Having flown over the border into Tralenstein, Marcus continued south towards the tree that Forlorieous was apparently inhabiting.
And from where Marcus was, high in the sky, the outline of the massive tree that was still thousands of miles away was just barely visible.
Using that as his guide Marcus flew with speed and purpose towards his destination.
'Marcus I am hungry. It is time for lunch.' Roxene said to Marcus telepathically.
'Okay, I could use a break anyway. Jus give me a few minutes to find a good spot to land.'
After flying for around three hours Marcus, felt they had already made some good progress and since it was not like they were in a race, they might as well enjoy themselves along the journey.
Quickly spotting a large and magnificent lake that was situated on top of a small mountain that had many creeks sprawling over it creating a beautiful pattern. Marcus decided to land their and try and catch some fresh fish for lunch.
Landing on the banks of the lake, Marcus noticed that plenty of different types of animals that were nearby began running into the woods or diving back into the water.
Of course, most creatures would run in terror if an around forty-foot-long bird landed anywhere near them.
Still this massive bird quickly transformed back into the shape of a normal human, causing some of the creatures that had been fleeing to do a double take as they looked back.
'Ah it is good to be back in my normal form. While being a Caladrius lets me fly much faster, staying that way for so long feels a bit unnatural. In the end my original form feels the best.'
No longer needing to worry about appearances, Marcus was once again freely using his own form. Though he did use his magical hair clip to change his hair color to brown, since his normal platinum hair was a bit too eye catching.
'I am going to go and look for some fruits, mushrooms, or nuts. While I do that make sure to catch us some delicious fish.' Roxene said before bounding of into the surrounding forest.
Smiling as Roxene left, Marcus pulled out a chair and his scantly used fishing road and cast out a line.
Naturally he had dozens of different ways he could go about this to catch fish faster, but he wanted to enjoy the process and relax while fishing.
'Oh, it looks like something liked the goat meat I was using a bait.' Marcus thought after getting his first bite after around an hour.
Feeling the tugging on his line, Marcus yanked back with a bit of force, and felt the mithril treble hook he had made, catch into the creature's mouth.
After that the battle began as the creature tried to swimming the opposite direction with its full force, while Marcus tried to reel it in.
The creature began putting up quite the fight, and Marcus quickly realized he had not hooked some insignificant fish. Whatever was on the line was quite large.
Still while it probably would have been an absurdly hard fight to bring this creature in if it existed back on earth, Marcus was leagues stronger than it.
Yet, as Marcus was starting to gain some real ground, he felt the line go slack, and thought he had lost his catch.
However, a moment later he realized he was wrong as the creature that had taken his bait surfaced, and it had a very angry expression on its face.
'Oh, it is some type of catfish.' Marcus thought seeing the behemoth of a fish sitting at the top of the water.
The catfish as Marcus had identified it, was far larger than the average catfish that might be found on earth, already being over five hundred pounds and eight feet long while still being a juvenile.
'Level seventeen, not bad for a random fish that took my bait.'
But as Marcus was busy apprising the catfish, it began making angry grunting noises, before sending out a blast of water from its mouth.
Seeing this blast of water coming for him, Marcus easily side stepped with a quick movement, getting out of the way.
Except after he had dodged the catfish's first attack, he realized something.
"My chair!"
Looking behind him, Marcus had forgotten his chair which had been right behind him, and was now busted up into multiple pieces having taken the catfish's water blast.
"Gruuut"
Letting out a few more disgruntled sounds, the catfish who was still hooked by Marcus began wiggling its whiskers back and forth, before jamming them deep into the water and further into the ground.
A moment later, Marcus saw the water blow upwards and a shockwave began traveling through the ground towards him.
Though instead of being afraid, Marcus was more enamored to see a catfish that could cause a small earthquake.
Raising his foot, Marcus slammed it into the ground with all his might, and the shockwave caused by the catfish was completely blown back, as Marcus caused an even greater shaking with his raw strength causing cracks to form in the ground all around him.
Seeing this, the catfish while not an intelligent beast, still had its instincts screaming at it to flee understanding that it was no match for this adversary.
Unfortunately, it was hooked by Marcus, and with one good yank, the fish came flying out of the water and crashing up on shore.
"Sorry but you are going to be mine and my companion's lunch."
After saying that Marcus cast one of his new tier two iron magic spells and created a large spike that impaled strength into the catfish's brain.
Then with that done he set to work on filleting his catch, when the noticed movement on the edge of the woods.
That was when hundreds of people walked out into the clearing around the lake, and spotted Marcus.
'What the hell are these guys doing here.' Marcus thought seeing them all coming rushing out of the woods.
However, as he looked at them more closely, he noticed that they were all wearing uniformed armor and were moving in tight formation.
That was when Marcus realized that this must be a battalion of soldiers.
'Damn did I land in the middle of some sort of training exercise.'
Wondering why all of these soldiers were here, Marcus could only think that it was either for training, or maybe some sort of dangerous creature was being subjugated.
There were no major settlements that he knew about around here, and he had not seen anything when he peered down from high in the sky.
Still hundreds of soldiers had just appeared out of the woods and were now surrounding him for some unknown reason.
'I have not done anything wrong so hopefully I can get by with some diplomacy.'
Not wanting to cause any trouble, Marcus was wishfully thinking that these guys might just be curious about him and would leave him on his own after a quick chat.
Soon the group of soldiers had moved over to him, and in the lead were a dozen or so people that were all riding some type of jaguar like magical beast.
"You there identify yourself." One of the lead men said.
"Oh, hello there. My name is Jed. What can I do for you find soldiers?" Marcus said giving the fake name he currently had in his status while also trying to sound as polite as possible.
Yet before the man who had originally addressed Marcus said anything else, one of the soldiers next to him whispered something in his ear. "Sir I just apprised him, and his level is fairly high at level twenty-four. There is a good chance he is a scout."
The lead man that had addressed Marcus then looked at him suspiciously, wondering if he was one of their targets.
"Jed you are under arrest on suspicion of being a part of the rebel forces. We will be taking you into custody and preforming a thorough investigation. Come quietly and should you be proven innocent we will release you unharmed."
Hearing this, Marcus now understood what a unit of the army was doing all the way out in the middle of nowhere.
'Looks like the mounting tensions have grown into a full-blown rebellion.'
Sighing Marcus began using his appraisal skill on all of soldiers around him.
And what he found was a bit surprising seeing that their leader who had so far been quiet, was level forty-six, and the other mounted soldiers ranged from level thirty-five to forty-two.
'They are pretty strong overall. Still, I doubt I will have a problem if I just disappear.'
Unfortunately, right before Marcus was going to use his ghost form to escape, Roxene came running back into the clearing, drawing everyone's attention to her.
The soldier quickly took up position and those with bows and crossbows began firing at her, unleashing a barrage of projectiles at Roxene.
Still these arrows and bolts meant nothing to Roxene as she cast a residence scales spell blocking all of them.
Yet, this caused more problems, as the elite soldiers saw this and realized that Roxene was an intelligent beast.
"Bradly, Ava, Nash. Deal with that beast, take it alive if possible." The commander of the unit said speaking for the first time.
Following their commander's order, Marcus saw three of the mounted soldiers begin racing towards Roxene to subdue her.
'Ugh this is a huge mess.' Marcus thought seeing how things had developed.
Nevertheless, he was not going to leave Roxene out to dry and going into his ghost form quickly began flying towards her.
Of course, his sudden disappearance got the attention of the commander and his other elites, but even as they deployed all of their skills to find him, they came up empty.
"Back off." Marcus said reappearing right in front of Roxene and brandishing his scythe
'Roxene get into my companion storage and we can get out of here.'
Nodding her head, Roxene began moving towards Marcus to do as he said when the chaos began.
Spells and projectiles began raining down on the area, and both Marcus and Roxene had to take evasive action as an explosive arrow landed right in between them.
"Rahhh."
A war cry then echoed through the woods as hundreds of more people began rushing towards the Tralenstein soldiers, attacking them with abandon and causing a melee to break out.. With Marcus and Roxene caught in the middle.
New novel chapt𝒆rs are published on free(w)ebnovel(.)com