Chapter 12: The Beginning - Safety & Monsters (4)

“Okay with that being the case, I’ll take the swords” A grin on his face, the biggest one yet.

It’d been a long time since he expressed so many natural emotions, and the others were staring at him. He had a natural beauty that came off as perturbing when 95% of the time his face held nothing but an apathetic and indifferent expression.

“No problem here, I’ll take some daggers” Kaden spoke equally excited at the prospect of high tiered weapons. He considered asking for the swords at first but then reconsidered thinking about how he’d always focused on his speed and wanted to continue that.

He wanted to become the fastest man on earth! No woman would be able to stop him from peeping whenever he so desired it!

Ava looked at the suspicious expression Kaden was making and asked Hannah “Why is your brother making such an evil expression…?”

“Ah well he’s probably.. You know, just excited to get such cool weapons. That’s probably it. Hah…” Looking side ways and avoiding eye contact with Ava. She knew her words were not even slightly believable.

Shaking her head dispassionately Ava continued “So Hannah what weapon would you prefer?”

Thinking about it for a moment before answering a bit hesitantly, fiddling with her fingers “If you don’t mind, then I’ll take the spear. I’d prefer not to have to fight close range if I don’t have too.”

Noticing how uncomfortable Hannah looked about the entire topic Ava decided to drop it all. She handed both swords to Daichi, two knives to Kaden and the spear to Hannah. “You can find items to hold your weapons and sheaths at the corner, there’s a whole trunk full. Since these were experimental items by great-grand father worked on, he never planned on selling them so he didn’t make scabbards or anything in particular for them.” flipping her hair with her hand she walked back to the cabinets and pulled some canned food out and walked back over to the couches. “We may as well enjoy the down time we have right now. We don’t know what’s coming next.” Soon after she began started trying to open the cans with a knife.

“Let me help, there’s a trick to that” Hannah put her spear down and walked over to help instead of fawning over her new weapons like the other two.

“These are incredible.” Swing the swords around with a huge smile on his face Daichi was completely absorbed in his new swords like a kid on christmas morning.

“No kidding, my knives are pretty perfect. Much better than the goblin knives. Plus there’s plenty of scabbards that fit too.” The knives are 12 inches long, perfectly straight, with a serrated edge, with a pale bone handle. Finding two small scabbards, he placed them with straps around his thighs, and then inserted two of the goblin knives from before in-between his belt and waistband while glancing over at Daichi “Better more than less, ya know?” With a wink he walked back to the couches leaving Daichi still swinging his swords.

After a few minutes of getting a feel for his new swords Daichi also started looking around for some scabbards. He found two all black ones to fit his swords. Even though there were two swords, they were clearly meant to be used as a set. Two all black mithril short swords with no light reflecting off them, 20 inch blades with a cross guard grip and bone forged hilt. In Daichi’s eyes there were absolutely perfect. Placing them tied around a band hanging low on his waist, one on each along with both goblin knifes on the edge of both scabbards in an extra band. Daichi finally felt some semblance of self-protection. Finally feeling some self-satisfaction he finally felt okay to take a small break.

Walking over to the group who’d already started eating canned vegetables and fruits he took a can for himself and started eating and thinking about the past 24 hours. Daichi realized he’d just survived a horrible incident, interacted with people for a prolonged period of time and killed his first monsters. Too eventful. Thinking about the new swords and their value and suddenly feeling uncomfortable he spoke up in-between bites, “So what do you want in exchange for the swords, they aren’t free right?”

Calmly gazing back at Daichi with a slight look of disdain for talking while he ate. Ava elegantly put her can down while arching her back and speaking up “No. I suppose not. Nothing is free in this world, but I suppose this is a cooperative exchange. In return for greater protection, I’m hoping we can stay as a party and that you will help me reach a human town. I don’t think any of us will make it by ourselves, but together we might. If we share the same goals.” finished speaking and waited to hear everyone’s thoughts.

Kaden and Hannah exchanged a glance and after having a non-verbal exchange that only close siblings can. They both nodded their heads in unison, surprisingly it was Hannah that spoke up “We’re definitely in! We also want to get to a town! I want all of us to make it! We represent everyone from here now, it’s only right that we help each other out now.” Hannah glanced at Daichi out of the corner of her eyes and then looked down.

In between more bites of food Daichi managed to garble out “I have no objections. We need to reach a town and get more information. So it’s agreed.” finally swallowing the last bite, and putting down the fork and can he finished his prior thought “We need to go check the goblin corpses. We need to at least move them otherwise when more come they’ll be led to the door. Even if they can’t get in, we won’t be able to get out. Our mana and health has healed enough. This is something we can’t put off any longer.” Daichi stood up and started walking to the staircase, “Oh!” Looking back “How do I open the door?”

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“I can’t believe I let them talk me into resting for so long. We should never have let those corpses sit outside of the door for so long. Not good not good. I can’t believe I was distracted by shiny things, I feel like a child. Although they are some pretty amazing swords…” Daichi thought as he realized how easily he’d been swayed from trying to get rid of the corpses outside. He’d had the thought that they should move them, in case the corpses attracted other predators. Then the moment the swords were mentioned and then brought out he’d completely lost focus.

“Oh!” Looking back “How do I open the door?” Daichi realized he didn’t know what to do when he got to the top of the stairwell. In fact he thought Ava was playing a lot of cards close to her vest. “Is she worried we’ll abandon her or take advantage of her?” he thought.

“You don’t need to do anything to get out. You merely need to be within the top three steps for the seal to unlock and for the doors to open.” Ava spoke up while also getting up giving me a bit of a disdainful look

“Maybe I’m imagining it? No. Not likely.” Daichi thought as he gazed at Ava’s expression and shook his head.

“We’ll come too” Kaden said while getting to his feet and glancing over at Hannah with a look of reassurance.

“Okay.” Not bothering with more words he made his way up. “I need to know more. We don’t know nearly enough and after what Ava said, I feel like based on her personality she didn’t tell us everything. I need to reach level 10 so I can see the same announcement she did.” Daichi decided in his mind. He came to the conclusion he needed to get stronger, only then would he gain more knowledge and be able to make his own decisions.

Reaching the top of the stairs he waited for something to happen.

Tick tock tick tock tick tock.

“Why isn’t anything happening”… Getting a little aggravated Daichi started waving his left hand in front of his face.

Right behind him “You’re on the fourth step.” Ava chimed in. Feeling a little embarrassed, “I’m obviously distracted, better to focus on the present.” Daichi stopped himself from getting distracted as he walked up another step and felt too close to the doors, as they started to open. Daichi tensed a bit and placed his hands on his the knives he still had from the goblins.

The doors opened and the late afternoon sun shined inside, Along with a pair of eyes.