Chapter 441: Half Elf

The first thing Sage noticed about Rowan Flintpath was that he had been standing in front of the same mission notice for nearly ten minutes.

That alone made him unusual. The Grand Mission Hall had become one of the busiest places in the Kingdom Headquarters, particularly in the mornings when newly posted missions attracted crowds of Adventurers.

Most Warriors approached the boards, checked the reward, glanced at the listed danger and decided whether the coin justified leaving the Capital. Rowan appeared to be doing the opposite.

The tall Half-Elf stood near the edge of the crowd with his arms folded, reading every line of a monster-hunting request without once looking at the reward written at the bottom. His dark brown hair was tied loosely behind his head, revealing slightly pointed ears that were shorter than those of a full-blooded Elf.

A faded scar crossed the left side of his jaw, while his equipment was almost aggressively practical: reinforced leather, a weathered green cloak, sturdy traveling boots and a longsword whose scratched scabbard suggested years of actual use.

Sage only stopped because Garran Holt was arguing with him.

"The client reported six Ashback Wolves," Garran explained, tapping the notice with one thick finger. "Three cattle disappeared first. Two farmers later saw six wolves near the northern tree line, and another attack was reported two nights afterward."

Rowan finally looked away from the parchment and asked Garran whether those farmers had actually seen all six wolves together.

When Garran confirmed that the report specifically said six, Rowan pointed toward the location of the third attack and asked why the same pack had supposedly traveled twelve miles east when fresh cattle were still available near the first settlement.

Garran frowned at the report, but Rowan continued before he could answer, explaining that Ashback Wolves weren’t mindless beasts wandering wherever hunger carried them.

Once a pack discovered easy prey near a poorly defended settlement, it normally remained within the surrounding hunting range until food became scarce or something forced it elsewhere.

Sage stepped closer to the board and asked, "So you think the report is wrong?"

Rowan turned his amber-brown eyes toward him. "Something about it is wrong. The farmers may have identified the beasts correctly, but the movement doesn’t fit. Either something pushed the pack east, they were following something, or there are two separate groups being mistaken for one."

Garran crossed his arms and asked which explanation Rowan believed was most likely.

"I haven’t seen the tracks yet," Rowan replied, giving the mission evaluator a slight shake of his head. "Anything I say before that is guessing."

That answer immediately interested Sage.

Garran retrieved the original client report from behind the mission counter, and the three moved toward an empty table. Rowan read every page before beginning to question Garran again, but there was nothing rapid or impatient about the exchange.

He asked whether anyone had measured the tracks, whether the missing cattle had been dragged away or eaten where they fell, whether blood had been found in one place or along a trail, and whether hunters near the eastern woods had noticed changes in ordinary animal movement.

Garran could answer some questions from the report, but several had never been asked when the mission was submitted.

After watching the Half-Elf circle three separate passages with a piece of charcoal, Sage finally asked, "Do you do this with every monster mission?"

Rowan glanced toward him. "If the report is detailed enough, yes. A bad report can be more dangerous than the monster."

"That must make choosing missions slow," Sage remarked.

Rowan folded the parchment and handed it back to Garran. "Walking into the wilderness without knowing what you’re hunting makes dying much faster."

Garran laughed, while Sage smiled and picked up the registration record lying beneath the mission report. Rowan Flintpath. Twenty-five years old. Half-Elf. Five-Star High-Level Knight. No noble House, Knight Order or mercenary company appeared beside his name. His previous occupation had been written simply as Independent Monster Hunter.

"You’re a Five-Star High-Level Knight," Sage said, looking from the record to Rowan. "Any major mercenary company in the Capital would take you."

Rowan nodded once. "Several have tried."

"And?"

"I prefer working alone." Rowan said.

Sage raised an eyebrow. "You dislike mercenaries?"

Rowan considered the question before answering. "I dislike being told to spend three days guarding a merchant’s wine because someone with a larger purse decided that was more important than the monster eating people two villages away."

Garran gave a low chuckle and told Sage that answer probably explained why Rowan remained independent despite his strength. Rowan didn’t deny it.

He explained that he had begun accompanying hunters when he was fourteen and started working independently at nineteen. Most of his work came from villages, caravans and smaller towns where monster problems were dangerous enough to overwhelm ordinary hunters but not important enough to immediately attract famous Knights.

Their conversation drew Mina’s attention when she passed through the Mission Hall. She approached Sage, looked at Rowan, then very obviously looked at his ears.

Rowan noticed.

Mina noticed that he noticed.

For several seconds, neither said anything.

Finally, Mina pointed toward one of his ears and asked, "Are Half-Elven ears always that short, or are yours just short?"

Sage closed his eyes for a moment. "Mina."

"What?" Mina protested, turning toward him. "I didn’t say anything bad. I’ve seen Elves before. Their ears were longer."

Rowan surprised Sage by answering without offense. "It depends on the person. Some Half-Elves look almost completely human. Others inherit more Elven features. There isn’t one appearance all of us share."

Mina’s curiosity immediately intensified. She moved closer, although she at least resisted trying to touch his ears. "What about hearing? People say Elves can hear things humans can’t. Did you inherit that too?"

Rowan nodded and explained that his hearing was somewhat sharper than that of most humans, although nowhere near the ridiculous stories people liked telling about Elves hearing conversations from miles away. He also had better night vision than an ordinary human, something particularly useful when tracking, but neither trait was extraordinary enough to replace training.

Mina thought about that before asking, with complete seriousness, whether the stories about Elves speaking to trees were true.

Rowan stared at her for several seconds.

Sage was already expecting him to simply say no. Instead, Rowan’s expression remained perfectly serious as he told Mina, "I speak to trees occasionally. The problem is getting them to answer."

Mina’s eyes widened. "They can answer?"

Sage caught the tiny movement at the corner of Rowan’s mouth and immediately realized what he was doing. Mina, unfortunately, hadn’t.

Before she could begin questioning the nearest tree, Sage told her, "He’s joking."

Mina turned sharply toward Rowan. "You were joking?"

Rowan’s face had already returned to its usual calm. "I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"You definitely were!" Mina accused, pointing at him. "Your face moved."

"My face does that sometimes."

Sage laughed aloud, and even Garran turned away to hide a grin.

Mina narrowed her eyes suspiciously before changing the subject. "Then where are you from? Is there an Elven kingdom somewhere?"

Rowan rested one hand against the pommel of his sword before answering more seriously. Elves weren’t confined to one kingdom or territory.

There were old Elven settlements scattered across parts of the continent, some hidden deep within forests and others trading regularly with human settlements. Elves also lived inside human kingdoms, particularly in border regions and older cities where different races had mixed for generations.

Half-Elves were even more scattered because they could be born anywhere humans and Elves lived alongside one another.

"My mother was an Elf," Rowan explained. "My father was human. I was born in a frontier village several weeks north of the Capital."

Mina immediately asked whether his mother had taught him to track, but Rowan shook his head. "My father was the hunter. He taught me tracks, traps, weather signs and how to survive when you’re stupid enough to get lost. My mother mostly taught me not to believe everything he claimed he could track."

Sage smiled. "Your father exaggerated?"

"Constantly. According to him, he once tracked a wounded stag through a thunderstorm for four days without sleeping."

Mina looked impressed. "Did he?"

"My mother said he lost the stag before sunset and came home the next morning."

Mina burst out laughing.

By noon, Rowan had accepted the Ashback Wolf mission. Garran suggested assigning several Adventurers to accompany him, but Rowan asked to inspect the area first.

He didn’t know what had displaced the wolves, and bringing more people before understanding the situation could create unnecessary risk. Sage approved the request.

A Five-Star Knight insisting on caution instead of using his strength as an excuse for recklessness was something Sage wanted more of in the Guild.

Two days later, Rowan returned without a single wolf carcass.

Instead, he placed a cloth bundle on Garran’s counter and unfolded it to reveal several long black quills stained with dried blood. Sage had been reviewing missions nearby and approached as Garran picked one up.

Garran’s expression changed. "Thornback?"

"Old one," Rowan confirmed. "Large male. Broken left tusk. Several scars along its right flank."

Sage looked between them and asked what that had to do with the wolves.

Rowan pulled out the rough map he had made during the hunt and spread it across the counter. He showed Sage the original Ashback territory, the farms where livestock had disappeared, and a series of marks moving from the northern hills toward the eastern woodland.

The Thornback Boar had descended from the hills and claimed part of the wolves’ hunting range. The pack hadn’t moved east because it was chasing prey. It had been driven out.

"So the wolves are the smaller problem," Sage said.

"Exactly," Rowan replied. "Kill them and the Thornback remains. Another predator eventually moves into the empty territory, or the Thornback expands farther toward the farms."

Garran immediately asked whether Rowan had attempted to kill it.

Rowan shook his head. "Not alone. It’s old enough to know how Warriors hunt. It stays among dense trees, changes direction when followed and doubles back toward its own trail. I could probably force a fight, but ’probably’ isn’t a good reason to fight something that can tear a horse in half."

Sage glanced at Rowan’s registration record again. "You’re a Five-Star High-Level Knight."

Rowan met his gaze without any embarrassment. "Being strong doesn’t make unnecessary risks intelligent."

Sage liked that answer.

Rowan recommended replacing the original mission with a higher-level hunt for the Thornback and leaving the Ashback pack alone unless it continued attacking livestock after the larger beast was removed.

When Garran questioned why the Guild shouldn’t simply eliminate both threats, Rowan explained that predators controlled smaller animals as well. Killing everything dangerous around a farming settlement might make the fields safer for several weeks, only for burrowing beasts or crop-eating creatures to multiply without predators keeping their numbers down.

Garran immediately began rewriting the mission notice.

Later that afternoon, Sage found Rowan inside the Grand Guild Library giving Lucien Marrow his field notes. The Half-Elf had recorded tracks, damaged vegetation, feeding signs, territory changes, weather conditions and even the locations where ordinary animals had become unusually scarce. Lucien was delighted.

Unfortunately for Rowan, Iris Dawncaster was nearby.

The moment Iris heard the words Thornback migration, she looked up from her book.

Sage saw it happen.

Rowan didn’t.

Sage quietly continued walking.

He had no intention of saving him.

By evening, Rowan Flintpath was back in the Grand Mission Hall, his Bronze Adventurer badge still hanging from his belt despite possessing the strength of a Five-Star High-Level Knight.

He didn’t complain about beginning at the lowest Adventurer Rank, didn’t ask for special treatment and didn’t even look at the rewards first.

He simply chose another monster mission and began reading from the first line.

The Capital Guild had gained another recurring Adventurer.

And this one knew that understanding a monster was often more valuable than being strong enough to kill it.