Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Chapter 1

Two months later, Agatha took Athos out of town. More precisely, to the surrounding forest. Athos had already understood the basics of combat and she wanted him to have some experience in real combat.

They left the house early and reached the edge of the forest 1 hour later. Athos was excited for his first adventure and couldn’t help but jump into the forest. He was equipped with a simple adventurer’s outfit that consisted of: gloves, bracers, breastplate, helmet, pants, greaves, and leather boots.

He carried a short iron sword at his waist and a round wooden shield on his back. After learning the basics of a fight Agatha made him test several different weapons until he found the one that best suited him.

Athos preferred to use the sword as it was a more flexible weapon and a shield to defend against his mother’s savage attacks during training.

Her mother on the other hand wore a hunter suit and carried a bow on her back. Two long daggers hung on either side of her hip.

“Athos, since this is training on adventurers I’ll give you a quest for you to complete. If you’re successful I’ll let you eat as much dessert as you want for the rest of the week.” Agatha said.

“Although?” Athos did not rejoice at this. He knew her well enough to know there was a “But.”

.....

“But if you fail my mission, you’ll have to clean your father’s lab for the next month.” She said teasing him. The absurd penalty almost made Athos scream.

“What? This is unfair! Does the lab have to be cleaned every day, otherwise the smell becomes unbearable and you want me to clean it for a month?” Athos shouted indignantly.

“Yes, that’s unfair. But it’s the penalty adventurers have to pay whenever they fail a quest. Usually they have to pay 10 times the quest completion value as a fine.” She said bitterly, as she remembered the unfair rule that forced her to leave the guild.

As a rookie adventurer, she had failed an extermination mission and with no money to pay the fine, she would have become a debt slave if a certain alchemist hadn’t fallen in love with her and paid her instead. She still held a grudge against the guild and wanted her son to succeed in her place.

“I don’t think I can refuse now can I? So stop being a be mysterious and tell me, what’s my mission?” Athos sighed in resignation.

She snapped out of her reverie and held up three fingers. “I’ll give you three missions. Kill 2 gray wolves. Gather herbs from the water. And escort me through the forest safely and without me having to fight.”

“Is that all? No tricks?” he asked in disbelief. He’d been asking the adventurers who shopped at the store about the monsters around since she’d told them her plan.

From what he’d heard, gray wolves were the base of the food chain, second only to horned rabbits and whip-tailed rats.

“Yeah, that’s all. And to make things better, if you only complete one of the missions, you won’t need to clean the lab.” She said making the mission even better.

“Okay, I accept. It’s just not worth giving up later.” Saying this Athos began to enter the forest.

‘He’s screwed.’ Agatha thought, anticipating disaster.

After entering the forest Athos spent the next 30 minutes trying to find the wolves, but to no avail. He went to areas he knew there were monsters but except for small birds and rodents he didn’t find anything.

He tried to boost his senses with mana, but still failed.

“What the hell! Why can’t I find anything? Have the adventurers lied to me?’ He thought in frustration, until he saw a horned rabbit in the distance. ‘Well, maybe the smell of blood will help.’

He tried to get closer, but the rabbit was faster. Before Athos could approach, he raised his head and looked in his direction, before running away.

‘What?’ Stunned, Athos didn’t even try to chase the rabbit. He didn’t understand how he was able to detect it from a distance. He turned to ask Agatha and found out why.

‘That’s it! She is circulating mana through her body not to reinforce but to blend in with her surroundings.’ He could see the mana coursing through her body as if it were blending into the surroundings. It almost completely erased her presence.

In comparison to her, Athos was releasing mana all the time, trying to find any monster. This was like a beacon for other monsters capable of using magic.

He immediately started copying her. He sat on the floor and began to practice, oblivious to the surprised look he received. He had a hard time at first, but as he had an example right beside him, it was easy for him to learn.

‘What he is doing? He’s not one to give up that easily.’ She thought, unable to understand his actions. That was until his presence began to gradually fade away. ‘Is he trying to erase his own presence?? But that should take weeks, not seconds!

Athos rose half an hour later. His presence disappeared on the same level as hers. He went back to looking for monsters, and it didn’t even take 5 minutes before he found another horned rabbit.

‘This time, I can.’ He thought as he sneaked up on the monster. The rabbit still didn’t notice anything and continued eating leaves peacefully. It wasn’t until Athos got within 5 meters of him that he noticed.

He immediately tried to jump away, but Athos was faster. He changed the mana circulating through his body from stealth to reinforcement, before launching himself at the monster.

Realizing it couldn’t escape, the rabbit turned 180 degrees and tried to impale it with its horn.

Athos reinforced the shield in his left hand with mana and stopped the rabbit’s onslaught. Then he stabbed the sword in his right hand into the back of the rabbit still trapped in the shield.

‘Phew, that was easy.” Athos smiled as he took the prize. He held it by the horn and showed his mother. “Look, I got my first prey!”

Agatha on the other hand was still gaping at what had transpired. She tracked the entire hunt using mana in her eyes, so she could step in at any time ‘How did he do that? How did he manage to change the mana, after he left the core?’

She was right. Common sense dictated that after the mana left the core, it was possible to control it, but never change its nature. Just as a mage couldn’t turn a fire spell into an ice spell, it shouldn’t be possible for Athos to turn mana meant to blend in with the environment into reinforcement.

Yet reality screamed the opposite. ‘I must tell him never to show this to anyone, or those dogs of the order of magic might come after him.’

“Hey mom, can you hear me?” Athos waved in front of her face, catching her attention.

“Yes, I’m listening. I’ll cook him when we get home so take his blood and let’s get on with it.”

“Actually, I had a better idea.” Athos said. He carried the rabbit’s body to a tree, then threw the corpse and smeared the blood around it. He took something out of his pocket and put it on the corpse before leaving. The smell of rabbit blood around here must attract their predators, like the gray wolves.’

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It didn’t take long for them to show up. Suddenly Athos heard a rustling in the bushes and saw 5 wolves come out.

“Look, your plan worked, but I think 5 of them is too much for you. What are you going to do now? Do you want help?” she asked teasing him.

“Just watching is enough.” he said confidently.

Soon the wolves approached the corpse and started sniffing it looking for any abnormality. After not detecting anything, one of them tried to catch it with its mouth to take it to the den, when suddenly...

TSSSSS...

BOOOOMMM!!!!!

The corpse exploded and along with it, all the wolves that were nearby.