The Villain has Perished

Chapter 9 Forest Of Silence

?"Young master, p-please reconsider your decision." Yula scurried behind me.

A few hours had gone by after the morning training session. I was now leaving to board the convoy for the Rite of Passage.

"I won't be taking you along with me."

"B-but why…?"

I stopped and turned around to face her.

"Do you want to come with me at any cost?" She bobbled her head up and down. "Okay, you can but…"

Watching the expectation in her eyes, my brows creased slightly.

'If I didn't know better, I would've thought that she was actually sad that I'm leaving her behind and wants to stay with me. Doesn't she have any shame as a Daemon?'

Even the weakest Daemons are of King rank. It felt weird on many levels as I saw her, a being who could flatten cities with a wave of hand, acting like an abandoned puppy.

I continued, "But before that I want a detailed map of our Continent. It needs to have political borders, agricultural and climatic divisions, major to minor mana currents and ley lines as well."

Her small mouth hung open in shock.

"Y-young master, publicly distributed maps are crudely made to avoid exposing a nation's geographical weaknesses. W-where would I find a well-drawn map of that caliber?"

"That's your job to complete. You can come find me once you have the map."

Leaving Yula behind, I stepped through the doors of the mansion and left toward the line of carriages waiting outside.

'With this, the problem of the map should be solved.'

The map was a necessary piece of my plans revolving around the preparations for Coalescence. There were more pieces that I needed to collect, and two of those were in the next town I was about to visit.

The two pieces were Crown of Massacre, a High-Epic grade bound-type equipment, and the holder of the armament [Word Magic].

The grades of the equipments went like this:

Common

Uncommon

Rare

Unique

Epic

Legendary

Mythical

In every grade, there are three sub-grades: Low, Intermediate and High.

High-Epic grade was the highest grade one could get as of now. Anything above that will only appear after the novel reaches Vol 6, when 'they' descend.

Sebas, who was waiting for me, greeted me. "You are looking fine today as well, young master."

He took me towards my carriage. All the while, I scanned the convoy.

'5 participants, 3 Knights, 47 soldiers, 10 mages, and no healers. What is this pathetic level of escort? Are they hell bent on insulting me?'

According to Sebas, the healers had left a few days before for the Rite of Passage. The convoy with me had few knights because Duke wanted me to feel free and didn't want me to feel restricted by keeping an eye on me.

'He isn't even trying to come up with excuses anymore. Isn't this another way of showing that Lionel House doesn't care for me?'

It only made me aware of my situation again. I didn't have anyone to depend upon in this world. If I wanted to achieve my goals, I had to keep moving, even if alone.

'Sigh, maybe it will be better if I create my own Knight Squad and Mage Squad in the future.'

The convoy left the Lionel Estate and moved to the south. Our goal was to reach Aieznl estate, the vassal estate directly below Rapthial town.

Rapthial town was under Viscount Daorn and a major trading hub of the Kamera continent.

The area between Lionel Estate, Raphtial Town and Aieznl estate was all covered by Forest of Silence. The forest was mainly known for its rumors of having a Griffin as its ruler.

'It's boring.'

Two days passed as I kept absorbing the mana stones that I had Sebas bring to me before leaving.

During that time, I rarely left my carriage.

In fact, my only human interaction, ever since I boarded, was the chef responsible for bringing me my food. It didn't help that when we left Lionel Estate, it started raining and continued ever since, forcing me to halt my sword training temporarily.

But my grind never stopped.

[Physique]: 7.10

[Magic Power]: 203.10/203.10

My Physique and Magic Power had increased a lot. In particular, Magic Power wasn't showing a decrease in growth rate, rather it was improving faster than Physique.

It only made me more curious about my race. Since Demi-Human meant any race that had part human in it, I couldn't pinpoint my race easily.

My summoner occupation also leveled up.

Name: Sol Lionel

Life Points: 1591

Occupation: Summoner

Occupation Level: Level 3

Summon Capacity: 1000

Accumulated Life Points to next Level: 2,241/100,000

???d? n??a| ?om Skill(s) Unlocked: <Extract>, <Summon>, <Cancel>, <Summoner Card> (New)

Avenue(s) Unlocked: Insect Avenue, Beast Avenue, Plant Avenue

–

<Summoner Card>

<Level: N/A>

<Cost: - >

<Description: One summon can be stored in one card. The user must pay the same amount of magic power to store the summon inside the card as they used to summon it.

–

Quite a few mana stones Sebas gave me were of medium or low quality. He couldn't procure better quality mana stones due to time constraints, but this progress wasn't half bad.

The next summons in the Insect, Beast and Plant Avenues cost 10,000 Life Points, 20,000 Life Points, and 50,000 Life points respectively.

The curve for upgrades was growing at an alarming pace and I had yet to find a solution to it. Mana stones supplied me with Life Points, but high-quality ones were in a very limited supply.

The only reason I had them was because Lionel House was rich.

"..."

Correction, Lionel House was filthy rich.

Ahem, nonetheless, there was a limit to supply. I had to find an alternative quickly.

'Forest of Silence, huh. Should I go hunt the Griffin in the forest?'

I laughed at my joke.

Rumors spoke of the king of the forest, Griffin, being a calamity capable of reducing kingdoms to ashes under one night. But I knew better. The Griffin was only Grandmaster rank. The rumors were a tad bit exaggerated.

Though, for me, who had yet to reach 2nd Mortal awakening, Grandmaster rank was no different from reaching for skies.

I checked my latest unlocked summon.

––

Species: Day-time Night-time Daisies

Rank: 3rd Mortal Awakening

Summoning Cost: 200 Magic Power

Housing Space: 5

Physique: 15

Magic Power: 150

Skill: <Day-time Night-time>

Description: A flower species that loves to sing. They sing songs depending on their moods which are affected by the time of the day.

–

<Day-time Night-time>

<Level: N/A>

<Cost: N/A>

<Description: In sunlight, they create a 10-meter radius zone that slightly increases healing factors of the ones inside the zone. In the absence of sunlight, they create a 5-meter radius zone that repels monsters below Master rank>

––

'The cost of Magic Power required for summons is increasing steadily, too. It makes one wonder how much a high ranking summon would cost.'

<Summoner Card> skill seemed to be hinting that a Summoner must prepare before entering a battle. Either that, or you must have a dragon heart to have enough mana to create new summons mid-battle.

'My attribute will help greatly when chaos spreads after Coalescence. I should focus more on gathering Life Points and unlocking more summons.'

Two more days passed in similar fashion and my mana stone stock emptied.

I then started storing as many Baby Tarantula inside cards as possible. By the time we reached Rapthial town, I had stored 50 baby tarantulas in cards.

Watching the city of trades on the horizon and the endless rain, I stretched in excitement.

'Let's get to work.'