Chapter 743: The Lord Scares the Road

Luke raced through the forest, trying to home in on that faint connection with Franky again. He needed to stay near the road, since that was where he had last sensed Franky’s trail crossing, but he kept one eye on the sky, watching for the silhouette of a wyvern cutting through the night.

It was late. Maybe past midnight. He wasn’t even sure anymore. Ever since reaching Rank D, his internal clock had gone straight to hell. He could go far too long without eating, sleeping, or feeling his body demand anything resembling rest.

“Gods!” someone shouted from horseback as Luke blurred past the road.

Oops.

To the poor man, a dark shape had torn through the night, kicking up wind, leaves, and, naturally, terror. Luke focused and deactivated [Despair Aura I], but it was already too late. The man was spurring his horse away like he had just seen death itself.

“Damn Beast Forest!” he shouted as he fled.

I’m way too fast.

No one around here seemed even remotely close to his level. Leaping through the trees would draw too much attention, at least during the day, so Luke stuck to running. Still, he would have to move farther from the road. If he kept terrifying travelers like that, he would become a local legend within the hour.

He ran for another half hour before the pull of his bond with Franky shifted.

Soon after, Luke spotted a roadside camp. Several wagons stood beside a cluster of tents, with a large fire blazing at the center. Laughter drifted from somewhere between the vehicles while armed guards watched the perimeter.

Luke slowed to a walk and approached, deliberately stepping on dry branches and dead leaves so they would hear him coming. A sharp whistle cut through the camp. The guards shifted positions instantly, hands tightening around their weapons.

“Evening,” Luke said as he stepped into the edge of the firelight.

“Evening,” one of the men replied without lowering his guard.

“I’m a little lost. Mind if I warm up by your fire?”

A woman sitting on a rock, carving a piece of wood, looked up at him. “Keep walking. There’s a marked crossroads up ahead. Problem solved.”

“Right...”

Luke reached into his pocket.

Every weapon came up at once.

“Whoa. Easy.” He moved slowly, pulling out one of the silver coins from the tavern and holding it between two fingers. “How about a hot meal and some answers?”

The woman dropped the piece of wood, pulled a crossbow from her back, and loaded a bolt with the kind of practiced ease that made it clear the weapon wasn’t decorative.

“What do you think, Carl?”

"Carl? That’s such an American name, man. What kind of isekai is this?" Artemis said.

We’ve already met a Hannah and a Cecilia, and Carl is where you draw the line?

“That’s up to our clients,” said the man who was apparently Carl.

Another man stepped away from the group near the fire and into the brighter light. His clothes were finer than the guards’, and his posture was relaxed.

“We don’t mind,” he said. “We’ve run out of stories. Maybe the stranger can entertain us.”

“I don’t know, Harlan,” said the woman with the crossbow. “He came down the road alone.”

“You can keep his coin,” Harlan replied.

The weapons lowered slightly.

“Try anything, and we put you down,” Carl warned before returning to his post.

Luke followed Harlan to the fire. Eight people sat around it, with three wagons parked nearby. Jars, crates, barrels, and baskets of fruit filled the cargo beds. They were merchants traveling under guard, but their goods looked too modest to warrant that much protection. Either that, or they were far more valuable than they appeared.

Someone placed a bowl in Luke’s hands, then filled it with hot soup from a pot hanging over the flames. The bond was still there, faint and distant. Franky was still moving.

“You’re not very good at hiding it, kid,” Harlan said.

“It’s written all over you,” another merchant added, peering at Luke over the rim of his mug.

Their fine coats made one thing clear: they were camping by choice.

“What exactly is written all over me?” Luke asked, genuinely curious.

“A traveler with no backpack? Come on.”

“You’re making it painfully obvious that you have money,” another merchant said. “Bandits spot someone with a storage item and start seeing gold.”

“I can handle myself.”

“Then again, any bandit dumb enough to work this close to a Beast Forest probably wouldn’t last long,” a third merchant said.

The group burst out laughing. Luke smiled along, though he had no idea why everyone found that so funny.

Over the next hour, Luke learned what kind of merchants they were. They sold the sort of goods any farmer might produce: jams, wines, spices, and the like. The difference was that theirs were refined, rare, and expensive enough to need armed escorts. The merchants relaxed. The mercenaries didn’t. Even while the others laughed, drank, and talked too much, the guards kept watching Luke. Carla laughed at none of the jokes, and her crossbow never left her reach.

“Gods, James, this stuff is incredible. Where did you buy it?” one merchant asked after taking another drink from the bottle.

Luke had introduced himself as James, a traveling merchant, and passed around one of Stephen’s bottles to help sell the lie.

“You shouldn’t be drinking something a stranger handed you,” Carla said, never taking her eyes off Luke.

“You should try it, Carla,” one of the merchants said. “I haven’t had anything this good since I was in Whiterun.”

“You’re all idiots for drinking that. When you drop dead, I’m collecting the rest of my pay from your families.”

“A man carrying liquor this good doesn’t need to rob us, Carla. This bottle is worth more than our wagons.”

“Look at his hands,” another merchant said, laughing as he slapped Luke on the back. “They’re smoother than my wife’s. The kid definitely comes from money.”

Luke looked down at his hands. Artemis, are my hands really that smooth?

"No calluses, so you’re clearly not a farmer and you don’t do manual labor, man. To observant people like them, your hands are definitely competing with those of young ladies. But hey, Auntie Artemis doesn’t mind. I’d let you use those fingers on me to..."

Luke cut the mental connection before she could finish.

“James, I hope fortune smiles on you. May the Gods of Commerce bless your journey,” Harlan said.

In exchange for Luke’s drink, the merchants opened one of their own bottles for him, and the conversation grew lighter. Every few minutes, he checked the bond. Franky’s direction hadn’t changed. At least until the conversation drifted toward the inevitable topic that came with alcohol, long roads, and men far from home.

“Southern women are the best.”

“You’re insane, Finn. Northern women are better.”

They had been arguing for several minutes when one of them raised his mug toward Luke.

“Once you get farther into Rosemark, you’ll see some gorgeous redheads, boys. Nyvma should have plenty.”

“Shame most of the women in Nyvma are probably married,” another man said, drawing laughter from the group.

“What about you, James? What kind of woman do you like?”

“Uh...”

"Yeah, James", Artemis said. "What kind of woman do you like?"

“The married kind,” Luke answered far too quickly.

Silence fell for a beat.

“Wow. Seriously? You’ve got guts, James.”

"Good to know, Luke", Artemis said.

No. I meant my wife. Charlie.

“This guy is even crazier than I thought. No wonder he has the nerve to travel alone these days,” Harlan said, and the group erupted into laughter.

Carla just stared at Luke in disgust.

That’s not what I meant. I swear.

The second he saw an opening, Luke changed the subject. “How far into the kingdom are you headed?”

“Rosehall.”

“Rosehall? You’ve got quite a journey ahead of you.”

“A long one,” Harlan agreed. “But it’s worth it. They’re paying a fortune for spices.”

“They’re paying a fortune for everything. I’m starting to think I should sell myself into slavery,” another merchant said.

A few of them laughed. No one laughed for long.

“War is shit.”

“Yeah.”

War?

Luke had apparently missed an entire war.

“Have any of you seen a... wyvern lately?” he asked, taking a sip to make the question seem casual.

“A what?” one of them asked with a laugh.

“If something like that was flying around here, I’d shit myself.”

Later, the merchants went to sleep. Luke pulled what he needed from his storage item and pitched a small tent. The gesture put the mercenaries slightly more at ease. Ordinary bandits couldn’t afford storage items.

They really think I’m some rich traveler.

Luke needed to sleep to keep up the act. Sometime during the night, the bond shifted. Franky had left the road and was heading deeper into the forest.

If that idiot has any sense, maybe he’ll head toward me. Hopefully he can feel the bond getting stronger too.

By morning, the group had begun breaking camp.

“Sure you don’t want to travel with us, James?” Harlan asked.

“Thanks, but I need to keep looking for my familiar.”

“Good luck with that.”

“If you need help, look for the Farrow Company and give them my name,” Harlan said. “That drink of yours is worth a few favors.”

“Just stay away from my wife,” another merchant added.

The group laughed as their wagons rolled away.

“Married women, huh? What a fearless stallion,” Artemis said.

“You know what I meant.”

Angie was back in the mirror, going through her usual routine of trying to talk to him.

Luke watched her for a moment.

“I’m going to get you and Charlie. I just need to find that damn snake first,” he said, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him.

After that, he would search for the Quest Teleportation Array. Then he would say goodbye to this place. Someone else could have the [Kingdom Core]. He could claim another one in the New World.

With the way things are going, a few of them must have appeared in the United States. Maybe I should look for one in Maine.

Luke made his way deeper into the Wild Forest. Places like this stretched across entire kingdoms, untamed corridors filled with powerful beasts, ruins, and stories no one could prove. He suspected the system was responsible for more of those legends than anyone realized.

And a thousand years from now, the Sunken Realms event will be a myth to anyone born after it.

Luke leaped through the forest for nearly an hour before reaching a river. The bond had grown stronger with every step. Franky was close. Too close for Luke not to see him.

“This way.”

“I followed the damn road all this way just to double back.”

The sound of a waterfall came from somewhere ahead. Luke moved toward it.

“Mr. Shitpants made himself a real pain to find,” Artemis said. “How the hell did that idiot end up this far from where he was teleported?”

“No idea.”

“Right. It’s Franky. This is probably just him being himself.”

A child was crying somewhere ahead. Luke slowed, but the crying abruptly stopped. Then came the scream. He drew his kukris and moved in fast, every step measured, following the sound toward the trees near the waterfall.

"A child", Artemis said inside his mind.

Yeah.

"Did Mr. Shitpants attack a kid?"

I doubt he’d do that.

Luke spotted a boy sitting on the ground with his back to him, sobbing. Even from a distance, he could see that the boy was covered in dirt, with tangled hair and torn clothes.

Is he lost in the forest?

Luke scanned the area.

Where’s Franky?

The bond told him Franky was right there. But Luke couldn’t see a snake anywhere.

[Loading changes to your Familiar...]

Luke nearly stopped. A system window flashed into existence, flickering like it was losing its mind.

He approached the boy.

“Where did the Rat Family go?” the child wailed.

Where the hell is that snake?

“Hey, kid,” Luke called.

The boy twisted around, still sniffling. The moment he saw Luke, his eyes widened.

“Human?”

“Uh... yeah. I’m human. Are you lost or something?” Luke asked, his gaze still sweeping over the waterfall, the river, and the surrounding trees.

There was no sign of Franky, in snake form or otherwise.

“Did you see a talking snake?”

The boy stared at him. “A... talking snake?”

“I’m looking for one.”

The boy wiped his face with his sleeve and sniffed.

“Human... that’s me.”

“Huh?”

“I’m... Franky.”

[Updates loaded!]

[Your Familiar has evolved into a Servant!]