A Lifes Journey

“Human Lifez, frend of Zinzangi! be careful on road!” The masculine chief Zina’ho exclaimed with a hint of sadness that he tried to hide with confidence.

“MmphMMPHmEZ!” The small head buried in my stomach added while strengthening his hold so I won’t run away. Even his whimpering had a bzzing sound to them.

“Zuka, come on buddy, you know I can’t stay… Listen, I’ll come visit real soon, ok?” Patting his head while holding my own emotions in check wasn’t easy. I’m really not the emotional type but I grew super close to those guys in the short time I stayed here.

Zinzangi’er was basically a second home to me at this point, in the span of just 1 day I’ve grown close to them to the extent of considering these ugly blue-skinned, demi-human creatures of the Zinzangi tribe - family.

Bowing to them one last time to thank everyone for the incredible hospitality and for everything they taught me, I then turned to start my descent down the mountain.

My breath was somewhat shallow due to the height and the cold certainly didn’t help either. The journey to the bottom of the mountain was annoying more than anything else but I made it down by the time the sun reached the middle of the sky which was good enough for me.

If I had the confidence in surviving the cold on the way down and finding a black surface to use my seal on, I would’ve just jumped off the mountain…

It was necessary to take a second to breathe some fresh, breathable temperature air that didn't burn my throat before continuing my journey. I also took this time to run through what the mountain goblins gave me for my journey starting with the most important thing.

“A pouch full of tomato-tasting powder!” I have to visit this place again at some point in the future!

15 average-sized bone arrows, Zoing’e also suggested giving me a bow but, I can barely handle my current heavy draw-weight recurve that the average soldier uses, I’m used to a bit lighter. The goblins use special recurve bows with an insanely heavy draw-weight, no way I can use that.

Lastly they just packed the fur and fangs I extracted out of the colossal water wolf with a piece of green cloth made out of beetle shells and spider webs.

I can definitely sell this strange piece of cloth together with the loot but, keeping it is probably better, I want a little keepsake from those guys.

While taking a small breather and examining my current stash, I noticed that beyond the small forest under the goblin’s mountain, there are just grass fields as far as the eye can see. I decided to make up for some of the time I lost by using my Seal.

After tying a small piece of cloth that I tore off my Slayer uniform to an arrow, I climbed onto a nearby boulder to increase my range of vision a little bit. Nocking a bone arrow onto my red bow I drew it as hard as I could, - almost all the way back - while aiming in a sharp angle.

“Can’t make it too high, the arrow has to travel as far as possible.” I whispered to myself. Luckily for me there’s barely any wind.

Inhaling deeply while holding it in helped me squeeze out as much strength as I could before I released the arrow.

The feather-like material the goblins used as tail scraped my cheek as the arrow launched with a sharp whistle.

I have to act quickly now, there’s a bit of shade next to me from the boulder, it should be enough.

Looking at the arrow flying, I waited until the arrow started dropping before activating my Seal and jumping into the shadow cast by the boulder while locking onto the shadow the small cloth on the arrow created before it could land.

After less then a second I appeared out of the ground, around 300 meters – to my rough estimation - away from my original location and my arrow was just about to hit the ground some 10 meters ahead of me.

Using this method is much more efficient, I’m surprised I didn’t think about it earlier, it will also strain me to a much lesser degree than walking.

And so a whole week worth of walking, got shortened to around 3 days.

I had to take frequent breaks as drawing arrows at this weight level is kinda hard for me and using the special Sy technique is also quite stressful, there’s also the position of the sun to consider, I can only use black-ish surfaces that are big enough as targets.

Finding a small boulder to use as a cover from the road above I stopped for a break until nightfall, when it's dark out, I can basically just teleport to as far as I can see, so around 2 kilometers at night without any elevation.

It was somewhat of a risk traveling like that, blindly, at night, but it was incredibly efficient so I opted into this method. After about 20 kilometers worth of Darkness traveling I finally reached Silka.

The whole journey turned out to take me less than a single day, how dumb of me to not use this method since the beginning.

I used a black face-mask just in-case there were detailed wanted posters of me and walked into an inn with the alluring name of ‘FishSmell’ to find a place to sleep for the night.

“Ahoy there lad!” the young man that resembled a brown grape called to me while leaning the counter.

His attitude doesn't fit his looks.

“Lookin’ for a place to sleep are ya?” responding with a nod I reached for my pocket to pull out a few silver coins.

“yar only gonna need 15 coppirs a night and 5 extra if yar eatin’ when ya wake up.” I handed a single silver coin and asked for 5 nights with breakfast.

“Alrighty young lad, just head upstairs, it’s cabin 12 for ya.” Aren't you like, around my age?

Cabin? “Thank you very much sir, good night.” He gave me one healthy, rotten smile with his yellow teeth and waved in response.

Well, tomorrow is gonna be when I have to start being more careful, the city is probably filled with bounty hunters and all that, I should get into some trader’s caravan and head to the capital as soon as possible.

The night thankfully went without any undesired appearances in my dreams, at least not that I can remember.

As morning came I ate the bland cream-textured fish soup and the small piece of dry bread that the inn offered, which truly left me with the smell of a fish. Afterwards I left in a hurry to start my search for an easy entrance into Silvermoon.

Walking around the city and also before I left the inn I noticed there were a bunch of posters about a murderer that looked fairly new. I can only assume that it’s supposed to be me because the dark clothes in the painting look somewhat similar to my Slayer uniform…

Did the prince lie to me about the people in school knowing that I’m an assassin? If they knew, they could’ve easily given a description of me. If he didn’t lie, how did he know that I was a Slayer?

I put those worries to the side as I walked into a small tavern to ask around about merchants or anything like that heading toward the capital anytime soon.

A very clear and relaxed voice intervened right as the woman at the counter was about to answer me “You lookin’ for a ride kiddo?” a man that looked at least 40 years old asked behind me, what does this fucker want from me?

After thanking the bartender I started walking towards the nosy man’s table, while responding “I am, do you happen to know anyone that can help me mister?” as I brought a glass of beer as thanks for the information.

“That I do boy, you sure know your stuff bribing me with the divine drink.” He took a sip before going on “but let me ask you one thing first…” his fiery, carefree, annoying voice got cold and serious as he signaled for me to get closer to him.

His face suddenly stiffened and his gantle carefree expression turned serious as he placed the wooden beer cup on the round wooden table. I got ready to escape while moving close enough for him to whisper while doubting my own decision.

“Who you tryna kill there, ‘kid’?” The cold tone of his voice burned through me as I was about to run away.