Chapter 11: Grea Village

After a short walk, Ken and his new companion Zad had finally reached the village. Although it wasn't quite how Ken had imagined it, there were a lot of people here, and it seemed like they were all in a rush to be somewhere. Ken turned around to speak to Zad and said.

"Is there usually this many people here?"

Zad being surprised Ken would ask such an obvious replied with

"That depends, this is a village, but I guess you could also call it a small town where a lot of people come to rest from their travels and possibly sell goods they've acquired. To answer your question, there isn't usually this many people, so I'm also a little confused myself."

Ken wasn't too used to a busy atmosphere like this, but he knew this wasn't any time to get distracted, so he got straight to the point.

"Alright, we'll temporarily split up here I'd like to learn more about this town, so in the meantime, you can go buy some new gear, we'll meet up here again in an hour."

Zad in a quiet voice answered saying

"About that..."

"Let me guess all the gold you had went towards that useless armour."

"Pretty much!"

"You don't need to be so enthusiastic about that..."

Ken grabbed some of the gold he had spare out of his small pouch and handed over some to Zad.

"That should be enough to cover the basics I'll tell you this once so listen carefully, go to a real merchant, not someone that's looking to scam fools like you."

Without realising he had just been insulted by Ken, Zad straightened his posture with his arms close to his body and yelled the words.

"Yes, sir!"

People from around the area looked into their direction, and Ken put his hands in his pocket and proceeded to walk away, without saying a single word.

He looked around for a while and found a notice board on it was a worn-out piece of paper there seemed to be a drawing of an odd-looking creature Ken hadn't ever seen before, it had long arms and legs and looked fairly tall, under the drawing was some writing.

[Oner the troll. A dangerous creature that lurks around the Grea villages former training grounds, hundreds of adventurers have fell victim to this beast, so do not try to fight it if you're unsure of your own strength.]

"A troll...?"

Ken grabbed the piece of paper off of the board and stared at it while chuckling to himself. He rolled up the paper and slipped it into the pocket of his blue jacket. He continued his exploration until he had to meet up with Zad again.

He stood in the middle area of the village next to a small fountain waiting for Zad. A short person appeared next to him with spikey brown hair, wearing a white tunic and baggy grey trousers the boy possessed a scabbard which was equipped to his back, it most likely contained a shortsword.

"What's the plan boss."

Ken didn't realise who the boy was until hearing that voice. He decided to play it off cool.

"So that's enough waiting, now we can get onto the important topic, and don't call me boss."

"I wonder what it could be!"

Ken reached into his jacket's pocket and dramatically pulled out a piece of paper and showed Zad the contents.

"Here it is!"

As soon as Zad saw even a glimpse of the drawing, he instantly knew what it was.

"You can't be serious right..."

"I am serious. That's why we're going to have you train and get stronger just to be safe. First, we should probably find out more information about this thing."

"Should we ask around Ken?"

Ken placed his hand on his chin, thinking about the best possible way to gather accurate information on this troll.

"No that would be too time-consuming we need to find someone that would be able to gather a lot of information from many different adventurers. Any ideas Zad?"

"I got it! We could go to the innkeeper he must run into all sorts of people daily, so I'm sure he'll probably have the most information about the troll Ken."

"Then I suppose it's settled let's visit the inn we'll also be able to rest there for a while too before the training starts."