I woke up this morning with a hangover. My head was pounding, and I was sick to my stomach. Then I realized detoxification magic might be able to cure these symptoms. By the lord’s will, it worked! My headache and nausea were gone. This was going to be very useful when I began drinking when I was older. What a game changer, not having to worry about hangovers was going to be nice.

  Despite the cloud cover, it wasn’t too cold outside, which was nice as it was time to meet up with Renna. I bid farewell to my parents and left the house. To my surprise, I was the first one at our meeting spot. Usually, I was the one who was late, so I sat down.

  I’m not sure how much time passed, but I was beginning to get impatient. Had Renna forgotten about our talk last night? We were going to meet here and hang out!

  She drank as much as I did. Maybe she’s not feeling well enough to come out?

  As I was debating what to do, I heard a cough and looked over to see Renna coming over. She didn’t look so good. She was moving sluggishly. That explained why she was late; she was getting over the symptoms of a hangover and didn’t have magic to heal her. It was time to be the hero.

  “Hey Thorian, sorry I’m late,” Renna mumbled.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said as I walked over to her. I placed my hand on her forehead and cast detoxification. A moment later, her droopy eyes widened, and her stance straightened.

  “What did you do?” Renna asked. Her earlier tone was now full of energy.

  “I cast detoxification. This morning was the first time I got to use that spell in a useful manner as I had to use it on myself as well.”

  “That’s useful,” Renna said. She walked over to a tree and sat down.

  I sat down next to her. I’m glad she didn’t seem to be in the mood to spar, because I wanted to take it easy today. “Hey, have you heard of the Arcaneum University?”

  “You talked about it a bit last night. Still thinking about whether to go?”

  “Yeah, it wouldn’t be for a few years at least. I was wondering what you were planning on doing once you’re older.”

  “That’s easy,” Renna said. She pounded her chest with her fist. “I’m going to be an adventurer. I want to explore the world and see what a dungeon is like. I don’t think a school would be right for me.”

  “I understand, you want to forge your own path,” I said. Well, I was going to ask her if she’d be interested in going with me to the university. No point now, she was set on this one. “I noticed you’re carrying a sword today, any reason why?”

  “My instructor said it was time for me to walk around with a real sword. Don’t worry, I’ll bring the wooden one when we spar,” Renna stood up and unsheathed her sword. It was small, custom made to fit her current size. “Isn’t it great?”

  “It looks awesome!” Her excitement spread to me. It was cool to see her carrying a sword. A part of me wondered if it was irresponsible to let a ten-year-old carry a sword. Then again, I could use magic and there was no way to restrict that, so what did I know?

  “I have a second sword, one that I’ll use when I’m fully grown. For now, this one will be with me wherever I go,” Renna sheathed her sword.

  Before I could say anything else, I felt a raindrop. I looked up to see the clouds had grown dark and more rain came down, much more. I didn’t think it was supposed to rain today. Why did I think that? I’m not sure, probably optimism. Rain was always such a drag, and it was starting to really come down.

  “Don’t move,” I said and created cover with earth. The rain was no longer able to get us. This was the nice thing about magic, I could make cover wherever I was and remove it just as quickly. “We can stay under this for now.”

  A mischievous grin spread across Renna’s lips. “Or we could use this opportunity to head into the forest.”

  “Have you ever entered?” I liked the idea of going in, especially since it was raining. Surely Damon would be fine with it since Renna is an intermediate swordswoman. She wasn’t as strong as Damon, but that shouldn’t matter.

  Renna shook her head and sighed. “My parents say there is no point. I’ve wanted to sneak in there for a while now. Come on, we should go as a team!”

  If I get caught again, I’m sure I’d be supervised. The rain was coming down hard enough that the odds of anyone seeing them enter the forest would be unlikely. Renna looked excited, and how could I deny her the chance to test her skills against monsters?

  “Let’s go,” I removed the cover and ran forward. Renna shouted at me to wait up, but I didn’t slow down. She was quicker than me and caught up and punched my right shoulder. “What was that for?”

  “Not stopping when I asked you to,” Renna said. Her red hair was soaked, yet even I couldn’t miss the gleam in her eyes as we started climbing the hill to the forest.

  This was the risky part. Last time I was caught entering the forest. I turned around and realized there was no chance anyone could see us. It was hard to see further than a football field. No one was in sight. We were in the clear.

  We stopped at the entrance of the forest. The rain was still falling hard. My clothes were soaked. Zena and Damon were probably wondering why I wasn’t coming home. My excuse would be that I was training with Renna.

  I took a step to enter and realized Renna hadn’t moved. “Something wrong?”

  “It feels… weird? I don’t know how to describe it.”

  Ah, that’s how it felt for me. I’d been in enough times that I forgot about that feeling. “You’ll get used to it, unless you want to head back?” I teased. As expected, Renna frowned and walked in first.

  We couldn’t have walked for more than a few minutes when the first monsters showed up. Shadow wolves came rushing through the forest. Instead of the usual two to four that were in a pack, there were nine.

  Renna was quick to react. She unsheathed her sword and slid her blade through the first shadow wolf’s throat. Blood splashed onto her as the shadow wolf died. She quickly ducked to avoid a shadow wolfs leap and plunged her blade into its chest. She slid her blade across, before jumping forward to lop the head off another.

  Two of the shadow wolves turned their attention from her to me. Not that I had planned on watching Renna kill them all anyway. I created a stone bullet and launched it the moment the first shadow wolf jumped. The stone bullet connected with its chest, blowing a large hole through it.

  The second one had jumped at the same time, so I created a single earth spike that caught it in its stomach. I quickly finished it off with a stone bullet and turned to assist Renna, except all the shadow wolves were dead. She took her sword out of the last one’s skull. She was drenched in their blood.

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  “I’m not sure how to explain this,” Renna said as she looked over herself. The rain wasn’t as heavy in the forest.

  “I can use magic when we’re done,” I said. Hopefully I could get the blood stains out, if not… Well, that’ll be a problem for later. It was best to remain focused. It was odd to see nine shadow wolves and this early. Damon had entered this forest earlier this week to kill them. I don’t recall him mentioning there being more monsters than usual.

  We walked deeper into the forest. As we walked, “I noticed something on the ground and grabbed Renna’s shoulder to stop her from stepping into it. This was a trap net, likely set by some nearby goblins.

  “Above us!” Renna yelled, pointing her sword at one of the trees. An arrow came flying the moment she said that.

  Without thinking, I created a barrier around us. The arrows bounced off it, and I heard goblins yelling. I lowered the barrier and saw seventeen all around us. They were smiling, with some of them licking their blades. These ones clearly didn’t know who I was, but why were there so many? In all my time coming into this forest, I’d never seen more than eight in a group.

  “Stay close to me,” I said. Renna simply nodded and shifted her stance into the Iron Guard.

  The goblins pounced. Five of them stayed back and put arrows into their bows. No, you don’t! I quickly launched an explosive fireball, catching three of them in one blast. Their screams filled the area as they burned alive. I used stone bullet to kill the last two.

  Renna engaged the goblins who rushed in close. She took the head off two with a single strike. This caused some of the goblins to hesitate. She took that opportunity to cut them down. I assisted her by creating earth spikes and skewering four.

  The rest of the goblins saw how bad the fight was going and turned to flee. I didn’t let a single one go. The remaining goblins were killed with icicles through their backs. I looked at the bodies and at Renna, who wiped some sweat off her brow. Despite all the sparring they did, she was tired. That was likely because of the difference between sparring and fighting for your life. Adrenaline was a hell of a thing, and there was no doubt Renna was filled with it.

  “We work well as a team,” Renna said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “This isn’t normal,” I said. She looked at me with a confused expression. “There are too many monsters. I don’t-”

  The last of my words were drowned out by a roar. The ground began to shake, and I turned to see a giant monster come barreling straight toward us. The monster was giant, with gray skin and a large club in its hand.

  “What the hell is a troll doing in here?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “You’ve never seen one in here before?” Renna asked.

  “Nope, we need to be careful.”

  There was no more time for words as the troll was on top of us, with its large club crashing toward us. I stretched out my hand and blasted a gust of wind between the troll’s legs. This sent me flying back. Renna was already out of the way when the club smashed the ground. Debris flew into the air and the troll looked at us with confusion, as if not understanding how we were still alive.

  I took that moment to analyze it with my magic. Unlike goblins and shadow wolves, I saw no weaknesses. That confirmed my suspicions that this monster wasn’t weak.

  What is going on? I couldn’t help thinking as I created a stone bullet. This troll was large, at least twelve feet tall. If this troll was anything like the movies that depicted them, there was no chance this thing could dodge. I let loose the stone bullet.

  I missed. The troll somehow reacted before the bullet even launched and dodged it. The troll roared and rushed me. That was when Renna came out of nowhere and struck the troll in the leg. She slid across the ground, stopped, and went to strike again when the troll moved with incredible speed and smacked her with the back of its hand.

  Renna cried out as she tumbled into a tree with a loud thwack. This troll was nothing like the ones I’d seen in movies. How could this monster be so fast? The troll looked at me and ran at me full speed. I slammed my right palm into the ground, unleashing earth spikes.

  Spikes shot out of the ground, forcing the troll to stop. He swung his club and batted the spikes aside as casually as if swinging at a fly. I ducked, sending the stone bullet I’d created behind my back to launch. This caught the troll by surprise. My stone bullet connected with his right leg, blasting a hole and causing the creature to let out a roar of pain.

  That was when Renna came rushing from the other side and slashed the troll’s left ankle. The troll roared as it lost its balance and slammed both its knees into the ground, only catching itself with its right hand.

  My next stone bullet launched, blowing straight through the monster’s skull. The trees behind it were covered in black blood and the troll collapsed. I froze for a moment as I stared at the monster. I’d never seen something so fast and strong.

  Renna was kneeling next to the dead troll, with the tip of her blade dug into the ground. I saw blood running down the left side of her head, dripping down her chin and onto the ground. Her breathing was heavy. I rushed over to her.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Y-yeah, mind healing me?” she asked.

  “Of course,” I put my hand on her and healed her wounds. The nasty gash on her head healed and her breathing came in easier. She got up and did a few stretches to make sure she was fully healed.

  “Thanks!” She said and looked over at the troll. “This thing shouldn’t be in here.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I think this area was hit with a mana storm,” Renna said. She looked up at the sky.

  I did the same but couldn’t see anything unusual. Rain was still falling, and I didn’t sense anything unusual. Elias had told me about mana storms that they could cause phenomena. Monsters could appear where they shouldn’t, dungeons could be created, landmarks and other things I couldn’t recall off the top of my head.

  Elias told me that he was caught in a mana storm that looked like a mist and anyone who touched it was randomly teleported somewhere in the world. I hoped that never happened to me. I wasn’t sure I’d survive.

  “We need to leave,” I said.

  “Agreed.”

  Whatever was going on was more than we could handle. What if there was something stronger than a troll in here? The risk of going deeper into the forest wasn’t worth it. That meant I’d have to do the one thing I hoped to avoid. I was going to need to tell Damon what was going on and he wasn’t going to be happy to hear I had gone into the forest.

  We rushed out of the forest. Thankfully, no monsters came after us. We ran down the hill at record speed. I wasn’t sure I’d ever run that fast before. I stopped once we got back into the village to catch my breath.

  “I’ll go with you,” Renna said as if reading my mind.

  “Thanks,” I said, and we headed to my house.

  When we arrived, I stopped at the front door and took a deep breath. This was going to get ugly. I opened the door.

  “About time you made it b-” Zena stopped when she saw the blood on Renna’s clothes. Crap, I’d forgotten about that.

  Damon looked over at Renna, then at me and crossed his arms. Oddly enough, I couldn’t tell if he was mad or not. Either way, there wasn’t a point in delaying the inevitable.

  “Father, let me finish before you get mad, okay?” I asked. There was no response. “Renna and I were in the forest and something strange is going on. There are a lot more monsters than there should be. Also, we fought a troll.”

  “What?” Zena nearly shouted, her face going pale.

  “Are you sure?” Damon asked and put his hand on Zena’s shoulder, giving her a gentle squeeze.

  “Yeah, we killed it, but-”

  “You both killed a troll?” Damon said, raising his eyebrows.

  “Yes sir, we fought it together and killed it. We rushed here right after,” Renna said.

  “We’ll talk about you going into the forest later. We need to gather every warrior in the village,” Damon walked over to a nearby closet and opened it. He took his sword and placed it on his hip. “Zena, stay here and keep an eye on Talia.”

  “Father, we want to help,” I said. Renna was next to me, looking determined.

  Damon looked over at us. “Neither of you will have a choice,” he said and walked out the front door.

  Whatever was going on mustn’t be good if he was telling us we had to fight. Renna and I wanted to do that anyway, but this situation must be worse than I thought. What kind of danger were we in?

  “I need to go home and let my parents know what’s going on,” Renna said.

  “Okay, stay safe,” I said as Renna ran out the door.

  “What’s going on? Are we under attack?” Talia asked, her voice quivering.

  “It’s all right,” Zena said and hugged Talia. “These things happen. You’ll be fine.”

  Were we? I walked over to the window and looked at where the forest was. There was something strange going on with the clouds. It took me a moment to realize they weren’t simple rain clouds. There was an odd color, a mixture of gray, white, black and purple. This must be what a mana storm looks like.

  Zena took Talia into her room, while I stayed and watched the clouds. There were flashes of purple that erupted from the clouds. No sound followed each flash. Silent purple flashes came from the clouds repeatedly.

  I wasn’t sure how long I stood there staring. Eventually, the front door swung open, snapping me out of my thoughts. I looked over to see Damon standing here. He looked at me with a grim expression.

  “Thorian, come with me. This mana storm has brought a lot of monsters. They’re coming toward the village. I saw some coming from the far north,” Damon said.

  The far north? My eyes widened. That was where Renna lived. Without a word, I ran past him and headed to the north.