18 Planning
Currently, I am sitting on my knees with my head lowered as my mother points her finger at me. She seems to be very upset that she could not find me easily. “Faith, do you know how scared your father and I were? We thought you were caught up in the commotion in the forest! From now on, you must tell us exactly where you will be going, or else you can only stay in the house!”
“I…. Mother, I was only on the other side of the village? How was I supposed to know there was going to be some kind of explosion in the forest?” I know she is blaming the right person, but I really can’t be restricted! If I have to tell her where I will be and then she goes looking for me, and I am not there, wouldn’t I be just yelling out I am doing something sneaky? “Plus, what if I want to go elsewhere than where I say I will be? Do I need to walk all the way back home to inform you?”
“Faith, that is not the point!” My mother was really starting to get mad. I normally never talk back to her, but this time I did. Only I couldn’t lose my ability to go level up. Growing stronger was very important to me at this time.
“Lilith, calm down. Faith has a point. If she said she was going to the west side of the village and wanted to go to the cliffside after a while, would you really make her come all the way home just to turn around to go back out even though she had just walked past the place?” Ah! My father is my guardian angel who came from the heavens above! He understood me perfectly!
“Sander! Are you saying you were not worried when we couldn’t find her!?” My mother turned her anger towards my father. I was actually starting to feel bad because everything was my fault, to begin with!
I watched my father shake his head and sigh as he calmly spoke. “Do you think I went around yelling Faith’s name at the top of my lungs because I was not worried? Of course, I was worried. It’s just that Faith is older now and needs to be more free. We can not just lock her up. Isn’t this why you agreed to let her out on her own?”
“Fine! But if this happens again, Faith will need to come back and tell me where she is no matter what!” I watched as my mother huffed and walked towards the kitchen. I let out a sigh of relief and made a silent promise to be more careful.
With things seemingly settled, I went to stand up only to have a big hand clasp onto my shoulder. I looked up at my Father, who had a serious expression on his face, and suddenly had a big chill run down my spine. “Let’s go outside and talk, shall we?”
I could only nod my head. I had no idea what he wanted to say, but I knew I should be ready for anything. I followed my Father to the back yard where he sat on a log we used as a bench to sit around the small campfire we had in the middle of the yard. He patted the spot next to him, telling me to sit down. I could only comply and wait for what he was about to say.
“Tell me, what did you run into in the forest?” My father’s words were like a bomb going off. But I somehow did expect this.
“I….” Expecting and knowing how to answer were two different things. I was at a loss for words. I did not know if I should tell the truth or what.
“Faith, I already know you were the one in the forest. I spotted your footprints when I went to investigate and even cleaned them up for you. I am not telling you you can no longer go into the forest, but you fought with something that required you to use excessive force.
“Don’t think just because I am not around that I do not know anything. You have to remember you got your dragonkin blood from me. I have heightened senses and see much more than you think. Even the smallest trace of your scent will not escape my nose. I only faked not being able to find you in order to allow you to return on your own. So tell me, what did you run into?” I was completely shocked that my father was able to tell so much just from my scent and footprints. I couldn’t help but purse my lips and give him a look that said this is not fair. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
Sadly, I could only sigh and tell him the truth. “It was a skeletal tiger, a scourge.”
“I see…. But that should not have been the reason you had used such force, so tell me what else happened.” I was starting to wonder if both my parents were some kind of heroes before having my brother and me. I knew this was not the case since they both grew up in this village but still. They always seemed to see right through me! But then again, I guess they wouldn’t really be my parents if they did not know their own kids. So I went ahead and told him the truth as to what happened. Leaving out the evolution stone, of course, and changed things here and there.
“I see… So the scourge seemed to have some unique power to reanimate into a more powerful monster, which caused you to have to use a few intermediate tier spells….” My father paused as if he was in deep thought before continuing. “Faith, never tell your mother about this. You would be banned from going into the forest.”
I was surprised by my father’s words. I was waiting for him to outright stop me from going into the forest once he knew I actually went there. “You’re not going to punish me?”
“Punish you for what? Saving the village? While it may be dangerous in the forest, monsters like scourges rarely appear and would take much more than a single little girl to kill. But you did it on your own. While the force you used was excessive, you still managed to keep yourself safe as well as the village. To be honest, you would be regarded as a hero if you were not demi human. But because you are, we have to keep things quiet, or things will get complicated. Faith, I want you to know I am very proud of you. Even while in danger, you thought about the safety of others first. You could have just run to the village, but you didn’t.” My father pulled me into a hug and kissed the top of my head. I could feel his warmth sinking into my heart. My father was someone who always said what was on his mind and never lied, so I know he was not just saying these things to try to make me feel better.
“But Faith, from now on, you must be extra careful. Do not go into the forest too deep. Also, stay near the western edge. Most villagers do not go there. If you wish to keep going there to train, you need to make sure you do not bring too much attention to yourself. Also, if you run into anything that you can not fight, run to the village whether you bring the monster here or not. Your safety takes priority above all else. I will handle the backlash.” My father rubbed my head and stood up. “Let’s go inside and try to pacify your mother, or I might need to sleep outside tonight….”
I couldn’t help but giggle at my father’s words. Not just because they were funny but because they were true. He has had to sleep outside many times because he angered Mother. But I now have a sense of relief. I thought I would be banned from going to the forest, but now I had my father’s permission. This meant I could continue to level up.
I spent the rest of my day sucking up to my mother, trying to brown-nose my way into her good graces again. It was not until after dinner that she finally came around. After so much excitement for one day, I was happy in the end, things turned out okay.
As I lay in bed, I began planning out what I would do for training the next day. I had so much I needed to do, and I was starting to feel like I was rushing things a bit too much. But when I thought about what might happen in the future, I couldn’t help but begin squeezing in everything I could. I decided to section my day off between leveling and practicing magic. So far, with my mana trickle, my stats were indeed increasing like before. So I could only wait until they were finally capped to use any status points. To be honest, I actually saw no need to use these points as of now since I could get free points just from leveling and letting my mana trickle. As for the skill points, I did not know what to use them for at this time. I figured, like my status points, I would use them when I needed them.
This way, when I finally go off on my own, no matter where I am, I will always have the ability to pick up any trade no matter what I end up doing to make money. I wanted to leave any and all options open for the future.
As for evolution, I was still thinking about that. I have been looking at the evolution trees, and they seem to be very enticing on many levels. Mainly the special traits. The Dragnoid evolution line was quite good, from partial and full transformations to fire breath in both forms to even evolving later on into Grand Dragnoid that was able to use more than just fire breath. From there, the evolution lines branched out to many different dragon lines, but they were all blurred out. I could only see the next line which was Grand Dragnoid. But what I noticed was that to evolve into a Grand Dragnoid I would need ten evolution stones. I felt a chill just thinking about needing to fight monsters as strong as the wrathful scourge. I could only hope I did not run into such beings again any time soon.
As I was falling asleep I decided to first look for a hidden place to train tomorrow before I began my new routine.