over to Jonas, who had learned to just imitate Mendo and also lightly touched the others fist. The man still looked with a hurried expression, it looked like he apparently chased after the bear for a while.

Jonas kept quiet as he knew it would be stupid to reply with 'Oh you mean the big weird monster yeah we just kinda killed him lol'. Instead, Mendo replied to the hectic man with; "You mean the gigantic fullbear? Yeah... he just attacked us down the road, if it wasn't for this guy i would already be having a party with the angels. It had me pinned down after i tried to scare it away, so this guy just jumped in and lost his... eh- what did you call it again?" He looked with a questioning look at Jonas, who desperately wanted to scratch his beard again.

"It's a prosthetic leg, something you wear to be able to walk again after losing a leg". The man's hectic demeanor changed into one of confusion. "porsfetic what now? you mean a wooden leg?" the man asked curiously. Jonas answered with in an explaining tone, "Almost, it was made out of aluminum and steel and was a bit more complex then a wooden leg but you get the point" Jonas smiled lightly. These few day's he had been here he had already experienced more emotions then he had in the last few years. Positive ones? maybe not so much, but at least it wasn't the same old feeling of nothingness.

The man looked interested, but as he could feel the impatient stares of his comrades his hurried expression came back to the light of day. "Well eh... forget about the leg the, rather, do you know where it went off to? like, in which direction it went?" The man asked again. Mendo and Jonas looked at each other for a moment, shortly thereafter Jonas came out and said "Well, this guy ran his Galver-thingy through that fullbears throat, sooo... i guess it's dead". The party behind the man seemed to be more interested in the both of them now, with one of the two woman asking, "What do you mean? you killed it with just the two of you? how?" Her voice raucous and full of interest.

Mendo, seemingly a bit annoyed that the group of five blocked the way to the village, quickly responded with a rough explanation of what happened.

As the group listened, some of them looked impressed, while the other half of them didn't really show any kind of extraordinary emotion. The man infront of them took out a piece of cloth and wrote something on it with a weird pen. As he finished writing, he handed the piece over to Mendo saying, "If it's actually true that you killed it like you said you did, come to this location in Fontechia tomorrow in the afternoon. You'll get a bounty of two Kerks if what you said gets confirmed".

The man signaled to the group that they should get a move on and gave his goodbyes. The last thing they saw of them were there backs on which everyone had the weird scabbard with a Galver inside of it. When the group were out of their sight, Jonas said, "I don't know how much a "Kerks" is but at least we'll get some money" Jonas looked quite satisfied. He had at least some starting point on which he could built. Although he didn't really know how much two Picanos were, it was better then not having anything. He looked over to Mendo once again, but the latter's expression surprised Jonas. Mendo looked as if he were in absolute disbelief as he heard the man say the reward of the bounty. Jonas asked hesitantly, "Eh- How much are two Kerks exactly?". Mendo turned to Jonas, his face still filled with disbelief, and slowly answered "O-One Kerks i-is about as much as 1 years worth of bread for two people... This..." Mendo stopped and seemed to swallow hard, right after that he said "Ok listen. I know you don't have a place to stay at, so how about i let you stay at my place as a reward for saving my life and we split the reward in two, so you get one Kerks and i get one. How about it?"

Mendo looked Jonas in the eyes with a hopeful but still worried expression. But what shocked Jonas the most is that Mendo is basically making a loss with this deal. If Jonas wasn't wrong, one Kerks seemed to be around 500€ although it could be a bit more, so it would be dumb for Mendo to share the reward of the fullbear 50/50 AND let him stay at his house for a while. For Mendo, the 1 Kerks should be enough compensation, or maybe he still felt guilty? who knows, anyway it was better for Jonas so he shouldn't complain about the hospitality of his new acquaintance. Jonas nodded and the both of them walked on.

The both of them continued walking for about 30 minutes when Jonas could finally see what lay before him. A pretty large open space between all the trees, which was seemingly artificial. The big open field looked to be about as large as 8 soccer fields, while most of this open space was locked away by a big wooden wall. The wall looked to be supported by a solid stone foundation while the rest of it was probably made out of the wood that the cut down trees produced. The wall seemed to have a few watchtowers as to probably defend against attacks from the aggressive wildlife of the forest. The path they were on led to a big wooden gate that looked to be reinforced with a few iron straps which looked pretty well made. The bit of open space that was left between wall and forest seemed to be about 100 meters in length so as to easily spot enemies, be it animal or human.

From the other side of the wall smoke seemed to rise, probably the chimneys of the houses behind it. Mendo, who still helped the disabled Jonas, looked instantly relieved as he saw the walls of the settlement. Jonas could see what a huge load of stress probably fell of his shoulders at this moment, understandably so, as he apparently had a younger sister who was also waiting for him which Jonas couldn't imagine the responsibility of. Of course, he had a little sister once, but she was only about 2 years younger then him and he didn't need to raise her or anything. But the way Mendo had talked about his sister seemed to indicate that she was maybe around 15 or 16, which looking at Mendo, was quite a bit younger. Although Mendo looked quite young he was easily in his early twenties, just judging from his looks alone. Jonas hadn't actually asked the man his age, but he could do that once they sat somewhere warmer.

At the exact moment Jonas thought about warmth, white flakes appeared infront of his vision on mass, seeming to not have an end. As he looked into the sky he could see the whole picture for once, not only treetops. But the beautiful warm sunshine he had expected didn't come. No instead the sky looked grey with maybe a few light rays managing to break through it. Jonas noted what was happening in a split second.

It was snowing.