I look at the group of people walking through the western side of the Shrine Ruins from my nest. It consists of four hunters and a group of seven regular humans. It looks like the curse only affects hunters, and it does not affect regular humans.
I focus on the wagon and use my sight to look through it.
Steel, huh? That checked out, I guess. Kamura is known for its steel after all. I wonder where they want to go. I get off my nest, turn into my True Form, and fly to the sky. They are going Southwest, so that is the direction I will follow.
I make sure to create a shield around my body to bend the light, making me invisible, as I fly through the sky. I don't want to give humans heart attacks when I arrive there.
It did not take long for me to arrive above a village nestling in the middle of a mountain formation. I can see a river running past the village and a hot spring. I slowly land not too far away from the village, hidden behind the thick forest.
I tap into the land and even register the village as something I can summon. However, I am focusing on the weapons the hunters in this village hold. It is fascinating, you know? It combines a monster's parts and steel to create the weapon.
However, that is not the only one. After I scan the weapons, I know it is in the blacksmith's smithing technique that allows them to use the elemental power that the monsters use when they are alive.
One of the hunters carried a longsword called Ivory Rabbit. It is a longsword made of material from Lagombi, a massive rabbit monster.
Its body is made from Lagombi's Plastron. What's that? It is a shell on Lagombi's belly. It is the foundation that allows hunters to utilize Lagombi's ice element. The edge of the sword is made of Lagombi Iceclaw. It is a claw that is permanently cold and the one that amplifies the ice from the body of the sword.
If the body is the producer of the ice, and the edge is the amplifier, the steel and the smithing technique are the carrier. It is the one that bridges between the first and the second. You will get a great weapon from a high-ranking steel and blacksmith with a lot of experience.
If the Steel and Technique affect 25% of the quality, the material affects 70% with 5% to luck.
I wonder what kind of weapons they can make with my scales. I know it will give a lot of Fire Resistance, but I am also a master of other elements as well. I wonder if that will give them all positive resistance against all elements.
I shake my head and prepare to leave. However, an idea appears in my head. How about I enter the village using an illusion? I can use Blue Mana to conceal my true form and make me look like a human.
I take two Blue Mana and weave them around myself. I create a solid illusion, but not the one you might know.
I create a projection around my real body that looks like a mid-twenty man with golden, dark red hair and bright red eyes. What happened to my real body? It becomes intangible and invisible. People can only see and touch the illusion.
I also added another unit of blue mana to reinforce the illusion and ensure it could not be destroyed even when I got hit by a powerful punch.
I check my illusion one more time and nod my head. However, before walking to the village, I took out a pouch from my Spatial Ring. As an Archmage of Spatial Magic and Artificer, I create a Spatial Ring.
It is like a ring from a Cultivation novel. How big is it? The space is twenty meters wide, forty meters long, and seventeen meters tall. I want bigger things, but it requires me to use my Planeswalker, and at the time, I want to test my power as a 'normal' Archmage.
Anyway, I opened the pouch and counted the money inside. There are six paper money and ten coins. They are Zenny. The paper money is one thousand Zenny a piece, and the gold coin is one hundred Zenny a piece.
I can create more, but let's not destroy the economy. I only need the money to buy the food and maybe enjoy the spring. My previous scan of the entire village shows this place has a beautiful and relaxing hot spring.
When I am satisfied with my preparation, I walk to the village. I leave the forest and join the main road. It does not take long before I arrive in front of the village, and the guard stops me.
"Halt! Show me your identification."
I blink a little when I hear that. Shit. I forgot about identification.
"Errr… I don't have one. I am from a nomadic tribe, you see."
"I see. We understand. Follow me. We need to check whether you are on the wanted list."
"Fair enough. Lead the way."
I follow one of the guards to the building behind the gate. He takes out a book and looks at the pages one by one. Each time he opens a new page, he looks at me. On each page, there is a drawing of the wanted person.
After a few minutes, he nods, takes a wooden amulet, and says.
"Here. Make sure you hold this amulet. This will be your identification while in this village. If you want to be one of us, you need to ask the Chief or register in our Hunter Guild."
He looks at me from head to toe and continues.
"You have the build to be one. However, I know the chief will want you to be a Bull instead of a hunter."
"A bull?"
"Someone who fuck all the women in the village who is not married."
"What? Are you serious?"
"What? Is your tribe that prude? To ensure we survive, each village needs someone to be the Bull of the village, you know? There are more women than men in this world, and someone needs to carry the burden to breed many women in the village."
I want to call him bullshit, but because I remember what I chose in the CYOA and how serious he looks, I know he is telling the truth.
"We can marry more than one woman, you know? We don't have this bull job."
"Ah, your tribe is one of those tribes, gotcha. You can do that here as well, but being a Bull is a paid job, while marriage is not. Just offering you a variation of a job."
"Right. I will keep it in mind."
"Good. Anyway, enjoy our village, strangers, and make sure not to cause trouble."
I nod and leave the building. I looked at the village and thought about which shop I should visit first.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|Nana — Yukumo Village Chief|
I smile a little as I wave my hand at the hunters who are about to depart to hunt monsters. Even after a long time of giving hunters missions, I am still worried about their safety.
Yukumo might be safe after the mess related to the Elder Dragon Amatsu years ago, but there are a lot of things that threaten this peace.
Speaking of peace, I know about the kingdom that got attacked by Amatsu in the past, and it destroyed a good chunk of its territory before they could manage to make the Elder Dragon retreat.
Sadly, that is the reality of fighting an Elder Dragon. They are forces of nature and something that can only be fought until they retreat, especially something as powerful as Amatsu, the Storm Incarnate.
When he makes a nest in the Sacred Pinnacle, it requires them to send their most powerful hunter to deal with the Elder Dragon. I wonder what she is doing now? She immediately retires after taking care of Amatsu and uses her reward money to buy a farm.
I hope she is happy with her farm and has found someone to spend her life with. She is a shy child and has a hard time even talking to a man.
I shake my head with a smile and walk back to the village. However, I stopped in my tracks when I saw a man in front of me.
He is a two-meter-tall man with dark red hair and bright red eyes. He has a muscle that can destroy boulders with ease and an aura that can make a smaller monster run away. However, that is what normal people see.
Many do not know about it, but my eyes are special. They can see something that others cannot see. It might not be able to see through a solid object, but my eyes can see the soul and spirit of people.
That is how I know if the people I talk to are lying or someone despicable or not. That is how I know which person will be a strong hunter. My eyes have seen many things in my long life, and that includes Amatsu.
When I saw him, I saw wind, water, and lightning dancing around him like a massive storm, ready to destroy anything on its path. It is beautiful and also frightening.
And what I saw in the past appears in this so-called man. However, it is worse because I can see all the known elements dancing around him.
However, unlike Amatsu, where his elements move like a storm, chaotic and destructive, this one is well contained. It is like a volcano, ready to explode at any moment, and once it explodes, it will create an apocalyptic event.
And that is not the worst part. The worst part is that the man knows that I am able to see his True Form as he looks me right in the eyes and smiles. It looks kind, but to me, it looks like an Elder Dragon eyeing its prey.
"Interesting. Do you want to talk, hmmm?~"