The Seeker Of The Flames

The light breeze fondled their skin through gentle wind touches. The wild grass tended to curve slowly, boughs and branches rustling in tranquility. The wind's soughing in the grass resonated throughout the forest with a soft calming hiss.

Nothing could be more soothing than those wind touches on her skin. She could just lie on the green setting and relax, keeping her eyes closed.

Minutes passed and the silence of the forest finally disappeared. Liora could hear the footfalls coming from afar.

"All right, it seems we have to get going. The other monsters are coming here. It's sooner than I'd thought though..."

Standing up from the ground, she looked at Arian.

"They're coming. We gotta return now. Stay close to me, ok Arian?"

"All right. Thanks, Liora. I owe you so much."

"No, stop mentioning it! It was my fault in the start anyway."

"Yes, yes!" Arian looked around, "It seems we've already been surrounded."

"Yeah... apparently..." Liora frowned, focusing her attention on the nearby enemies behind the trees.

Grandwood's Trows could be spotted everywhere in the forest. They made up the majority of the Grandwood's inhabitants with their massive numbers. Trows looked like how the books had described them: Ugly and slow-witted, green-skinned, dirty and smelly, having a rough large nose with two uneven green eyes, mostly from 6 to 7 feet tall, their build close to an average human, showing signs of psychopathy and mental disorder associated with loud crazy laughs when confronting either an enemy or an ally.

Although the West Kingdom used the term "Trows" to describe those creatures, the East Kingdom had the term "Trolls" to refer to them.

They could move so fast in the forest by using the shoes that they had stolen from adventurers. Those footwears would increase their movement speed, letting them go from one area to another so speedily.

The trows had encircled Arian and Liora completely. They carried different types of weapons from battle axes and swords to bows and magic wands, all stolen from the human warriors or adventurers.

Liora and Arian stood back to back, covering the complete range of the trows' imminent attacks.

The waves of armed trows charged toward the two human figures in the middle, Liora and Arian. Their green skin matched with the grassed surroundings, though their weapons distinguished them from the environment.

Before Arian could do anything, Liora had already brought her large splendid sword out of the magical bag. She swung it forward and sent about tens of trows flying to the surrounding trees.

Liora kept her deadly strikes to clear the place from the trows. The scared trows didn't know what to do; the person before them didn't give them any chance to think about anything but their lives. There was nothing for Arian to do as she had covered the whole range entirely with her own powers and sword strikes, giving no chance to the enemies.

She deflected the arrows, crushed the swords, and rushed through their' skins by the sharp edge of her sword. Her weapon moved up and swept down, swishing audibly through the air and wounding the groups of trows.

After the loud swoosh of the air, a large surge of the trows started to get cut in half, the others getting pushed away a long distance behind.

Realizing that they have no chance against this warrior woman, the trows retreated immediately.

The forest became silent like before.

"Brilliant!" Arian praised. "You faced all of those trows alone. There was nothing I could do to help you."

"Thanks! But since your rank is still too low, that's as to be expected. On the other hand, I've gone a lot ahead, so I should be able to take care of such weaklings."

Liora and Arian continued to walk out of the Grandwood. They didn't face so much trouble after fighting against those trows. The residents of the forest would have heard the news about what had happened there, deciding not to engage in a battle.

Normally, they would have attacked the adventurers who had fought with a Yawn, using the chance to attack the weakened, damaged people. However, since they failed to overcome Liora, the news spread throughout the forest and warned the other trows and beasts to not get close to those humans.

It provided a safe situation and a secure way for them to leave the forest of Grandwood.

They both left the Grandwood safely. Liora could bring Arian out of there without any harm or injury. She was really glad that no one got hurt. He could have died because of what she had done, but fortunately, everything seemed to be fine.

Liora let out a sigh of relief, looking smilingly at Arian who stood beside her.

"Finally... we're out of there. I'm too tired. I need to get a rest in the guild. Are you also coming with me?" Liora asked.

"Yeah, since I have to get this quest confirmed. I'm really grateful for your help, Liora."

"I told you, no need to mention it. Then, let's go together."

"But first," Arian hesitated, stopping her from moving, "can I ask you something?"

"Hmm? What is that? Ask anything you like!"

"Oh... well..." Arian kept talking with hesitation, looking down at the same time. "I don't really want you to become like that time again, so it's hard to ask..."

"Ah, so is it related to 'that'? What do you want to know?"

"Well... you said you want to kill someone. Who is that?"

Liora didn't respond immediately; she became emotionally vulnerable for a moment, frowning fiercely and angrily, thinking about the man whom she wanted to kill.

"It is..." she paused, a shadow of anger and vengeance darkening her countenance, "The Demon King! Adin the Immortal!"

When Liora was still young, she used to tell that to many people, but she couldn't notice anything but some frightened and scared faces after telling them about her intention. Liora had also expected Arian to show nothing but fear, but he didn't appear to be affected by those words. Arian's face still looked kind and nice.

"I see," he smiled, "so it seems we both have the same way to follow. I also want to kill the Demon King. I want to end the life of Adin the Immortal."

Surprised and confused, for the first time in her life she had seen someone with the same intention as hers.