Wreath of Lilies, Cauldron of Poison

Chapter 26

The Slave Collar and the First Quest

Right after that brief negotiation - if it could be called that – Horace affixed the Slave Collar on Martell. A magical item that is the hallmark of slavery to prevent Martell from going against his new mistress.

Connie paid the agreed upon price and handed him a High-Grade Rejuvenation Pill and a compounded mix of herbs, chocolate, and Barrenwort weed. Lots and lots of Barrenwort weed compressed into powder via her method.

It was one of the things she experimented upon. Its main function was to allow for better flow of blood and stimulate the pleasure part of the brain.

“Dissolve this powder with water. Just a pinch for one glass. Don’t use too much or it’ll make your penis stand too long,” she explained the use while placing a small packet of colorful powder on the table. “What?”

“Sorry. I’m just not used to hearing a noble woman say penis so off handedly.”

“Hoh. Is that so? I need to rein it in then.”

“Will this work?” He asked dubiously, placing the packet on his palm and opening it.

“You offend me. Just give it a lick if you don’t trust my words.”

Once he did so, Horace immediately bent forward. And quickly hid behind a table.

“Er, forgive me, but I cannot escort you out.”

Connie grinned at his expression and inquired. “It has a nice kick to it, eh?”

“Like a mule, haha. If…if you care to, I think there are some…friends that might be interested in this,” he said, half excited and half embarrassed.

“Excellent. Cornelia Asterium Steelheart. Remember my name. You can find me and my future company at Windlepoons Concoctions. I’m the new owner.”

After finishing the business in the Slave Market, Connie did not want to waste any more time and told Martell to spill the beans.

The beastfolk boy, still uncomfortable with his collar after a long time of not wearing it, began to explain his plan. “That’s easy! We can use a wagon.”

Connie and Illumca both slapped their foreheads.

“It was so obvious! How did I not think of that?” the blonde girl cursed.

“I’m sorry, I have very little life experience. To think that such a simple answer exists.”

Martell smugly continued. “People seem to forget that there are wagons that we can rent for some coins. At this hour people have already finished moving their merchandise, extra coins would be a great thing for them. Or if you have people that can help you with that…”

Connie noticed him gazing at her expectantly. “I don’t want to ask anything of the house.”

“Okay, then what about after we have it? Are we supposed to drag 5 Drygg Boars to the wagon?” Illumca asked.

“You think about it too much. We just have to make the stupid boars do the work for us!”

“What do you mean?”

“They are very territorial and will attack anything that entered their sight. Once they did, they will attack the intruder blindly.”

“How do you know that?”

“My father was a hunter. I used to listen to him telling stories about the prey of the day. He’s dead now, though. Mauled by a bear that he was hunting,” the boy said lightly. “It was bound to happen what with his drinking and everything.”

Illumca felt that wrongness again when she heard the story, but she did not say anything.

After hearing his plan, Connie decided to buy a wagon instead of renting it. She would need it for future developments. With it she also got two mares to pull the wagon. A brown Highland horse named Greta and a spotted white one named Caramel. She also hired a driver for a day to take care of the wagon while they hunt, though it did reduce her savings down to less than 10 gold.

Along the way, Illumca asked the driver - whose name turned out to be Jacobi - questions about how to drive the wagon, which was answered with surprising enthusiasm.

Connie told him to wait on the main road as while they hunt.

Before they entered the forest, Illumca gave the beastfolk boy a spare knife for protection and told him to not try anything funny.

Barely a few minutes after they entered the forest, the three encountered a pack of slimes. This was the first time for Connie to fight against a monster of this world other than Fasina and she was perplexed.

“A slime!” Connie exclaimed. She had memories of them. Specifically, Cornelia’s first unfortunate meeting which took her almost half an hour to beat one. That did not mean that she understood the damn thing.

“These buggers did not make sense!” she said, as she casually sent out a wave of Yin Energy that annihilated them, save for one that hid behind a tree. She caught it as it launched itself at her.

This particular slime was green in color and had the texture of a pork soup that had been left cooling in the open. “How are you alive? No digestive system, no eyes, no limbs. Not even brain! How do you move?!”

“That’s a Poison Slime!” Martell cried out, still flabbergasted from the casual gesture that destroyed the slimes. “Wait, you are not poisoned?”

“What, this?” she scoffed. “A weak nausea inducing one. If you are poisoned by this thing, I might have to reevaluate your worth.”

She then threw it away, not bothering to destroy it. “Come. We need to find the boars.”

The three went deeper into the forest, leaving the poison slime alone.

After they left, the poison slime wobbled weakly towards the streak of Yin Energy left from Connie’s attack and had a taste of it.

It was immediately addicted.

Illumca wiped her knives with some leaves after they were bloodied from a recent meeting with some goblins. After the initial battle with the slimes, Connie had chosen to let Illumca wet her knives instead of making a move herself.

“Practical lessons are important,” the blonde-haired girl said.

Martell was also forced to work hard, cutting the ears of the goblins as subjugation proof for extra rewards. He was not used to the dirty work as people who bought him usually had more sensual reasons. Making him dirty was the last thing in their mind when they chose him – or first – depending on their tastes.

“Wait, did you hear that?” Martell’s ears twitched. Beastfolk’s ears were sensitive and accustomed to the many sounds of nature. It was one of their traits.

“Not just hear it,” Connie lapped the air. “I can taste the smell. And they smelled like what I thought they would.”

She said. “up!” She kicked the ground and landed on a tree branch.

Illumca hoisted Martell by the waist and bounded tree to tree with her strong legs. She landed at a branch under Connie.

Martell pointed to the North. “There!”

At that direction, the could see 6 boars almost half the size of a cow. They were burrowing their nose into the base of a large tree, savagely munching on its roots. The tops of their backs were covered in red colored hair and the muscles under their skins were visibly strong.

“That is big. Much bigger than the Moss boars!” Connie exclaimed.

“Drygg Boar is a delicacy. The meat is tender with a taste more like beef than pork,” Martell explained as he slowly edged towards the trunk and held on for dear life. “They are also very destructive as they ate the roots of the trees around them. Damaging the barks with their large tusks and just being pricks to everyone else. The troublesome thing is that they are also very tight knit. They always move in packs.”

“Territorial, eh?” Connie leaned against the tree, one leg hanging off the branch. “Go on, Illumca. Show me your moves. Don’t forget, lure them towards the direction of the cart. No magic.”

“Alright. Watch me well!”

The dark elf readied her knives and jumped down.

“Are you not going to help her?” Martell asked, arms growing weary from trying not to fall off. Beastfolks are not meant for heights, dammit!

“She’ll be fine. How about you? I thought Beastfolks are supposed to be a hardy race.”

“There are always exceptions!” he said defensively. “Brains are better than brawns!”

“Exceptions, eh? Riight. You can get down by yourself at least?”

“I – uh.”

The tree suddenly shook. Martell looked down and saw that a Drygg Boar had rammed against the three they were on.

“Hey! Don’t lead them here!” he shouted.

“Shut up! It’s hard to do this without magic!” Illumca yelled out from below. She dodged right and left as the boars rammed at her direction, slowly directing them closer to the target.

“No, wait! Aaah!!” Another boar rammed into the tree, toppling it.

Martell screamed as he lost his grip and fell.

Just as his head was about to meet the ground, he felt a tug on his right leg and he was thrown up high into the air.

“AAAH!!”

Cloud. Blue sky. Trees. Cloud.

Martell’s vision switched between those things as he spun from the momentum.

“Upf!”

Connie caught him by the waist, gliding across the sky with one hand behind her back. Her centipede robe billowing behind her as she flew through the air.

“You are flying?! How are you doing this?!”

“This is just gliding. I’ve yet to reach that stage…yet.”

So important she said it twice.

The girl’s left foot landed lightly on top of the tree. The tree almost did not register her movement as she jumped from tree to tree with practiced movements.

Unlike Illumca’s shadowy movements that weaved to and fro on the ground, Connie’s was as if she was simply taking a walk. Effortless and unfettered.

“NGUUOOHH!!”

“Hundred Thrust!”

Illumca’s knives were wearing down the boars that were more than 6 levels above her. That was all she could do as she could not muster enough strength to sink the blades through their thick skin and muscles. It felt like hitting a wet blanket.

“Dammit! It’d be easier to use magic to burn them!”

One of the boars managed to ambush her from the back, its tusk directed at her stomach. Sensing the heat coming from behind, Illumca twisted her body. However, she judged the distance wrongly and the tusk tore through her clothes and wounding her right side.

“Their weak points are the neck and the eyes! Your daggers are not long enough to reach their vitals!” She heard Connie’s voice coming from above, giving her pointers.

The smell of the blood sent the boars into a frenzy and they became more relentless in their attacks.

Up on a large apple tree, Martell and Connie were watching the struggle below. She was munching on an apple while he wondered why she did not bother with lending a hand to her friend.

“You are wondering why I did not help her.”

She correctly guessed the question in his mind.

“While she is my partner, she is also my disciple. And I expect excellence and grit from my disciples. She needs to fend for herself if she wants to improve.”

“Disciple? But she is a dark elf! They say that the dark and light elves are creatures blessed with magic from birth. They can live for more than a thousand years! Why would she need to apprentice herself to you?”

“Your father again?” she raised an eyebrow.

“No, one of my past masters,” he replied. “The man tried to get a hand on a light elf. He failed, and the light elves beheaded him and his family. Then planted their heads on top of the trees in front of their mansion.”

“But you survived.”

“I was not there at the time. And you didn’t answer my question.”

Connie wiped the juice running down her lips with her sleeves, making a statement while she did so. “Wisdom comes from life experience. It just means I have more than her.”

“More life experience than an elf?”

“Hmm,” Connie did not speak anymore, instead focusing on Illumca, who had already dispatched one boar by stabbing into its eye.

She had her first kill, yet she did not have a chance to rejoice as two boars got her in a pincer attack. She leapt to the air as they charged and collided against each other.

While they were concussed, Illumca descended on the two, closing her eyes while forming an image of that technique she saw in the memory.

She opened her eyes and yelled out. “Butterfly Taking Flight!”

Illusionary red butterflies appeared from her body and the daggers’ blade were lit aflame, flitting about as she thrust the daggers down. Even before their edge touched the boars, they had been wounded by the energy emitted by the daggers.

The daggers then plunged into their necks and killed them instantly, the blood spurting out from the critical wounds evaporated from the heat with a loud hiss.

“Such powerful move! Stronger than Hundred Thrust!”

Another boar charged at her while she felt the elation of using a cultivation technique for the first time.

She faced it and her right dagger moved in a circle, emitting a slew of butterflies that obscured the boar’s eyes. The oversized creature suddenly felt heat at the base of its neck and died still running before collapsing a few meters away.

“Two more!” She felt her status rising and learned a skill quickly.

“Shadow Step!” her body dissolves into the shadow and she appeared by the side of the next boar, and executed Butterfly Taking Flight. She did not take account to the proximity and power. Her body was unwillingly sent flying upward. In effect cleaving the boar’s neck in twain and planting her face against a nearby tree.

“Ooow…!” she fell on her butt and rubbed her painful face.

“No! The last boar!!”

She stood up at the ready, her eyes still teary from kissing the tree. She saw that the last boar had collapsed, an apple core embedded into its skull.

“Good work, Illumca. This is acceptable for your first result. There are still much to be desired from your movements, and your stances are still too rigid,” she said while clapping three times rhythmically, “One thing, though. You don’t need to scream the technique’s names.”

“I’m sorry. Force of habits.”

“Now that you’ve used them, what do you think about cultivation techniques?”

“Incredible. Just these two moves could be woven with each other without the need to reposition. Most skills need me to have a firm ground to stand on, these can be freely used!”

She then fell on one knee, her breathing grew heavy. “…but it’s tiring to use them.”

“That’s because you are still at the initial stage of cultivation. In the future you can do more. Much more,” she encouraged her with a warm smile. “Keep heart and don’t give up.”

As Connie helped her disciple up, Martell hid behind a tree, thinking about what he just heard.

“Cultivation?”

After dragging the result of the hunt towards the wagon, they returned to Cairula. By then the day had already ended and the Lamplighters had already started their rounds.

Connie dragged the results into the guild and got the payment for the quest and the goblins they killed. She asked for the extra boar to be processed and its pelt tanned.

“Congratulations. You are now a C Ranked Hunter,” Cosette handed the Guild Card with Connie’s updated rank. Along with a bag filled with gold. “You got extra for bringing them in very good conditions. That came up to 55 gold!”

“Thank you. And about the permit?”

“It’s ready. Just take this to the hunter guarding the dungeon and he’ll let you in. Don’t forget though, 4 people.”

“Alright. Do you happen to have any quest regarding the dungeon? Might as well do it in one go.”

“Sadly most have already been taken by other parties so nothing is left. Maybe next week.”

“That’s too bad,” she gave Cosette a friendly nod and said goodbye.

Outside, Connie saw the scene of Illumca standing before 4 unconscious men. Martell was poking one of them with a branch he found nearby.

“What happened?” she could surmise what happened, but she asked it regardless.

“These men tried to flirt with me. I helped them flirt with the ground,” she answered with a disdainful look. Her gaze could only be caught by the sight of Connie. How dare these people try to flirt with me!

“I guess being beautiful has its drawbacks. Come, let’s go home.”

“Y-yes,” Illumca said bashfully, moving closer and held on her right sleeve with the tips of her finger. Home. Such a sweet sound. And coming from her made it that much sweeter.

“When we get there, I’ll introduce you to my people, Martell. They are all good people. So don’t mess with them, else I’d deck you.”

Martell got up and followed them whilst playing with the branch, hitting them against fences, barrels, and other things as he hummed a little ditty.

These two are so odd, and they way the elf looked at her. That was more than simple respect.