The Rising of the Scythe Hero

Whether it took long or not, our path led us to Zeltoble — the land of mercenaries and coliseums.

I had a lot of personal goals lined up for Zeltoble. Starting with the simple stuff, like making as much money as possible, and going all the way up to learning blacksmithing.

The country was pretty big and full of all kinds of activity, so finding someone to teach me the basics shouldn't be too hard.

Naturally, we traveled there riding on Night.

Wyndia was a petite girl, and Night — in her filolial form — was big enough to easily carry both of us without a problem.

By the way… is it just me, or has the bird gotten bigger?

"I'm not sure, but I think I might be able to grow bigger…" That was her response when I voiced my thoughts.

Interesting. If I remember right, the filolial queen can grow and shrink in size as she ages. Fitoria, for example, could get absolutely massive. But Night hadn't even been alive for a month yet…

Could it really be that choosing the egg with the strongest life energy made that much of a difference?

I wonder how long it'll take before she can catch up to Fitoria?

Speaking of Wyndia — Orb told me where to find someone who could place the slave seal, so there were no issues there. The girl was now officially my slave. Which, honestly, is a whole story on its own…

"So… you need my hair?" she asked, giving me a suspicious side glance during one of our breaks.

"Yup. And a drop of blood. Maybe something else too, I don't know yet…"

"Don't make up anything else!" she shook her head frantically. "Is this really necessary?"

"Yes."

"Ugh. F–fine. But I still have my doubts…"

Why is she looking at me like I'm some kind of perv? I mean, sure, I've got some traits worth worrying about, but still… I haven't even given her a reason to be suspicious yet!

"That's actually why I put a slave seal on you in the first place. Slaves and monsters bound to Heroes get massive stat growth boosts. By the way, what level are you right now?"

"Level 7. Father never let me fight — he always handled hunting himself. And the monsters around us were too scared to come close because of his aura. So I barely ever had to battle…"

"That's fine. I didn't take you with me for combat anyway. I've got Night for that." I waved it off. "We'll level you up just because we can. Night doesn't gain experience anymore, and it'll help you not instantly die if something happens."

"That's… not very reassuring."

"Yeah, well, it is what it is." I just shrugged.

And I wasn't saying that to make her feel better. The truth is, she was genuinely helpful. She was great at daily chores — which made sense, honestly. I doubt a giant dragon was the one doing the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and all that. So when it came to handling everyday life, Wyndia was a perfect fit.

As I expected, feeding Scythe the ingredients for the slave seal — the ink, her hair, and her blood — unlocked a new Scythe path: the Slave Master branch, which boosts stat and level growth.

"So, are you planning to upgrade Night's class in Zeltoble?" she asked — a totally reasonable question — while shooting me a very suspicious look during the process of feeding pieces of herself to Scythe.

"Nope. Not yet. It'd be way too inefficient right now."

Wyndia gave me a confused look, but I didn't bother explaining. Sure, I could wow everyone with my future knowledge, but… why bother? It'd only attract the kind of attention I absolutely don't need.

What I should be thinking about instead is maybe getting a house somewhere. Or building one… no, too much hassle. Better to just buy one.

Thanks to teleportation, I can instantly travel to any place I've already been. So even with my nomadic lifestyle, it makes sense to have a place to call home.

I'll try to scout something out in Zeltoble.

On the road, I also kept training Night — regular sparring sessions and combat practice. She kept surprising me. At this point, she'd already learned a few new spells and massively improved her sense of battle. Her ability to read the flow of a fight got way better, and now she had a much stronger chance of adapting to unexpected situations.

As for me personally, I was making progress too. On the minor side of things — I managed to level up my Dual Scythe Mastery to 3 during those sparring sessions, and also improved both my Mana and Qi control.

But the real achievement was learning that special kind of magic Wyndia had mentioned before. Although…

"Why is it called that, exactly?" I asked, half-despairing, half-serious.

"Well… because this magic lets you draw power from the environment and—"

"And probably from the earth itself…" I sighed, letting out a nervous little laugh.

"U-uh… yeah." Wyndia clearly didn't get the joke — not that I blamed her. I highly doubted she knew anything about the folk medicine naming conventions from my old world. "Thanks to Earth Power, you can pull energy from underground ley lines to cast spells."

And yeah… this magic was definitely unusual — and super effective. It would've been perfect, if not for the name, which had me on the edge of a laughing breakdown every time I said it out loud. But whatever…

With Earth Power, just like she explained, I could cast spells using mana from the environment instead of my own. Technically, I could even combine both sources — my own and external — but only for magic specifically tied to Earth Power. So I couldn't use it for the regular spells humans normally cast.

Then there were the so-called underground ley lines. I never got a clear explanation from Wyndia about what they actually were, but apparently, somewhere deep underground, there are massive magical veins that crisscross the whole world. Or the whole planet. I dunno — who knows how literal you're supposed to take that?

These lines held such an insane amount of energy it was honestly kind of terrifying. During one training session, I managed to connect with one for a moment — and what I felt…

It's hard to even put into words.

I get the feeling those lines are part of the world's foundation itself. The flow of energy in them was just so dense, so thick, so massive — it was overwhelming.

Because of that, it turned out that you could draw magic from those lines pretty much endlessly. The only limit was how much I could channel through myself — and how good I actually was at using that power.

The difficulty of tapping into those lines was obvious from the fact that I only managed to acquire the actual "Earth Power" skill around the middle of our journey — which, mind you, took over a week. Meanwhile, I picked up the skills for Mana and Qi practically right after I started working with those energies.

Definitely a note for the future — this branch of magic deserves more focus. It's just so… how should I put it… mystical.

Honestly, I was sure there was still a ton I didn't know about this world. And the ley lines were a perfect example of that.

There wasn't much time left until the next Wave, but after it's over… yeah, I should probably dive deeper into research. Not to mention it might be time to learn more about the other world — the one on the far side of the Waves.

Yeah… lots to do.

…

"What's that up ahead?" Wyndia asked, leaning out from behind my shoulder and pointing forward.

I was focused on Qi manipulation at the moment, trying to get a better feel for my body, so I wasn't really paying attention to the road — I'd left that part to Night.

And up ahead, a small procession of wagons was moving along, escorted by a light guard detail riding what looked like oversized lizards. And man, I really hope they don't call those things dragons in this world…

"Slow down a bit when we get close, birdie."

"Okay." Night nodded in her filolial form — which, by the way, looked kind of hilarious — and began gradually slowing her pace.

We'd been moving at a pretty decent speed, and I didn't want them mistaking us for bandits or something. But also… I didn't really feel like going around the whole convoy either.

And my plan almost worked. The caravan guards were eyeing us suspiciously, but didn't make any moves to stop us or interact. We'd nearly passed the whole group when—

"Oh my, oh my! Incredible! What a magnificent filolial! I've never seen one like that before!"

A roundish man, probably in his thirties, leaned out of the second wagon from the front. Fancy clothes, jewelry practically everywhere he could hang it. Just moments ago, his expression was pure boredom — not even changing when we passed him — but then it looked like something finally clicked. He spun his head toward us and called out.

"Wait, sir! You there, are you the owner of this filolial?" he asked, and I had no choice but to signal Night to slow down a bit more.

"That's right." I had serious doubts this conversation would lead to anything but trouble, but I wasn't too worried either. Doubt even this whole escort detail could do much to me — and having teleportation kind of kills any real sense of danger.

"How about I buy her from you? I've never seen a filolial with this appearance and coloring. I promise I'll take excellent care of her," he assured me.

"She's not for sale. We've been together too long for me to give her up." I smiled, ruffling Night's head feathers.

The bird let out a pleased little purr and nuzzled against my hand.

"I see… that's a shame." His shoulders slumped as he lowered his head — but then he perked right back up, looking at me with hope. "Then perhaps… is she some kind of special breed? One I've never encountered before? Did you breed her yourself?"

"I bought her in a lottery from a, hmm… monster merchant in Melromarc. Guess I just got lucky."

"Oooh… Could it be some kind of rare Melromarcian variant?" he murmured to himself. "Pardon me for pressing, but would you mind telling me who exactly you bought the egg from?"

"He's probably the most well-known monster seller in Melromarc. I think his name was Belucas. Wears a tailcoat, top hat, round dark glasses, and curly mustache." I'd gotten his name from Elhart when I wanted to learn more about his reputation.

"Ohh… Yes, I think I know who you mean. In that case, I'm even more surprised you got something this unique."

What's that supposed to mean? …Ah. Right, I get it now.

With how Belucas operates, it does make sense that the odds of winning something good from his lottery would be practically zero. Belucas was definitely a textbook merchant — a man with principles he wouldn't break for anything. And that's exactly why he'd never willingly sell something valuable at a loss… unless there was a really good reason.

For a while, neither of us said anything. The man seemed lost in thought, and I was busy figuring out what to do next.

But just as I was about to slip away while things were still quiet, he came back to his senses.

"Say, by any chance… are you heading to Zeltoble?"

"That's exactly where I'm going."

"Oho! What a coincidence! I'm on my way back to Zeltoble myself! How would you feel about joining my delegation? You and your filolial look quite strong, so I'd even be willing to pay you for the escort."

By a lot of standards, this offer looked extremely suspicious — but by just as many, it looked equally tempting.

Whoever this man was, he clearly had some kind of influence in Zeltoble. The fact that he knew a monster slave merchant from Melromarc made that pretty obvious. And something told me their connection was strictly business, not just a random passing acquaintance.

This guy could be a solid connection for getting a foothold in a new country. If not for Wyndia, I wouldn't have even hesitated — Night could easily handle herself. But the girl… she was my weak spot right now. If they took her hostage, my options would shrink fast.

Sure, I could just abandon her, or ignore her safety and fight my way through, but… that's not how I do things.

I made the conscious choice to take her under my protection. I'm not going to treat that lightly. I have my own philosophy — my own principles. If I toss those aside, then I'm just an empty shell.

"With all due respect, sir…" While I was deep in thought, one of the guards spoke up, trying to interrupt the man.

"What is it, Reynor? Do you have a problem with my decisions?" Despite the warm smile he'd shown me, his tone toward the guard turned cold — now sounding a lot more like a high-level businessman.

"M–my apologies, Lord Pelgue. I spoke out of turn."

Letting out a short chuckle, the man simply turned away from him and looked back at me — his expression once again cheerful and welcoming.

"Then I suppose… I'll accept. I see no reason to turn down good company."

"Excellent! Simply wonderful!"

In the end, I decided to play nice too. Time would tell whether or not this was the right call. Worst-case scenario — it'd be a learning experience. But I really hoped I wasn't wrong. Because I could already imagine how bad things might turn out… both for them — and for me.