The Innkeeper

The girl stood frozen over the decapitated bodies of the two animals, in shock at her own performance. Lex himself was quite intrigued by the scene as well. Although, to him, this level of combat was akin to childsplay, and guiding the girl the way he did required not even a moment of consideration, watching her succeed and perform above her level gave him some kind of unusual satisfaction.

Moreover, he almost felt as if he got a new perception on swordplay watching someone else perform his moves. The level of guidance was still too superficial, and there was no real progress, but Lex considered if teaching someone swordplay could help him advance his own sword intent somehow.

After a few moments, the girl woke up from her stupor and immediately got to work. She summoned a projection of an iron band around her forehead, though the projection seemed as if it was mostly covered in rust, and grabbed the twitching head of the ground animal.

She did something and it seemed that a single grain of rust fell off her projection, revealing a speck more of iron. She repeated the process with the snake's head, as well as that of the dead boy.

The snake did not contribute much to her projection, though whatever she did, it worked better with the boy, as it removed an entire chunk of rust. Perhaps it worked better among their own race, or maybe the boy was actually stronger.

Lex did not understand the purpose of the projection, though he could tell that she was upgrading it somehow. His own was, obviously, a much higher level than hers, but even so he felt no obvious benefits from it.

The girl searched the boy's body and, after stripping it of all its valuables, began to march through the forest. She was exhausted, but clearly she had no time to rest.

Lex was intrigued. He debated on what he should do next. He could ignore the girl and begin to search the domain secretly for the resin. But he figured he had at least a few days before his system came back online, which was more than enough time to search the entire domain.

In that case, it wouldn't hurt to learn more about this place. He could do it on his own. After all, he only needed to find a settlement of some sort and spread his spirit sense over it. He'd learn everything he needed from the countless conversations taking place, or the information recorded in books and documents.

At his current level, he could pay attention to multiple conversations and read a number of documents without losing focus, so it was simple enough.

But… Lex didn't want to give up the opportunity to act like a mysterious expert and secretly help out the girl - assuming she wasn't some kind of crazy serial killer. After all, he had been too tense lately. Letting loose and enjoying himself a bit wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

With that decided, Lex smiled and continued to observe the girl. She never stopped moving, though she picked a number of fruits from the forest and ate while moving. She was clearly familiar with the local area.

It didn't take her long to reach what looked like her hideout - which was to say a tree where she had laid some poorly chopped planks to give herself a bit of flat area to sleep on. A number of bags were hung from various branches in the tree which she all collected before leaving.

The hideout was too shoddy to have been used for too long. If Lex had to guess, he'd say she was using it as a homebase while she hunted or something while staying in the region.

For the next few hours Lex followed the girl, while at the same time absorbing information about the local area.

He had completely memorized all the local flora and fauna, the terrain and made a guess as to the kind of climate and weather this place probably experienced.

He also saw a number of other beasts fight one another, all upgrading their respective projected headgear after the fight.

He had to say, whatever the purpose of the projections were, they clearly promoted killing, which can't be a good sign.

Eventually, Lex spotted an actual city at the edge of the forest, in the same direction that the girl was moving in. In that case, it was time to make introductions. After all, what was the point of being mysterious if no one even noticed?

The girl had been moving quickly through the forest, though she never lowered her guard. Growing up in this area meant that she was already familiar with all the dangers of the forest, but that was no reason to lower her vigilance. Even now, from time to time, the forest found new ways to surprise her. Especially now that the seasons were changing, new dangers would be appearing.

Not to mention the stupid henchmen for that stupid noble. Did he really think he could do whatever he wished? It wasn't as if she had no backing either! He was going to regret…

In a small clearing ahead she saw a figure and suddenly raised her sword. Was it another fool working for that spoiled brat?

She stepped closer for a better view, and saw a weak looking man sitting casually with his back against a tree, a long blade of grass in his mouth. What the hell?

She had never seen anyone save newborns with such frail figures. There was hardly any muscle on his frame! Was he malnourished? Did he get lost in the forest for a long time?

But his clothes, as odd as they were, looked pristine. His hands and face were also clean, and his hair was not disheveled either.

Was he in a parlor or in the forest? What was the need to be so dressed up? And why in the heavens was he chewing on a poisonous leaf? Well, strictly speaking, it was not poisonous, but that kind of grass was known to cause severe rashes on skin.

Yet… yet somehow, he looked completely fine.

As the girl came closer, she heard him humming, which left her bewildered. He was humming? Wasn't that just asking to be discovered by some wild beast and attacked? Especially when he had his eyes closed!

Suddenly the girl trembled. Had she encountered some kind of ghost?

"Young lady, I seem to have gotten lost," the strange, muscleless man said, finally opening his eyes and looking towards her. "Would you happen to know the way to the nearest city?"

The girl looked at his shoes. Those did not look comfortable to march in, especially so far away from the city. She had no idea how to judge this encounter at all. The forest always found new ways to surprise her.

"How did you get so far from the city to begin with?" she asked warily. "Don't you have any guides? You don't look like a hunter."

"No, not really. I was heading towards Torrinwood for some business, but I'm thoroughly lost."

Torrinwood was the name of the city he detected. He withdrew his spirit sense from the city after learning its name. The game wouldn't be fun if he learnt everything through his spirit senses. He wanted to learn about everything naturally.

Once he was done being mysterious, and wanted to get back to work, he could just spread his spirit sense then.

"Torrinwood is just a few hours from here," she said warily. The man did not look like a traveler. Where were his supplies? "I can take you there, but I don't work for free."

Lex scratched his head. Was she negotiating with someone lost in the forest? Minus points. That's one less secret technique for her.

"Sure, I can pay. How much?"

"I won't charge too much," the girl said, hiding the guilt in her voice. "How's five coppers?"

"Sure, no problem," Lex said as he got up "Let me grab my bag."

He spread his spirit sense across the forest and found countless corpses belonging to hunters, most likely, buried underground. Many of them still had their belongings, including coin purses.

"Being strong is life on hacks," he muttered to himself as he accumulated several dozen gold coins worth of local currency in half a second.

He walked to the side of the tree that was not visible to the girl and pulled out a travel bag. He had already shifted the countless coin purses to his spatial bangle, and then into this bag for convenience.

After reaching in, he pulled out five coins and handed it to the girl.

The ease with which Lex handed money over, and his amicable attitude made the girl even more suspicious, but since he had paid, she would lead him.

"Follow me, we're not going to stop till we reach the city. Can you fight? There's still many wild beasts in this forest, and the money I took is just to lead you to the city, not protect you."

"Oh, I'll manage."