The Great Crestmaster

When Aldrich was going down the stairs he heard some commotion downstairs. As he got closer he heard some of the conversation, it turned out they were talking about the Umvorax he had slain.

When he got down he saw several people, men and women surrounding the cold box he brought with him. Ayemon was standing a bit to the side of the crowd and looked at him when he came down.

"Ah, here's our brave hunter. You look fine."

"How do you like my gift?" Aldrich asked with a smirk.

"Not bad, not bad, I thought you were in need of some coin but you seem to be doing just fine. Come lets take a walk in the backyard."

When they were about to leave one of the servants turned to Ayemon, "sir we confirmed its fine."

"I told you guys its fine a long time ago. Just take it to the kitchen, tell them to make something nice and be quick about it." Ayemon ordered.

Aldrich looked as the servants hauled the box and carried it away. Then he and Ayemon walked out and around the mansion to the backyard.

Ayemon called it a backyard but it was pretty much a private park. No, it was much bigger than that there was a whole forest behind the mansion and it had a hunt house.

Apparently when Ayemon invited his friends over they would all compete in hunting the wild life in the woods.

While he was immersed in his thoughts and secretly calculating how much a mansion like this would be worth, Ayemon looked at him with a serious look on his face.

This stopped Aldrich in his tracks, he had never seen this look on Ayemon before.

"What's wrong?"

Ayemon stopped with him and sighed, "Aldrich I have to tell you something, but you have to keep your calm."

Aldrich had a bad feeling after he heard that but he still nodded, "what is it?"

"It's about what happened to Wakefield, I just received confirmation about it."

Aldrich's smiled froze, "you did? So did the news just break out?"

"No, there were already some talk about it in Ado'merin when we first set sail. I didn't say anything because they were just rumors, but now an information guild has confirmed it and sent an expert there."

"What did they find?" Aldrich asked with a ghastly smile.

Ayemon hesitated, "you don't want to know…"

"No, I do want to know." Aldrich insisted.

Ayemon closed his eyes for a moment and then he resumed, "they found the houses burned to a crisp, the bodies of the villagers were feasted upon by all manner of wild beasts. Their heads however, were stacked together into a pyramid-like structure and a wooden spike was driven into the forehead of every head."

Aldrich could see this scene in his mind with perfect clarity, the heads of men, women and children, old or young their end was the same.

They knew nothing, they were just celebrating the spring festival and the next thing they knew they were attacked and killed for no reason. Even after death they were defiled, this was a level of savagery that would boggle the mind.

"This is not the main point I wanted to tell you about."

Ayemon's voice pulled him back to reality.

"What I wanted to tell you about is that the expert found other things there. He found Kobold and gnoll corpses, more than thirty of them scattered around the village."

Aldrich was confused, "Kobolds and gnolls? What do you mean? Why would these corpses be there?"

"After verifying the signs of the attack, the expert concluded that an alliance of two tribes of gnolls and kobolds were behind the attack."

"What?" Aldrich leaked out a dumbfounded question. When he was escaping the village his log got stuck under the bridge and he had a good look at the attack.

There were no kobolds or gnolls, there were no monsters just people slaughtering other people. Could they have been lured by the smell of blood later? No that would have been a heavenly coincidence.

"Staged," the word came out choked out his mouth, "they staged it to look like that."

"Quick thinking," Ayemon praised, "they probably did. I'm a little shocked with the amount of preparations that they went so far for a tiny village, now I'm curious myself."

Ayemon looked at Aldrich in surprise, he was not shaken with anger nor was his blood boiling, he was calm. He did not do this on purpose, just a moment ago he was angry but then it looked like it just vanished.

Aldrich was indeed angry, but he was angry ever since he escaped the massacre. Anger was red fire and boiling magma, but when it surpassed a certain level it became a frozen sea, calm but ready to swallow its target whole when the time was right.

"Aldrich prepare yourself the news will break out soon at that time almost everyone will believe that it was just an attack by monsters, a tragedy to be sure but one among many. Keep your cool like you are doing now. Remember you are not Aldrich of Wakefield you are Aldrich of Oakwood. This has nothing to do with you, do you understand?"

"I understand." Aldrich answered.

"Cheer up will you," Ayemon slapped him on the shoulder, "There was another thing that I wanted to talk to you about, Aldrich I am grateful for the gift."

"Well it wasn't an easy hunt."

"Really? Well to be honest with you I'm surprised, even a little shocked."

"Is it that surprising?"

"Undoubtedly. Aldrich, to be honest with you I sent you to the Sunken valley I expected you to fail and be taught a lesson on your first time."

Aldrich didn't know how to answer that. Now that he thought about it, if he wasn't as experienced as he was he wouldn't have succeeded in hunting a single monster even of it was just a grade zero level one.

"So you underestimated me." Aldrich accused not unkindly.

"I did. Though in my defense I made a mistake based on my knowledge about you being a normal man. But I was clearly wrong."

Aldrich suddenly felt the air around him get colder. That's right, Ayemon would definitely be suspicious of a farmboy that could hunt an Umvorax on his first hunt. Not to mention that he came out unscratched as far as Ayemon could tell.

Aldrich had the chance to realize this when he encountered the adventurers on his way back to the town. They firmly believe that he hunted with a group of five or more to be able to hunt a direwolf let alone an Umvorax.

He should have taken the hint then. But he didn't he just played it of like it was a funny misunderstanding, there was another reason. Aldrich wanted to show off, he wanted to brag about himself about his accomplishment. and now he messed up because of his ego.

what is this why would he be proud of something this small, something this insignificant? Ridiculous!

Ayemon was different, he knew that Aldrich was alone and he believed that Aldrich had almost no combat experience before now. With the combination of these circumstances Aldrich would have been suspicious of himself if he was in Ayemon's place.

Aldrich tried to hard to think of a plausible excuse for all this but he came up with nothing. Even if he told Ayemon about the nightmare realm he had no way to prove any of it. That explanation would put him under even more suspicion. And he definitely didn't want anyone to know about that.

"Are you done thinking?" Ayemon's exasperated voice brought him back to reality.

"Looks like you're done. Listen, I understand that you have a secret."

Aldrich could only nod, he was already found out, it was useless to deny, if he did he would only make himself more of a fool than he already did.

"That's fine." But Ayemon's next words surprised Aldrich, "everyone has secrets I won't force you to share your secrets with me."

"Are you sure?"

"Why not? I'm a man of many secrets myself so I understand. Now what I want is to have a better understanding of your talent and combat ability now."

"Now? Here? What do I do?"

"Just attack me with everything you've got. Give me a punch with all your strength."

"Alright, fine. Don't blame me if you get a broken bone."

Aldrich knew that Ayemon was probably going to be fine since he was a Crestmaster.

"Oh, by the way if I suspect that you went easy on me I will kill you right here and now so you better focus."