The Earth Online

30 Ygritte the Druid

Thaleos’ jaw slacked when he saw the person prompting him for an answer. It was Ygritte, his assistant from Ellis Town.

“What the hell, Ygritte? f**k, I am so sorry!” Thaleos responded with deep remorse evident in his voice.

The petite Asian girl just laughed and proceeded to give the large man a tight hug.

Since she didn’t know whether Thaleos survived or not, she promised herself that the next time she saw him, she won’t hesitate and just give him a hug.

The bearded man was a bit shocked as this was the first time his past assistant was ever intimate with him.

This warmed his heart, resulting in him tightly hugging her back.

This made Ygritte’s heart skip a beat. As she felt like body turning into a whole shade of red, she finally decided to untangle herself from him.

As soon as they stopped hugging, Ygritte immediately missed the feeling of being in his arms.

Thaleos was oblivious to all of this and just gave the young woman a big smile—absolutely warming up the girl’s heart.

After storing the little moment in her mind forever, she initiated their conversation with,

“So, how have you been? How’d you fair through the start of the apocalypse. I remember your little episode back in the clinic.” The beast tamer shook his head while chuckling and said,

“Yeah, I borrowed a s**t ton of money from Manny and built the Melam Military Base. Killed a couple of creatures here and there, oh, and teamed up with Haya and Kedrick.” Thaleos did his best to summarize the past half-year, but he felt like left out a lot of details.

Ygritte just smiled at how the man seemed to only ramble on when the two of them talked. Maybe it was because she was his assistant before, and it was her job to listen to his rants and orders.

“Basically, it was one hell of a ride, I mean, it still is. How about you? Whatever happened to you and your family? I’m sorry for not keeping my promise.” The beast tamer lamented and clasped his large hand on the young woman’s petite shoulders.

This act made her blush. She tried to hide her embarrassment by answering him in a cool tone,

“Yeah, it was tough. After you told me about all the monsters and demons, I tried telling my family. Although my mom and brother were all ears due to their paranoia, my father was quite stubborn. So, the day the gods came, my hardheaded father still insisted to go to work and he—” Ygritte choked up and couldn’t finish telling her story.

Thaleos did his best to comfort her and silently show that she didn’t need to say anything more.

The young Asian woman acted strong in front of her remaining family, as she wanted to retain their sanity and safety.

In nights where she was just ready to give up, she merely swept those repressed feelings under the rug—knowing full well that if she broke down, it’d be hard for her to go back to their normal routine.

After crying for a couple of minutes more and Thaleos comforting her, the young woman finally stopped bawling her eyes out.

She was a sniveling mess.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s been hard for everyone. Sorry for unloading this all on you.” Ygritte blubbered while letting out a hiccup every few seconds or so.

“Don’t worry about it, Ygritte. It’s been hard on everyone, your feelings of wanting to cry is valid, and it’s okay to cry when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Thanks for being so strong, all this time.” Thaleos breathed out in a gentle tone, giving the small girl a tight hug.

He has always felt this affinity with Ygritte—not knowing what it was exactly.

After enjoying a couple of minutes more of comforting silence, Ygritte croaked out,

“So, what’s your profession?”

“Oh, I chose to become a Beast Tamer, aiming to become a Tyrannical Beast Tamer. How about you?” The bearded man proclaimed, to which Ygritte responded with a,

“No way! I’m actually a Druid, aiming to become a Tyrannical Summoner! That is so cool.” They both smiled at the coincidence and then Thaleos asked,

“So, the Cornish faerie leaving was all your doing?”

“Yeah, as a Druid, I have the ability to summon and control certain creatures. Well, for now, I can only summon two creatures, so I’m still trying to level up.”  Ygritte responded while tucking her black tresses behind her ear.

“Well, if you want, I’m hunting elite beasts right now to get some blood souls. Want to come with me?” Thaleos interjected and the young druid eagerly nodded her head.

“But wait, how are we supposed to find them?” Ygritte asked in deep confusion because she knew how hard it was to look for elite beasts.

The beast tamer simply tapped the Insight Glasses and explained how it worked.

“Wow, that’s pretty nifty! Yeah, let’s go for it!” The druid uttered while sharing her own strategy.

Since the sun was already setting, Ygritte suggested that they just look for the elite beasts’ locations during the night time and just return tomorrow morning. 

After agreeing on the plan, Thaleos invited Ygritte to just crash at the Melam Base, so she didn’t have to drive all the way back to the edge of Ellis Town.

~ ~ ~

“Jesus, f**k, Ygritte! Thank god you’re alive!” Kedrick exclaimed while giving the petite girl a tight hug, almost lifting her off the ground.

Kedrick has always treated the smaller girl as a little sister, especially before replacing him as Thaleos’ assistant.

“Do not use the lord’s name in vain.” Haya snickered under his breath, making Kedrick curse at him for a couple of minutes straight.

The young druid just loved at the two men and gave the gentle giant a big smile. While Thaleos was just in the background laying down his weapons.

The atmosphere was filled with warmth and joy.

“Never mind that, Haya. How have you been, Ygritte? How’s your Mr. Connor, Eomma Areum, and Sung-ho?” Kedrick asked with a worried look.

“Survived and surviving, save for dad.” Ygritte replied with a jaded expression, making the umber man pinch his lips in grief.

“Anyways, I’m so happy you’re all alive.” The young druid interjected while trying to maintain a happy atmosphere.

“Don’t worry about it, sweetie. It’s okay. Cry it out if you need to.” Kedrick crooned, as sometimes his mother hen persona took over.

Ygritte merely looked towards Thaleos’ direction and gave him a small smile, to which the bearded man responded with his own,

“I’m okay now, I cried it all out earlier.” She voiced out.

Throughout dinner, everyone was just having fun as they recounted old memories in the clinic,

They all slept well that night.

~ ~ ~

The next morning, the group of four headed straight to Mount Nergal with the intent to finish off all the spawned elite beasts.

Upon returning to the position where Ygritte and Thaleos met, they all crouched down in silence and spotted three Cornish faeries guarding circling around a certain location.

Thaleos whispered under his breath, “This is interesting, seems like if the beasts are left untouched for a certain period of time, the game spawns more of them, but only the original one is an elite.”

The beast tamer was using the Insight Glasses to assess the power status of the new wood faeries.

“Okay, we’re going to let Ygritte enchant the Cornish faeries first, and then we’ll immediately attack their mana centers. I want you to scatter around and cover their back locations, and Ygritte and I will attack from the front.”

All of them nodded their heads at the beast tamer’s order and immediately went to their positions.

Thaleos looked at Ygritte and advised, “At the count of three, one, two, three, go!”

Ygritte quickly muttered the enchantment spell, her voice echoed around the forest and sounded like lullabies and ocean waves,

“Usa nganu, usa nganu,

Usa nganu ki dumunashe,

Usa kulu ki dumunashe.

Igi badbadani u kunib.”

As soon as Ygritte finished her lyrical chant, the Cornish Faerie seemed to be in a trance and just stayed floating in one spot.

Their eyes were half-way closed, almost readying themselves for sleep.

Thaleos swiftly drew his bow and powerfully hit their mana centers with his steel arrows.

This woke them up from their trance-like stance and shrieked like banshees from the pain, except for the elite beast.

Once it saw the two familiar faces, it started chanting the same vine-summoning chant it used yesterday.

Even though Haya and Kedrick successfully slashed the lower level faeries’ backs, the elite Cornish faerie still managed to trap them in its large green vines.

“f**k, this seems like a stronger spell from yesterday,” Thaleos muttered as he immediately charged towards their direction and brought out his wolf-eagle.

He shouted an order at the young druid’s direction, “Ygritte! Keep doing the sleeping incantation. Weaken their consciousness!”

Ygritte hurriedly started the incantation again, but this time, the elite faerie resisted the spell by chanting its own incantation.

The mix of echoing enchantments was making the three men drowsy, but Thaleos persisted and took out the blood-fighting potion and drank a bit of it.

This activated his blood lust instantaneously, forcing his system to produce more adrenaline, effectively waking him up.

“Haya, activate your Berserker Fury! Kedrick, use your Ward Off Evil skill!” The two immediately got to work and activated their skills.

Thaleos powerfully cut through the weaker Cornish faeries with all his strength, while Haya used all his mana to focus on the blood lust heightening skill.

His eyes gradually shifted to a dark red, giving him the strength to rip apart the strong vines.

It took Kedrick a bit of time to activate his skill, but the Ward Off Evil perk started absorbing some of the healing and magic points of the wood beasts.

As they were all finally facing each other head on, the three proceeded to hack and s***h through the vines until reaching the elite Cornish faerie.

Once the druid saw the elite beast being distracted, she joined in the fun and took out her black daggers—effectively killing off one of the lower level wood sprites.

As the elite wood faerie tried to chant another spell, Thaleos rapidly stabbed its mana center using his katana drenched in his deadly mana.

Once it finally stopped struggling, they to take a couple of minutes of rest.

“Woah, that was intense. I feel like they’re getting stronger.” Kedrick groaned out as he tried gulping in large amounts of water.

“Yeah, it feels like they’re stronger than yesterday.” Ygritte piped in, as she took the wood faerie’s, acorn-like heart.

“The gods must’ve included in the group dynamics.” Haya responded while wiping off the sweat from his face.

“Yep, pretty much sums up the changes. So, are we ready for the rest of them?” Thaleos asked in excitement.