A Warlock's Ascent

"I don't know what you are talking about." Dave proclaimed rather loudly. He didn't know whether the old man truly knew that he was an Earthian or not, but he didn't plan to show the old man that he was panicking, after all, the old man might be bluffing, trying to get information out of him.

Also, he couldn't let the people of the camp be suspicious of him. After all, if someone opened their mouth in front of some authority figure from the city and they tried to investigate him, then his cover could be blown. It was a very long shot that it could happen, but based on his luck so far, he didn't want to take any chances…

The old man when heard the loud proclamation from him, turned around and faced him head-on. He also stopped in his tracks when he saw the old man glaring at him. Instinctively he felt fear and his hands went on his sword which was dangling from his waist.

"Do you know why are still alive boy? Do you know why are still walking around the camp when I caught you in your white lie? Do you know why I gave you a new life with a healing potion that you wouldn't be able to afford in a million years?" the old man asked.

"Ah.." He didn't know what else to say.

"That is because you saved those people. You didn't know how to fight yet you still jumped in front of a horde of goblins. That takes guts and some goodness in the heart. That is why you are still alive. That is the only reason. Now, I don't know whether you are some sort of smuggler, a spy from another city, or a bloody fucking pimp for fucks sake. Because of your good heart, I am allowing you to stay here. So don't mess with the good faith that is being shown to you." The old man said and then he turned back and started returning towards the camp.

He stayed behind, thinking about the words of the old man, thinking. He later returned to the camp and stayed up, till one of the other volunteers woke up to give him a break…

***

The next morning, he was woken up by Martha, most of the camp was packed, and they were about to set off once again. There was no breakfast as they didn't have a lot of food, to begin with. So all of them just got up and packed their shit and started moving again.

The old man Grump was the leader of the caravan, he was barking orders left and right which everyone followed, without asking a single question. When they finally started moving, the old man ordered everyone to move in a straight line. People who do not know how to fight were moving in the middle. While the people who can fight were ordered to maintain some distance from the caravan and they were told to keep an eye out for monsters.

If some warrior spots a monster or a horde of monsters coming their way, they were instructed to blow a horn, given to every warrior. And upon hearing the horn, everyone was instructed to break the line and started running toward the center, making a circular formation there…

All of the instructions were very detailed and to the point. Observing how the old man was barking orders and how he worked, he figured that the old man had done this kind of work many times before. Martha told him last time that the old man was an adventurer. He didn't know what was the job profile of the adventurer. But he sure did get curious about what the old man did for a living…

Since last night he had been feeling guilty. The people of the caravan were hungry, and he did have some food with him. It would be not enough to feed the whole camp, but it would help them a little bit. But he was hesitating to hand the food over. It is then he started remembering the words of the old man. Thinking about it, he started moving towards the front of the caravan to have a talk with the old man.

As he came to the front, he saw the old man wearing black color armor, a quiver full of arrows and a long bow dangling from his right shoulder, a long sword dangling from his waist and he had a great war ax in his arms. The old man was armed to the boot and looked quite menacing from the back.

He gulped some saliva, increased his pace, and made it toward the old man…

"I never introduced myself, my name is Dave."

"Fuck off." The old man said.

"Ah… Well, people told me that your is Grump. So is that your nickname or your real name?"

"Didn't you hear me say, Fuck off?"

"I want to talk to you about something."

"What the fuck do you want?"

"I just want to say that I have no intention of harming anyone from the camp. I lied before… Because there are some people that are after me. And I may have fooled them into thinking that I am dead. And I want to keep it that way."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah. That is why I have planned to move away from the camp tonight because according to Martha, we would be able to reach Ravenshade by tomorrow morning."

"Alright then, now fuck off."

"Got it," he said and then he moved back a little bit and joined the caravan once again. It was then he realized that he didn't offer the food as he had originally planned to do. But still, he remained at the back as he didn't want to talk to the old man again.

After a 4 or 5-hour walk, Grump ordered everyone to stop and make camp. Civilians started cooking food, while soldiers started scouting the area. He on the other hand helped around the camp. Within minutes, a fire was lit, they put on a pot on the fire to make stew and everyone started resting.

While helping everyone, he couldn't help but notice that Grump was still helping out and barking orders at the camp. And from his face, it was apparent that he was not tired at all. He looked just fine. Curious about what Grump used to do for a living, he decided that he would ask around the camp for some information.

When lunch was served, he joined Martha. They sat down together and started chatting…

"How are you feeling now?" Martha asked while taking a bite of stew.

"Fine. But my leg is still a little numb."

"Well, of course, it would be. It contracted rot for fucks sake. I tell you, you should go and visit some pharmacy. They would be able to whip you up a concoction for your problem."

"I will see to it… By the way, what is the deal with Grump?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know, why he is always so…" Dave then started thinking of an appropriate word to describe the old man.

"Behave like a dick?" Martha offered.

"Ah… let's go with that."

"Well, one can't blame him. I have heard that once he used to be a jolly good fellow. He and his adventurer party were pretty good. But one by one they all died, and now he is the only one left… In his life, he had seen so many deaths that had made him this stone-hard man. And thus a dick."

"Woah… He had it hard."

"Yup… And do you want to know something pretty interesting?"

"What?"

"Do you see how he is armed to top to boot?"

"Yes."

"Well, he is carrying all those weapons because he is a solo adventurer. And from what I have heard, he is the strongest solo adventurer of the Midgard."

"Solo adventurer?"

"Yeah."

"No, I mean what is a solo adventurer?"

"What is a solo adventurer? Have you been living under a rock?"

"Well, I don't know. Remember me losing all my memories?"

"Oh… Yeah…. So you know what is an adventurer right?"

"Ah… Treasure hunter?"

"No… Well sort of. But no… So you know how there are monsters everywhere you go."

"Yeah."

"So most of the time, the army of the city deals with the monsters, but they are very few in numbers. So they can't do things like protecting traveling merchants, giving cover for harvesters who want to get some herbs from the forest, diving into the dungeon, etc. These kinds of work are done by adventurers."

"Okay, they are like mercenaries, swords to hire."

"Yeah, sort of. But adventurers are more than mercenaries. They fight monsters and sometimes humans, they have in-depth knowledge of flora and fauna and they also do some scouting works."

"So they do a variety of jobs that the army don't do."

"Correct. And to do these varieties of jobs, most adventurers form a group or party to take on quests. These groups are not normal groups. Each member of the party plays a specific role in the group, some of the members would work as vanguard while some would work as healers. This way the success rate of quest increases and the mortality rate decreases."

"Hm…"

"Now the amazing thing about Grump is that he is a solo adventurer. That means he takes on a quest that is meant to be handled by a group and even completes them."

"So he is a mutli-tasker?"

"Sort of. And he is the best multitasking adventurer out there."

After hearing her words, he started looking at the old man in a new light. He understood that the old man was one tough nut. Till now he had fought only a handful of monsters, still, he couldn't help but shiver from fear when he thinks about them. But that old man not only fights with those monsters on a regular basis but also does everything alone. That was very amazing…

As he was thinking about how badass the old man was, his train of thought was derailed, when a soldier came back to camp, huffing and puffing, with a horrified face as if he had seen a ghost. That soldier was one of the rescued soldiers of Ravenshade.

The soldier went straight to Grump, whispered something in his ears, which turned the old man's face ugly. He didn't know what the soldiers said, but looking at Grump's reaction alone, he understood that something had happened.

Abruptly Grump got up and started barking orders…

"EVERYONE! GET UP! AND START MOVING!" he yelled. As he yelled everyone started looking at him as if he was insane. They had been traveling for a long time. And most of them are tired.

"EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO LIVE GET THE FUCK UP! THERE IS A VERY DANGEROUS MONSTERS NEARBY. GET UP!" he yelled again. His words finally made people move.

The old man was rude and kind of a dick. But he had kept them all alive till now. Therefore everyone in the camp trusted his instincts. Everyone started to get up. Soon Grump started bellowing at the people who were packing their stuff. He barked at them and told them to leave behind anything that they couldn't take in the next 30 secs or so.

He and Martha also got up and started helping people move. But it was then they heard it…

POOOWW!!!

It was a horn. He then looked to his right side where the horn was blown. And it was then he spotted it. On just the horizon of the grasslands were these 4 figures standing in line. From the distance, he could not tell who or what those were, all he could were shadows.

On the horizon were these guys, sitting on the horses, from their silhouette it was pretty evident that they were humans in fact, human. The panicked state of Grump while looking at those 4 figures in the distance made him think that maybe those guys were bandits of some sort. That is why Grump was panicking so much.

It was then he noticed that Martha, who was standing beside him had taken out her telescope and was checking them out.

"Martha!" Grump yelled from the other side.

"Four of them. The horn bearer is the second one from the right." Martha yelled back.

"EVERYONE LISTEN. START RUNNING. TOWARDS THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION NOW!" Martha yelled.

And soon people started to panic and they started running. While he was confused. From what Martha had told him before, he assumed that Grump is a very powerful man. So why the hell was he making people panic when they are dealing with 4 measly bandits?

"He would be able to handle them right?" he asked Martha.

"Don't know. One had to consider a lot of possibilities while dealing with them… You should run as well." He was now more confused than ever.

"But these guys are bandits, how hard could to take care of them?"

"Those are not bandits. Those are monsters." Martha said while running towards Grump. But before going she tossed her telescope to him.

He opened the small portable telescope to scope out the enemy. And what he saw on the horizon made a chill run down his spine…

On the horizon, there were exactly four people sitting on the horses, but he was wrong. Through the telescope, he saw that the silhouettes weren't sitting on a horse per se. But they were half horse from the waist down. And from the waist up they were humans. The creatures were wearing armor made of bones and from what he saw from the telescope, the bones belonged to humans

Seeing such a creature through the telescope, he was reminded once again that he was in a fantasy world.

It was then the creatures in the distance started making their move. They started running towards their camp. He looked around and saw most of the people have run away. The only people who were still standing on the ground were Grump, Martha, him, and two other soldiers, while the rest of them had run away.

Those creatures were very fast, it could be said that they were faster than the horse that he rode the other day. Seeing them running towards them, he gulped a big chunk of saliva and started preparing himself mentally for the battle to come.