“Anton, all your enchanted items are geared toward easing users' lives. Can you not create enchanted weapons or armors?” Oscar the mage asked.
“I can create magical weapons and armors, but I mainly focus on what I call lifestyle enchanted items. The weapons and armor that I make are usually reserved for the protection of my family.”
For a brief second, Anton and Anna reacted the same way to that comment. All the items that he gave his friends didn’t manage to save anyone of them. To be honest, Anton didn’t know if Anna blamed him for the death of their friends, but that was one thing he didn’t want to talk about with his sister because if she did, he knew that he would be devastated.
The conversation between Anton and the merchant's family finally revolved around information about him and his sister. Since there was nothing to hide, Anton readily admitted that they came from the continent of Rendindura and that during the final leg of their travel, their ship was destroyed by the Undead Coalition, and that the two of them and their father were all that was left.
“Your father? Where is he?” The merchant’s wife, Isolde, asked while everyone started looking at the two of them pityingly.
“My father went to retrieve someone in New Drennor and would then travel to Ormunda. We’ll meet there in the future,” Anton answered.
“He left the two of you!” Donald, the merchant’s teenager son, thoughtlessly exclaimed.
“The two of us are very powerful! I’m a rank five wizard, and Anton is an archmage! We can handle ourselves!” Anna shouted at the boy.
Anton patted his sister’s back, but that only caused Anna to glare at him. She then returned to memorizing her spells while Donald stared at his feet, looking abashed.
For a moment, Rimande, Oscar, and Isolde looked at the siblings in awe because of how they were already so powerful at their young age.
“Forgive my sister. Our family is still grieving deeply since we lost our friends in the wake of the destruction of our ship. As my sister said, the two of us are powerful enough to handle ourselves, and once we arrive in Ormunda, Anna will spend her days in one of the magic academies while I’ll be busy delving into the dungeons. Our family still has some relatives in New Drennor, and our father went there to retrieve them. We’ll join him once he arrives.”
“I’m sorry about my son’s blunder. Have you really reached the archmage rank? How old are you?” Rimande asked while Oscar looked shocked at the revelation about Anton’s wizardly rank.
Anton simply nodded and told the merchants that his rank was not that important to him since he was planning to immerse himself in the dungeons. He could see Rimande and Oscar looking at each other and knew that the two were probably scheming to invite him to their family fold, but that was just his supposition, but he really didn’t care about their reaction.
Soon, night arrived, and the caravan people prepared tents for everyone to rest.
“Are the roads not dangerous? Will we not encounter monsters and bandits?” Anton asked Rimande.
“The roads between the nearby villages and towns are fairly safe due to the presence of Adventurers. If bandit groups or a mob of monster form, a quest will immediately be requested in the adventurer’s guild, and then the problem or problems will be handled immediately,” The merchant answered.
A funny situation occurred. Donald and his little sister kept following Anna. Anna’s admonishment towards the teenager didn’t remove the boy’s crush, but seemed to deepen, and Donald’s little sister seemed to view Anna as an idol.
Anton then met the rest of the people from the caravan, which consisted of Rimande’s employees and guards. His guards were a group consisting of a mix of warriors and mages, but that was as far as his interest went.
At first, Anton planned for him and his sister to sleep in the carriage that he stored in his inventory, but the Rimande prepared a special tent for both of them. After dinner, which was cooked by the merchant’s chefs and was very delicious, Anton summoned his gray golem and a couple of Spirit Wolves to guard their tent.
Oscar the mage couldn’t help himself and asked questions about Anton’s summons. The only thing that he told the mage was that the summons were very powerful. When Oscar asked if he could test the summoned by casting spells on it, Anton just nodded and told him that he could use all the magic that he possessed to destroy the golem.
Everyone then went to the nearby empty field for the testing. Most of the caravan people joined as the audience and treated the challenge as some sort of entertainment.
When they were far enough away from the camp that it should not be affected by Oscar’s spells, the challenge began. There was no need for anyone to cast mage lights because the sun had not fully set yet, and everyone could see what was happening.
Oscar cast several spells toward the golem, which remained immobile as commanded by Anton, and no spell from the mage damaged his Clay Golem. The summoned was maximized, so its stats were tremendous. After several minutes of using every spell in his arsenal, trying to destroy the golem, Oscar finally gave up. Oscar and Rimande then ran to the golem to check its body for any damage, and they were shocked to find none.
Anton also had to demonstrate the golem’s strength by asking it to crush a large boulder and uproot a large tree, which, for some reason, caused Donald and her little sister to cheer and brought gasps of awe to everyone.
After that show, Anna went inside the tent prepared by Rimande for them, while Anton continued talking to the merchant and Oscar. He needed a lot of information about the kingdom of Ormunda, and the merchant was a good source of information.
He asked everything he could think of, like the specifics of its form of government, its rules and regulations that needed to be followed, things that he and his sister needed to do avoid braking any rules and violation including the most common ones that was already ignored by its citizens since they were already familiar with them, more common pricing, including the materials that once could gather inside the dungeons and more. All in all, the questioning took about three hours more.
Anton didn’t feel guilty about the length of the questioning since he had already paid for them using one of his enchanted sculptures, and the information that he received was just common knowledge. He did appreciate Rimande and Oscar’s good-natured behavior, and Anton didn’t detect even the slightest annoyance from them.
After that questioning, he entered the tent that he was sharing with his sister. Anna was already asleep, and he followed her lead. The beds that were prepared were comfortable enough, and with his summons guarding them, there were no worries that someone or something would attack them during the night. Added to that was his Pearl of the Ocean, causing a very restful sleep for the sibling.
The next day, Anton and Anna woke up early, but they were not the first ones. A lot of people were already awake, mostly the cooks and the servants, preparing everyone’s breakfast. Since the merchant and his family were still asleep and breakfast was still not ready, Anna simply started memorizing her spells while Anton returned to increasing his Assassin’s level.