The Runesmith

“Hey, was that the last one?”

“Yes, there are no enemies in the vicinity anymore.”

Roland replied to the shout coming from the front, Grisalde was there pulling her axe out from the ground. When removing her weapon he could see a combination of sand and blood covering the edge.

“Are you sure you aren’t a tracker?”

Senna popped her head out of the side and started twirling her daggers. Ever since the first ambush, the adventurers had been slowly building up trust towards Roland’s detecting skills. While he couldn’t track anything, detecting monsters in the forest was quite easy, even easier for him than for proper scout-type classes.

The forest area was quite dense and with a lot of various creatures living there. With so many living beings around it was hard for anyone to get an estimate of all of the enemy locations. But Roland only needed to look at the dots on the map to quickly point out the next nearby monster.

“No, It’s just a tracking spell…”

“That’s some handy tracking spell that can last for so long.”

Senna glanced towards Roland’s metal helmet as if she didn’t quite believe his story. While the technology he was using wasn’t all that groundbreaking, the sheer length he could keep it up was the real deal-breaker. All-day and night he could have his radar function up and it would even jolt him up from his sleep if something appeared.

“It’s not like I can detect anything, any monsters that specialize in hiding their presence would not be easy to spot for me. Don’t let your guard down.”

Roland replied as he didn’t want the trackers to get sloppy. Monsters like Kobolds or beasts that just charged at them were fine. But anything that could camouflage themselves in some way could get around his radar.

This runic detection device locked onto mana fingerprints of monsters and any other living being. Every living creature at least had a little bit of mana in their body and they could not stop it from seeping out. That is if they were not able to use any mana controlling skills to shroud their existence.

Skills of scouting classes had various other ways to detect enemies like through smell or vibrations of footsteps. While his method allowed him to detect large groups better in more dangerous situations, it was still better to leave it up to someone with a specialized skill distribution.

“Is that so? Damn, I thought that I could just nap through this whole mission.”

“Hah, tough luck pipsqueak.”

“Hey, stop calling me that you muscle-bound idiot!”

Grisalde returned from the frontlines with her bloodied axe leaning over her shoulder. It was funny to see the large barbarian and halfling get into a shouting match after each battle. Grisalde tended to complain that the trickster was not doing anything.

“How about you go take a bath, I’m sure Wayland here isn’t removing his helmet because you stink up the whole wagon!”

“Why you little, come here!”

Soon the two took off into another chase while Orson and Dalrak had to calm them down.

“Hey shut your mouths, we aren’t out of the forest yet!”

The guard leader glared at the duo of women that were running through the area while making loud noises. But this also showed how much the people started to trust his predictions.

“Wayland, are we free to move?”

“Yes, there shouldn’t be any more of them and we are almost out of the forest.”

“Great, I’ll tell them to move, keep up the good work and you might even get a big bonus.”

Roland nodded but was not really that interested in the money he could make here as it would not be as much as he could earn by selling a single golem. But on the other hand, he enjoyed the respect he was getting.

Through the day-long journey through the forest area, they had to make a few stops to fight off small groups of monsters. They were mostly beast types that looked like deformed forest animals.

With his help, they were always able to have those few seconds to prepare for the assault. His ranged spells aren't as successful when used in a dense forest area but he had yet to move down from the first wagon he was protecting. Thus right before night fell on them they had managed to go through the first danger area without suffering any casualties.

After getting through it was back to camping at night. While he was getting more trust from the people the biggest negative was their reliance on his spells. The merchants started requesting that he stay up for the whole night and with Melaina noting down his performance he was unsure what would happen if he refused.

‘How does she sleep in that position…’

Roland was truly envious of the nap-taking efficiency that his wagon partner had. The barbarian could just sleep through the entire day and be well rested whenever trouble appeared. He on the other hand was stuck using his sleep resistance skill while looking at this radar.

‘Maybe I should install a sleeping spell to knock me out…’

There was one big downside of the sleeping resistance skill he had leveled up. While he didn’t need to sleep that much it was also hard to actually fall asleep when there was no trouble or work to be had.

When a person managed to sleep at least a few hours they received a ‘Well rested’ buff. This gave a small boost to some stats and skills while lasting for a range of hours. The length depended on how long the person slept and also the item they were sleeping on. With special beds the buff could be extended further and give clarity of the mind.

Roland very rarely saw this buff as even when he slept it was at most five hours a day. Luckily he was immune to the tired status effect thanks to his skills and thus he could function for a lot longer than the average human being. The journey continued further into the vast lands of this island. Without anything to do, he could only look through the landscape.

‘I can never really see the end of it, even from this vantage point?’

At the moment Roland was looking into the distance. At the side of the path that they were on, he couldn't see anything of note. Yet when looking further a person would notice the land gaining elevation and the grass area’s becoming thinner and thinner.

The super dungeon that was in the middle of this huge island was the reason. From what he knew this dungeon was an active volcano and it regularly spewed out lava and thick white mist. Due to this, it created a barrier around it that was impossible to look through.

Yet thanks to a certain phenomenon this mist did not travel into the edges of the island. Instead, the soil was reinforced which allowed fields for food to grow faster than would normally be possible in the mainland area. The strongest monsters also usually stayed closer to this volcanic mist area

This made traversing towards the dungeon from the outside quite bothersome. Without specialized gears to combat the increased heat, toxic mist, and then monsters it was difficult to progress. Thus other ways of exploration involving the vast underground tunnels were preferred.

But Roland was not the usual adventurer, with the help of his rune knowledge he had thought about this problem if he ever decided to move towards the super dungeon. There were various ways of creating air filters for his helmet, with some other buffing and chilling spells he might be actually able to go through the top part.

It was not impossible and the monsters on the upper side were said to not be as tough as the ones in the underground. The difficulty was in lasting through the magma-covered wastelands and the toxic air composed of sulfur.

If there was a way to get over that bump in the road, exploring from the outside would be manageable. This was something Roland had contemplated before finding out the secret connection to another dungeon. With that in place, he could hunt tier 3 monsters from a safe distance.

‘I wonder if there are some secrets that weren’t discovered in those lava mountains. With the harsh environment, it wouldn’t be strange if they had to abandon any deep exploration attempts.’

While contemplating some future endeavors he decided to check out the map again. After getting through the first bump in the road it was time to move towards their next destination.

The next stopping point would take them through a dried-up river. There were certain places through which hidden attacks could be launched. It was famous for bandit attacks. Then they needed to get through a narrow bridge after which they would be at about the halfpoint of the journey.

Thus the trip continued with Roland being forced to use his spider drones at each stop to further his scanning range. It didn’t seem that he would be getting much sleep, at each stop, there were some troubles. What would normally be a trip with perhaps one deadly encounter turned to a slog.

First came the bandits that were waiting for them at the usual ambush spot. They were unlucky with their placement as Roland was able to pelt them with spells that had a vastly larger range than bows or crossbows.

Then after routing them there they were in for round two. The bandits didn’t appreciate losing some of their men during their first ambush so they tried another during the bridge crossing.

Roland had to give it to them as they had dug small holes and covered them for camouflage. If the caravan went through the bridge they would have attacked them from both sides with bombs.

Yet together with Roland’s radar and some of the adventurers they were able to discover the enemies that had split into two groups. With some well-placed earth spells, it was an easy fight. Luckily the robbers on the other side of the bridge decided to abandon the fight.

….

“Finally it’s over…”

“Good job everyone, be sure to get a good night's rest after we reach the village as we will be going towards out last destination without making any further stops afterward.”

What Roland saw in the distance was a medium-sized village that was surrounded by a forest area. This was considered a waypoint and an indication of mostly finishing the journey. It had been hard on him but now he would be able to finally rest.

‘So this is the village of Holden, there should not be any surprises from now on.’

After giving up a sigh of relief he placed the map back into his backpack. He had faced bandits, monsters, and vast numbers of insects but now it was over. This village was a safe zone for their journey. It was an object close to the duchy’s core lands. Bandits knew to stay away as the Valerian household would actually send out their soldiers to regularly clear out any pests living in the area.

“Finally I can have something to drink!”

“Aye, I heard they sell good mead here!”

Grisalde nodded at Dalrak who was just slowly walking behind their wagon. Orson was not far behind as the image of village girls filled his mind. Yet Senna was not that amused by the glint in his eye as she knew what he was planning.

“Hey, unless you plan on getting married to one of those village girls just keep it in your pants. What if you leave and they have to bring up your bastard alone?”

“Hah, that only happens to amateurs!”

“Are you sure about that? Or maybe that thing of yours just doesn't work anymore after going through so many whorehouses.”

Senna grinned at Orson who just tried to ignore the halfling. The whole group tended to throw insults at each other but for some reason, they could not have been better friends. There was a danger in this line of work, so the adventurer types had their way of getting over the stress and this was one of them.

‘Wait, is that music?’

When they approached the village Roland started hearing the tunes produced by a lute. This was the same for the other adventurers that looked towards the village in the distance. There his eyes were drawn to the large tree in the middle that was the height of a watchtower.

It seemed that the branches and leaves blocked out the sun which didn’t let any other trees grow under it. This left a large spot under which this village was constructed. It was reasonable to believe that this huge tree could help block strong winds and rain while the settlers settled in.

“Welcome adventurers!”

Roland was in the first wagon so he was able to hear someone call out from afar. The voice belonged to a woman and she was not alone. When he took a glance he saw several young maidens frolicking around in long white dresses. They all had crowns made from flowers on top of their heads that looked fresh.

‘Are they having some kind of festival?’

The other people from the caravan started peeking out their heads at the sound of the music. After a harsh week of journeying and fighting for their lives, everyone was tired. The majority of the combatants here were men and they were all interested in the farm girls that were smiling at them. Orson was one of them as Roland spotted him drooling when looking at one of the curvier girls from the group.

Soon they were heading towards the village square that was large enough to contain all of the carts and wagons. While passing through he noticed that everyone was cheerful and full of vigor. The girls were frolicking around and waving while the men played various instruments.

The square was situated around the large tree that was also occupied by the dancers. The people were holding their hands together and moving slowly around it as they gyrated their hips. Almost immediately as his group arrived the people started waving them over, some of the adventurers even took the farm girls up on their offer to dance with them.

“Welcome to the village of Holden, you have arrived at a most pleasant time as we are in the midst of our harvest festival.”

While standing to the side and wondering what this was all about an old man appeared. The merchant along with his guards were the ones to greet him and soon it was explained the nature of these festivities.

“We will be holding a feast for the next three days to show our gratitude to Phidona the goddess of harvest and fertility, now come please relax and join us.”

This goddess was one of the lower-tier gods worshiped by farmers and others that cultivated their lands. From what he knew this goddess was depicted as something similar to a dryad which would explain the giant tree right in the middle of the village.

The moon and sun gods were considered higher tier gods. But there were various lesser and mid-level deities that were worshiped by smaller groups of people. Roland wasn’t sure how it worked but people related to god worship did receive blessings from performing certain acts.

It was also one of the reasons for many evil cults existing. This seemed to be the easiest way to gain power from worshiping as it only required bloody sacrifices. One of such cults he had witnessed many years ago and for some reason when he watched these people dancing around, he was getting a bad feeling.

‘Is this normal?’

Their faces were filled with smiles but there was something off that he couldn’t put his finger on. The other adventurers that were truly born into this world didn’t seem to be suspicious though. Orson for one was already jumping around with that girl he was eyeing, Grisalde was at a table eating meat which left him alone by the wagon.

While everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves there was something bugging him. At first, Roland only thought that he was being paranoid. Coming from the modern world and seeing many horror films this creepy village was giving him bad vibes.

Yet even when he used all kinds of detection skills he couldn’t find anything that was out of place. The other members from the group that had better senses didn’t seem to find anything wrong with this place as they just went along with the festivities. But even after hours passed he did not get rid of this bad feeling, there was something not right here.

‘Is it this tree… there is something off about it’

He glanced towards the massive tree in the middle of the village. People were still dancing around with smiles on their faces. The more his gaze focused on it, the more he felt something was wrong. With the help of his mana sense, he tried feeling it out and to his surprise there was something.

While glaring intently at the tree for a fraction of a moment he saw something. It flashed there before him for a fraction of a second in the place of the tree. It had a strange shape of a double helix covered in strange patterns. It was something that he had witnessed before all those years ago.

“It can’t be…”

He retreated a step while shouting and almost instantly activated his debugging skill on the object before him…