Sitting outside the black bulls base, Griswold had spent several hours in the nearby forest in an attempt at getting some quality willow branches to bring back with him. While it might have sounded odd to some that someone like him would “waste” his time in the woods looking for sticks, it was actually something that held quite a bit of value to him. Not because he planned on selling said sticks, but because he knew that the branches of a willow were just the right amount of both sturdy and flexible to have them fashioned in to training weaponry. Having already used these practice weapons once before to teach one of his fellow black bulls the basics of wielding a sword, at least before she used her world tree magic to turn the stick into a polearm and turn transform the practice session into a spar, he felt it wise to refill his stores.

Before he would go about skinning and preparing them though, he would just leave them as they were, as relieving them off their bark would make them dry a lot faster, thus introducing the possibility of them becoming brittle before they could even be used properly. Placing them inside of an empty vat in the basement, he imagined no one would bother displacing them somewhere down the line. And if they did, they would have some explaining to do to him. Once he got back to the base that was, as he usually did not “stick” around for very long. To be precise, he was around so rarely that he hadn’t even done a damn thing to make his room even remotely feel like a home. As it was now, it was just a bed, a desk and a closet that had what little clothing he owned inside of it. So with him not needing to actually train anyone for the coming days, he was about to head back out again.

Putting his large black blade on the holster mechanism hanging from his back, he put his cloak over it, leaving only the handle of the weapon visible behind his head. Heading into town looking just about the same as ever, there was someone he was supposed to meet up with in relation to some kind of strange animal attack happening not too far from Sosshi. As a member of the black bulls, everything that happened this close to their base felt almost like a personal insult, which was why Griswold had signed himself up to deal with it himself. In spite of only being a member of the squad for a fairly short amount of time, as a resident of the place, the solar mage had always been active within the forsaken region. To him, looking after the peasants was something that came naturally to him, and it was far more important than protecting some noble up in the royal capital. A mindset a lot of people apparently did not care for, though he personally could not give a rat’s arse.

As he made his way into Sosshi, it was not long before the local guards noticed him, leading the way to where the survivor of the attack was being kept for questioning and medical attention. Upon entering the room, it was clear that this guy did not get off without any injuries, as his arm was bound and tied up entirely in bandages, just like the left side of his head. Confined to his bed as a doctor was currently cleaning a deep gash in his side, Griswold knew that he would only have so much time to get the information he needed before the man might be overexerted. So he chose to leave the pleasantries and get straight to the meat and potatoes.

“If I could have your attention for a moment, I would very much like to know where you were attacked, and what did the attacking. Once you tell me, I’ll be out of your hair and making sure it won’t be leaving anymore victims.”

For a moment, the room fell silent as Griswold awaited an answer, hearing only the moaning of the men and the sound of flesh being stitched together by the doctor. Realizing that he might not be getting his answer, he nodded at the guard so the door could be unlocked and opened, leaving him to find a trail to follow on his own. But as he wandered through the door, he heard something along the lines of an answer.

“It was… i-it was a… a bull. A large bull, walking on… on two feet…. Wielding an axe… It came at us along a fork in the main road.. killed two of us.. as well as my horse, dragged it away with it..”

Upon hearing the man’s explanation, he did not exactly know what to make out of it, as that could mean so many things, especially around these parts. Normally, when someone mentioned a bull, they were talking about a member of the black bulls squad, though Griswold knew that none of their current members were overly large and in the business of wielding a great axe, so it couldn’t possibly be that. But instead of asking any other questions, he just turned around to see that the man had sat himself up straight in his bed just long enough to provide the black bull with a straight answer.

“Thank you. You should rest now, the situation is going to be under control soon enough.”

With that, he left the building, allowing the guard to close and lock the door behind him as Griswold ventured back into the streets. While he was not exactly wearing anything reminiscent of his station as a magic knight, the people around knew him well enough to know that he had recently moved out of the mercenary business and into being a black bull. So as he passed them by, he got a fair amount of nods and waves, as well as some people asking him whether or not he was going to do something about the “phantom of the trade route”, a name they had already given to this currently still unknown beast that was plaguing merchants and travelers. Merely nodding or holding up one of his thumbs, he did not really want to dignify it with a verbal response as that would just give birth to more stories and empower their superstition. Once the beast was dealt with, they’d hear about it soon enough.

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Fully planning on leaving town and heading straight to where the creature had last been spotted, he had not exactly planned for some youngster to practically just run up to him and demand answers. Most kids his age were usually either a combination of scared, awestruck, distrusting or simply feeling like it would be disrespectful to just run up to him like that. Something he himself understood quite well, as he did not exactly have a very cute and cuddly aura about him, at times looking more like a grizzled veteran in spite of only being twenty-two years old. Wondering if the boy might be related to one of the victims or not, he knew that it wasn’t exactly common practice for a magic knight to divulge any information while they were on the job. Luckily for the boy, Griswold was not exactly your average magic knight, which was one of the reasons why they had likely put him into the black bulls.

“You’re an awfully nosy one, aren’t you?”

Continuing to move forward after he more or less gave the boy somewhat of answer that wasn’t much of an answer at all, the kid had at the very least been acknowledged. Figuring he was likely to be coming after him now that he had more or less replied, he pondered on exactly what he could be telling him that wouldn’t be a breach of trust between him and the victim he had questioned just prior to this “conversation”. Believing that it likely wouldn’t matter a whole lot what he said once they were outside the city limits, he held his tongue just long enough for them to move past the city gates and onto the open road that would lead all the way up to the royal capital.

“The victim claimed he had been attacked by a large bipedal bull wielding an axe, further along the road where it branches off into two directions. At this point, I’m intrigued more than anything, so if you’re not going to get in the way or do something stupid to get yourself hurt, you may tag along. Who knows, you might learn something.”

Speaking both in terms of learning something new about the world, like what exactly this kind of creature might be, he also meant in terms of combat. Whether it be related to tactics, magic usage or physical prowess and skill with weapons, there was a good chance the kid would learn something he did not already know by sticking along. And judging by the fact that he had a grimoire, he was at least old enough to be considered a potential recruit for the magic knight squads of Clover. That alone meant that he would more than likely be able to take care of himself to some degree, though he wasn’t sure if that meant he would be able to handle whatever kind of monster awaited them further up. As expected, the further they moved away from the town, the more Griswold became able to sense that there was something nearby. Though faint, he could just tell these kinds of things these days, and with growing accuracy too.

By the time they met the split in the road not much later, the sensation that something was out there grew to the point where he could not yet see it, but could sense that it was there with certainty. Picking up a small piece of stone from the road, he tossed it into a small grouping of trees and shrubbery a good ten meters away from the road. Shortly after, they heard a panting, as if someone was having a bit of a fit before a loud rustling was heard, followed by a tree being felled after a loud roar. Having cleaved a tree in anger, a large humanoid bull made itself known, holding a large greataxe in his hand while resting the head on his shoulder. Having never seen nor heard mentions of such a beast before, Griswold was not exactly sure what to name it, though one thought came to mind. Since he had somewhat of a spectator with him, it might be fun to have the kid tag in for a spill.

“Alright kid, you’re up. Go get it.”

Though it would more than likely come as a shock to him, it wasn’t as if Griswold was some kind of lunatic that would just toss a child to the lions. No, he had already managed to get a good read of the bullheaded man, at least enough to know that it would not be able to defeat the solar mage in battle even if it grew another set of hands and wielded a second axe. While there were still some things he did not know about it, like how much physical strength or speed it possessed, the black bull was at least confident in the thought that he would more than likely be able to outpace it if push came to shove. And with that, he would just wait for the boy to react.

Whenever he had to deal with the things most humans would refer to as monsters, Griswold always wanted to make sure of a few things. One of them being whether or not they were more beast or whether they were more man. While it sounded stupid to a lot of people, it was something he himself put a lot of thought into, as it was important to know whether such a thing acted out of base instinct or if it did so because it had planned it out, doing what it did out of malice. With it being the latter, it was far easier to convince himself that an enemy needed to be dealt with in the way he usually dealt with murderers: by relieving them of their head. In that sense, his creed was fairly simple. When killing or hurting someone else, one opened themselves up to similar treatment, or so he believed.

Finding it hard to figure out whether the beast attacked for no reason or if it had been goaded into it, it was clear that it attacking the boy was something he did out of anger. When he protected himself from the strike of the axe with something that seemed like it might be bone or ivory or something along those lines, Griswold was fairly amused as it was not something he got to see every day. Truth be told, the reason he had sent the boy in was so he could see what he was capable of in case he was sticking along for the journey, as these kinds of things usually had a habit of lasting far longer than one initially imagined they might. Having gone through his fair share of lengthy quests and missions, he had a vague feeling this was going to be one of them, and for good reason.

Monsters like these did not just come popping up out of nowhere, meaning they were either made somewhere, escaped from somewhere or had been captured elsewhere and released here to cause all sorts of issues. That said, according to the boy, he did not have any offensive qualities regarding his own magic, which limited him to the formation of a wall which this particular monster did not seem to care for a whole lot. Once the axe managed to injure the boy however, Griswold had seen all he needed to know that this was not the kind of beast that acted entirely out of instinct. While that was something he would likely get to learn more about later, there was something juvenile about it, almost as if it were trying to prove itself by killing. And obviously, that was not the kind of behavior the black bull could abide by one bit.

As it was still a beast on some level, the elven knight did not wish to take any risks, believing it would experience the least amount of pain if he were to not result to using his magic. Reaching over his shoulder and grabbing hold of the large black slab of metal, he moved in fast. With a swift downward cleave, Griswold severed the head from the beast’s body as a head, a should and an arm came falling down to the ground before the rest of the body tumbled over and hit the floor too. For what it was worth, this was not the kind of thing that made him feel even remotely good about himself, but these things needed to be done at times. Sensing that there was yet another of the beasts coming in their direction, which would likely be infuriated by one of its own kind having been killed, he sighed deeply.

“Get that wound covered up, feel free to use whatever clothing the beast had on it. It’s not like it’ll be using it anymore.”

No sooner than he had spoken those words, the second bull monster came leaping out of the bushes, holding it’s axe overhead as it came down upon him with all the weight it could put into it. Tightening his grip on his blade, Griswold went for an upward slash with his black blade as a dark magic seeped out of it. Bifurcating the creature before it even had a chance to strike it, it was likely that it had only felt a momentary pain before the blade surged through its body and lobbed its brain in half. Though not using his own magic but the one that was imparted on his weapon, one that seemed to feed off of his own mana in order to bring out the dark magic within itself to weaken those it fought, dealing with enemies of this caliber came easy to him. Or rather, it physically came easy to him, as he felt rather sad for the creatures he had been forced to kill.

But at the end of the day, this was the forsaken realm, a region within the land of clover where the poorest of the poor generally dwelled. Their lives were hard enough without roving monsters venturing across their lands and killing for what appeared to be more of a sport thing than it was about survival. Ever since he heard from the survivor that it had killed several people and chose to bring only the carcass of his horse, Griswold knew that it was not the kind of creature that ate people. Therefore, it killing them seemed to originate out of something other than survival, which was something he very much wished to get to the bottom of as soon as he could. After all, there was a chance that there were more of these creatures still coming their way. So as he waited for the boy to patch himself up, he inspected the bodies of the two monsters.

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Due to the size of the creatures, the amount of blood that pumped out of their carcasses was about as much as you could expect from the average slaughterhouse. Having gone along with Emery once to see where some of their cows went and how the whole meat industry worked, he had more or less vowed not to go back there due to the sheer amount of blood that came with it. While his line of work had more or less made him quite accustomed to the sight and even the taste of blood, that did not mean he enjoyed it. Even the fact that he had to slay these creatures without getting so much as a word out of them or being able to figure out if they could have been dissuaded from fighting somehow, it had left him in a rather melancholy mood. That said, he knew what he had to do next.

“Greetings, the name’s Griswold. Now if you’d excuse me, there’s something I need to do, so we’ll talk later.”

Wandering away from the boy for a moment and heading over to the hiding spot these creatures had come from, he had begun to dig a large hole in the ground by using his sword. The fact that it was just a massive slab of black metal meant that he could easily use it as a shovel, removing large chunks of earth with every haul. Without a doubt the boy would likely have wondered as to what it was that he was doing, after roughly fifteen minutes of digging, he came back empty handed, beginning to drag the chunks of bull man towards the hole and tossing them in. While it was not the kind of fancy grave a noble would prefer to rest in, he imagined it would be good enough for these beasts at least. After all, it was choosing between getting an actual final resting place over being left out in the sun to be pecked clean by birds and vermin, perhaps even having a skull removed and brought home as some kind of trophy.

Believing the beasts at least deserved this much, even if they had killed a bunch of people, he closed the hole back up and stomped on it a few times to make sure the first bit of rainfall would not just wash most of it away. So when he made his way back to the boy, he did not exactly mince words as he more or less got right to the point, as burying the two beasts had made quite a few leaps towards fixing his mood a bit. It wouldn’t be long before he would have forgotten all about that feeling, just as it was likely that he would just get to experience it again if they were going to be forced to put down more of them.

“With that out of the way, I imagine you might want to stick around and see if we can’t figure out where these creatures came from right?”

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[Exit]