Abe the Wizard (WN)

Abel was starting to get a little concerned. If the materials for the super exploding balls weren’t so rare, he could just use the other half of the meteorite iron to make his own knight’s equipment. There were four super exploding balls in his collection right now. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t just throw them all at Wizard Cliff’s magic tower in the Kingdom of the St. Ellis.

When White Cloud had been flying for about half of a day, it would ask for Abel’s permission to get some food. It’s not like Abel had to prepare the food. As long as it was allowed some time of its own, it would start its own hunt.

Abel walked out of the Akara’s tent. After looking around, he took out a map from his portal bag. He wanted to figure out where he was.

From what it looked like, he wasn’t far from Moogen Town. Moogen Town was a small place, far away from the reach of the Wizard Union. And because of how far it was from the nearest teleportation circle, even if the wizards knew that he was there, they couldn’t make an arrest immediately.

Loraine was waking up from her sleep. After walking out of Akara’s tent, she realized that White Cloud was descending.

“Are we going back to the ground, Abel?” Loraine asked.

Abel explained, “I’m thinking of going to Moogen Town for some supplies. We’ll get something to eat as well. White Cloud’s going to hunt for its own food in the meantime. We’ll continue our journey once it gets back.”

“That’s great!” Loraine said happily, then pleaded to Abel, “I’m going to shop for some materials to make my perfumes. Can you pleeease let me do that?”

“Sure, but you must be with me the whole time. Do you understand that?” Abel ordered.

Loraine replied with a wide grin on her face, “Yeah, I know. We are runaways, after all.”

Loraine wasn’t smiling for no reason. When she decided to escape with Abel, she had expected the journey to be harsh and full of bloodshed. But no, she was sleeping on a giant bed up in the sky. It was peaceful, almost like she was on a trip or something.

Moogen Town was a typical small town in the Duchy of Carmel. It was a place that was heavily reliant on its farming industry. When the sun got down, not many people walked on the streets.

Abel was wearing a hoodie to cover up his face. For Loraine, it was a ladies’ hat with a veil on the front. It was meant to cover up her sharp ears and her pretty elven face. As for Black Wind, Abel had to leave it outside of town. There was just no way for him to sneak in if he was with a giant mount wolf.

As Abel went inside, he noticed a sign that he was very familiar with. It was the local branch of Edmund’s boutique shop. Loraine should be able to get what she wanted here.

As soon as the two went in, a young staff member came to greet them. Since Abel had a magic golden card in his hand, he was met with a very polite bow.

“Edmund’s boutique shop welcomes you, dear customer. How can I be of service?” the young staff member said.

“No need to be reserved, Loraine,” Abel said, “Just tell him everything that you want to buy.”

Loraine mentioned more than ten types of herbs when she was making the order. As fast as the staff was writing on his list, Abel noticed that they were all very common plants.

The young staff gave another bow, “Please wait for a moment, dear sir and madam. I’ll go check if we have enough stock in store.”

Soon, the young staff member returned with an old man beside him. The old man was wearing a very fancy suit.

The old man greeted Abel with a bow, “Good day to you, dear sir and madam. I’m the manager of this place. I believe the order that you just made was for some sort of recipe, and in this very establishment, we have enough supplies to make about five of whatever you were trying. If that’s not enough for you, please order now, and we’ll have it ready for you in two days.”

“Is five enough?” Abel asked Loraine.

“Five is good,” Loraine replied with a slight nod.

“Okay,” Abel turned to the manager, “We’ll take all of it. How much does that cost?”

“It’s twenty gold coins in total, thank you,” the manager replied with a bow.

Whilst pretending to reach for his pocket, Abel took out twenty gold coins from his Horadric Cube. When he finished the purchase, several armored men with weapons came from outside the store.

Abel could tell. There were about five official warriors in total. Among them, there was a strong man with a scar on his face. He was carrying a giant ax in one of his hands.

The scarred man said in a loud voice, “I want ten bottles of the medicine that can stop the bleeding from injury! Also, can I get two buckets of refill for my iron arrows?”

Abel watched as the scarred man talked with the manager of this store. It felt kind of strange. This was a very isolated town. Why were there so many warriors here all of a sudden?

As much as Abel wanted to know, he was a runaway now. Since he was still in the Duchy of Carmel, he knew he should just focus on getting somewhere else. Unless he got his way into the Great Splitting Mountain Range, he should never let his guard down. That being said, he wasn’t going to ask any questions.

As about more than a dozen of the warriors stood inside the store, they formed a path for Abel and Loraine to walk through. When Abel and Loraine walked past them, a man, who had a pinch of hair in his nose, stared intently at them.

Abel said to Loraine as they got out of Edmund’s boutique shop, “There’s an inn over there. Let’s get some food before we go.”

“Okay, if that’s what you want,” Loraine replied. Even with her face covered up, her voice was still just as crisp and gentle.

Abel regretted his decision as soon as he stepped inside the inn. About more than half of the seats were already occupied. It was very noisy. Most importantly, none of the customers looked like they were ordinary people. Every one of them had at least brought one weapon with them.

Now that they were in, Abel had no choice but to make an order here. After getting themselves to a vacant spot, he waved his hand to call the waiter.

“One roast meat, one smoked fish, two pieces of bread, one salad and one cup of juice,” Abel said abruptly. Since elves didn’t eat a lot of meat, most of what Loraine was having was the salad and the juice.

The roast meat was actually very nice. It was a large chunk of beef that had been smoked with charcoal. After seasoning it with some fresh herbs, even a former nobleman like Abel was feeling like eating with his own hands.

While Abel was having a good time chewing on his meat, Loraine was making small bites of her salad. Since she wanted to cover her mouth, she had to move her veil with her hand every time she used her fork.

“I told you, Blood Axe. Those two are right here.”

As a loud voice echoed through the inn, a bunch of warriors came in from the door. Abel raised his head to have a look. It was the same people that he saw at Edmund’s boutique shop.

“Are you sure that girl’s an elf, Fanged Wolf?” The scarred man named Blood Ax glared at Loraine. He sure wasn’t giving any respect to Abel.

Abel frowned for a bit. As it turned out, the disguise wasn’t good enough to hide an elf’s true identity. He wasn’t sure how, but these men just saw through Loraine.

“I thought you trust my nose, brother,” the hairy man called Fanged Wolf said, “Yes, that’s an elf right there. I’m sure about it. I can do more than that, though. If you show me a track that an elf has walked on, I’ll be able to tell you what time that elf has been around.”

Because of how rare the elves were in the human world, an elven girl would be worth about several thousand gold coins if she was sold to slavery. That was a lot of sum for regular adventurers.

After hearing the warriors talking amongst themselves in a very loud voice, all the people in the inn stood and looked towards Loraine. It was almost as if they were looking at a bucket of gold coins.

Loraine felt very scared, but as Abel was calm enough to keep eating his roast meat, she knew that everything was under control. Instead of showing a reaction, she decided to keep eating her salad as well.

The atmosphere was starting to become very odd. Everyone was looking at Loraine and Abel, but both of them were just eating their food.

Blood Axe was an experienced adventurer. While leading his own team, he has fulfilled quite a few difficult missions throughout his career. That being said, he knew just the right way to break this silence.

Instead of talking anymore, Blood Axe raised his head and looked straight at Abel. As long as someone decided to pick up a fight, he would know how good his two targets were.

No one was foolish enough to make a stand, though. The adventurers weren’t going to challenge Blood Axe, and they definitely weren’t going to challenge Abel. There was something unique about Abel’s presence. It’s like he was a king or something. Whether it was his calm demeanor or the way he ate, everything about him showed how powerful he was.

When Abel was finished with his roast meat, he cleaned his hands with the napkin on his table. While still ignoring the people that were looking at him, he showed a very satisfied expression on his face.

Abel called the waiter that was already hiding under the reception, “For takeaway, I want twenty more of the same roast meat. By the way, do you have any rum here?”