The Laughing Swordsman

An earth-shattering slam rang out.

Layla had slammed into the ground right next to Talon, Lena, and Hex. The surrounding trees were directly uprooted and shot away along with a tidal wave of snow. A massive crater had formed under Layla, along with a large amount of dust.

As that dust cleared, it revealed Layla in the middle of standing up, then shaking her head. The insect was still attached to her back, somehow unscathed. It looked around curiously, as though wanting to survey the scene.

Hex was lying on his back, flat out unconscious.

Lena had been lying down, but got up casually once more. There weren't any apparent wounds on her body, but the blood spilling out from the corners of her mouth showed that she was far from unscathed.

As for Talon, he was lying underneath a toppled tree on the verge of tears. The shoulders he had just put back into place were now dislocated once more. The pain was even stronger this time. Many of his muscles, nerves, and ligaments had snapped.

With a grunt, he once again pushed back his dislocated shoulders back, but not without several concerning snapping sounds. He had to use the black flesh to keep his shoulders together at this point, then forced the tree off himself.

Lena had just finished casting the healing spell on herself, then looked at Layla. She bowed courteously as though the events that happened just now didn't transpire.

"Hello. My name is Lena and my brother over there is Talon. May I know your name?"

Layla grinned.

"It's Layla!"

Lena nodded.

"Nice to meet you Layla."

The corner of Talon's lip twitched as he held back the urge to retort."

Layla giggled.

"Yeah! What are you guys doing?"

Lena smiled.

"Hex wanted to find his friends, so we were on a journey to do so. Considering that you are one of his friends, the journey has been quite successful."

Layla raised both hands in the air.

"Yeah!"

Suddenly, her eyes widened as she gasped.

"Wait! I have to find friend too! I forgot!"

Lena looked concerned.

"Ah!"

She then turned to look at Hex who was completely unconscious, lying on the floor.

"I suppose we should get to it after having a little rest. It appears some of us are still quite tired."

Layla let out a soft hum.

"I am pretty tired. So much flying makes me sleepy!"

Talon limped over, trying to ignore the piercing pain in his shoulders.

"Haha, some sleep does sound pretty nice about now."

Layla nodded.

"Hmm..."

Then, her eyes began to close as she fell over.

Right afterwards, everything seemed to go quiet. However, that was actually just because it was far too loud.

The next thing Talon knew, he was in the middle of the air with both shoulders dislocated. His eyes rolled in the back of his head as he slammed against the ground once more.

It seemed like the trip was going to be quite eventful.

...

Apollo had finished turning in the eggshells, getting three out of the five he needed. By his request, Vicar led him to other caves to gather even more eggshells. Along the way, Apollo thought of the missions that required him to kill the colossus. He wondered what Vicar's opinion on that would be.

"Hey, do you not like the killing of the colossus?"

Vicar turned to him and raised an eyebrow.

"Eh? I don't see the point in that. Then I wouldn't have any food."

Apollo blinked a few times.

"Mm... What if I killed one of them?"

Vicar rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger.

"I would not appreciate such actions, that is for sure."

Apollo tilted his head to the side.

"Because you want to eat their tails? Or is there anything else?"

Vicar let out a soft hum.

"I suppose I have gotten somewhat attached to them. Though the main issue is still the sustenance that they could've provided."

Apollo tilted his head to the side.

"Well, what if I killed one."

Vicar blinked a few times.

"I wouldn't favor it, but I also wouldn't stop you."

Apollo paused before nodding.

"Ok."

Eventually, with Vicar's help, he was able to find all the eggshells he needed and turned it in as a reward. Upon doing so, a torn parchment appeared on the grey desk along with a fairly large sack of gold. After all, it was two thousand gold coins.

Though the individual coins themselves were quite small, they stacked up to quite the amount.

The first thing Apollo thought of was to replenish his food pellet supply. Although he still had a little less than fifty left over, he figured it would be best to get a lot of spare ones.

And so, he walked towards the shop, but was caught off guard by two of the items displayed as they were new.

'Gold Coins

10 Gold Coins - 10 One-Week Food Pellets

50 Gold Coins - Black Flame Match

500 Gold Coins - Golden Talisman: Banish

1000 Gold Coins - Golden Talisman: Escape'

Apollo was a little put off by the fact that one of them said escape, as that was not something he planned on doing. When he continued to think about it carefully, he could guess that this was actually the Talisman that Willow had used long ago, causing all of them to separate far away from one another.

As for the other one, the word banish didn't really make him think of anything special. And because it was cheaper than the banish one, he imagined that it couldn't be that good.

...However, he was still fairly curious.

So he dumped the gold coins in, and selected the golden talisman that said banish. Some grey mist appeared, before disappearing to reveal a golden talisman with golden linings across it. In the center was a door with a closed eye.

Apollo was then about to spend a lot of money on buying food pellets, but then suddenly thought of Vicar.