Herald of Shalia 3, page 3
“Traitors?” Frost asked. “Who do you mean?”
“You haven’t heard?” Timothy said while clenching his fists. “A bunch of soldiers that were under investigation fled to that devil-fucker’s territory and since we have a peace agreement nothing can be done.”
“Even that patricidal bastard Hansel joined them,” Simon scoffed. “Everybody knows that cowardly shit orchestrated the events that led to the death of his father and Prince Erik. I can’t believe Princess Fiora allowed that.”
“Fiora’s the only good thing to come from this whole ordeal,” Ridley said with a lovesick grin. “No offense to the dead but Prince Erik never did much for the people. Fiora’s really good to everybody.”
“I heard she makes deals with that dog-fucker,” Frost smirked. “Why you letting her off the hook?”
“I mean,” Ridley blushed. “She’s a young woman who inherited a big mess. The military is in shambles and she’s doing everything on her own. If you ask me, she’s done a fantastic job. That dog-fucker’s just taking advantage of an innocent princess who wants to do right by the people.”
Frost tried not to laugh about how wrong they were about her. While he respected her ability to govern her personality was less than ideal. She hated virtually anybody that wasn’t nobility and absolutely despised Blackwater.
“Don’t mind Ridley,” Simon laughed. “He has a bit of a crush on the princess.”
“Who doesn’t?” Timothy elbowed his brother. “She’s gorgeous, kind, and generous. In a few years I imagine she’ll be even better than Princess Isabelle.”
“You know…I always hear a lot about how amazing Isabelle is,” Frost said. “What makes her so special?”
“Seriously?” Simon shook his head. “In under five years she turned one of the most crime ridden cities in Zira into one of the most prosperous. And then there was the Balar incident right after she took over.”
“The Balar incident?” Frost said. “Is that the one where Baron Slade cut up the Prince of Balar and…”
“Sent him home to his father in a barrel,” Simon nodded. “Yeah. But it’s how it happened. Do you know it?”
“Never really asked,” Frost said. “Can’t imagine there’s much more to the story than he cut a guy up and put him in a barrel.”
“There’s so much more!” Simon said excitedly. “It’s a good one. So, this fucking prince wanted to make a name for himself so when he heard some girl with zero experience ruling was in charge of Laven, that Tarr worshipping fuck invaded!”
“Don’t forget the fucking nobles,” Timothy scoffed.
“Right,” Simon nodded. “Thanks for reminding me. Isabelle pissed off a bunch of nobles while trying to fix the city so they pretty much invited the Prince of Balar in by pulling finances from the city, sending guards away, basically leaving everything defenseless.”
“Bastards,” Ridley said disdainfully.
“Well,” Simon continued, “Once he was in the city, the Prince of Balar gave Isabelle the option to marry him or be executed. She chose the execution and the prince didn’t like that so he planned to make an event out of it. He made it mandatory that the entire city show up to watch. Paraded Isabelle on stage with the worst of intentions. He wasn’t just going to kill her, he was going to get what he wanted, you know?”
“Fucking horrible,” Timothy spit. “If you ask me the fucker got off easy.”
“Wasn’t anything easy about it,” Simon grinned as he continued telling Frost the story. “So, Isabelle is given one last chance to marry him and she declines, knowing full well what he intends to do to her.”
“The fucking balls on that woman,” Timothy chimed in.
“Then bam!” Simon said excitedly. “Baron Slade, appears out of nowhere. Nobody knows how he did it but the man was a fucking apparition. Kills the men holding the princess and right as the prince is yelling for his guards, he turns to see them all dead. Assassins, thieves, cutthroats standing over them covered in blood.”
“Not all of them though,” Ridley added. “Kept a good portion of them alive to watch.”
“That’s right,” Simon laughed happily. “Slade thanked the prince for setting everything up. He worked the crowd into a frenzy about being promised entertainment they’d never forget. And then he gave it to them as he spent two hours cutting the prince to pieces. Even as the crowd dispersed and looked away the man kept going and he was going slow. But the entire time, Princess Isabelle refused to look away, no matter what horrific things that sick fuck did to the prince as the man begged to die, she watched it all without a hint of fear or disgust.”
“Can’t even blame her with what that fucking prince was going to do to her,” Timothy said while spitting on the ground.
“Anyway,” Simon smiled. “Princess Isabelle earned the respect of a lot of men and women that day. And soon after she managed to turn Laven into a peaceful city.”
“That’s why it’s so great we have Princess Fiora,” Ridley said. “Just like her sister she’s a perfect innocent beauty and she has Baron Slade by her side too. If that dog-fucking bastard steps out of line I’m sure they’ll take care of him. He should already be dead for killing the prince!”
“Can’t say I agree with that,” Frost chuckled. “Prince Erik tried to kill him first. Can’t fault a man for taking care of business.”
“That was Hansel Raullon,” Simon said assuredly. “Everybody knows it was a ploy to get the stupid elf-fucker to kill his father and the prince so he could be in charge of Blackwater. That’s why he ran away from the investigation.”
“I suppose it might look that way,” Frost laughed. It was unlikely that they’d believe Hansel was being set up as a patsy so the royal family could save face.
He continued talking with the men as they traveled to Baylock, mostly about why they chose to fight monsters. The three men were more than happy to discuss their motivations to hunt monsters. They were all commoners that served in the military prior to ever fighting monsters but left for various reasons.
In reality, the reasons were all related to Prince Erik’s mismanagement. Nobles who did nothing were promoted while hardworking commoners remained at the lowest ranks. The military was constantly used to defend the assets of merchants while small villages were being raided by bandits. It was an overall mess.
So, they tried to be heroes. Unfortunately, most villages were too poor to pay well enough to offset travel costs and time. They ended up being independent contractors who alternated between doing manual labor and taking care of monster problems. At least until the Blackwater Monster Regulators were formed.
Fiora’s Blackwater Monster Regulator’s provided compensation they could live off of as well as the promise of increasing in rank, which she personally granted them. Fiora certainly knew how to manipulate men, especially ones with noble intentions.
He wanted to learn more about the group, formation, and types of jobs Fiora was giving them but they’d arrived at the village.
“What the hell?” Ridley said as they looked down from a large hill right outside of Baylock. All of the villagers and farmers were on rooftops as the ground shifted uncomfortably. “Oh fuck! Are those the salamanders?”
“There’s thousands,” Simon looked at Frost as he realized ground wasn’t shifting but the massive pile of salamanders was. “What the fuck?”
“Yeah,” Frost chuckled. “That’s a lot more than expected. This is going to be a good haul.”
“Good haul?” Timothy backed away. “I can’t even see the ground beneath those slimy fucking things. It’s like the ground is fucking made of salamanders. How the fuck do you plan on dealing with them?”
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Frost said while pulling out a piece of parchment and a pen. He handed them to Simon. “If you want to pay me back, just write a good estimate of how many salamanders are here and sign off on the document.”
“Okay,” Simon replied while taking the items. “But what are you going to do?”
“What Fiora hired me to do,” Frost grinned as he rode down the hill toward the Vermillion Salamanders.
He activated scan as he approached and most were level ten at most. They wouldn’t offer much experience individually but the sheer quantity would make up for that.
While the salamanders were fairly easy to kill, the poison they secreted made getting close to them dangerous. While ranged attacks were an effective way of dealing with them, the high speed and agility of the monsters made hitting them difficult. The quantity also posed an issue for a common soldier.
Monster hunting required a lot of specialty knowledge that the common soldier just didn’t have the time to learn. They were busy guarding cities, hunting bandits, and fighting wars. They didn’t have time to hover over bestiaries to learn how to deal with Vermillion Salamanders. Since Frost almost instantly memorized anything he read, it was remarkably easy for him to deal with monsters.
Frost approached the edge of the homestead as the Vermillion Salamander’s continued to slide over each other and drip globs of toxic slime on the ground. At least he assumed it was reaching the ground. He couldn’t see even a spec of ground beneath the entangled green salamanders.
He stopped just far enough away not to draw their attention.
“Help!” a man yelled from a rooftop.
“Help us!” another joined in as if he didn’t hear the first guy.
“What do you think I’m doing?” Frost replied while holding out his arms. “Give me a minute!”
Frost preferred dealing with individual large monsters since weapons were more effective against them. Swarms were much more annoying to deal with because he had to take care of the entire swarm which generally covered a wide area. Although he was grateful, they weren’t flying monsters. Swarms of those were much more difficult to deal with.
He started walking around the village using earth magic to create a large empty moat about ten feet across and twenty feet deep. It was probably a bit excessive but he wanted to take care of the problem in one fell swoop. Once the village was surrounded by the trench, he created a barrier bridge for himself and walked into the village.
“What are you doing?”
“Are you crazy?”
As soon as he got within twenty feet of the salamanders they were drawn to his warmth and rushed him, although they’d never reach him. They crashed against the magic barrier he created around himself but they weren’t deterred. As he made his way to the center of the village salamanders continually threw themselves at him trying to bust through the barrier.
He wasn’t worried about the poison from the slimy monsters since his Archne consort cloak granted him poison immunity. Frost also wasn’t concerned about their teeth or nails harming him. His concern was avoiding the smell since it took forever to wash off.
Frost arrived at the center of town and looked around at the swarming pests. There were two method at his disposal to get them into the pit and he needed to decide which he wanted to use. The first method was a large-scale elemental magic like water or wind that’d push them in. The downside to that method was it’d take a huge amount of energy and there was a good chance he’d destroy the homes of the villagers in the process.
The alternative way took a little longer but ensured he wouldn’t have people harassing him about destroying their property. He sifted through his primal ruins and summoned up an icy gale, causing the salamanders enough discomfort to back away from him.
Once he had room to work, Frost created a new barrier, something that took only a little energy to maintain but was strong enough to get the job done. He walked from the center of the village to the edge, pushing the salamanders into the pit like a bulldozer shoveling dirt.
It took a little bit longer than using a high-level magic but it was much more precise. Every now and then a few of the salamanders would manage to avoid being shoved in the pit but he’d eventually get to them. It was around forty minutes before he was certain he got them all and the people started climbing down from their homes.
“Now what?”
“We can’t just leave them there.”
“Their poison will seep into the ground.”
“What’s it matter? We don’t have any crops left.”
“I don’t intend to leave them like that,” Frost said to the villagers as they stepped on the thick layer of mucus on the ground. “You’re not going to want to touch any of that. May take you a while to mop up.”
Frost walked to the edge of the moat and saw the salamanders piled on each other, some attempting to climb up the walls but finding themselves sliding right back down the smooth surfaces. It was pretty much perfect.
“Do you have a count?” Frost asked Simon as he walked down the hill toward the moat. He created a barrier bridge and gestured to walk across. “It’s fine.”
“I mean,” Simon looked down at the pit as he and the others crossed the bridge. “Maybe two thousand?”
“You all agree with that?” Frost asked before turning to the villagers. “Two thousand sound about right?”
“Probably,” one of the women said. “They were everywhere.”
“Good,” Frost said. “Then you sign off on it as well.
Frost pointed his hand at the moat and began running his mental energy through chains of primal runes floating around his mind. A massive wall of flame emerged in the pit and as Frost walked around the pit, the flame followed, turning the salamanders into charcoal while simultaneously burning away their poisonous mucus.
After a brief walk around the moat he ended where he began, except this time he had a couple thousand disgusting corpses. He pulled out some harvesting stones and the corpses gradually transformed into separated piles of salamander flesh and other monster pieces.
“Any of that have any value?” Frost asked while pointing in the pit.
“Uh,” Ridley shook his head. “No. I mean, maybe as fishing bait?”
“Fishing bait,” Simon nodded. “Not a bad idea.”
“How much you think it’s worth?” Frost looked at the small pile.
“Maybe a couple hundred rel?” Timothy shrugged as the others mumbled in agreement.
“Yeah,” Frost said. “I’m not going to pick all that up and carry it around for a couple hundred rel. Anyway, sign off on that paper Simon and have a few of the villagers sign off as well.”
“Don’t you have to present the bodies?” Simon asked. “How will they know you’re not lying?”
“Fiora trusts me enough not to lie,” Frost said. “Well, at least about finishing the job. The count is what she might not believe. I think she was expecting there to be maybe five or six hundred.”
“They bred so fast,” a farmer said while signing the document. “They were doubling almost daily.”
“Thank you so much,” a woman said. “I thought it’d be weeks before help arrived.”
“Looks like you have some fans Sir Herald,” Ridley said cheerfully. “How did you know to do that? It was so, well, you made it look easy.”
“Seems obvious a lot of times,” Frost said while putting the paper away. “You handle lots of weak things by grouping them together and using area of effect abilities. Although, now that I think about it, I wonder if there was a better way to lure them to one spot. They seemed attracted to warmth I probably could have just had them chase a fireball into the pit or something. I’ll have to test that another time.”
“So,” Ridley tilted his head. “Are you a scholar or specialist of some sort?”
“We never really did ask why you became a monster hunter?” Timothy said.
“Oh?” Frost said. “I mostly do it to get a break from my village. I can’t really step outside without somebody needing something. Sometimes a man just wants a day off, you know?”
“You mean you do this as a way to relax?” Simon asked. “Like, for fun? To get away from stress?”
“Yeah,” Frost nodded. “And rel. Apparently this world doesn’t have the concept of what’s yours is mine in marriage and the allowance Brynn gives me just isn’t nearly enough.”
“You mean you’re married to a wealthy woman?” Ridley asked in disbelief. “And receive an allowance. And…you hunt monsters to relax?”
“I mostly just ride my horse and stop in villages,” Frost chuckled. “Drink, talk to people, sleep with a cute villager, and then kill a monster. As you saw, the monster killing doesn’t take long.”
“Wait, wait, wait. You sleep with cute villagers?” Timothy seemed somewhat annoyed at that point. “Does your wife know?”
“Yeah,” Frost laughed. “She’s fine with it.”
“So, you’re telling us,” Simon looked at his brother and Ridley to see if they were as confused as he was. Their expressions confirmed they were. “You have a wealthy wife, who gives you an allowance, is okay with you sleeping with other women, and you choose to kill monsters to get away and relax? Do I have that right?”
“Mostly,” Frost said while trying not to laugh as their faces contorted. “Technically I have three wives but only one gives me the allowance. The other one makes me high end clothing and the other, well, she’s just really sweet and loving but sometimes that’s what you need, you know?”
“Three wives?” Timothy bit his lip. “And you chose to leave them to kill thousands of salamanders.”
“If it were just the wives, I probably wouldn’t look forward to hunting so much,” Frost grinned impishly. “It’s really the rest of the village. They want me to spend time with them, teach them, talk to them, and some days I just want to sit and think. But how do you tell a beautiful woman looking up at you with the most loving and hopeful expression that you’d rather practice primal magic than lay in bed with her?”
“Sir Herald,” Timothy fiddled with the grip of his sword. “I’ve never wanted to kill somebody so much…”
“You’re a cunt,” Ridley chimed in.
“He saved our lives,” one of the homesteaders said. “I’m not going to pretend to understand the man but I know I’m grateful that he does take his time to hunt monsters.”
