The Lone Wanderer

Percy wasn’t sure if the central area of the swamp had a name. He certainly hadn’t heard the townsfolk mention one if it did, and he was confident the trolls couldn’t give it one either. From what he’d seen, the creatures could only communicate by gestures, grunts and growls. Thus, at the risk of looking silly later, he’d taken it upon himself to give the place a monicker, to make it easier to refer to.

The Trollsden.

Over the next few weeks, he and Nesha continued to visit the place daily – whenever Percy wasn’t busy with his chores, at least. Micky joined them too, whenever he was both free and sufficiently bored.

Every time they ventured into the Trollsden, they entered from a different side, to avoid meeting the same trolls over and over. As they’d come to learn, the creatures were split in several small tribes, each consisting of six to eight individuals. Most of them were typically Reds, with a single Orange caster leading them. And these pocket-sized groups tended to be highly territorial, never straying far from their own homes.

Suffice to say, the two groups that had joined up to attack them on the first day had been outliers, as nothing similar had happened since. Percy guessed the two Orange leaders might have been siblings or something, overcoming the societal expectations of their kin to give themselves an advantage over other tribes.

That said, it wasn’t like he particularly cared about the trolls’ social structures much either. During each venture, they sought out a new tribe to challenge, giving Percy an opportunity to test his developing Foresight spell against different elemental affinities and flavours of casting.

“I think it’s close to evolving!” he said, a shit-eating grin plastered all over his face.

Laying face-up on the ground in front of him, a troll chieftain gasped for air. As for its subordinates, they weren’t doing much better. Evidently, Nesha had improved a lot too, keeping the creatures occupied without exerting herself all that much.

“Have you found an affinity you like?” she asked.

“Nope.” he sighed. “Only elemental and pure affinities across the board.”

“I mean… that’s not too strange. We’ve only fought a few dozen tribes so far. Statistically, they shouldn’t have been enough.”

“I know. I guess I just hoped we’d get lucky.” he shrugged.

The two disengaged from their defeated opponents, putting some distance from them. The good thing about the trolls was they never attacked them a second time. Apparently, they were smart enough to understand how outmatched they were after getting their asses handed to them for several hours in a row. That, coupled with Percy’s unwillingness to harm them did wonders in dousing their aggression. Well… most of the time at least. Every now and then, they did stumble upon a stubborn chieftain who didn’t know when to quit.

After waiting for Micky to join them, the trio took a break from their tasks to drink their midday dose of Aurora Dew together. Naturally, Percy hadn’t stopped brewing for them, their stash of elixirs dwindling with each passing day.

Luckily, the recent spike in his brewing yield would stretch their supplies for a month longer than they had originally planned. However, stealing more elixirs from House Tantalus’s warehouse was looking more and more unlikely. The war didn’t seem like it was close to ending, and Percy had yet to find a way to infiltrate the enemy family.

‘Will I still have to implicate Baldy in the Aurora Dew mess after all?’

Percy had intentionally avoided dealing with his family back in the Guild, precisely to avoid bringing them unnecessary trouble. And that had proven to be the right choice. Unlike him and Nesha who could just run and hide from the Divine Root, his grandpa couldn’t exactly do that – he had an entire House to lead.

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Then again, Percy wasn’t sure where to find a different source of elixirs as things stood. He did have some ideas, but they needed a lot of the darn things. In any case, he’d just have to discuss everything with Baldy once he returned home. This wasn’t something he could solve right now. Nor was it particularly urgent either.

“Wanna delve a little deeper today?” he suddenly asked, shaking the pointless thoughts out of his head.

So far, they’d only explored the outskirts of the Trollsden, but the place was quite massive. And they were already running out of new tribes to challenge in the outer ring.

“Sure. I suppose it’s still early today.” Nesha shrugged.

Bidding the crow farewell, the two then entered the Trollsden again, walking past the trolls, ignoring the nasty glares they were giving them. The further they ventured into the swamp, the more the stench of rot and decay intensified too. And that wasn’t a coincidence.

While the trolls were opportunistic carnivores, occasionally snacking on any unfortunate critter dumb enough to approach them, there wasn’t enough meat in the Grisly Bog to sustain their numbers. Neither could they easily expand outwards, their fear of stepping on the humans’ toes deeply ingrained in their bones. Thus, the creatures had found another way to keep their bellies full, without risking their lives.

“Yuck. Are these things even edible?” Nesha wrinkled her nose, examining the base of a nearby tree.

The wood appeared old and damaged, as did the multitude of deteriorating carcasses carelessly piled up among its roots. Some of the corpses might have been there for months, reduced to skeletons by now, while others were a little fresher, the meat still slowly melting off the bones.

And amidst this intentionally designed mess, Percy and Nesha saw the food the trolls cultivated to sustain themselves. Growing on spoilt flesh and decaying roots alike, countless whitecap mushrooms blanketed the area. Some of them jutted out of a skull’s eye sockets, others neatly lining the spaces between a creature’s ribs.

By far the most disturbing detail, however, was the fact that many of the corpses appeared to have belonged to the trolls themselves! They fed their own dead to the mushrooms, and then ate those!

“Trust me, you don’t want to see the kinds of things some of my clones have eaten.” Percy chuckled.

He wasn’t as bothered by the sight before him. His adventures had long numbed him to the idea of doing what one had to, to survive. If anything, the tiny mushrooms looked cute – nostalgic even, reminding him of his time in the Guild.

Of course, these mundane fungi were as far removed from their colossal cousins as they could be, not a speck of mana flowing through them. Still, they were clearly as important to the trolls as the Fungal Spire was to the rest of Remior.

Continuing their journey, Percy and Nesha saw more scenes like that, at some point every single tree in their path having been transformed into a grim mushroom farm. Though they hadn’t met any more trolls in a while, for some reason.

“Are the tribes in the outskirts assigned there on purpose, to guard the perimeter or something?” Nesha wondered out loud at some point.

“Well, it would explain why all their food has been left unguarded, but that still leaves a lot of questions…” Percy wasn’t quite as convinced.

For one, most of the troll tribes they’d encountered had shown no intention of cooperating with one another. How would they have all organized to such an extent?

Even more importantly, they would have never allowed them to pass had that been the case. Outmatched or not, who would give an intruder free access to their food?

“Yeah. It’s strange. They should have done everything in their power to stop us…” Nesha agreed after listening to his reasoning.

Suddenly, Percy stopped in his tracks, causing her to raise an eyebrow.

“Unless they didn’t need to…” he muttered.

“What do you mean?” Nesha asked.

But Percy didn’t respond, merely gesturing at her to be quiet. Far in the distance, he faintly spotted a shadow shifting within the depths. It was too dark to make out, but his eyes captured more than just light nowadays.

Right there, walking amidst the trees, he saw it. It was a tall silhouette, shimmering in a faint silver. It was even bulkier than the trolls he had met so far, though it was hunched over. He even spotted a hint of Yellow sparkling in its chest. Soon, two more silhouettes appeared by the first one’s sides. These weren’t quite as big, though they were still larger than the regular trolls – all of them at Yellow.

Well, that certainly explained who had commanded the other tribes, as well as why the weaker creatures had allowed them to reach the centre of the Trollsden.

“They thought we wouldn’t survive anyway.” Percy said, his lips curling upward.

Dropping the sack by his feet, he took a deep breath, and then another, activating his boosting art. The trolls had clearly hoped their leaders would take care of them, but they had gravely miscalculated.

After all, a few Yellow mages were exactly what Percy currently needed!

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