Dean felt it was a good time to hunt.

Recently, he had to hold back from going too far on his hunting trips because of what had happened in the village.

Because of the amount of blood-spitters that fled the night of the attack, there were many usually bountiful prey that dwindled. Those d.a.m.ned cats had hunted more than their share before running away.

Then, because of the reconstruction efforts, he had to restrain the amount of time he spent hunting.

Finally, with the many dead, it was hard to find partners to go hunt with.

Since there were no timestop sloths living on this side of the hills, hunting alone was relatively safe as long as you knew what you were doing but taking down a larger prey was much harder.

Knowing all this, Dean had been forced to rely on the small traps he had laid everywhere in the woods with his friends. Every day, he would make a trip to each of the traps in turn, hoping that some rabbit or fox would have gotten stuck in them. Because of the cats though, it had not been that successful.

He still had some reserves back home for Vale and the kids but he knew that he would have to catch something eventually to preserve the happiness of the household. After all, clothes and tools didn't pay themselves.

Today was different, he knew, today was a good day to hunt. The instinct of a seasoned hunter told him so. A sort of feverishness drifted in the air of the forest, an excitement proper to the awakening of the beasts deeper in the forest.

When that kind of atmosphere fell on the woods, small animals of all kinds moved from the deep reaches of the woods and came closer to its borders, closer to the hunters.

They were driven away from their usual territories by their fear for larger beast. More often than not, that kind of air was caused by the aggressive mating season of some beast while at other times, a slumbering giant decided to move elsewhere. In any case, on that kind of day, the harvest was always high and very rarely did the monsters causing said air ever come out of the deep woods.

Dean intended to profit highly of that day.

"Be safe." Vale told him before he left.

Like he did every time, he answered "Always."

It was with a confident smile he left his home that day.

Leaving the village, he waved at Marcy dragging her apprentice outside of her house. The Smith had it rough for a long time and the constant buzzing of Sophus around her was certainly not helping but since she had taken that boy in, she seemed much more cheerful than he ever saw her. Dean was glad the boy was here, if only for the smith's mood. Maybe he would be able to convince her to discount some arrowheads for him later.

He pa.s.sed the village gates and went straight for his traps, travelling with a steady run to get there faster. The traps weren't the main goal today, he had no reason to take his time to go there.

As expected, none of them scored a catch. He merely clicked his tongue at the situation and prepared his bow instead for the true hunt.

With his bow in hand and an arrow ready to be notched, he walked down the hunting paths, leaving the traps behind. He progressed carefully, listening to the sounds of the forest, searching for recent tracks and keeping an attentive eye to his surroundings.

He started by rounding the paths he took often, then those he hadn't used recently. Finally, he followed with the half tracks he almost never threaded, still, he could not find any traces, any signs of prey.

Did they purposefully stay clear of his paths or were the woods. .h.i.t even harder by the cats than what he had believed? He felt disappointed but the day wasn't over yet, bringing something back home was still possible.

Spurred on by his good feeling, he left the paths he usually took and walked in the overgrown woods.

Outside of the paths he and the other hunters had made over the years, it was hard to move in the forest. Fallen trees and large snapped branches where in the way everywhere, foliage and long herbs grew up to his waist in house-sized patches, the terrain was uneven and often treacherous with holes and mud and moss covered everything it could, making every surface slippery.

The sun was bright though and with its help, even the dense forest could be seen through, truly a perfect day to hunt.

Stepping onto moss patches to erase the sound of his boots, he progressed slowly. Scanning every little movements he caught, he made sure that nothing but the wind and him was to be found in the vicinity.

Small birds could be heard often chirping on their perches. There was nothing abnormal, in the forest, he knew, only him and a prey. He only had to find it. Would it be a deer, a boar maybe? He had not eaten boar meat in a long time. They were tricky to catch but oh so delicious and their skin was st.u.r.dy, Marcy offered good money for it.

Dean was roaming towards the top of a small hill when he heard a noise further down bellow, on the other side of the hill. A smile bloomed on his face, there it was, the catch he was looking for.

He made his way around the slope as quietly as humanly possible. Carefully shoving twigs and branches out of his way to close the distance with what he would soon discover to be a deer, a large one at that. Easier to kill than a boar, less dangerous too, but just as good a catch for him.

Using the tree trunks as cover, he slowly got closer to it as he made his way downhill. He ended up on top of a huge rock jutting out of the slope. Like the rest, it was covered in moss but it was unlikely to cause him to fall from it. Even if he fell, he would only loose the deer, the thing wasn't high enough to cause any severe injury to him unless he fell head first. He walked closer to its edge and readied his bow.

The animal was munching on the lower leaves of a tree twenty meters ahead of Dean. There were many thing in the way between him and the deer but the ancestors would help him, he had no doubt he would hit it from where he was.

He drew the string as far as it would go and after emptying his lungs, let the arrow loose.

The deer heard the bow being fired and lowered itself as it prepared to jump away. Even by reacting instantly, it was still not fast enough and the arrow, after flying through a few dozen leaves stuck the deer in the side, just behind it's shoulder.

Dean cheered at the successful hit. The animal wailed and darted away in panic. He was sure he had pierced its lung, it wouldn't be long until it fell. Dean only had to follow its trail of blood now.

He stored the bow back on his shoulder and drew his long hunting knife. Not caring about the noise he made anymore, he returned to the rock's base and found a way to climb down the stiff slope safely. Once down there, he waved his blade around to clear a path towards were the animal left.

What a good catch, that was more than enough to make up for the slowness of... Something was wrong.

He stopped dead in his track. The air fell still as if to mirror him and a chill ran across his back. An abnormal chill considering the sudden heat surrounding him.

The first thing he heard was the sudden shrill that wet gra.s.s would make when thrown in a fire, then, a cracking noise behind him. It was a sound he had never heard, akin to a gla.s.s pane shattering slowly or a fissure running along a sheet of ice.

Something was behind him he knew, the sounds came from too close to be from anywhere else. He licked his dry lips to try and calm himself, hoping it would not be something terrible. He turned his head towards the hill, towards the sound, towards something terrible.

Bellow the large rock jutting out of the wall-like slope, there was a enormous hole he had not noticed. He could have sworn it hadn't been there before and he would have been right, the noise he had heard was made from a huge stone disk, or maybe a wheel, half covered in moss, being rolled aside to reveal the pa.s.sage.

Looking at it more carefully, it wasn't stone at all, it was too smooth for it to be stone, he just ignored what it really was. The door-like wheel crushed pebbles and branches as it moved aside to reveal the hole.

A pa.s.sage gently going downward. All of it, from ground to ceiling was made of the same strange material reflecting the sun in its dark brilliance. In the center of what he felt was probably some sort of den, a creature stood.

It was unlike anything he had seen before in his life. It stood hunched forward but still reached twice his own height. The thing was bulky and muscled, with two legs he could have mistook for tree trunks because of their size and four arms that were almost as impressive.

Its arms ended in human-like hands with large furred fingers. The creature used its two lower arms to stand, resting its weight on his knuckles like a monkey. Except it was no monkey.

The thing had a jaw reminiscent of a bear but was held on an elongated head crowned by a pair of horns imitating the sh.e.l.l of a turtle. It's fur was short and raw with the color of rust and the smell of charcoal. On its back two more limbs sprouted like tentacles from the fat and fur, connected to what seemed to be ma.s.sive swelling between its two sets of shoulders.

Liquid lazily dripped from its tentacles, acc.u.mulating at the ground to form more of that reflective material. It's mussel flared and snorted like a bull as it fixated its purple eyes onto Dean.

This was an unnameable of chaos. A one of a kind creature, unpredictable, unexpected and deadly. This he knew. When encountering something like that, there was only one sensible thing to do. Run.

As the monster finished rolling its door aside, the hunter kicked the ground and ran through the woods. It had taken him a while to register what he was looking at but once he did, his entire being focused on survival, his whole mind was screaming at his legs to run faster.

Behind him, no roar resonated through the forest, the creature merely groaned, as if it was bored.

Dean dashed forward, letting leaves and branches slap him in the face in a bid to gain just a few seconds over the creature. The lumbering steps of the beast fell over the forest, flattening all in its path toward Dean.

He did not even look back as he ran through bushes and jumped over fallen trees. An ominous hissing made itself heard shortly after he pa.s.sed bellow a especially large branch and was swiftly followed by cracking sounds very close to him.

By instinct, he ducked again and just above him flew a jet of black liquid, pa.s.sing through the trees as a sword through half melted b.u.t.ter. The black blade snapped countless trees in half and thunder rang in the forest as the ancestors fell all around Dean. Everywhere the black liquid touched, either trees or ground melted and solidified again into that dark purplish matter.

If it was hard to run through all this before, it was even harder now that the forest had collapsed on itself. Dean tried to resume his escape but the loud thumping of the creature steps was far too close to his liking now.

He gulped as he thought of his imminent demise. He could only curse his bad luck, why was there such a thing so close to the village? Was it this thing that forced the animals to flee? Truly curse worthy. He wanted to scream his resentment at it but there were no words to be be found in his mind anymore.

Jumping on a collapsed tree, he turned around to see the monster just behind him. Dean gnashed his teeth and without hesitation threw his knife at it.

The blade flew right at its eye but at the last moment, the thing turned its head and the weapon bounced harmlessly on its horn.

Dean jumped on a trunk further and got his bow from his back again. As fast as he could, he notched an arrow and shot it at the monster. He did not aim for its st.u.r.dy arms or wall-like torso, he shot above its shoulder and pierced through one of the two tentacles. The thing was unfazed by the attack.

He screamed of frustration and stepped back only to trip on something and fall over another tree. The monster approached nonchalantly and looked over the trunk only to be greeted by a second arrow. That one surprised it and was driven up its fist-sized nostril.

The monster s.h.i.+vered in pain and confusion before letting out a roar that shook Dean to the core. He crawled backward into the fallen tree line but to no avail.

He had barely backed a few meters away when four large hands surrounded him and threw the trees away as if they were twigs. The purple eyes stared through him with a frenzied anger as it grabbed him and lifted him off the ground. Dean's face was dragged up to an inch away from the monster's face as it roared again.

Deans stared at the arrow poking out of its bleeding nose, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight. He had never been as afraid as this instant. He felt his bones getting crushed in the grip of the thing and he knew it was over. The fate of a hunter.

"Vale," He thought. "even though I was careful."

The monster gripped his right leg in one of its hands and pulled from both sides, tearing it away from him. Agonizing pain shot through him and for a single instant, he felt his heart beat more strongly in his skull than it did in his chest.

His last thoughts were not for his wife or kids, in his mind, there was only pain left. He pa.s.sed out moments before the creature crushed him into a paste on the mossy forest floor.

***

In Dark-glint village, Emp was woken up by no one. Today, Marcellia told him they weren't going to work so he got to sleep for a long time. Yesterday was the day the other him went to those two parties so today, he would go to the temple. Sadly, he wouldn't learn about what happened there before he was recalled tonight.

He sat up and put on some clothes in preparation for the day. He didn't need to know what he liked and disliked, what where his hopes and what were his desires to have a normal day. The answers to those could wait to tomorrow.

When he got out of his room, he found Marcellia was about to leave.

"I'm going to a meeting with Bor and Sophus today." She reminded him. "What is it that ya said ya wanted to do today again?"

Her meeting with the village chief and the mage had been planned many days in advance so they had talked about it a few times.

"I plan on dismantling a creature I killed before."

"Oh, I remember now. Don't forget to get the other kids, this is good practice for everyone."

"Sure." Emp told her as she left.

He ate his breakfast alone and went outside to meet the others. They were easy to find because they had all heard about the fact that he had no work today. Everyone had gathered nearby and played with sticks while they waited for him to show up.

"Hey Emp, you want a go against me? I'm pretty good at this!" Vesa asked him, posing in front of the newly defeated Cuthberth.

Vesa was a dynamic boy that was a bit taller than Emp. He was eager to prove his worth but also knew that rus.h.i.+ng while he wasn't ready yet would lead to more harm than good. Marcy thought he would have a good chance in the future, Emp thought he gave off an honest feeling and was a friendly guy.

He liked to play with sticks as if they were sword and won often against the other boys, giving him confidence. Emp hadn't fought against him, partly because he didn't want to hurt him and partly because he didn't really have the time.

Today wasn't a good moment for it either.

"No thanks, today I need to take care of the corpse of a gluttonek I killed. Would you like to help me?"

"A gluttonek!"

"What is that?" Asked Winter.

She was the smallest of the group. Emp had heard that she was called that because her father came from another empire further north and saw a winter full of snow when he was small. He thought it was beautiful and wanted to give that name to one of his daughters.

Winter was a bit like Calla, she was slow paced and clumsy but liked to smile and cheer on the others. She would usually just go along with what the others said and followed her friend Eda everywhere.

"Isn't it a big snake?" Asked Jurgen, the third knife boy.

"You will all see if you come with me." Emp said. It was easier to show them after all.

Everyone agreed easily and were immediately ready to leave.

Only Manley's father stopped them for a minute as they were leaving, just to make sure of where they were all going. Parents were always really careful about their kids.

Emp believed neither Strength nor Sage would ever be worried about him. They probably only cared about the task they gave to him.

"Your father's always such a worrywart." Said Sylvia to Manley.

"Isn't that a great thing?" Asked Emp.

"Yeah Emp gets it, we're the same after all." Manley answered as he got up to him.

Manley wasn't the oldest but he was the tallest boy in the group and the only one with dark hair, a trait he didn't share with his father.

"You know what it's like to not have parents like me." He told Emp. "He isn't really my father but he was there for me when no one else was. He did his best to raise me even thought he didn't have to and thought me everything he knew. He truly is a father to me. We may not have the same blood but if you ask me who my father is, I will answer by pointing at him every time."

Was Emp really supposed to get it? Everyone somehow thought he was an orphan since he never spoke to anyone about his four creators. He wasn't sure what to think of Manley story. He didn't know Manley had been an orphan before. Could parents really be replaced just like that?

His creators could not be compared to Manley's father, they weren't really there to help him, they were there to profit from him. Creators weren't the same as parents he concluded, both made something but the motives were different. A creator made something for the satisfaction it brought them or profit, parents made and raised a child for the sake of the creation itself rather than their own.

Maybe Emp truly was an orphan then, he didn't have parents, only creators.

While Emp was thinking about this, they made their way to the place where the dismantling was taking place. Because of the usually messy nature of the business, the processing of the creatures was never done just beside the houses. It was instead done outside the village walls a bit downriver to let it wash out the grime.

The guards at the village gate stopped them to ask where they were going but when Emp told them they were just going to dismantle something, they were let through without a problem. It wasn't that they were forbidden to leave but the guards wanted to make sure that the kids wouldn't put themselves in danger. Knowing they weren't going far enough to be out of sight and knowing that Emp was with them was enough to rea.s.sure them.

The boys rushed forward to get there first while the girls walked at the back. Calla especially seemed reluctant to witness the scene. Since even Winter was going though, she couldn't just stay out of it, she would end up alone with nothing to do.

The dismantling spot was a wide area covered with a stone floor. The rule was to keep it clean by was.h.i.+ng it with the water of the river once one was done using it. After they reached the spot, the rest felt lost briefly from the absence of the promised creature. Emp told them it was in his bag and to leave him some s.p.a.ce to get it out.

He moved towards the center of the cleared s.p.a.ce and searched around his bag for his old kill. He called it to the center of the dismantling s.p.a.ce and the memory of the stench it exuded came back to him instantly with the actual smell. The others had the same opinion about the smell.

"Ewww. Why does it smell so bad?" Complained Eda.

"It's disgusting." Said Wilbert, another of the knife boys.

"I had forgotten how bad it smelled." Observed Emp as he also removed the many severed heads from his bag.

The corpse still spewed juices from its gaping wound and made a large puddle of it bellow its fat belly. Calla hid her eyes behind her hands to not see it. She really didn't like that sort of scene.

"So that's a gluttonek? It looks ridiculous." Commented Jurgen.

With its large deflating belly and overall squashed shape, it did look a bit ridiculous.

"But that thing almost killed me." Answered Emp.

"Tell us, how did you fight it?" Asked Chase.

He was the second oldest boy here, only Calla's brother, Gilbert, was older and only by a few month. Chase didn't share the same desire as Gilbert to become Marcy's apprentice. He liked the perspective of becoming a hunter better. He always fled from the ch.o.r.es his parents gave him to do but would always be there when someone had a hunting story to share.

Emp answered his question in a way that was very like him. His whole story seemed more like a list of events than a tale, making it very odd to listen to for the others.

"Finally, it died when I made that large cut in its belly. and planted the spear in through the top." He finished the story.

"You are really bad at telling tales, but surprisingly, there is a lot to learn in it." Judged Chase.

"Then are we taking it apart or what?" Called Gilbert.

After that, almost everyone took knifes and tools to help Emp with his work. Using the large belly cut as a starting point, they slowly removed the scales and skin from its large body, cutting between it and the meat to free it. Emp knew that the creature's venom would not kill but just to be safe, he had cut off all the heads first before they started.

Calla, sat on a bench with a few of the girls kept her eyes tightly shut and winced at every noise the corpse made. She really didn't like that kind of thing. Not only was she afraid of the blood and found the creature both scary and disgusting, she was also afraid someone would cut themselves with the knives.

"Be careful." She would often remind them meekly from behind her fingers.

Calla truly wasn't suited to be in any work related to hunting or violence in general. Emp hoped for her that out of all ten Champom kids, she would be the one inheriting the orchard because he didn't know what else she could do with how apprehensive and scared she was of everything.

"We're going to need a lot of baskets for that thing." Observed a girl named Galina.

Her name was similar to Galana's but her personality was far apart. This girl was of a calm and serious nature, and had a strong will too but, she loved to share her things with those around her and always saw the best outcome in everything. The baskets could have waited but she wanted to give an opportunity for Calla to escape.

The girl gladly took it and walked back to the village with winter and willow in tow.

While they were gone, their work progressed smoothly and soon, all the skin was removed and placed in a wet pile on the side. Because there were so many hunters in the village, most of the kids had a family member who was one and they all had to help with this kind of thing before. They were not experts but with how large the gluttonek was, Emp was glad they were there. They helped each other out and gave some tips to those around them but even while taking their time and teaching each others, it was progressing much faster than it would have if Emp had been alone.

When the basket girls came back, they had started chopping off large pieces of the creature. All of the returning girls carried in front of them a bunch of baskets stacked into each other. Emp left the piece he was working on and went to get a basket to store the edible meat they could get. The girls placed them down in turn near the dismantling place to let everyone place the extracted things inside them.

Calla was the last one to do so but as she got closer to the corpse, she slipped on something squishy and fell forward with a surprised scream. Emp thought it would be really bad if Calla of all people fell face first into the foul smelling liquid pooling bellow them. He quickly stepped at her side and caught her by wrapping an arm around her before she reached the ground.

"Ha! Thanks Emp." She said, a bit pale from the fright.

"You seem to always fall at the worst time, you should be more careful." Observed Emp. After all, she was the one who fell during the blood-spitters attack too.

The others laughed at that.

"He's the new guy but he knows her well already!"

"You're so clumsy Calla, come sit back down with me!"

Her cheeks reddened and she did just as she was told.

The disaster averted, the work continued on with a good mood. Emp had a hard time opening all the small snake heads to find the poison glands since those things were so slippery and elastic but aside from that, everything went well. That stayed true until they opened up the belly of the beast properly.

Most of the juice contained in its stomach had flowed out by now but not its contents. When Emp and the knife boys trio began to remove its internal organs, the stomach rolled out of the corpse and spilled its contents at their feet.

There were a sudden burst of screams as everyone ran back to dodge the unexpected torrent of garbage that flowed out of it. In the belly of the beast, was the corpse of a man, half digested, with his skin falling off in large chunk and his face mostly melted away. Even with most of it missing, his visage still clearly expressed terror.

The man wore no armor but had an empty scabbard that had fused with his hips. The sword was nowhere to be found in the rest of the refuses. There were also a bunch of bones and b.a.l.l.s of fur but nothing there could make an impression as big as the man's corpse.

Once the understanding of what they were looking at truly sank in, there was another round of high pitched scream and poor Winter even threw up in tandem with another girl named Sylvia.

Emp was surprised to see a corpse into his corpse but wasn't disturbed more than that, it was just very ugly and unpleasing to look at. It was a bit sickening but not more than what he had already seen.

"What happened?" Asked Calla anxiously.

She had not seen anything, she was keeping her eyes closed since she came back.

"Don't look, there was a corpse in its stomach." Warned Vesa.

The girl s.h.i.+vered and snapped her hand more tightly over her eyes.

Soon, the gate guards showed up, alerted by the screams. The scene unfolding in front of them was self-explanatory, they understood without anyone telling them.

"Is it Dean?" The guards asked.

From their perspective, it would be logical as Vale's husband was the last person to disappear. But, the timing was way off.

"He cannot be, I killed that thing in the low-woods before I first came into town. Dean had not disappeared yet."

"Then who is it?"

"No one we know, it's the only thing that matters." Answered the second guard with relief. "Go get some guys to have him buried."

"Yes."

The dismantling was delayed for a good while as the guards had to come pick that guy up and drag him to the forest. What made it an arduous task was that the corpse was very slimy and was easily breaking apart. An arm fell off as they were raising him up and the head almost detached itself when they tried to pick back up the arm.

They had to be very careful while displacing it and moved to the tree line at the pace of a snail. After that, those that weren't in the woods burying the corpse went back to the village and left the kids to their task.

This wasn't the first time something like that happened and it wouldn't be the last. Even if that was the case, it was a shock for the dismantlers every time. A human corpse was not the same as that of a beast. The boys washed off all the gastric fluids from the stones to change their minds while the girls took care of the two who had emptied their stomachs from the sight.

While they were cleaning up everything with the river's water, Emp found out that the man had a purse filled with silver scepters. A true fortune by the standards of the villagers.

"Are those really silver coins?" Asked Jurgen excitedly when he saw them.

The others gathered around to take a look, curious to see them and envious of Emp's luck. None of them were bothered by the fact they had belonged to the corpse they just found. Seeing this, Emp thought it would be great to reward them of their help with those coins. He counted them and found that there were enough for everyone. He didn't need that money anyway, even after paying for Vale's armor. He didn't mind sharing the coins with the others who desired them.

"I will give one to each of you once we are done." He said.

The faces of everyone lighted up. They all seemed very happy but their reactions varied. There were some "Really!?", some "You don't need to pay us." and even a "Yess!" accompanied by a fist pump from Wilbert. (1)

"Really, I do not need that money and you are all helping me."

"If you say so." Eda easily accepted even if she claimed he didn't have to pay them.

"Well I won't mind at all!" Laughed Vesa

"Maybe it'll be enough to buy a small sword from Marcy!" The three knife boys plotted excitedly.

Emp wasn't convinced a silver coin would be enough but maybe their parents would help them out. After all, they had the right to carry weapons now.

To do that though, they needed the coins and to get the coins, they needed to finish taking care of the gluttonek's body.

They all went back to work, lively and cheerful from the reward they were expecting. All thoughts of the dead man had vanished from their minds.

It was Gilbert who did the best work. He was being extra careful to impress Marcy who would no doubt comment on their work afterward. Chase also contributed a lot to the task, with Willow sticking close to him and providing him another pair of hands, his work was swift and efficient.

The monster's meat was sliced in large chunks and placed into the baskets, it's bones rinsed and stored into their own containers, all separated by size. The kids had never heard about the value of a gluttonek's organs so they left them aside while they cleaned the rest. None knew if they were worth anything at all to anyone but Emp still stored them in his bag, just in case.

The skin still needed to be taken care of properly but aside from that, they were mostly done and from the corpse, nothing but a large stain remained. With how many people there were to clean, that too disappeared fast.

Since most of it had been its stomach, the final harvest of meat was smaller than what its size would have led to believe. They ended up with four full baskets of meat, one full of small bones taken from the tentacle snakes and a last basket half taken by larger bones of which the monster had not many.

Most of the skin was in good condition and was the true treasure of the harvest. Yes, Emp also had a jar of poison that was very valuable to physicians and mages but the snake skin was very useful for a lot of different projects and more interesting to him.

As promised, Emp gave a silver coin to everyone present.

"Even me?" Asked Calla. She felt like she didn't deserve it since she had stayed sat nearby the whole time, unable to even look at the gruesome task.

"You were still there and almost fell in it because you went to get the baskets, take it." He insisted.

After all, he said he would give one to everyone. Not giving one to Calla didn't seem fair. She accepted it with a pretty smile and Emp placed the remaining coins into his bag.

"There's so much of it remaining too. I'm so jealous Emp gets to keep it all." Wined Cuthberht.

"He was the one to kill it after all, it's obvious he's going to keep the money in its belly. If you're not happy with that, you go kill one of your own." His brother Wilbert answered.

"Well maybe I will, with the sword Marcy will make me."

After that, they carried the baskets back to Marcy's workshop. Emp carried the heaviest one, the one overflowing with still wet skin, by himself while the others carried the rest in groups of three or four.

The basket of skin was far from being as heavy as the hammer he usually used so he had no problem moving it but the others had to take many breaks along the way.

"You're really strong, it's impressive." Observed Calla.

"I bet he could even lift a wooden beam by himself. There's a reason he was picked as Marcellia's apprentice after all." Added Eda.

Eda was the oldest girl in the group, in fact, she was old enough to chose a husband. She was both the most responsible of the group and the least responsible. Every time someone was about to do something they would regret, she was the voice of reason that stopped them. But, instead of listening to her parents or learning a craft with her time, she spent it hanging out with the others. It was as if she didn't want to think about her future.

Still, Emp had no right to judge her on that since apparently, he couldn't picture his own future either.

"Hey, I'm strong too!" Claimed Calla's brother, holding half a meat basket by himself.

It was true that this was great from someone their age but Marcellia wasn't going to change her mind about taking him as an apprentice because of that.

When they arrived at the house, most of the afternoon was gone and Marcy was already back. She welcomed them all with a wave of her hand and checked into the baskets curiously.

"That sure is a lot of meat, what was it that you were butchering?"

"A gluttonek."

"Really? I haven't seen that in a long time. Is the skin usable?"

"I damaged it a bit when I killed it but it seems fine."

"Good, was everyone helpful?"

"They were, everyone gave a hand, even Calla. Gilbert was very careful with the skin and Chase and Willow were very efficient."

Marcellia nodded approvingly and Gilbert puffed his chest with pride. He wasn't able to place a word on the moment though because the three knife boys pestered Marcy about the prices of swords. In the end, with the money they had, they couldn't choose if it was better to buy a short sword for all three or a dagger each. They decided to think about it some more.

They all went on to prepare the meat for preservation. Some of it would be salted and smoked while another part of it would be dried. Only a small amount of it was kept with only salted as it would probably be eaten my Emp and Marcy soon.

Emp could have just stored it all back into his bag and it would have been fine but Marcy insisted that he had to do things properly.

When everything was over, Gilbert asked if she would take him as an apprentice, she refused, and everyone went back home for today. Emp stood at the door to send them off and said good night to most of them.

As they were all leaving, Emp saw Willow take Chase apart. She held the silver coin he had given her with both her hands and offered it to Chase.

"You'll soon get your first victory right? You're going to need it more than me."

Chase accepted the coin and gave her a warm hug, telling her something Emp couldn't hear from where he stood. He heard Marcy come from behind him and look at the scene as well.

"I was told a girl shouldn't attach herself to a boy that had not won yet." He commented as he watched them go their separate way.

"I was told the same." Marcy replied, placing a hand on his shoulder. "No one wants to lose something dear to them so they refrain from getting close to people who might not come back. I agree that loosing someone close to you is hard and should be avoided but this way isn't always the best."

"No?"

Emp was curious and Marcellia expressed her thoughts further.

"If I had known my lover wouldn't come back, I would have spent some more meaningful time with him rather than waiting for all these traditions. I feel cheated of the time I should have had with him."

Her fingers gripped his shoulder harder but it wasn't painful so he didn't say a thing and listened to her story.

"I wish I had been more forward with my feelings when I had the chance. This is a question of perspective, would ya rather lose only a meaningless thing or spend the best moments of yar life with the one ya love before it's too late?"

Emp did not have the answer to that question. he didn't even have a lover.

"It's the first time you speak about your lover. I didn't even know you had one." He said instead.

"I did have one but I lost him. I miss him a lot... Ya remind me of him a lot actually. If I had a son, he would probably look a bit like ya..."

He heard her sniffle behind him and she released his shoulder to ruffle his hair instead. Like usual, she did it too strongly and shook his whole head instead.

"Now come back in my boy, let's eat a bit of that meat ya generously gave me."

"But I didn't though." He said as he closed the door to the setting sun and turned back inside.

At that, she laughed, so much so in fact that a few tears rolled down her cheek.

Emp smiled and his vision blurred. At first he thought he was tearing up as well without understanding why but the darkening of his world proved him wrong.

He felt the earth s.h.i.+ft under and around him, the room spun and his brain started to painfully pound against his skull. Emp lost his balance and fell forward, knocking his head on the floor while going down. Still, he did not really feel it.

"Emp!" Marcy's voice sounded like she was yelling from outside the village.

He did not understand what was happening as his consciousness faded into darkness.

***

(1) I don't know if you remember the rules but you can probably feed a family of four with 10 coppers a week, you need a hundred copper for that silver. He is essentially giving them enough to live by themselves for forty weeks. All of that for a common job.