Chapter III

Once again the morning rush woke me up. I will have to get used to this again, although it seems to be earlier than the time I woke up yesterday. I ignored all the sound along with the sunlight and got up. Instead of putting on my armor I left the room and headed to the second floor, not forgetting to make the axe change from the Large Steel Axe form to a Small Steel Axe. With the skill already unlocked I could afford to master all the others without worrying.

The dining room wasn't as crowded as yesterday and Jeanne was nowhere to be seen. I approached Liz at the counter to ask if they had where I could get cleaned up, if not bathed directly.

"Oh, sure." She replied pointing to a door on the opposite side of the entrance "There we have the well, take this rag and treat yourself."

A bath in the open air, I was kind of looking forward to it. I walked out of the inn towards the well after thanking him, drew water as I arrived and took off my clothes so I could clean myself well. Good thing I can put the axe anywhere on my body, otherwise the hindrance would be enormous.

While I was "bathing" I interacted with the options of the axe. After mastering this steel axe I was to do the same with its variants, they may only offer a small increase but it is a more than welcome increase. Luckily I had already mastered the magic steel axe and some color variations while hunting yesterday, they only had a small improvement in magic which became considerable considering all the variations along with my low magic power.

This brought me to the other issue, the strengthening method. It was only a small amount of points for the levels I raised yesterday but it was more than enough to start distributing them. After thinking about it I divided the points into four parts, three of them destined to improve my attack, speed and magic and the last one to save. I would end up distributing them in defense but it was better to wait for necessity.

When I finished my "bath" I turned around and there was Jeanne, with what seemed to be a towel, looking at me carefully almost without blinking.

"Hey, Jeanne," I said after an awkward moment "did you come to leave that for me to dry off?"

"Yes, here." she looked at me again after handing me the towel.

"You know, that's kind of harassment."

"Ha! You wish. Enjoy life while you have it is my saying."

I couldn't help but snort at that. I started to dry off when she said she would go order breakfast so we could leave quickly. I hurried up to my room to dry off well and put on my armor.

When we finished eating I made sure to pay Liz what I owed her for the past few days and from there we headed out. We stopped by a few stores to buy supplies for the trip and before I knew it we were on our way out of town. I asked Jeanne why we weren't taking a carriage to where we were going.

"It's so you can level up without worrying about others seeing you. That's why we brought camping gear, don't worry." was what she answered.

The beginning of the trip had not much to note, besides killing a few monsters that appeared along the way. Jeanne asked me about my magic so I decided to show her when some strange squirrels had appeared. Making similar moves as yesterday I quickly drew a rune that made a light blue barrier appear between the squirrels and us causing them to crash into it.

"This is a minor barrier, I can't change its shape but I can move it around."

As an example I rotated the barrier so that it was horizontal and pushed it down crushing the two squirrels we had as enemies.

"And so I can use it." I proceeded to make the barrier disappear and kill the squirrels. "I have to constantly feed the barrier to keep it active, though."

"Could I ever learn it?"

"It is possible. I know magic like you use but I was never very good with it, I dabbled in this type so I wouldn't know what the differences are in practice.

"Then the answer is simple, if you learn our magic you can teach me yours." I couldn't help but laugh at how proud she seemed of her idea.

"For that I need to learn... whatever language you're speaking right now."

"Hey, aren't we talking right now?" I pointed to the axe on my back and with that she got the message.

We continued on our way stopping to eat and rest, making sure to change axes when I had finished mastering the previous one and unlocking new ones with the monsters we encountered, raising another level.

It was while Jeanne was telling me more about this world that we saw in the distance what appeared to be an overturned carriage with heavy damage. We picked up our pace and as we approached we saw some scavenger dogs that took whatever they were eating and ran away once they saw us. What I could recognize was a bone that looked like a hand and other larger bones of another type of animal or monster. I caught Jeanne's attention when I saw a bunch of feathers around it.

"This would be one of those huge birds I saw sometimes in the city, filolials, was it?"

"Yes, filolials, one of them was pulling this carriage. And look at this," she raised his hand and showed the tip of an arrow "I'm sure it was the bandits we're looking for, we're already inside their active zone apparently."

"Shit." I whispered before returning to my normal tone "We better get moving, it would be a temporary solution but it's better to get rid of them."

- You're right but won't you feed the filorial bones to your axe?

"Feed" she says. I couldn't help but shake my head as I took the bones and absorbed them.

[Conditions met:

Filolial bone axe.

Abilities locked: equip bonus: stamina up (medium).]

I tried to get some weapon with a bunch of feathers that were there from the bird but got nothing unfortunately. We continued on our way once Jeanne searched inside the carriage without finding anything. Before I knew it it was getting dark so we went to the side of the road, arranged where we would go to sleep and started to make a fire to prepare food. I used a fire rune to light the small fire we were going to use.

"You can use fire too?"

"Just a little," I answered starting to cook the food "I use it mostly as a tool, the same with water."

"You will definitely teach me that magic." she said shaking his head.

"So, what kind of information do you have about these bandits?" I asked to wait for the food

"Well, they are fairly new to the area apparently but their attacks show they are desperate for profit. I bet they split off from some Zeltoble group so I doubt they have slaves or plan to deal with them."

"And their levels, what range do you think they're in?"

"Close to my level I'd say, even lower, maybe their leader hovering around 30. These groups tend to be low-mid level when they first split up."

I couldn't tell if it made sense or not, I was still pretty ignorant of the world after all, but I'd have to trust her judgment on this one.

"Tell me more about the seven star weapons." I said to make conversation while we ate.

"Well, besides your axe there's the hammer, the claws, the projectile, the staff, the whip and the gauntlets. All weapons have had an active hero except for the gauntlets, which have not been known to have one for a very, very long time. Although in your case..."

"My predecessor may have died suddenly." I finished for her to which she nodded.

"Very well." She said getting up as she finished eating "It's time for bed, do you want to take the first shift?"

"Huh? Yeah, sure." I replied a little incredulously.

Just like that Jeanne slipped into her tent and, if my ears didn't deceive me, it didn't take her long at all to fall asleep. I couldn't quite understand her, did she trust me that much? No, we had only known each other for a couple of days. All I could think was that she was always so carefree. But I still couldn't help but admire her a little.

She didn't just fall asleep in her armor, if my experience with my friends told me anything it was that she was used to having to sleep anywhere, that could explain her speed to fall asleep. And if I took as an example that heroine I used to fight with then Jeanne would wake up at any sign of danger. The disparity between her experience and level was becoming increasingly disconcerting.

I got up and walked to a nearby tree to lie down. I didn't want to dwell on the past right now, we had managed to move a large number of people to another world before their destruction, dwelling on my failures now would only be a hindrance.

I looked at my weapons to distract myself. The most important ones so far were the steel axe, the big iron axe and the Tomahawk, and they had all been mastered. The next one I was interested in was a magic steel axe that had good stats, it gave me better attack and magic defense, something that came in handy considering how these are the ones that grew the least per level. If I could use my previous experience as an example. I had mastered it anyway.

It wasn't until today during the trip that I realized I wasn't level enough to use the magic silver weapons in addition to the other great axes. I guess I had gotten too excited yesterday about getting so many weapons to notice.

I spent enough time looking at each weapon I had along with thinking about how to distribute points for stats in the future that a couple of hours flew by. It was in my distraction that I heard a strange sound of branches moving that caught my attention.

I thought about ignoring it the next second but a little further to the right I heard the same sound, which put me on my guard. Fortunately I didn't have to switch weapons and alert whatever was lurking, the blue steel axe would be enough to protect me. What I did do silently was to start forming a barrier rune, at any moment I was going to need it.

In my short wakefulness I saw a light from the direction from where I heard the first sounds.

"Jeanne!!!" I shouted getting up.

I heard her get up to leave immediately as the light through the trees intensified. I deployed the barrier I had ready at that moment.

"Take the one in front of you!" Jeanne moved past me to what appeared to be the direction where the second set of sounds had come from.

I watched it out of the corner of my eye for a moment and when I saw the light again, a fireball was coming from there. I moved next to the barrier to intercept it. The fireball stopped on impact with the barrier but the barrier exploded into pieces. Damn! A little more power and it would have gone through my barrier like paper.

I ran towards the direction where that magic came from and even with my poor visibility I managed to spot a figure so I accelerated to prevent it from running away. I didn't trust my aim to launch the Tomahawk in this forest, even less in this darkness. When he saw me approaching he drew a sword and tried to attack me when I was already quite close to him.

I swung my axe hard, thrusting his sword as the weapons connected, causing him to back up a bit. I felt the weight hit as I pushed him back, I had enough to hurt him but he could easily kill me.

I stepped back just the same as I saw him regain his balance and began to use an earth rune. Quickly a stone ball formed behind him and when he wanted to attack me again I fired the stone hitting him in the back. The hit itself didn't seem to have done much damage, knocking him a little out of breath at most, but it managed to make him fall to the ground dropping his sword. I ignored an experience notification that came just then.

Without delay I approached, kicked the sword in my path, and, switching to the big iron axe, used all my strength in the attack decapitating him. This time I paid attention to the experience gained, with the experience I recently gained I raised three levels at once.

"Wow," said Jeanne approaching "I knew you would hold your own against him even with the level difference but I didn't expect you to kill him so fast, you're a hero for a reason apparently." You could still see the blood on the tip of her spear, although my axe was the same.

"Well, you didn't take long either. Did you have any trouble?"

"No, they were rookies, these guys. More importantly, check the body to see what we can use, I'll go get the other one."

I couldn't help but show my displeasure. I understood why do it but I never got used to touching corpses. I approached him and started to check him out. One thing I could notice was that it had a tail and a quick look at the head showed ears, some dog-like semi-human apparently.

As I searched I found some money, enough to buy some good food and beer no doubt, a knife, some medicine and most importantly what appeared to be a potion. It was called "Magic Water" apparently, though it seemed to be of somewhat mediocre quality. Well, I couldn't expect much more from bandits, the potion itself was already a surprise. To take advantage of it I let the axe absorb it, I would have to keep it in the inventory.

I was able to get a weapon, "Ether Axe", but I didn't have enough level to use it. The one I could use is the one I got from the medicine.

[Medicinal axe.

Abilities locked: equip bonus: effectiveness of medicine (small).]

Switching to that axe, and with everything done, I got up to return to the campfire. There I found Jeanne counting money that she surely got from the other bandit.

"Oh, you're done. Did you find anything useful? - she asked when she saw me approaching."

"Money, a knife, medicine and magic water."

"Good. Now, what to do?" she thought for a moment as she asked herself that question.

"For starters," I caught her attention "what do we do with the bodies? We can leave them to the scavengers but their companions might come looking for them during the day."

"And we can't burn them because it would draw attention."

I started thinking too. As you said burning them would be a bad idea, not only because it would draw attention, but also because the fire would spread if we left it alone, so we needed a good alternative. Use magic to bury them? No, the scavengers would make a mess trying to get them out, that's for sure. Take them deeper into the forest? Could be, their companions would have to look harder to find them but they can still do it with some luck. Jeanne snapped me out of my thoughts by asking:

"How about absorbing them with your weapon?"

My thoughts stopped for a moment at that comment, absorb them with the axe? There was the idea of storing them in the inventory, which for some reason didn't come to me as a first choice, but I had never tried something like that, would it work? I can get weapons even from common objects so I could get something but... it felt strange to do it with people, even if they were bandits.

I had to make sure I could do it in the first place so I approached the bandit I decapitated and placed the axe to the side of his body. And yes, apparently it was possible, the gem on the weapon glowed affirming it after all. I did so and then absorbed the bandit Jeanne killed. He was a demi-human as well and was pierced through the chest apparently.

[Conditions met:

Dog axe.

Cat axe.

Demi-human series:

Demi-human meat axe.

Demi-human skin axe.

Demi-human bone axe.

Demi-human axe]

What was most noteworthy was how apparently these weapons helped with the semi-human's growth in stats, just like the dog and cat ones but these were more specific. Of course, that didn't stop it making it weird but if I got any half-human companions I could benefit quite a bit from these weapons. I'd be sure to master them once I did with the others I was interested in.

"Well," I started as I returned to the campfire "we'd better get going."

Jeanne nodded and began to tidy up and I did the same. Quickly we were on our way to town.

"Here's the plan," Jeanne began "we should get to town at dawn, there we should get you a room at the inn if there are still any. In the meantime I will get information about these bandits, we will deal with them the next day to be ready."

"Agreed, while I could still fight it would be stupid to do so anyway. Better to wait a day than to lose my life."

"Now you're talking!" She exclaimed patting me on the back "Now let's get going, we have work to do in these couple of days."

She was right about that. Fortunately we arrived as she said, shortly before dawn with no interruptions as she was answering questions I was asking her about this world. I went to the room I got at the inn upon arrival and, allowing myself to relax for the moment, drifted off to sleep.