The village chief was old and short, he was trembling with fear. I was terrible at comforting other people, Jasly was doing that, she was good at this kind of thing.
He was slowly calming down.
We talked with the village chief for a while, his wife offered food and we accepted.
"His account is strange," Dain said as we were heading toward the forest.
"Strange?" Jasly asked.
"Yes, normally orcs gather in small groups, ten at most, but the most common are groups of four or five. He said there were more than twenty orcs, that is very unusual."
"I've hunted orcs with an adventurer friend, the most I've seen were four. To be honest, they're not that hard to kill, but if there are that many, maybe we won't be able to handle it," I said.
"There's something else bothering me. There should be at least one hunter in this village, it's very unusual that there isn't..."
"Or there is, and they couldn't handle all those orcs," Jasmine cut Dain off.
"Likely, but don't they eat or sell the meat? If that's done regularly, there wouldn't be such a large group."
"Besides, it's very strange for them to attack the village, normally orcs hide in the shadows of forests, the attacks happened during the day."
"Have you ever heard of an orc king?" Jasly asked.
They didn't seem to know what that was, neither did I, to be honest. Elys turned pale, so she knew what it was.
"An orc king is rare, very rare, they are born with some control over the other orcs, it's as if he truly takes all control from the orcs," Elys said.
"That's true, but there's something worse," Elys grew even paler when she heard Jasly. "They are much stronger than a normal orc. We are at a disadvantage, that's assuming an orc king even exists."
"I like to consider that the monsters we go after are stronger than us, it helps to be more careful, but if that's true, then the best thing would be to run. Not that I plan to run for any reason, but if things get worse, that's the best thing to do," Dain was right.
We stopped for a while and created an evacuation plan, combining Jasmine's abilities and mine. She could also use water magic and with my fire magic, we could create fog, which could help when we had to escape.
At the very least, it could buy us a few seconds. Orcs were big and slow when walking, but they were fast when attacking, so we could take advantage of their slower walking movements.
All caution was little, even more so since we didn't know if an orc king existed or if it was just a legend people told.
We went back to walking through the forest, only finding some footprints and marks on trees. Orcs usually lived in caves and went out to hunt. In fact, we could assume that during the day they would always be outside the caves, but never in open fields, at most in a clearing.
After a few minutes, we took another break. The idea was to avoid getting tired, we sat on the ground and kept talking.
"You're very strong," Dain said, looking at me.
"I thought you were going to say that to Jasly, since she defeated someone from A-rank. I only failed."
Jasmine looked at me, she didn't say anything. I didn't know if I had said something wrong or not.
"She's strong too. Jasmine was defeated, but you managed to break Kalil's barrier."
"Is it that hard to do?" Jasly asked.
"To this day, no one from the guild has ever managed to do it. His barrier was seen as impenetrable, but it was broken. That's why he got angry, but he won't punish you," he said, looking at me. "He'll soon go back to normal and treat you as someone strong."
"How did you do that?" Jasmine asked. "I've never seen blue fire."
"I just concentrated more mana into a normal fire spell, it turned blue for being stronger and hotter, that's why it broke the ice barrier."
"There's another way to do that, if you can control air and use fire magic. It's possible to create the same effect, but it's pretty hard to keep both spells active together," Jasly said.
"You must have excellent mana control. Who was your master?" Jasmine asked, looking at me.
Jasly looked at me, I didn't know if I could say her father's name or not.
"Silas Whisper," she answered in my place.
Jasmine fell silent, her expression turned into astonishment.
"Who is that?" Dain asked.
"He was once a court mage. He is considered the third strongest court mage the Kingdom ever had. Some say he could even surpass the other two, but he ended up retiring, no one knows why."
"We're his children," Jasly said.
Jasmine placed her right hand under her chin and looked thoughtful. "Now that makes sense, you're strong because of Silas, his training must be incredible."
We heard a noise, it came from my right side. I looked at Jasmine, who had a frightened face. I felt my bones breaking and everything moving fast. I was thrown to the left, my eyes closed and when I opened them, I saw Jasly crying. The others were scared, I tried to get up, but the pain wouldn't let me. Not even Bedelia could do this to me.
"Don't move, you've lost a lot of blood and had several bones broken," Dain said. He seemed relieved.
I looked up and saw that I was lying on Jasmine's lap. She was crying and stroking my head.
Jasly was using healing magic, she looked exhausted and had some injuries.
"What happened?" My voice was weak.
"We were attacked by a horde of orcs. They moved very fast and we almost didn't make it. We killed four male orcs and one female."
"You were thrown against that tree and passed out. That orc was a little bigger and stronger, and also much faster," Jasmine added. Her voice was trembling and she kept crying. I was terrible at comforting.
"There's no need to cry, you're much prettier when you're smiling," but I knew how to flirt, at least I thought I did. It's hard to know that kind of thing when people around me only praised my actions.
She laughed while wiping away her tears. "It's okay," she said with a smile.
Jasly pinched me, it hurt a little. "Don't be like that, you also look pretty when you smile, but it would be weird for me to say that, even more since you look cuter when you're angry," I said in a light tone, but she got angrier and the others laughed at her.
After a while, I was already able to walk. The orcs were on the ground, Dain and Elys were cutting off the orcs' ears. They would serve as proof of mission completion. But there were still other orcs, and our state was terrible, we were covered in blood and mud.
Jasly stood up, put her hands together and then separated them. A yellow circle of light appeared, then we were all clean. She used light magic, more specifically purification magic, which raised the contradiction of whether it was light magic or another type of magic.
Purification also served to clean objects and people, we were clean after she used magic.
"You also use light magic?" Jasmine was curious about Jasly's abilities.
Jasly explained what she could do, Jasmine listened attentively.
"But you used fire magic during the test."
"Yes and no, I used a magic item I have, it allows me to recreate some spells that were programmed, my father programmed fireball, but I avoid using it because it consumes more mana."
Silas also gave me a magic item, but mine only hid two of my elements.
"And you?" Jasmine asked, looking at me.
"I use fire magic and dark magic, more specifically curse magic," when I said that, they looked at me without understanding what that was. In my past life, I was known as a curse mage, I brought bad luck to specific people and could bring luck or create events based on probability. It was a little confusing, but I could make someone more likely to trip or miss blows, but everything depended on the probabilities of the environment. If the person was sitting or lying down, they wouldn't trip. If they never attacked, they would never miss.
"I don't understand that either," Jasly said.
In this world, I could do almost the same thing, with some differences. I placed luck or misfortune into objects.
"It's easier if I show you. Dain, give me your sword... no, Elys, give me one of your arrows."
She handed it to me. I closed my eyes and a small light came out of my hands, and the arrow was covered in some symbols. They were like magical writing, but painted with mana instead of ink. I had never learned magical writing, it had never made sense to me, but this magic replicated that technique in part.
"Which one of you is the worst at aiming?"
They all pointed to Tobias.
"I'm feeling offended, but that's true, I'm terrible at it."
I handed him the arrow and Elys handed him the bow. I looked for a target. I lifted, with much difficulty, an orc.
"Shoot it in the head, specifically between the eyes, that way the meat won't be ruined. Do it with your eyes closed."
He did as I asked and hit, then Elys told him to aim at something else, and every time he hit the target.
"The effect will wear off in a few days, or hours, it depends on the amount of mana and use."
"You could get rich selling that kind of arrow," Elys said excitedly.
"Doing that drains my mana very quickly, so in a few minutes I'd be empty. That's why it's better to use it in specific cases."
"Wouldn't it be dangerous for us to know this? I mean, you just told us how your magic works to a group of strangers, Jasly also said she has a rare item."
"You're right, but only a little. You were the evaluators of the guild test, I could probably use my magic in combat, so you would find out somehow. Besides, in a fight, I can always use it, with many limitations if I create it on the spot, and people would see it. So I don't consider it any disadvantage."
Jasly used the item bag to store the dead orcs. I was hungry and very tired, the others too. So we took a short break to eat.
We ate orc soup with bread, to drink we had water. I really missed Thalya, she made such delicious food and always had juice. I never thought I'd feel this way about someone, but I didn't know if I could live long away from her.
Not that the soup was bad, it was very tasty, but the food she made was so much more flavorful, I can't explain it.
I put a little salt in the soup, I felt like it.
"You have salt?"
"Yes, do you want some?"
"Yes!" Everyone said at once.
"Why don't you have salt?"
"It's expensive," Dain said.
"Wait a minute, how expensive can it be?"
"A small pouch can cost from 8 silver coins to 2 gold coins, depending on the purity."
"Wait a second, isn't salt something basic that anyone can buy?"
"No, salt is very expensive and more common among nobles than common people."
"You're pale, what happened?" Jasmine asked.
"That damn cook, he tricked me into selling my salt for way less than its worth."
"How much did you sell it for?"
I pulled out a pouch full of salt and showed it to them, and said that I had sold it for 2 silver coins.
"Looking at the amount and its purity, that's worth at least 2 or 3 gold coins."
Ignorance truly was a curse.