In this world, Magic is Everything. All people, all races, are granted with the power to perform mystical and magical feats via grimories, mystical tomes granted to each and every child on their 15th birthday. Those blessed by the mana can have their names written down in legend.
Shattered Grimoires is the work of the mind(s) of Ardere & Shattered Grimoire's staff. All characters and content are copyright their creators, and may not be replicated without their creators' permission. Black Clover is owned by Yuki Tabata and published by Viz Shonen Jump. All images belong to their original owners. The theme you are currently viewing was made by Eliza of ElizaCodes exclusively for Shattered Grimoires.
Not a whole lot of time had passed since Griswold had returned to the forsaken realm, his knightly duties having taken him to some places he would rather not have gone to. But as he had recently been more or less forced into coming to the royal capital for a celebratory meeting where he, among with some other magic knights he hadn’t seen before received promotions. Based on the amount of good deeds and missions they had done around the country, which was kept track of through means of golden stars awarded, they all received a new rank. In Griswold’s case, he had gone from Junior 5th to Junior 3rd, which was something he was quite proud of on account of really only having been a member of the crimson lions for little over a month now. At the time, people had cleverly made use of the fact that he had finally come to the capital in order to make him go on a mission in the noble realm.
Now normally, he would have declined so another member from his squad could take it, mostly because Griswold and nobles were not exactly two peas in a pod. The way in which he saw the world just conflicted too much with that of the average noble, who in his opinion looked way too much towards money, wealth and worth. It was for that reason that this particular magic knight spent the vast majority of his time in the forsaken and common realms, two places where the caste system were really something you could feel. So as soon as he had flown in after taking care of several monsters made out of cheese that were running amok inside of a restaurant basement, one could see how the state and size of houses and buildings were decreasing the further one went from the capital. Flying across the borders was quite clear to see, as the leap from the noble realm into the common realm was almost as big as the step from the common into the forsaken realm.
Even though he needed to see where he was going so he could actually navigate properly, he tried not to look down too much as it just pissed him off to see just how much better the nobles had it when compared to the peasants. And the truly sad thing was that those same nobles had more money than they could spend in several lifetimes while only getting richer and richer. On the other hand, peasants had to work their asses off from dawn until dusk if not longer, and many of them barely made a living wage selling their produce or their livestock. It was that general unfairness that kept him from the noble region as he did not feel like being used as some kind of noble escort or babysitter. He had heard quite often how noble families used the magic knights as a means of keeping their kids safe while they were out doing something fancy, which made it all just seem like a very organized babysitting agency for those with wealth. But that did not include him, as he would sooner kill himself than be put to work looking after some spoiled rich kid.
And so, it was quite easy to explain to someone who did not know who he was why Griswold spent so much time around the poorest region of the country, helping those that could not help themselves. Whether it was with something simple like shoveling and moving debris, chasing away dangerous animals and protecting livestock and workers on a local orchard, making sure raiders did not get any ideas by prematurely convincing them to go somewhere else, the works. Today, he once again found himself working in Hage, continuing the work he begun some weeks ago. Shortly after becoming a magic knight, he had already been around for a couple of days, doing his best to fix some of the damage caused by the shattering. While most buildings and houses were still standing, some of them had taken such structural damage that living or being inside of it was hazardous. Because there were not a lot of places that they could go, looking into the rebuilding process was quite an important thing to get right.
Still, the amount of real help that came from the capital was not all that extensive. Aside from a few random faces from equally random magic squads that appeared for a whole day before disappearing forever, there really was not a whole lot of help. And as much as Griswold wanted to stick around and help with the entire process, he could only manage to pop in once every couple of days before he had to move out again to do his work in other towns and villages. Even now, as he pulled a heavy cart filled with debris away from the building he and a bunch of others townsfolk had begun tearing down so they could restore the parts that could still be saved, he thought about all of the other things he had done that had been for the sake of these very people. Most recently, that had been the task he had undertaken in a strange castle that had just popped out of the ground like a mushroom, making the surrounding lands sick while slowly spreading its foul miasma further and further. If not stopped, chances were that it would have moved out of the fringe and into the forsaken realm. And if there was one thing these farmers could not use, it was their livestock dying and produce withering.
So even if these people would never know all of the things that he was doing for them because they could not actually see him do it, that did not mean that he was not working for their sake whenever he went out of bed in the morning and took on a new task. Whether it was taking care of some spooky old fortress, bands of roving Goblins, Trolls snatching up people they did not like and planned on eating, even wargs and werewolves making the local forests unsafe, it was all part of his job as a self-proclaimed protector of peasants and commoners such as himself, save for the fact that they barely had any mana whereas he had plenty to spare. Emptying the debris onto the pile, Griswold returned to Hage with a now empty cart, preparing for another round of hauling broken stonework, chairs, tables and anything else that had been broken beyond repairs. While it was not the fanciest or bravest of jobs, it was something that had to happen, and Griswold understood that much quite well.
Post by Jordan Alexius Stark on Apr 15, 2021 0:58:03 GMT -5
It was a beautiful day within the kingdom of Clover, more specifically it was a good day within the noble region. Jordan would wake up very early that day so that he could bathe and prepare to set out on his mission. He along with several other magic knights were being sent out to various towns and villages to help provide the citizens with assistance. These missions were normally given to only the newest of magic knights, however it was a job that still had to be completed and Jordan was fine being one of the people to do it.
After Jordan had bathed and packed his bag, he would go to receive his location for the mission. Looking upon a board with all the new recruits and their location assignments, Jordan would quickly see his name and find that he was to be going to the village of Hate. From what Jordan knew Have was a very small town, and was now possibly even smaller than it was since being ravaged by the war that had taken places not long ago. The Forsaken Region always had it hard, and they barely ever got the proper help they needed from the rest of the kingdom. You could say that’s why the region was known as forsaken…
Once seeing where he was assigned to go Jordan’s face would convert to that of a frown as he questioned how he was to get to Have seeing as he had never been before. Jordan had only ever traveled from his hometown of Babel a handful of times before joining the magic knights, he had left the Noble Region even fewer times than that, So for Jordan getting to the Forsaken Region and the village of Hate would be a hard one indeed.
Jordan would then head out making use of a map to find his way to his destination. Jordan knew how to get from the Noble Region all the way to the edge of the common region, due to the few times he had left the region. However once he got to the edge of the common region the map would be fundamental in him finding his way to Hage. From the time he was leaving at Jordan estimated the trip would take him a few hours, however he should arrive there around midday. That would give him plenty of time to still assist the people of the village.
After 2 U turns, 3 reroutes, and a lot of getting lost Jordan would finally make his way to Hage. It was now shortly after midday meaning all that getting lost did impact his timing but that wasn’t an issue. Jordan would immediately get to work helping the people of the village as soon as he had gotten there. He started by helping a family of farmers with their livestock, he then went on to help a shopkeep restock his store, before finally helping 2 kids get their cat out of a tree. It was at this point when Jordan would decide to take a break and eat a bit of food.
He sat down in the grass next to the road, not far from the tree where he saved the cat. As he would sit there eating his bit of rations he would see a man walking with a cart. Jordan assumed he was a person who lived in the town so he thought that he should offer his help. Jordan would put his food back in his back and throw the bag over his shoulder as he took off with a speedy jog to catch the man.
“SIR!” Jordan would yell as he took off after the man. Jordan without a doubt would catch up and he when he did he would take in the man’s appearance up close. The gentleman was well built and wore the mantle of the Crimson Lions. This was Jordan’s first time meeting a member of the Crimson Lions, and he actually thought of them to be his favorite squad besides his own of course. Once realizing his error Jordan would look to the man and say “Sorry I thought you were somebody who lived here and needed help. I didn’t see your magic knight mantle from back there. I’ll still be glad to help if you like Mr…?” This was Jordan’s way of inquiring the man’s name. Hopefully he would get the answer to his question, and hopefully this man wasn’t gonna give Jordan a hard time for the mistake.
Looking around at the pile of rubble and debris that had no real purpose after all of the useful bits had been taken out, Griswold pushed the cart away from the pile as he pondered on everything that still needed to happen. With the handful of people that always seemed to come in whenever he was around, which was limited to the kids that were of age and had received their grimoire, men that were not yet too old and women that were fairly husky and could lift some weight without getting injured, he figured it would still be several months before everything in Hage was back in order. What with everything that still needed to be torn down properly, what needed to be repaired and what actually needed to be rebuilt from scratch, there was clearly enough work to go around. Because even once they had done all that they had been able to do by salvaging the pieces they could use and removing the stuff that had lost all value due to the shattering, there were still things that needed to happen that were entirely out of their control.
One such thing was the fact that they needed to get several shipments of repurposed materials from other places across the forsaken realm and the common realm. This was because the village was not wealthy enough to just go around ordering whole shipments of new bricks and stone from any of the quarries scattered across the clover country. Only the larger buildings that served a purpose aside from just housing a single family that were well and truly important to the welfare of the whole town got that kind of treatment while homes had to be rebuilt using less expensive materials. The downside was that, while it was way cheaper, it had to all be salvaged in a way similar to the work they were doing right now, meaning it took quite a bit of time. So when someone approached him and called him Sir, he looked over to see a kid that was most likely some other magic knight rookie that had come from the royal capital to do a bit of charity work among the commoners and peasants. Asking him who he was without actually stating his name, the elven mage raised his brow as he looked him over properly.
“You know kid, usually when people inquire as to the name of the person they’re speaking to, they would first offer their own name. Though it might not seem like it at time when people look out of their ivory towers in the capital to peer across the open fields of the forsaken realm, but we do know what the proper social etiquette is here.”
Even though it could be considered as being snapped at, the magic knight was actually teaching him a valuable lesson with regards to etiquette. A lot of people seemed to really value that stuff down south, and might even refrain from speaking to someone for not abiding by it in a proper fashion. However, all the way up north in Hage, the people were not all that hard on that kind of stuff, though they still appreciated knowing the name of the one who asked to know theirs. And for good reason. It just seemed like the more dignified way of going about things, which was why he would always go about making himself known whenever he could. Looking away from the kid for a moment to kick away a loose rock that was keeping one of the cart wheels locked in place, he freed the thing up so he could get moving again, only to hear something peculiar regarding his mantle. The weird thing being that he was not wearing one, as it seemed that the Crimson Lions were just about the only magic knight squad in the kingdom that did not actually utilize such means of standing out from the crowd.
“Well, at least your eyes haven’t deceived you on the matter of the mantle, on account of me not wearing one, ever. Though you’re right in assuming that I’m a member of the Crimson Lions.”
Lifting the handles of the cart back up, the thing once again rested on its wheels and on Griswold’s shoulders. But seeing as how the cart was empty, it really did not weigh a whole lot, making it fairly easy for him to haul the thing back to the worksite. Figuring the other knight would likely follow him since he made it clear that he wished to help out around town, he might end up getting shocked at the amount of actual labor there was to be done. Old, broken walls needed to be bashed out with sledgehammers, materials that had not actually been broken or damaged such as bricks or unbroken beams of wood had to be salvaged and stacked in an appropriate location so someone could do inventory on the things they had to work with, and some buildings actually had to come down altogether once the useful bits had been sorted out. So at just about every moment imaginable, there was more than enough debris to haul and not enough hours in a single day to do it in.
“Regardless, the name is Griswold. Griswold Cromwell. So if you want to go ahead and bust out some walls with a sledgehammer and shoveling or hauling debris, I imagine the townsfolk will be quite welcoming to the notion.“
As he had already pondered on before, plenty of people came from the royal capital to check in on Hage and do a bit of manual labor for a few hours before they were never seen again. Whether this guy would just be another one of those people or not was not something he’d be able to tell based on just a single day. After all, among the others that had come before him, there were also a select few who seemed like they were actually here because they wanted to make a difference. But he had been wrong about all of them, as none of them ever really returned after spending a sunny afternoon out in the countryside. Funnily enough, you’d never meet one of those guys during the rainy season or in the middle of the winter months. It went to show that even charity work had limitations.
Post by Jordan Alexius Stark on Apr 17, 2021 13:46:04 GMT -5
The man came back with a rather strong response indeed. He stated that someone should give their name before requesting the name of another person. It was a true enough statement indeed. Jordan was taken back a bit and embarrassed when the man then began to speak on etiquette, and how even people out in the Forsaken Region had it. It was at this point Jordan began to assume that this man was from the Forsaken Region, and most likely a commoner. Jordan could only hope his actions hadn’t offended the man.
After a few brief moments the man would also make a comment on what Jordan said about his magic knight mantle. He said that his eyes hadn’t deceived him but you could tell it was sarcastic because they clearly had. The man had no magic knight mantle to speak of but for whatever reason the young man’s eyes said otherwise. Jordan would once again feel embarrassed. So far since he had approached the man he had looked more and more foolish, hopefully this wouldn’t be an on going thing of theirs.
The gentleman would begin to continue his walk down the road, and of course Jordan would follow him. As the two walked the man would give his name stating that his name was Griswald. The man even went as far as to give his last name… Griswald Cromwell was the name of the man, to the ears of Jordan such a name rang out with power and authority or maybe it was just the power of the man’s voice. The man would continue on to say that if Jordan helped haul debris or destroy the remains of long gone structures, the towns folk would certainly appreciate it.
Jordan would nod his head and say “Sure that sounds fine! Im ready and willing to help. So come on and lets get to it.” As the two walked down the road making their way to gather more debris to put on the cart, Jordan would hear a familiar voice call out. “YOUNG MASTER! YOUNG MASTER!” The voice yelled out from a distance. Jordan would go to turn around and see where the commotion was coming from. As he turned he saw one of the people who worked in his family’s lab back home, it was actually his family’s personal assistant Kenji who was calling out to him and currently running towards the young boy.
Kenji was a very polite foreigner, who had worked for Jordan’s family for some time. The man was always very helpful, and he was also very talented with a sword. Jordan could easily tell it was Kenji as the man hadn’t ever changed his clothes in the almost year his family had known him. The most standout piece of his clothing was his green and black haori, and his very ornate earrings.
Jordan would stop right in his tracks when he saw Kenji running trying to catch up to them. Once Kenji caught up he would wipe the traces of sweat from his brow quickly before bowing before Jordan as a sign of respect. Jordan quickly got embarrassed as he was not used to people acting like this with him since his departure from his family’s estate. “Kenji there’s no need for that.” Kenji would quickly raise his head back up and say “My apologies young master, however I have great news to share with you.” Jordan looked confused as to what Kenji could be talking about and so he motioned to the man to speak, so that he could hear exactly what was going on.
Kenji would look to Jordan as he was about to begin speaking and realized that he was already traveling with another individual, that he had never seen before. Kenji would quickly clutch the hilt of his sword, that hung down his side secured by a very large white belt. “Young master, is this man a friend of yours? If not I ca~~~” Jordan would quickly interject by saying “No Kenji stop! He is a magic knight like me, he means neither of us harm.” The swordsman would release the grip he had on his weapon and let off a grin as he closed his eyes. “As you wish young master I shall not harm this man… Well seeing as this man is a magic knight you two must be on a mission of sorts I assume?” Jordan would look to him and say “Yeah you could say that… but lets not waste time standing here anymore lets keep going.” The swordsman would agree before the two would begin to keep walking believing Griswald would be right in tow.
“Sorry to break it to you there Kenji, but you wouldn’t have been able to harm me even if you tried. Unless you’re really foul mouthed and mean and meant to hurt my feelings with harsh words. In which case, you might have succeeded in doing some harm.”
Speaking in a joking manner as he just kept his eyes on the road ahead of him, the crimson lion did not exactly feel the need to even address this person any further. Still, it would have been a nice change of pace to see whether or not this guy would actually have been capable of hurting him. But regardless of the outcome, he imagined the attempt itself would likely have been fun for a while, at least up until the moment came where he’d have to put an end to the fight and get back to doing the work he still had laid out ahead of him. At times, he welcomed the option of cutting loose for a bit to put people with big mouths in their place, but rarely got the chance to do such a thing because he had to think about how it would reflect on his squad. Even though Griswold was really not the violent kind at all, his past month and a half of being a magic knight had shown a lot of things that forced him to reconcile a great deal of the issues he felt towards his actual job.
At first, it had been hard to kill any wolves as they were just animals that were looking for something to eat, especially since their own territory had been taken away by an evil hag. However, after his attempts at scaring them away had led up to livestock getting hurt and people almost losing their lives because of it, he had been able to make the switch to where he decided the lives of the many outweighed the lives of the few. When he had been confronted by a roving band of Goblins for the first time, he knew of their cunning and depravity due to reputation, though he still did not want to kill them. As a result, a fellow magic knight had gotten injured before all of them had been murdered. So the next time he would come face to face with Goblins, he would once again change his point of view by taking them out before more people could get hurt or even killed because of them. And those were just two examples of things that had pushed him to “grow up” in very little time at all.
Still, for someone who had already lost so much at his age, Griswold believed himself to be a pretty cheerful guy, or at least cheerful enough not to be a bummer who brought everyone around him down. When he thought it about it, most of the people in Hage seemed to enjoy having him around, though he couldn’t tell whether this was about his disposition or because of the amount of work he did for them. Deciding not to ponder on it for too long as he often came to dislike the results, he continued moving the cart towards the village. Listening to the two of them talking to one another, it was clear that there was a kind of master and underling kind of deal going on there, which was not exactly the kind of thing he enjoyed. But that said, it seemed that this kind of relationship was quite common here in the land of clover, and likely in the other nations too. But as things were, Griswold was himself a foreigner who hailed from a small settlement within the fringe.
His people were not the kind that had such relations at all. There, you were either a child, a student, a farmer, an elder or a hunter or huntress. Because the place was self sufficient, they had no need for trading with others, and so kept their location a secret for the most part. And because everyone knew everyone and the work they did, there was never a need for currency as everyone was respected for their contribution towards the well-being of everyone who lived within the boundaries of that place. There was no need for anyone behaving like they were better or lesser than someone else, which was something that he imagined would only work on a small scale. When living in a nation as massive as the land of clover, there would probably always be a system of nobles reigning over the commoners and peasants as the dominant force. So as weird as it always seemed to him, the whole leader and follower system would probably not be going anywhere any time soon either. Relieving himself of a deep sigh, he looked towards the town ahead of them.
“You know, instead of arguing whether or not I wished you any harm or apologizing for this or that, one of you might have considered pushing the cart for a bit. But don’t mind me, I’ll just behave like an ox and keep tugging away at this old thing by my lonesome.”
Again, he spoke mostly in a joking manner, one that could easily be taken the wrong way by either of the two men. In spite of that, he did not really care either way as they were pretty much already at their destination. Already seeing the people standing in the street and awaiting his arrival, it seemed that there was plenty more rubble to haul out of the village and back to the heap. Putting the cart down next to another pile of rubble that was as good as ready to be heaved into the cart and hauled over to the heap along the main road, Griswold wandered over to the group of people who casually greeted him. As things were, most of the people there had no idea that he was even a magic knight to begin with, which was one of the benefits that came with being a crimson lion. No mantle meant being capable of moving around as your average commoner, which made people less on edge or fearful of overstepping. Once the group dispersed to go back to work, Griswold turned his attention to the two new arrivals.
“Depending on how strong you are, there are a few walls that need to be knocked down carefully as we want to recycle as many of the bricks as we possibly can. If you’re not incredibly strong or anything like that, there is plenty of work collecting and cleaning the bricks from the walls that have already been laid out. And when I say clean, I mean removing the dried up concrete from either sides and putting it on the “clean” pile over there.”
Figuring the two still had something that needed to be discussed since the man came running just to find the boy, it was likely that they’d head over to take part in the same task, which worked out quite well. Many hands made light work, at least that was something his father used to say when people came to help tend to the garden. Whether that was the same when it came to people who seemed to be new to construction sites and the dangers that came along with it was something that remained to be seen. Still, with him around and the boy himself being a magic knight too, there probably weren’t going to be any accidents today that couldn’t be prevented.
Post by Jordan Alexius Stark on Apr 18, 2021 22:30:48 GMT -5
As the three would begin to walk again after their small exchange, Griswald would have something to say about the incident. He would tell Kenji that the man had no chance in harming him even if he wanted to. The young swordsman simply smiled as he would say “Thats fine that you wish to believe such a thing… the young master said you are a friendly and so I will not raise my sword to you under any circumstances.” Jordan let out a sign of relief that Kenji responded in such a way. The man would also say how Kenji would have better odds hurting him emotionally rather than physically, although Griswald said it all in a almost passive aggressive but jokingly way.
Griswald would continue pushing the cart and the town was now within their grasp, which meant it was almost time to get back to work. However around this time Griswald would make his way to open his mouth and give another jokey remark saying that the two could have wasted less time talking or rather arguing. And instead they could have helped the man push the cart. The thought did cross Jordan’s mind at some point earlier however he figured that Griswald pushing the cart was the best thing to be done. Jordan himself was probably far too weak, and Kenji was a great fighter but raw strength was also something he lacked a bit.
Regardless the older man didn’t seem to have much of a problem seeing as he too said this in a joking manner. After a few moments they would all arrive at a sort of central area for the people helping to work on the town. It seemed that from right here it mattered not what angle you turned to look at, there was at least one person doing some type of work around. Granted a large majority of the people here working were towns folk but still a good turn out regardless.
The older gentlemen would then begin to tell the two of all the jobs that they could come help with at the current time. The first job Griswald said was to help demolish walls, most likely using tools of some sort. However this wasn’t gonna work because neither Jordan or Kenji had the raw strength required for such a thing. Gris would then say there was a job for those who weren’t as strong. All one had to do was clean the dried concrete off both sides of the bricks from the demolished walls.
“Hey so quick question can I call you Gris for short since your name is Griswald? Yeah imma call you Gris, but listen Gris I’m not gonna lie to you and I also don’t wanna look like a weakling however I’ll be cleaning the concrete off the bricks because I’m not strong enough to be breaking walls down… I’m a magical scientist not really big on activities of physical strength.” Kenji would look at Jordan and smile before saying “Dont worry sir we shall remove the concrete from the bricks together!!” And without any hesitation Kenji would grab Jordan and would rush off towards the pile of bricks that needed to be cleaned.
Hours would pass and the pile of bricks that needed to be cleaned versus the clean ones was very clear.With seemingly all the bricks done the two were now tired beyond a doubt. As the two sat on the ground where the bricks used to sit Kenji would look to Jordan and say “Sir that was possibly almost as hard as my first day working for you and your family in the lab.” Jordan would look at Kenji as if he was crazy before getting up and saying “Nah working for my mom is most surely worst than this.” The boy would then make his way back to where Griswald was so he could see what else the two could potentially do.
“Well I guess we’ll never know now will we, lapdog man.”
Sending out another zinger to the man who believed that he could take him on in a fight, it did make Griswold wonder as to how good he was with his hands or weapon, and if he could actually utilize any magic or not. But regardless of that, he had not come here to fight and maybe break more stuff in the process, as that would be rather counter productive to the task he had came here to do. For the time being, he would stop picking on the guy and just focus his attention towards the work at hand, which was clearly much more important than figuring out which of the two male egos was worth more, and who could actually back up their claims if they were to come to blows. In truth, it was a blow that he himself would be able to get over, as he really had nothing to prove here.
So once they all went to work and the two men decided that they were better suited for cleaning jobs, they began polishing the bricks and removing the leftover cement from them. They had been knocked clean out of the wall they used to be in, so there was bound to be residue or just whole chucks of the stuff attached to them somewhere. So whether or not these guys were going to be showing up again sometime soon once this particular day had come to an end, that was something that remained to be seen, though one thing was good at least. While they were here, they seemed to at least be focused and committed to doing their work for the people of Hage, which was already more than could be said for most of the knights that chose instead to do their work in the noble region, feeling too good to come down here and get their hands dirty with a bunch of peasants.
If they would actually keep things up as they were, chances were that he wouldn’t actually have to do that kind of work today, so he and some others could just focus on the removal of wooden beams from the top down before taking out pieces of wall and floor. After all, working from the ground up was something you’d only see in cartoons, as it was not exactly the way to create a very safe work environment for everyone involved. So for the next couple of hours, work went almost exactly as he had imagined. The downsizing of buildings went relatively quickly now that there were people working on cleaning up the bricks, meaning nobody had to stop deconstructing the place in order to make sure the place would not get stacked up on all sides with dirty, lumpy bricks. Due to the amount of work they did, they could not exactly work all through the night, as doing so would keep the children awake until far past their bedtimes.
Even if the children themselves would likely not mind, no one was looking forward to any angry parents telling them they had to lay things down for the day. Luckily, most of the citizens were far too grateful to actually open their mouths and say a bad word to them, though that was not a free pass for them to just do whatever they pleased. After all, doing something because they knew they wouldn’t get scolded while being aware of the detrimental effect it would have on their environment, that was just a form of lesser evil in it’s own right. At least, that was how Griswold personally considered it. So after they worked their asses off for several hours, everyone slowly turned in their gear and tools before heading off towards the local tavern one by one. In the end, only Griswold remained along with the two new arrivals. Just as he was about to ask the two if they were also headed to the tavern or if they were staying, he was posed with a question instead.
“Getting awfully comfortable aren’t we? But I imagine Gris works fine for me. One thing though, the name is Griswold, WOLD. That said, are you guys headed over to the tavern too or are you planning on heading back home? I’m asking because the tavern is cheap, and the roads leading up to the royal capital can be quite dangerous at night.”
Post by Jordan Alexius Stark on Apr 23, 2021 20:11:22 GMT -5
Griswold had asked the duo if they intended to stay or go to the tavern with every else who had helped in the repair efforts.Kenji looked at Jordan as the young teenage boy would sit with his hand on his chin for a few brief moments. He would then look up to Griswold and say “Yeah I don’t actually think I can go can I? I am only 15 but I’m not sure if me being a magic knight makes me get an exception. However I’m not really interested in drinking as booze kills your brain cells and as a scientist I need all the brain cells available to me.” Kenji would look to Griswold and bow before he would say “I shall see to it that young master gets back to his housing unit safely.”
The two would then begin to walk off making their way back to the Noble region under the cover of night. As the two would walk Kenji would look at Jordan and say “Where are we heading young master?” Jordan would look back to his friend and say “Back to my squad’s base, so we can get some rest. I have some inventions I want to work on tomorrow.”
“Alright, do whatever you feel like doing. At the end of the day, it’s your choice whether you’d want to come and sit in the tavern. After all, they serve more than just alcohol you know. There’s probably plenty of cold water, milk or maybe even orange juice depending on how well the harvest went from this years’ orchard haul.”
Not being much of a heavy drinker himself either, the only alcoholic beverage that he actually cared for was mead, a drink very few places here actually managed to get right. There was either too much alcohol in it that killed off most of the actual flavor, barely contained any honey if at all to give it that sweet and smooth extra softness or too much of it which made it go down one’s throat like some kind of starch. Of all the places he had visited up until now, Hage was one of the few places that actually managed to get it right, as well as a tavern in Kiten that seemed to have found the perfect blend between honey and alcohol, making it much better than the one they served here. Still, for a town that had as little money to spend as Hage and as few resources to work with, they gave places like the royal capital a run for their money for sure, and that was saying something.
He knew that the city of nobility and royalty, the actual seat of power within the clover country, would have a lot of pull when it came to getting the things they needed. As such, there was really no reason for them to be skimping out on things such as alcohol and getting their recipes right. While he could not be sure himself yet, it seemed that the royal port of Raque was even worse, which was something he hoped he would not have to find out about any time soon. As he was pondering on these things, it seemed that the young magic knight had made up his mind about heading back home, prompting his guardian to tell Griswold that he would be seeing his young master home safely. At times like these, it was likely a good thing that kids like him had a servant, as two targets moving along the main road were less likely to get attacked than a single one.
“Suit yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. The people around here are kind, but there are plenty of those from neighboring towns that have taken to a life of crime as highwaymen, trying to mug those venturing along the main roads at night. Can’t say that I entirely blame them for it either, most of them have kids to feed after all.”
Seeing as how the two had seemingly made up their minds on the matter, the only thing he could really do about it was raise his hand as a means of saying goodbye before making his way into the other direction. What with the two of them heading back to the capital and he himself being on his way to the tavern, he imagined that there was nothing left for them to say. That said however, it seemed rather odd for them to just walk up to him while he was at work, offer to aid him only to leave again as soon as the work for the day had been done. If there had been something they had wanted to ask him or something they needed to share, that would have been the best place to go about it. After all, discussing things during work while handling heavy beams, being at risk of falling through a weakened floor or ceiling or worse just seemed like a bad idea altogether.
Though he could not honestly say that he was going to miss them, as he already knew that they were among the kind of people that would only help one day and be gone the next. This because there was no way they’d be getting to the royal capital on foot any time soon, let alone in time for them to make their way back and help again in the morning or afternoon. As things were, the only thing that sucked about the two of them leaving was the fact that he would not get to challenge the kid’s guardian to a fight to see which one of them was actually stronger after he’d had a few pints. But it didn’t matter, he would likely see him again in the future, as was the case with most magic knights at least. With that, he made his way over to the tavern to get the first of many pints of mead, not to mention a whole lot of boasting between himself and the other workers who were involved in the construction and deconstruction activities of the day.
