The Saga of Eden

Chapter 2, part 9

During the subsequent weeks afterward, Eden and his newly formed team Fingers have not remained idle. Soon after forming his dream team, Eden led them on a hunt for an influential, and very rich, noble fugitive who was recently exposed for treason. He hired an infamous mercenary team to protect him as he fled to Juknak Kingdom. However, their level discrepancies are significant, and not many groups can have a well-coordinated team full of Talented like Fingers, so the mercenaries were no match for them. The noble was swiftly captured. 

Not even a day after that successful hunt, Eden took on another bounty that leads Fingers on a wild hunt for the Golden Deer. It’s a very rare breed of deers, some believe the antlers of the Golden Deer can bring eternal beauty. 

It’s funny, and kind of sad for golden deers actually. I heard of this rumor 2 centuries ago and investigated it. Turns out, Golden Deers are simply genetic defects from normal deers, like albino animals but much rarer. A Legendary Witch even more ancient was a collector of exotic animals that she kept as pets, and Deers with golden skin were her favorite. 

As a Legendary, she created a spell that slowed down her aging. She died to a Legendary Monster a few decades later, and I couldn’t retrieve the spell formulas sadly, who knows, maybe she would have become immortal or something. Anyway, the witch was pretty famous in the region, stories about her and her favorite pets spread widely, but were misinterpreted over time. Hence the false rumor about the Golden Deer.

Eden and his team spent several days hunting for the Golden Deer but failed to find it. Eventually, they gave up and returned. The Golden Deer is probably a hallucination from that noble lady who put up the bounty, anyway. It’s not the first time this happens, and likely won’t be the last.

However, by pure chance, Fingers did stumble upon a hostile goblin tribe that was the target of another bounty and exterminated them. So they didn’t return empty-handed, at least. It was a pretty tough fight, but they won thanks to Eden’s new sword, which effortlessly cut through armored goblins like it’s nothing. The blacksmith was true to his word, the sword was high-quality, extremely sharp, and durable, probably among the best non-Artifacts weapons in Narn Empire.

Now, onto the present timeline. Just yesterday, Fingers made a detour to Zesnisia, a city to the West of Ella, to collect their goblin bounty. Immediately after, Eden accepted another bounty to hunt a dangerous crocodile in the nearby lake.

“Crocodile skin is the final target for my Teacher’s trophy list. A fine gift for him when I return home!” Eden said.

The rest, especially Lela, weren’t too happy that Eden led them to hunts after hunts without much rest in between. Yet, they followed him anyway, they couldn’t say no to Eden’s excited face that was like a child receiving her favorite toy.

“Fine! But after this, we will take a looooong break, okay? A week at least!” Lela said.

That leads us to what I like to call, ‘The Intersection of Destiny’. 

The lake of interest is not too large, but it’s deep inside a forest. The lumberjacks and herbalists of Zesnisia often travel to this place, so they need to eliminate dangerous threats. Right now, Eden and his friends are wandering through the forest towards that lake. Sounds of their cheerful conversations can be heard from afar.

“...and that’s why I never got married. I wanted to find a perfect woman, but I couldn’t, so being by myself was better,” Astraka explains while the rest attentively listen to him.

“You need to lower your standards, uncle. It’s still not too late for love, you know?” Harmani jokingly says.

“Why should I? Having a wife means I have to spend time with her and care about her. Less time to practice magic and going on adventures like this.” The old wizard rebukes. “Besides, taking care of you and Nara took most of my time already. You should blame yourself and your sister that I’m single.”

Astraka and his nephew laugh and joke at each other, while Nara walks next to Eden, not contributing much to the conversation. Her shyness brings a certain sense of endearment to the team.

“Being in love...sounds nice.” Nara quietly says, glancing at Eden while no one was paying attention, and quickly looks back at her brother.

“I’m sure you will find the right guy someday!” Lela says joyfully and hugs Nara from behind, making her say “Eep!” once again. Nara knows better than to get out of Lela’s grasp, though, she’s too weak for the female rogue.

“We’re still a long way away from the lake, let’s talk about something else. I’m too old for romance.” Astraka says as he quickly opens and closes the map in his hand. 

“Hmm… Astraka, you live in Ella and are a respected figure there, you probably know a lot. Heard any interesting news lately?” Eden suddenly asks after a moment of thinking.

“Yeah, of course! Narn Empire is having a war against an emerging monster group to the East, and just recently lost a big battle.” 

“Narn Empire is at war? With monsters?” Eden, Harmani, and Nara ask at the same time, they all seem surprised.

“...You don’t look surprised?” Astraka glares at Lela. 

“That’s old news, old man. Gotta find something more interesting to catch my attention.” Lela answers while staring at her nails and hugging Nara with the other hand.

“Very well, you want interesting news? The 21st Artifact has been found in Juknak Kingdom, the sword Turning Tides.” Astraka says proudly while staring at Lela, her eyes wide in surprise. “Interesting enough for you?”

“... Alright, you win, Astraka! I did not know that.” Lela raises her arms in defeat, releasing poor Nara from her grasp, who immediately runs to her brother and away from Lela like a scared child.

“How do you know all this?” Eden asks while his mind is still processing these news, figuring out how to use these events to gain fame. 

“Katherine, the clerk we met the other day, told me. They’re supposed to be secrets, but she can’t keep her mouth shut.” Astraka shakes his head while smiling. “It’s for the best if we don’t say anything, either.” Lela nods, this is one of the few times when she agrees with Astraka.

“You’re not very good at keeping secrets, you know?” Eden smiles back and teases him.

“Never said I am.” The old wizard chuckles. “Besides, I figured you might want to get involved in the war at some point.”

“I might, I might… I would need to know the details before fully committing though. Bad practice going in blind.”

“I don’t know much either.” Astraka shakes his head and looks to Lela, who also shakes her head, indicating she doesn’t know much outside there’s a war going on. “All I know is that their leader is a nasty monster, even the Empress is reluctant to face him… If Katherine’s words can be trusted, that is. Only Her Majesty and her innermost circle know the true state of this war.”

“I have heard about legends of the Empress even in our village.” Eden continues thinking and responds. “If the leader is on her Level, this war might not be something we can play the main role. Best to return to Ella soon and gather more information before we decide to commit.” 

Everyone then nods at Eden’s assessment. And with that, they continue on their journey.

--------- 

A few minutes pass in silence when suddenly Eden stops.

“Wait for me for a bit, guys. I have some important business to attend to.” 

Eden needs to go for a leak.

“...I’ll come with you to take care of that business as well.” 

Harmani quickly realizes what Eden meant. He needs to leak soon, might as well go now. Nara shakes her head, sits down, takes out a notebook from her backpack, and continues doodling pictures of cats. Lela and Astraka just stare at her blankly.

“You know… the excavated Artifact is a sword. Isn’t it a little bit too convenient that the only good sword wielder that we know is the leader of our team?” Lela suddenly tells Astraka. Nara is too focused on doodling that she doesn’t hear what Lela just said.

“So?” Astraka simply asks back.

“Isn’t this too much of a coincidence? I’m not an Atheist, maybe this is a sign from God, telling Eden to take the sword. We’ll become unstoppable with an Artifact. Nations will bow to us.” 

“Only a Legendary can use an Artifact, it’s written in the Holy Texts,” Astraka says flatly. “Not to mention no one knows how the sword works.”

“Yeah, well… maybe Eden is a Legendary, and he can...” Lela tries to argue further, but Astraka stops her.

“Don’t waste your breath. You think I haven’t thought of that? You think I haven’t used {Examinate} on all of us already? If Eden is a Legendary, I would have known even with my eyes closed!” Astraka hisses at her quietly. Legendary is a very sensitive topic, it is not wise to loudly talk about it, even in a forest.

At this moment, Lela can see from the corner of her eyes that Eden and Harmani are heading back.

“Fine! Let’s get back to hunting this stupid croc then, forget I said anything!” Lela hisses back and nods at the two approaching young men as if nothing happened. 

They walk for another hour before arriving at the lake. Fortunately, their target is within sight. Around a dozen crocodiles are lying beside the lake, among them is a grey crocodile two times the size of any other. It matches the survivors’ descriptions, this large crocodile is what they have to kill. 

“You’re ready?” Eden turns to Astraka and asks. The old wizard nods.

Eden’s plan is simple enough, Astraka casts a large fireball at the crocodiles, injuring them, then he and Harmani charge forward, while Lela sneaks from behind, killing the ones staying in the back. 

{Greater Empowered.} Nara quickly casts at Astraka while he holds his arms upward, a fireball begins to appear between his hands, which keeps getting bigger and bigger.

{Fireball.} Astraka shouts and unleashes the ball of fire at the bask of crocodiles. 

A fire erupts, Eden and Harmani then roar and charge forward, drawing their attention. Surprisingly, no crocodiles charge back at them. 

By the time the two men come close enough to them, the fire has seceded, and the resulting scene is a pile of burned crocodiles, including the biggest one. Astraka’s fireball was enough to kill all of them.

Eden, Harmani, and Lela stare at their corpses for a few seconds, then Lela and Harmani head back to the rest, while Eden stands there and takes out his knife. 

“Good job, uncle! This mission is easier than I thought.” Harmani compliments Astraka.

“Well, my Level is much higher than before after we defeated Narila, I guess that was enough.”

“Less work for me, I guess.” Lela shrugs. “But we should still receive the full bounty for traveling all the way here.”

Meanwhile, Nara runs over to Eden, who is trying to skin the largest crocodile, though its scales are badly burned, hardly recognizable.

“Let me help you with that.” Nara taps on Eden’s shoulder and says.

{Recovery.} Nara then casts a spell at the large crocodile, and slowly its burned scales return to the grey and hard state they were before.

Eden nods and Nara and thanks her before resumes skinning it. Eden isn’t the best at skinning animals, but he gets the job done after a few minutes. He rolls up the result, puts it in between his arm, and runs back.

“It takes you more time skinning it than Astraka to kill them all. You need to keep up~.” Lela teases Eden. 

“It’s usually easier to destroy than to create.” Astraka wisely responds, covering for Eden. Lela just glares at him. 

Their return back is uneventful until they pass through a small cave. Eden stops for a moment to look at the cave. People with adventurous spirits tend to be curious.

“I have passed through this cave a few times during my adventuring days.” Astraka starts reminiscing. “It used to be the lair of a vicious wolf pack, another adventuring team defeated them. After that, every few months it became a hideout for some lesser animals, monsters, or even bandits. We once defeated a bandit group there, too.”

“Your adventuring days always sound interesting.” Eden nods. “Do you miss it?”

“Everyday,” Astraka instantly answers, but shrugs, “but why yearn for the past when I’m making new ones now, right?”

The rest look at Astraka and they can’t stop smiling... except for Lela. She’s staring at the cave.

“Well, it seems to be empty right now,” she says.

“Let’s explore it!” Eden suddenly says.

“What? Why? I just said it’s empty!”

“Adventure always awaits in places like that. I can feel it!” Eden quickly says before running towards the cave before Lela can respond. The rest follow him. 

“It’ll just take a minute. Let’s go, Lela.” Harmani looks back at her and says.

“Ughhh…” Lela groans and follows them.

  And so begins The Intersection of Destiny.