Chapter 30
- Location
- Home
Venturing the Wild – 30
The rest of his patrol wasn't any less interesting.
Wolves, Moblins, a sizable swarm of Keese that had been waiting under an overhang to ambush an unlucky passerby, a few Lizalfos by the river, Chuchus hiding in the tall grass and even a Talus North of the Ginner Woods just outside of the village.
This high amount of monsters was actually more than a bit worrying, especially since his patrol didn't cover the whole area around the village. Hopefully this cull would keep things a bit safer until the next Blood Moon.
At least it had meant he had collected a large amount of monster drops, even if most were pretty poor quality they would still cover his needs for a few weeks at least.
He waved to Ivee after returning and headed directly back to his house after entering Hateno. He was so glad to have hot water because he was a mess after a morning of monster hunting.
He shed his clothes and put them aside, they would need some proper washing and a few stitches to shorten the wear and tear. He would need to practice with what Cotera had taught him, the repair and cleaning enchantment would have been very useful at the moment.
The System already helpfully turned on the hot water as he loosened his braid and slipped into the tub full of hot water. Unfortunately it was still the old one, he would need to make a new one if he wanted to get to boiling hot temperatures like in some of the hot springs on Death Mountain.
He took a few minutes to relax before he looked at his hair. When he arrived at Hyrule it was about ear-length, by now it was past his mid-back, and it kept growing. Thankfully it was straight enough he could braid it easily and it didn't loosen unless he wanted it to. He wondered if he would need to cut it soon, or would it just stop growing now that he considered it to have achieved a good length.
His hair wasn't normal, dirt and such just slid off with just a bit of effort and it just didn't burn. Which had been quite nice to find back in Death Mountain, because otherwise he would most likely become bald when he worked at Goron City.
He looked at his hands, his nails were similarly abnormal. They didn't grow unless they were too damaged, and even that was hard to achieve. The more he looked at the back of his hand the more he felt himself sliding into an almost meditative state.
For a moment his nails appeared to be a deep purple so similar to his hair before the knocking on the door broke him out of his musings. His nails were back to normal, if they had never even changed to begin with.
"One moment." He called out and got out of the tub which had already cooled considerably, proof he had gone into a pretty deep trance.
He wrapped himself with a towel and walked towards the front door; once more glad to have connected the bathhouse to the house.
It didn't surprise him too much to see it was Reede. "Magnus- Oh, I'm sorry, I thought that you would have finished by now." He quickly apologized.
The young man shook his head. "No, it's okay, I was so tired I fell asleep in the tub." He laughed a bit. "If you would give me a moment I will get more presentable."
The mayor of Hateno village nodded and Magnus quickly closed the door. A few applications of Prestidigitation dried his body and hair so he could dress himself up with a clean set of clothes; the towel joined the dirty clothes before he opened the door and invited the Hylian inside.
Reede looked around, more than a bit surprised by what he saw. "I see you put all those rupees you scammed out of me to good use." He joked in good humor.
"Most of it is my own work." He stated. "Took some sleepless nights, but I think it's pretty good. Though I imagine you came for something other than seeing how I'm doing." He gestured to the table and an older man sat down as Magnus prepared two cups of tea.
"Yes, I learned that you went out to patrol due to the large number of monsters that have been witnessed lately." Reede said and thanked him for the cup of tea.
"Yeah, it's not looking well." Magnus admitted as he sat down in front of the man. "One Talus North of the village, a couple of packs of wolves that actively hunted me, two monster camps, over a dozen Moblins, two dozen Bokoblins, a swarm of Keese." He recounted the basics of what he had killed. "I don't know how it was in the area in the last few years, but I think we're seeing an uptick in the number of monsters."
Reede sighed after putting the tea down. "That's… way worse than I thought. We haven' had a Talus near the area in over twenty years."
He was pretty sure this was all signaling the return of Ganon, it wasn't going to be instant. But it was becoming obvious things had started to loosen up a bit and it paired with his own observations. He would need some way to measure the Malice density during the next Blood Moon to see if he could get a better guess.
"Before you ask," Magnus spoke calmly, "I will be patrolling the area during my stay here in Hateno. But I do have plans to leave in a few months, so I can't act as a guard forever. In addition I'm here mainly to work with Director Purah at the lab."
He couldn't blame the older man for disliking what he said. He would have tried to employ him if their roles had been switched.
"And no, I doubt I can teach people how to fight either." He cut off the next question before adding. "What I can do is offer my services for the production of weapons and armor. Though I imagine you will have to hire people to take the roles as guards."
The older Hylian sighed and finished his tea. "Even if you'll be leaving, I thank you as the mayor of Hateno Village for taking your time to protect the village." He spoke honestly. "You've given me plenty to think about, I will contact you if I decide to go ahead with the idea."
Magnus nodded and accompanied him to the door, wishing him a good day. With that unexpected visit done he turned to the tub, unless he wanted to refill it his bath was done. The System helpfully drained it for him as he turned his attention to the kitchen; he missed the few strands of deep, black hair that were gone along with the dirty water.
Milk, eggs, flour, butter, sugar, baking soda and some jam.
He was baking himself a cake! The only thing he had to do was cast prestidigitation on the normal milled grain to remove all the germ and brand to make refined flour. Curiously enough, Hylian Wheat produced white flour.
In just ten minutes everything was mixed up and cooked inside the oven and all he could do was wait. It wasn't like he could forget with the System keeping an eye on it. So Magnus sat on a chair and opened one of the novels he had copied over to do some reading.
He only stopped to take the baked cake out of the oven and let it cool before cutting it in half and adding the jam in the middle. He wished he could have some chocolate to cover it, but he hadn't found any so far in Hyrule, maybe the weather just wasn't the correct one.
It didn't matter at the end, it may be a bit of a lonely thing, but he was celebrating his birthday. Given that it was one whole year since he arrived to the World and the fact that he had been practically frozen in time during his departure and arrival it felt fitting.
Though calling it a celebration wasn't exactly true. He wasn't celebrating as much as he was noting the day down, maybe in one year when things were more settled he would invite people. He poured himself a glass of sweet wine and cheered.
"For a year well lived." He said and drank half before cutting the cake to get himself a good slice.
"Magnus, happy birthday." A voice spoke and he knew it was his father. "If you're hearing this congratulations on surviving a year away from home! It also means you're 20, in many cultures this is when a person is considered an adult." His father laughed. "As an adult I'm not going to coddle you and intrude in your life, but remember that your mothers, your family and I will always be on your side… unless you start thinking on genocide or things like that, please don't start a genocide, we taught you better than that."
He couldn't help but laugh, his dad really had a terrible sense of humor.
"Magnus, if you're hearing this part of the message it means the ship broke apart and you've still not put it back together. I won't mince words, yes, it was on purpose. Remember to call once you put it together." Magnus quickly had the System remember to remind him. "Finally, I would guess that here's when you get your gifts, enjoy them, my son."
A small shiver went down his back as the unexpected knowledge entered his mind. A new perk had joined his collection, it was a broad one. A problem when you crafted anything was the fact that you were always learning things and old projects would look back in comparison. This perk gave him the knowledge and ability to more easily reforge and rework old projects to improve them.
This didn't just cover the reforging of weapons, something he already had a bit of an idea on how to carry, this covered every project. From weapons to clothes, from enchantments to potions, everything had little tricks and ways to improve old work with new knowledge. It would be a perk that would work practically forever, as long as he improved the perk would keep up.
"Thanks dad." He whispered and ate the rest of the cake.
It would mean his current projects would need a proper look, though he doubted many would get an upgrade soon. The weapons, for example, still needed more practice before he pushed on that front.
Though that could wait, he had some cake to enjoy.
Impressively enough, Magnus managed to not do anything else that day, simply relax with cake, tea and one of the many books he had copied from the ship. Though he still went back to work on the next day.
His daily schedule for the next week was basically the same every day with minor variance.
He woke up early every day, he mixed his attention between his personal projects and physical training while some of those projects were in downtime. Of course said training was starting to plateau, there was only so much he could do alone when his body was already the image of fitness. The most he got out of it was further familiarity with his weapons, but that would soon reach a limit too unless he reforged some of the weapons, and he still lacked the materials for them.
When he wasn't doing physical training, he was refining his control over the Blue Flame and his personal elements along with his illusion skills. He still hadn't crafted the proper magical instruments, but he was slowly refining his control over the normal instrument anyways.
After a quick morning bath he visited Pruce's general goods store and restocked the potions he had prepared. For a modest percentage the man was taking care of selling the potions and elixirs for him, which was incredibly helpful. Thankfully no one had needed actual medical attention just yet, but he wasn't betting on things staying that way.
After that he spent practically all of the daylight at the lab. Either transcribing all books -no matter the content- or working with Purah and Symin into the upgrade of the Ancient Furnace. The process was a bit slower compared to when he had carried it with Robbie and Jerrin, the lack of the Ancient Oven slowed the production of parts.
On the good side, the perk along with the experience he had gotten upgrading the worker unit resulted in a much more efficient Ancient Oven for the laboratory. Though he wasn't sure if to say it was just in time, because on the seventh day of work they got interrupted by screams coming from the fields lower on the hill.
"There, that should be it." He declared and closed the machine outside of the lab. "I'm turning it on." He announced and saw Symin thumbs up from inside the building.
He focused on his ring and started to feed Blue Flames into the Ancient Furnace to kick-start the process. It only needed a moment before it started to draw energy from its surroundings and the process stabilized.
"The readings are all in the green." The man inside the building said. "It looks like it's working."
"Good." Purah called and turned to Magnus. "Good work."
"I'm glad to help, though I wish I could get my hands on one of those Ancient Cores, it would be nice to own an Ancient Oven." He said out loud, though it was mostly him thinking to himself.
Before Purah could say anything, the noise of scared animals and a scream stole the moment.
Magnus didn't wait, practically launching himself over the edge as he drew Forward and started to collect water. He didn't even slow his descent, instead blinking ahead towards solid ground and maintaining his speed down the hill.
Soon he saw what the problem was, a number of monsters had come down from the mountain North of the livestock field. Dantz, one of the farmers, was waving a pitchfork at the monsters while keeping his daughter, Koyin, from running ahead to try and fight them.
To cut the distance across the lake by the field, Magnus aimed the trident down and pulled on the water's surface. It was only his extraordinary reflexes that allowed him the nearly miraculous act of running over water. One last blink the moment he reached the edge allowed him to get over the monsters and fall down with a fully charged trident.
Magnus by now was pretty sure he liked the fight, but that was usually when he was alone and could choose how to tackle his enemies. Right now he neither had been given the choice, nor he was alone, which made his strategy for the fight very simple and straightforward: Rip And Tear Until You Are Done.
The leading Moblin got a nasty surprise when six hundred kilos of water smashed his head twenty centimeters into the soft ground, though the surprise didn't last; neither did its neck. He quickly lifted the weapon and swept, hitting the rest of the monsters that had followed the leader a bit too close with the whip of water.
Two quick stabs ended the two Moblins that had remained close enough, mainly in credit of their larger bodies. While he didn't have any throwing weapons on his person, he still had more than a few in his inventory, so Forward was put away and in its place he now held a few weighted knives. These were in flight by the time he had drew Tenlight out and rushed ahead to attack the few Bokoblins with ranged weapons.
The blade sliced through a monster and the ghostly edges that followed behind ended the ugly, goblin-like monster behind the first. The weapon disappeared long enough for him to draw his energy and run through the hand-signs necessary for his clones to move towards those further away from him. Graceful crushed the closest shielded Moblin and he felt himself freeze for a moment as a giggle drew his attention to a Wizzrobe.
Unfortunately he didn't have too much time to ponder what was one of these monsters doing so far from their usual hunting grounds. Because the Fire Rod he was holding spelled great danger in the fires it could spread.
He breathed in deep as he turned towards the monster magician and spit a concentrated amount of Darkness. The glob of energy exploded on contact, it cast a cloud of blindness on the monster and surprised it long enough for Magnus to shorten the distance towards it.
Its body hit the ground fast and hard enough to crater it before it started to dissipate. He landed to see its face still frozen in the first surprise and not the sudden impact of his metal bat. He winced internally as he noticed the crushed rod break away too, he had been a bit too aggressive on that attack. But the danger was too much to ignore the monster.
The ability to skip on air, turn invisible and summon elemental monsters on top of the fireballs it could cast could have ruined the field.
He cast a look over the field. His clones automatically dispelling themselves after completing their orders, only a noticeable amount of Malice left behind from all the monsters breaking away.
He turned to the father-daughter duo. "Everything okay?"
The two of them seemed to be in shock, before he could check if other people came running, more than one of them holding pitchforks to fight the monsters.
"What happened?" Reede asked as he held his hoe like a weapon.
"That. Was. Awesome!" Koyin screamed.
Everyone turned to look at the young teen and Magnus couldn't help but chuckle.
The sudden appearance of monsters from the mountains was certainly bad news, bad enough that an emergency meeting was called in Hateno.
The first half quickly turned loud and noisy as some panic did spread, this was the closest the monsters had gotten in a long time.
Hateno had enjoyed the reputation of being a safe place for a long time, this was from having survived nearly untouched during the Calamity thanks to the stand done in the Hateno Fort. The rumors of an increased number of monsters in the surrounding areas had been putting fuel, but it was the monster attack that triggered the metaphorical fire under everyone's asses.
"Enough!" Reede seemed to finally lose his calm and raised his voice to silence the room. "I know we're all scared, we've enjoyed safety for a long time. Unfortunately it appears things are changing, that doesn't mean we have to panic. Hyrule survived the Calamity and adapted, we can do the same."
A few people murmured words of worry and agreement, but none raised their voice.
The mayor turned to Magnus, the young man giving him an understanding nod.
"I, like a lot of the people here, have been hearing about an increase of monsters, so I've been thinking about what to do to deal with the monsters." Reede spoke in a serious and calm tone. "I'm planning on recruiting people to act as guards, going to look to spread the word through the stables."
There were a few people interested, mostly men, but he saw Koyin barely being held back by her father.
"It won't be easy, it's obvious this is just the start." Reede continued. "But Hateno had stood up for a long time and will survive once more. Now, Magnus?" He looked towards him.
The young man stepped forward. "I may have met and talked with some of you, but for those who I haven't met with, I'm Magnus. During my travels I've learned that monster activity has been on the rise, that's why I decided to patrol the area outside of the village. I talked with the mayor about this, that's why I will be taking a week to go up the mountain. It's obvious something has been causing the monsters to come down."
He noticed Purah giving him a concerned look.
The meeting once more grew agitated at the mention of the monsters being a land-wide occurrence. Reede still managed to calm everyone down, the promise of guards for the village and Magnus doing some patrol in the meantime was enough for most people to head back home.
He was approached by Dantz before he could leave too.
"Thank you." The man bowed. "I don't want to think what would have happened if you hadn't arrived that fast."
"Just doing my part to keep the village safe."
The man shook his head. "Maybe you're doing it when going out to patrol and kill monsters. But earlier today you saved my daughter and my life. I doubt at least one of us would have been injured by those monsters." He spoke in earnest. "And later I asked Purah about that last monster, I've to admit I've never seen a Wizzrobe before, but hearing about what they are capable of… the damage to the village it could have caused even with a small swarm of Keese or Chuchus would have made this upcoming Winter very hard."
Magnus felt a bit of a blush coming to his cheeks.
"You have my family's and my gratitude, never fear to come to ask us if you need anything." He shook his hand. "And you certainly earned yourself a fan." He pointed to his daughter.
"That was awesome, you took all those monsters so fast!" The young teenager said with glee. "You think I could fight like you?"
Magnus laughed at her tone and smiled to answer her. "That would be hard, for two reasons. First, I've trained my whole life and train daily, my body's simply built differently. Second, I don't think your father would like his daughter to get herself in that kind of danger."
The girl blushed as she noticed her father's look. "Oh…"
"You should talk about it with him, you're lucky you're young, so don't rush ahead." He added.
He wished them a good night before heading towards Purah, the old Sheikah had been waiting for him.
"So you will head up the mountain?" She quickly prompted.
"Yes, I had planned to do it in a week or two, but this has certainly changed my plans." He answered. "I would have liked to wait until the Blood Moon had passed, but I guess I will have to go up to investigate before that. If I was to guess, it will happen while I'm out."
She sighed, but didn't deny it was necessary. "Okay, remember to prepare well."
He laughed. "You don't need to remind me, I've already started things, I will work on a few more details tonight and will be heading out tomorrow. A couple days to get up there to investigate and the rest to come down dealing with the monsters, so about a week in total."
She nodded in agreement and told him to visit her before departing.
The moment he entered his house he took stock of what he had.
He wouldn't be able to reforge the weapons, both because of the amount of time for the three of them and because he still lacked proper materials.
Potions he would prepare a number of, some defensive and cold immunity ones would be helpful since he had heard Mount Lanayru could get pretty cold.
Arrows, he had enough elemental ones for the week, hopefully. Though he would give the Royal Bow a good look over to make sure it was up to snuff.
Finally he pulled his enchanted Sheikah set, he really needed to get his ass into gear and craft himself something better, for now he would strengthen the enchantment. Luckily he had acquired enough reagents during his patrol to carry the process; plus it would be good training.
He cracked his knuckles and got working.
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