Chapter 51 - Who are you? (1/2)

Aiden didn't know who or what the approaching blip was. The system couldn't scan it, making him wary of it. Whoever or whatever is capable of such a feat is by no means a simple animal placed in this place as a means for substance, but most likely a test, or a predator to hone their skills.

There were quite a few of such cases already. One time they had to fight a whole pack of those black wolves all by themselves, and at another time, green- and brown-skinned humanoid-like figures attacked them with primitive self-made weapons. They were slightly taller than Aiden, probably reaching between 2 and 2.2 meters in height, and they were all very hunky. They were luckily sluggish and seemingly not very intelligent, as Aiden and Lily could just rely on their superior speed to shoot and claw them all down before they could properly react.

They didn't know what they were called and never had the chance to ask Number 3 or Granny either. Since that particular encounter and now, they weren't back home at all. In the end, they just called them Boar-men, because their faces slightly resembled the boars in the forest.

Standing still in a poise that would make him ready to pounce at his enemy in the brink of a second, ready to rip its throat out, he looked at the distance where a dark figure slowly appeared on the horizon. It seemed to be walking in a slow and steady manner, seemingly not bothered by them in the slightest. They couldn't make out any of its features apart from it seemed to be bipedal and most likely humanoid-like.

Keeping his vision at the approaching wanderer, Aiden waved his right hand sideways back-and-forth a few times. This was another one of their devised signals, meaning ”stand ready”. They quickly realized that they needed a sort of system that was silent and easy-to-understand even in the midst of the battle, and in the end, they came up with this hand-gesturing solution. They had hand gestures for almost all types of battle commands, designed in a way that during combat, most enemies will not even notice it, let alone decipher it...

With an arrow served and placed in the arrow rest, Lily was ready to stretch the bowstring in a second and fire at the newcomer if she receives the 'FIRE' signal from Aiden. For now, she just stood ready, to assist and protect her beloved brother.

Slowly, as seconds formed into a minute then to another a figure of an old man in ragged, used, and seemingly well-worn brown cotton robes could be recognized. The robe he was wearing had many holes and patches on it. Around her waist, a thick rope was used in place of a proper belt.

As the figure got closer even more detail could be made out now. The 'belt' had a few attachments hanging on it. On his left, there was a leather case with a knife sheathed, and a small dark brown colored pouch with some leaves peeking out from its corners. On the right, a few herbs were placed and were jiggling as he walked.

From his neck, a purple-colored and slightly glowing feather was hanging. He had several feathers placed on his head ranging in all kinds of colors, but apart from the one hanging on his neck, all others looked like to be normal feathers. He was using a staff as a means to assist his traversal. The staff looked simple, although the top of the staff was also crowned with feathers of all colors.

The ”bird-man hermit” as Aiden referred to him on his system map, got to a hearing distance and stopped, looking at the young man in front of him, not showing any reaction, nor trying to initiate any types of conversation. He just stood still and looked at the young man.

Not knowing what to do with the awkward situation, Aiden nodded his head as to convey a silent greeting gesture to the hermit and to see a reaction. The response came immediately as the old man also nodded.

Looking at the figure, scanning him with his eyes Aiden broke the silence with his clear voice ringing all around the area. He had a lot of progress in using his Draconic Heritage innate, making him able to use other 'features' of it separately from the 'full package', not just the claws.

”Greetings wanderer! May I ask, who are you and what are you doing in this place?”