A New Star Chapter 15

I did wait another day, as the estate had a certain rhythm to it. While there was only an idea of a single weekend day or day off at the very end of the week, which not even everyone got to enjoy, there were certain times the estate was busier and certain times it was calmer. Coming up on that weekend day the estate slowed down a little, though I still had quite a few reservations about how 'fast' the guards ever were, but that was something to worry about later.

The day I decided to move out, I had no minders or anyone else show up at my door. Keeping routine was important, so I did that for the morning, allowing my maids to ready me, getting breakfast in the kitchen, and then training in the yard. I finished early, having a slightly early lunch, but nobody gave me even a second glance. A terrifying amount of freedom.

I had my swords, the fully sharp set, and my small pouch on my belt with a few of the healing potions I had made stashed within. I had also slotted a couple silver coins in a tiny pocket on the side of the squarish pouch, just in case I decided to enter town on this first expedition. Despite my parents' meticulous bookkeeping, it was amazing how much loose coin was lying about in various rooms of the estate, particularly one of the storage rooms that was used for beast cores and parts. I much doubted that anyone would miss three coins.

Apart from that, I dressed in a thick tunic and thick pants, with a sturdy sword belt holding everything together. Beyond that, I had secured a small, old, but nicely maintained leather tunic, made of a low-grade beast hide that had been reinforced during the tanning process. It wouldn't stop anything immensely powerful, but the claws and fangs of A and B rank beasts should have a tough time slashing through material. I would hope, though I did not have any assurances, that such low-grade beasts would be rather easy pickings, given my experience and current power, but I would see soon enough.

It was around lunch time for the rest of the household, and many would be busy with eating or taking care of paperwork while having a quick bite. I retired to my lab, shutting but not locking the door; I still needed to install a lock or security system. Despite being more centrally located, this was the perfect place to start my adventure. I gave my gear one last check, old soldier habits dying hard, before walking forward and stepping into the dark, entering the area set apart from the general world. I still hadn't found any reference to this area within my family's library, but I hadn't had much time to search. There were thousands of items within the library and computers hadn't been invented in this world, nor did they use any sort of standardized sorting system. Finding even a single reference in the family library often really felt like searching for a needle in a haystack.

I phased through the still shut door to my lab, walking down the hallway outside and out of the house through one of the servants' passages. I moved quickly across the grounds, though I needn't have worried, as being in the sun didn't have any effect on me in this other plane. I moved through the gardens and to the outer wall, finding that stepping through solid objects was slightly exhausting, and the outer walls of the estate moreso. I assumed it was because of enchantments on the outer walls, as there were quite a few protections to keep people from sneaking by and for defense. It wasn't quite as tough as I had thought it might be, however, as I felt it took just a bit extra mana to phase through the walls.

Once I was out, I saw the cleared land around the estate, a good moved from a tactical perspective. I quickly trotted across that ground, though I was in the dark world and wasn't able to see many features of the land too clearly, but I made it to a nearby copse of oak trees rather quickly. I slipped into the shade of the trees, moving far through the woods until I surmised I had made it far enough, walking back out of the dark realm. It was only slightly after noon, and the sun was high overhead, beating down with a great intensity even for late summer. There was little air movement today, not even a small breeze, which made the slightly humid air stifling, but would help in not carrying my scent too far.

I trotted off through the little wood, emerging out the other side to a section of rolling hills. One of the big features of the northern border of my new home country was the mountains. We had currently pushed far enough into the Untamed Wilds that a long range of broad, quite tall peaks made up the northern edge of my family's lands. Our current border was technically the very southern edge of the mountains, and my family's estate was not that far from the base of the mountains.

Much of the land around our estate was rolling hills dotted with woods, with some greater sections of forest and woods spread over the course of a couple dozen miles here and there. There was a moderate-sized wood about three miles to the west of the estate, the direction I was currently headed, though to the east was only sparse sections of woods for more than twenty miles. The terrain was rougher that direction after only a mile, with the rolling hills breaking up into rocky escarpments that were rather tedious to navigate.

I trotted across the hills to the west, taking a quick glance north to see the mountains looming, tall and rugged and still little explored, waiting for the five nations to push further. Expeditions went into the Untamed Wilds periodically, but they almost always followed established paths through valleys and passes and never wandered the mountains at large. There was still much to be discovered and explored just upon our very doorstep, let alone the many thousands of miles the Wilds stretched.

I glanced south briefly as well, noting the hills continued for some distance before flattening out into much shallower plains, large swathes of which were farmed by families and small businesses. The primary crops around the estate and the central part of our duchy were wheat, barley, corn, oats, a type of plant that resembled okra, and something that was basically tobacco. The vast majority of the duchy, overall, produced staple crops, feeding a large portion of the country and even exporting some of the grains to the other nations, while some small businesses grew a few cash crops to focus on a higher return on their hours of work.

I dismissed such thoughts as I approached the wood, stopping a little short when a noise drew my attention. In the still air of the early afternoon, the sound of a light footstep, and the swishing of long grass, were both unmistakable. I resumed my journey forward, though at a slower pace, extending my senses to their limit as I tread softly upon the dry earth. Quick as lightning, a figure shot out at me from my left, but century upon century of battle had honed my mind and body, though unfortunately my old one, into finely crafted machines of death. I stepped forward and to the side, drawing both blades in a smooth motion as I did so, twisting on my right heel as I completed the initial step. I slashed down with my right blade while stabbing with my left, leaving my foe no room to wiggle away or dodge both strikes, not and remain balanced at the same time.

The stab missed, the creature twisting in the air, but my reach was longer than it expected, and the final four inches of my right blade slashed through its chest, heavily wounding it. I got my first good look at the creature as it hit the ground and tumbled, unable to arrest its momentum properly thanks to the wound, finding I was battling some kind of mountain lion or cat. It would have been larger than I, were I an ordinary four-year-old and not a titan in the making, but it was somewhat smaller and lighter than I was, perhaps sixty pounds of lean muscle.

All that strength would do the tawny-furred animal very little good, as I took two steps forward before it had time to right itself, executing a textbook lunge with the blade. My left sword sunk into the chest just above the collar bone, piercing through the base of the neck and skewering the heart, while my right blade slammed into the beast's left eye, penetrating through the socket and impaling the brain. I lashed out with my left foot, slamming my sole into the beast's chest and jerking my arms at the same time, withdrawing both blades with a quick snapping motion. I was ready to defend again, but the light left the beast's eyes, the cat slumping to the ground as the last of its lifeblood pumped onto the parched ground.

I waited a moment to be sure there were no tricks, but the beast had felt like an A-rank creature. Sure, most novice adventurers would have struggled with such a foe, but I was powerful, and my current High Apprentice rank in swords belied my true skill; a legend that had cut down a thousand grandmasters over the course of a mere five years at the height of the war. I flicked my blades mostly clean, wiping the remainder of the blood on a nearby small bush before re-sheathing them and inspecting the beast. I would need to see what was worth saving, but the heart would be mostly destroyed and the brain was at the least somewhat damaged.

I flicked a hunting knife from a small sheath on the back of my belt, flipping it casually in the air to catch it in a reverse-grip before kneeling down and starting to skin and gut the carcass. It was something I had endless hours of practice with, and peeling the hide proved no more difficult than what I might expect. I removed the claws, fangs, and dug the beast core out from next to the skewered heart, putting the small orb in the one empty slot in my potions pouch. There was enough room in that slot for a half dozen A-grade cores, and I now had one taking up part of that space.

Beast cores generally increased slightly in size and greatly in energy density as the rank of the beast increased. A B-grade beast core would be barely larger than a A-grade core, but it would contain somewhere between fifteen and twenty percent more energy. That also demonstrated how beasts rose rapidly in strength; it wasn't exactly directly proportional, but having twenty percent more energy in the core indicated that the beast was quite a bit more powerful. I could fit the same number of B-grade cores in that empty potion slot, but C-grade cores were a bit larger and would likely only fit five to a slot. I merely explain this to explain that a space that could fit six of one particular grade of core could fit six of the next grade up, and perhaps only five of the grade above that. It also explained why O-rank or P-rank cores weren't the size of small houses; the mana became denser and purer, meaning the cores didn't increase on some exponential curve in terms of size.

I left the rest of the corpse, hating to be so wasteful, but this world was absolutely full of beasts. Something would likely be along quite soon to eat what I hadn’t taken, bones and all, and there was plenty more out there to kill. Hell, if the estimates I had read were correct, the Untamed Wilds occupied an area of more than twice what the Settled Lands did, and that was a conservative estimate. No need to be wasteful, but I wasn't going to stop all my plans because I couldn't easily transport a large number of carcasses right now and fully strip them. I moved on from the kill, checking that I had very little blood on me, entering the woods with a quiet step.

I was almost immediately assaulted, two beasts jumping from the shadows to try to take my life. It was…familiar, like a home I had lived in for many long years, a path I had trod so many times; the sounds of marching feet, the ring of steel on steel, the battle cries of men and women, and the stink of mud and blood in the air. I had walked the battlefield for so long, even a small fight had me recollecting those days, bringing me the feeling of walking through a different time, a different life. I continued walking forward, drawing both blades as I stepped calmly in between the beasts, slashing out with four heavy strikes, the metal a blur as I sliced the creatures apart. Blood splattered, chunks of beast toppled to the ground, and agonized howls rang out. A small smile curled my lips as I spun, darting forward and slicing again, separating two heads from necks with two graceful, smooth slashes.

The beasts were both a type of wolf, long of limb and short of snout, with dagger-like teeth and razor-sharp claws. I quickly wiped my blades clean, sheathing them before drawing my hunting knife and skinning the beasts. I removed the claws and fangs again, as well as the cores, though I discarded everything else, even the skins. I would have liked to take them, but I wasn't going to lug a bunch of bloody hides around for hours in the sweltering summer sun. A-grade hides were not really worth the effort anyway, so I did enough to access what I wanted before moving on. The teeth and claws I had split between the little coin pocket and a small pouch in the inner area of the chest of my armor, likely meant for a holdout money pouch, but I put the valuable beast parts in there.

The two A-grade cores went in my potion pouch, half filling the one empty slot before I moved on. I walked through the cool shadows of the tall trees, finding the temperature to be a bit better in the woods, keeping an eye out for any unusual plants. I soon felt myself drawn to a set of purple flowers, my alchemy skill pinging like a very small buzz in my mind. I walked over to the two plants, scanning the surroundings first to make sure I was safe before examining the flowers. A type of fairly common flower, though these were B-grade, something I could use in making a set of pills. I picked both plants, finding that only the flowers and stems had any use, so I quickly clipped those and put them in my chest pouch before continuing.

I explored for another hour, finding another flower that was useful, and killing six more beasts, four of A-rank and two of B-rank. I traced my path back, arriving at the edge of the woods before heading south, skirting that edge until I reached the more level terrain south of the estate. I headed parallel to the road leading out of the estate, quickly moving through patches of forest and small groves of trees, dark-jumping where I felt I could to increase my pace. It took a mere twenty minutes to make it to Umberton using this method, and I approached the walls of the large town, noting it was still late afternoon. I walked forward, entering the dark realm, before passing directly through the walls, finding myself in a rather dingy alley behind the wall.

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