Chapter 106: Chapter 105 - The confiden Storyteller
Teclos spent the next day hunting again.
Same as yesterday, he repeated the same rhythm. The northern forest had many beasts, and by the time the sun began to sink behind the clouds and mountains, fewer of them remained alive.
By evening, the blood orb inside his dark dimension had grown twice as large as yesterday.
And so had his strength.
Still, the wyvern remained on the mountain, unaware of what was happening below it. Teclos made sure of that. He took only enough from the forest to grow stronger, but not enough to make the change noticeable.
For the villagers, however, things had changed.
Before, Teclos had been a dangerous and unknown stranger.
Now... he was still dangerous, but they were grateful because of that bandit incident. Men nodded their heads when he passed. Women whispered behind his back. Children stared with awe from behind doorframes until their mothers pulled them away.
Teclos just ignored all of it. The attention was neither good nor bad, so he let it be.
Selma grew braver each time she tried to speak to him. First, she thanked him for saving the tavern right after the incident. Then she asked if the stew had enough salt. Then if his room was warm enough. Then if he preferred dark bread or white bread, just trying to start small talk.
Teclos stayed silent most of the time, with nodding as his go-to answer. That did not discourage her, though.
But Bruno surprised even Teclos.
By the second evening, he bowed before him and suddenly begged Teclos to teach him.
"Teach me," Bruno said, standing beside Teclos’s table.
Teclos looked up from his meal, with his eyebrows slightly lifted.
Bruno’s fists were clenched. His face was still bruised from the beating. "I want to get strong like you, so I can protect this place..."
Fred stumbled and nearly dropped the mug he was cleaning.
Selma froze halfway through pouring ale for a customer.
Teclos stared at Bruno, thinking about it for a second... but his answer was still a hard "No."
Bruno looked as if he had been punched again. "Why?"
"It’s simple. I don’t have the time."
That was all Teclos said.
Bruno did not ask again that night, but he did not stop looking for him the next night either.
Fred treated Teclos with the caution of a man feeding a sleeping wolf. There was always something extra beside his meal now. A better cut of meat. Fresh bread. Hot tea. A thicker blanket outside his room.
"On the house," Fred would say with a nervous smile.
Teclos just shrugged and took what he offered, although the blanket wasn’t needed.
By the third day, the hunt had gone smoothly enough that Teclos returned earlier than usual. The blood orb he put in his dark dimension had grown denser.
His fourth Mind circle pulsed with power, and he was getting close to circling up. When that happened, he would have fifteen circles in total, five in each location.
He was not ready for the wyvern yet, but he was getting closer now.
The village, however, felt strange again after he arrived. Thankfully, it wasn’t trouble this time.
Teclos emerged from the shadow of a tree near the road and noticed the difference immediately. The gates were unattended again, but not because the guards were hiding. The village was simply too alive for anyone to care. People hurried through the streets carrying sacks, crates, cloth bundles, barrels of salted meat, and baskets of goods.
A caravan had arrived.
Several wagons stood near the center of the village, their wheels half-buried in snow and their sides covered with heavy canvas. Villagers crowded around them, haggling, laughing, shouting, and greeting familiar faces. In a place where winter ruled all year and every road was a gamble, a caravan was cause for celebration.
Teclos walked through the gate and moved through the crowd as quietly as a towering man in dark armor and wolf fur could. People still stepped aside when they noticed him, but most were too distracted by the caravan to care for long.
Children ran between wagons. Old women inspected herbs. Hunters checked out arrows and swords.
Teclos passed through it all and headed for the Frosted Ram. The stuff they brought was useless to him anyway.
The tavern was booming with laughter, chatter, and someone talking over everyone.
The crowd was excited and cheered every now and then. It looked like the village was having something good to talk about for once. When he opened the door, heat and music rolled over him.
No one noticed him enter either, which was a novelty for Teclos.
The whole tavern had gathered around a man standing near the hearth. Tables had been pushed aside, and people crowded in a loose circle with mugs in hand and smiles on their faces. Fred stood behind the bar, listening in with a smirk as he wiped the mugs. Bruno leaned against a support beam. It seemed even he was interested in the story. Selma was among the first ones in the circle, completely absorbed.
The man in the center owned the room.
He was broad-shouldered and sun-browned despite the cold, a sign that he came from far away. His gear was also well worn and stitched wherever possible over the years. One of his defining features was a curved scar that cut through one eyebrow, and the aura he gave off was stronger than the bandits’.
"So there I was," the man said, voice booming through the tavern, "standing knee-deep in swamp water, bowstring snapped, dagger gone, and the biggest marsh troll you’ve ever seen breathing down my neck like it wanted to kiss me goodnight."
The crowd was engrossed in his stories.
The storyteller leaned closer to the nearest table, eyes wide, lowering his voice just enough to pull everyone in. "And let me tell you, friends, if you’ve never smelled a marsh troll’s breath, thank every god you’re still alive. I’ve smelled god-awful and decaying corpses that, in comparison, smelled like a flower field."
They all recoiled.
Even Teclos found himself listening as he moved toward an empty table in the corner and sat down.
The storyteller continued with ease. He knew when to shout at a high point of the story, when to whisper to keep them in suspense, and when to let silence do the work. His hands became claws, jaws, then the desperate grip of a man fighting for his life. He made the troll sound terrifying, then ridiculous, then terrifying again. Every drunkard in the room followed the story like children around a campfire.
Teclos watched him carefully.
Not the story itself, but the performance and show he was putting on.
The gestures. The posture. The way the man turned so every side of the circle felt included. The way his confidence filled the room and bent the mood around him. He was boisterous, cocky, funny, and intense all at once, and the crowd ate from his palm.
He was about to stop paying attention when the storyteller said something interesting.
"And that," the man declared, raising his mug high, "is why no beast in the north scares us anymore. Wolves, trolls, frostbacks, corpse bears, it makes no difference. Tomorrow, we will climb that mountain and bring back the head of the wyvern sleeping above your village!"
He grinned wide and shouted for the crescendo, clearly expecting the tavern to erupt.
Instead, the room went quiet.
The villagers looked at one another first, then, almost as one, every eye turned to the corner table.
To Teclos.
The storyteller’s grin faltered when he saw him.
His eyes moved over the armor, the wolf fur, the pale face, and the red eyes half-hidden beneath the tavern’s warm light. The other mercenaries noticed him too, and unlike their captain, they did not have the sense to keep quiet.
One of them snorted.
"What, him?"
"The noble pup hunting alone?" another boomed, and laughter emerged from some of the mercenaries.
Another laughed. "Gods, I thought they were exaggerating. He really does look like some lordling who got lost on his way to his castle."
"He’s going after the wyvern alone?" a third asked. "Does he have a suicide wish?"
More and more mercenaries laughed.
But the villagers stayed as silent as mice, and seeing that, the captain’s face changed.
It was subtle, but Teclos saw it clearly. The man’s humor drained, and caution took its place. His instincts were quite good.
"Stop!" the captain snapped, and the laughter died.
One mercenary blinked in confusion. "Captain?"
"I said stop."
The captain turned fully toward Teclos and gave a small, respectful bow.
"I’m sorry about that, sir."
Teclos watched him for a moment, amused. The captain had good instincts, better than most humans he had met recently. Still, not quite good enough. Had Teclos been any other vampire, those mercenaries would likely already be dead over a few careless words.
Vampires were strange creatures like that.
Proud, ancient, powerful, and yet so easily offended that they had the temperament of some third-rate villain in a wuxia novel.
"It’s alright," Teclos said.
His voice was quiet, but it carried weight.
The captain relaxed a little.
Selma, who had only noticed Teclos when the whole tavern turned toward him, suddenly jolted as if remembering herself. She hurried toward the kitchen and returned shortly after with a warm meal, steam curling from the bowl.
"Here," she said, slightly breathless. "Your stew."
"Thank you."
The simple words made her pause before she quickly nodded and backed away.
The captain watched the exchange and judged that it was safe to approach, then took a chair from a nearby table and carried it toward Teclos. Unlike the bandit boss, he stopped a respectful distance away.
"May I sit?"
Teclos glanced at him, then at the chair.
"Yes."
The captain sat down carefully. He still carried himself with confidence, but the arrogance was gone. Behind him, the other mercenaries exchanged confused looks. Their captain was not known for lowering his head. He drank and laughed louder than any of them, and even insulted nobles if he thought they deserved it.
Yet now he was treating this red-eyed stranger like a high noble.
"May I ask something?" the captain said.
Teclos picked up his spoon. "Ask."
"You are here for the wyvern too, yes?"
"Yes."
"And you are hunting it alone?"
"Yes."
The mercenaries murmured again, but quieter this time.
The captain ignored them. "Then I’ll get to the point. Do you want to join us in this wyvern hunt? Seeing as we all have the same goal, we could work together."
"No."
The refusal came so quickly that the captain blinked.
The mercenaries stiffened.
"What the hell?" one muttered.
Another clenched his mug. "Who does this bastard think he is?"
Before anyone could stand, the captain lifted one hand.
The motion stopped them.
"Is that so?" he said slowly. "May I ask why?"
Teclos sighed.
It was his mealtime, and this man was interrupting it, but he was also too polite to kill.
So he placed his spoon down and addressed him.
"Alright," Teclos said. "First of all, I am not ready yet to hunt this wyvern. Secondly, you’ll slow me down. And thirdly, I am not the company you want to have around."
The mercenaries tensed up, as did the villagers. If the captain got offended, there could be a fight.
The captain’s brows rose slightly, but before he could say anything, Teclos continued. "But don’t worry. If you manage to hunt it before me, you can keep it. You have my word."
That was all the captain needed.
His expression barely changed, but his eyes betrayed his relief. He had clearly imagined the worst possibility: his party fighting the wyvern, exhausting themselves, bleeding, losing men, and then this man appearing afterward to take the prize.
If that happened, the captain felt they would not be facing a thief, but a second wyvern.
This one was sitting politely across from him and eating stew.
"Then we have no problem," the captain said, standing up.
Teclos picked up his spoon again and continued to eat. "No."
The captain nodded once, then carried the chair back toward the center of the room as if nothing strange had happened.
The mercenaries stared at him in disbelief.
And the villagers were relieved that no bloodbath would happen again.
He sat down, lifted his mug, and forced the grin back onto his face.
"Now then," he said, voice booming once more. "Where were we? Ah, yes. The wyvern. We already killed one in the past! So this time, we will surely succeed again."
The people laughed, though quieter than before, and then the story continued as the captain tried to overwrite that awkward tension in the room.
Teclos felt none of it and finally ate in peace.
—
When morning came, the whole village gathered near the gate to send the mercenaries off on their glorious hunt. Children watched them go with sparkling eyes and dreams being formed. The women handed out wrapped food for the road, and men already congratulated them like they were victorious.
The captain stood at the front of the formation, looking like the protagonist of his own story.
"By tomorrow," he shouted, "you’ll have one less monster above your heads!"
This time, the village did cheer. But then Teclos just walked past them, not even saying goodbye. He moved along the edge of the road, with his hood drawn low, and entered the forest while everyone else watched the mercenaries.
Almost no one noticed him leave.
One mercenary glanced after him and frowned.
"Captain," he muttered once they entered the forest. "Why were you being so polite to that asshole yesterday?"
The captain looked around himself just to be sure that the stranger wouldn’t pop out from somewhere.
His grin then faded.
"If I wasn’t," he said, "most of you would be dead."
The mercenaries all laughed at that, thinking it was a joke.
But the captain was serious.
"Remember this well," he added, voice low enough that only his men could hear. "Never mess with him. Your head could fly before you even know you said the wrong thing."
The mercenaries suddenly stopped laughing.
Far ahead, hidden among the shadows, Teclos smirked faintly.
"Sharp instincts indeed," he murmured.
Then he stepped out of the shadows and beheaded a dire wolf. He knew they would not kill the wyvern.
They were too weak and too unprepared, so his promise meant nothing.
They were not walking toward their glory, but toward their deaths.
Teclos simply did not care if they died, so he did not warn them.
