A Warlock's Ascent

The old man was an obnoxious man, which Dave didn't like much. While on the other hand, the old man's blood, his grandson had a totally opposite personality. After getting the responsibility to gather firewood, the young man started running here and there, working hard, gathering wood.

Eventually, he gathered enough that would last them a couple of hours, so he made him stop. The boy felt sad that he stop. It seems as though he loved doing manual labor. He then started asking for more such jobs where he could help him out.

The young man's enthusiasm was commendable, but if he would have asked him to do some more things, he would surely hear more snarling comments from the old man, so he declined. The young man kept insisting, but he kept declining, eventually, the old man came and took him to the corner and gave him an earful.

He couldn't hear what the old man was saying to the boy. But by the body language of the old man and the boy, it was pretty clear that the old man was not showing him any mercy. As it was not his place to interfere, he went back to cooking a fish stew…

After getting an earful from the old man the young boy was sad for a few minutes. But then he regained his formal energy. He then started roaming around the campsite, acting like a child of his age. He tried to hug a fat tree but his hands weren't able to go all the way around the tree. Then he picked up some rocks and started throwing them at trees. He tried climbing a tree as well but soon fell down.

From the corner of his eye, he looked at the actions of the young boy and smiled, underneath his mask. He felt a little bad as he knew that the innocent boy that he was seeing in front of him would transform into a complete douchebag if he stays in the company of the old man. But alas he could not do anything about it. Thus he went back to cooking. He brought the packet of salt from his inventory which Grump gave him before leaving for the journey.

As he was about to add a pinch of salt to his stew, he was startled…

AAAAHHHH!

The sound belonged to none other than Ricardo. Hearing the sound, the old man which was resting by a nearby tree immediately got up as well. They started looking around for the boy as they knew that he was playing around the campsite. It was then the little boy came running back to his grandfather and hugged him tightly. The boy was sobbing uncontrollably.

He didn't ask the boy what happened. He had noticed the direction, from where the boy came, so he went to investigate. As he was feeling a bit nervous he took out his sword.

He didn't have to go far, he saw a cloth lying underneath a tree, he figured that this must have been the reason the boy got spooked. So he walked towards the cloth cautiously. He then used his sword to pick it up. And as he picked the cloth, he was greeted by the corpse of a woman. She looked like she was in her 30s. Her skin was pale and flies had been buzzing all around her. It was evident that the woman was dead.

It was then he heard footsteps from behind him. He glanced back and saw the old man standing a little away from him. While the young boy was still hugging his grandfather.

"What is it?" the old man asked.

"Corpse of a woman," Dave replied.

"Why is the corpse here? Is this place safe?" the old man asked.

"I don't know…" But it was then he heard another sound of footsteps nearby. He then looked behind the old man and saw was Grump was making his way toward them. In his hands a was bloodied ax. Seeing the ax, Dave understood that monsters could be nearby.

"What happened?" Grump asked as he came to them.

"There is a corpse of a woman here," Dave said.

Hearing him, Grump started making his way toward the corpse. He then removed the cloth from the corpse and started inspecting the body of the woman. While the old man turned around and took his grandson with him back to the camp.

After they were gone, he also kneeled down in front of the corpse and started inspecting it with Grump. He could see there was a huge bloody hole in the stomach of the woman. He figured that this must have been the reason for her death.

Grump took out his Kukuri knife and started ripping off the clothes of the woman. It took him about 10 seconds or so for ripping apart every piece of clothing of the woman…

"From the paleness of the corpse and the blood, I would say that this is not older than 24 hours." Grump said.

"How can you tell?"

"Experience. This is not my first encounter with a corpse."

"What more can you tell?"

"Well looking at the body of the woman, she belonged to a well-off family."

"How can you tell that?"

"The cloth that she was had. As well as look at her figure and skin. I could tell this her hands have never lifted anything heavy than a book."

"You know some weird things, old man."

"That I do…" Grump took it as a compliment. "And this woman was killed by a Kobold." he said while pointing at the wound in her stomach.

Dave looked at the wound closely. The wound seems as if someone had forcefully taken a big chunk of her stomach. Also, there were minute teeth marks around the wound which showed the meat from her stomach was bitten off.

"If this is not older than 24 hours, then could it be that Kobolds are nearby?" Dave asked.

"Didn't find any signs of Kobolds while scouting. So my working theory is that there is a chance that this woman ran here after being bitten off somewhere else."

"What should we do now?"

"Kobolds are mostly inactive during the day time. So you don't have to worry about them for now… Let's go back then." Grump said while getting up.

"What about her then?" Dave asked.

"What about her? She would be swallowed by the world in a few hours. So let's go." Grump said and then he started heading back to the camp.

He wanted to bury the girl's body. But he was tired and didn't have time to spare for her. So he also got up and started moving back to the camp…

While walking back he started thinking that it had been more than a week since he had come to this world. Since then he had seen so many bodies that now he was not even fazed as he saw the woman's body. Thinking about all this he started to think that maybe he had changed. He had changed a lot.

The fish stew got a little burned, due to his absence. It was still edible but tasted a little bit funky. Despite that Grump ate the fish stew, but the old man straight away refused to eat it, because of which Ricardo also didn't eat it. Both of them ate some jerky that they had brought for the journey.

While he, on the other hand, took his portion away from the camp and then ate it. He didn't want the old man to see his face thus he went away…

As Grump had been awake all night and he didn't even take a break, he declared that they would be staying here for 3 hours or so. And then they will start to move again. He instructed him to be on the lookout as he didn't trust the old man enough to give him the job. Then he went for a quick nap near the campfire.

As he had some time to kill, he brought out the broken spear that he had used to kill the wolf the other night. He hadn't cleaned it, he went to a corner and started rubbing blood out of its tip

His shield had some scratches on it and it was slightly bent from one side. He then started cleaning the shield, and then he tried to fix the bent with a stone. After a few bangs on the bent portion, he stopped. He didn't know anything about metal work and he didn't want to damage the shield further so he stopped.

It was then he heard footsteps approaching him. He looked back and saw young Ricardo standing beside him…

"What were doing before?" he asked.

"I was trying to fix my shield," Dave replied.

"You should visit a blacksmith if you want to repair it. I have heard our guards say that these types of things should be better left for professionals."

"Is that so? Then I understand." Then the boy came and sat by him.

"By the way, why are you wearing a mask?"

"This thing… Well when I was a child, I had an accident. Which burnt the lower half of my face. And my brunt face is very unpleasant to look at. That is why I wear this mask." Dave lied through his teeth.

"Why didn't you take the Scar Removing Potion? I have heard that the potion could take care of injuries like this."

"Is that so? Then that potion will be the first thing that I will buy when I get my first paycheck."

He could feel hesitation in the boy's voice, he knew that he wanted to ask him something, or wanted to talk to him. "Is there something wrong Ricardo?"

The boy looked, trying not to face him. "Davy, what would happen to that woman?" he asked in a slow and sad voice.

"She would be swallowed by the world in a few hours."

"Did you guys find out how she died?"

"Well, she had an encounter with a Kobold."

"Is that so," Ricardo said in a sad voice.

Hearing the sad voice of the boy in front of him, he thought about consoling him. But he didn't know how to do so. What would he even say to him? Torn between what to do and what not to do, he thought that the best thing for him would be to just distract the boy. So he did just that…

"Ricardo, I was wondering about something,"

"What is it?"

"How do Midgardians level up? Do they have a system like Earthians do? And if they don't posses a system like us then how do they increase their stats?"

He then told him that Midgardians increase their stats with a little machine at the Adventurer's Guild. That machine has a little small orb fixed in it. And when a Midgardian touches it, it displays their status on a black color panel beside the orb. And if they wanted to increase their stats they could do it by the black panel itself.

Originally he asked him the first thing that popped up in his head. But he was still surprised by the answer from the young boy. Then he continued to ask him about magic and how he could learn it in the future, which in turn started making the boy feel better and better…

"For learning magic you need a certain Intellect and some Arcane. If you have these stats then the first step would be to feel mana inside your body. After you start to feel the mana then you need to tap into it and start controlling it."

"How do you control it?"

"With your brain. When you start feeling mana, you start gaining control over it like it is long forgotten muscle. My Grand Father taught me that in that stage, mana is like solid clay. If you want to control it and mend it according to your will you need to pound it over and over again until it becomes fluid enough to flow according to your requirements."

"Hm… Interesting."

"You think that is interesting? Let me tell you a really interesting fact. You know how some Earthians choose Magician Class while coming here, right?."

"Yeah."

"Well, I asked my friend about them. And she told me that those Earthian which choose Magician Class have an unusual ability to control mana. For most people, controlling mana is a very tedious and hard process. But those Earthians were able to control their mana only after two days of practice. And this was a very phenomenal thing in the history of Mages."

"Hm… And what about the Earthian who didn't choose Magician Class?"

"I don't know about them. But based on what I have heard about the potential of all the Earthians, I would say that even Earthian which didn't choose Magician Class could learn mana manipulation pretty easily."

"That is good to hear."

"Why? Do you want to change your class? Do you want to become a Mage?"

"No, I was thinking about becoming a Warlock."

"That is an awful choice. Warlocks are a useless bunch. They are not good at magic nor they are good Weapon users. I tell you now, you should really think about your decision."

"Why Warlocks are bad? They are the Jack of all Trades."

"Yeah, but they are the king of none."

"But sometimes it is better to be Jack of all Trades rather than being king of just one."

"You are insane."

"No, think about it. If you were to fight a Weapon user, then you could predict the tricks that your opponent could use to a certain extent. That goes with the Mage as well. But in the case of a Warlock, you will need to be prepared for anything."

"It is true, but becoming a strong Warlock is a very difficult task. You have to allocate your stat points evenly to all your attributes. And getting stat points is difficult as it is. You know Yureka, the city lord of Vecrus?"

"Yeah, I might have heard about her."

"Well, she is the strongest Warlock of Midgard. And did you know how she reached such heights?"

"How?"

"Well for starters she was a Solo Adventurer. And then she was a killing machine. She was trained from childhood and it is said that she was so skilled since childhood that she can easily subdue any monster on Midgard, no matter the numbers. She is also very intelligent and is a scholar of war tactics. Do you understand what I am trying to say? She is a monster. And you have to be a monster too if you want to reach her heights.

"I understand, but I have one question."

"What?"

"How being a Solo Adventurer is beneficial for a Warlock?" he asked. Hearing the question Ricardo slapped his forehead as if he had asked him a very foolish question.