Chapter 74
“What is that?” Anders asked his children when he noticed that Anna was holding her notebook like it was a valuable treasure.
“Brother wrote a novel for me! It’s about a boy named Garion and just like us, he and his aunt were running from danger. The book is so good! The story was from an author named David Eddings and the title of the book is called “The Pawn of Prophecy,” Anna said.
Lunelle looked at Anna’s notebook with interest.
“Can I read it as well once you’re done?” She asked Anna.
Anders ordered food for everyone from the innkeeper while Anna answered Lunelle.
“Sure. It’s a good thing that the book was separated into three notebooks. Once I finish the first notebook I’ll lend it to you.”
“Were you able to purchase a lot of things, Father?” Anton asked while they were waiting for the food.
“Yes, but the cooked food that we managed to buy was the ones that were already prepared by the innkeeper and the surrounding houses. It still amounted to a lot but they would be different from each other meaning that they would be put into separate storage boxes which would consume a lot of your magical storage space.”
“My magical space expanded so we shouldn’t worry too much about space. What we need to focus on is still the amount since we will do a lot of traveling.” Anton said.
“We did manage to buy a lot of grains, bread, salt, spices, and soap,” Nemina added.
“After lunch, we will leave immediately. I got this nagging feeling that we should hurry,” Anders said and Lucas nodded agreeing with him.
After lunch they all went to the carriage and their horses and Anton kept all the things that his father and Nemina purchases on his private stash. There were indeed a lot of storage boxes and barrels and it would take up valuable grids but it was an emergency. Once they reached somewhere where they could take a breather, Anton would need to remind his father that the priority was to organize their stuff although with the amount of food they consume every day, his private stash would soon clear up again.
Before they left, Anton went and told the village chief that they were running because the Undead Coalition attacked the city of Mendi which was their original country and the undead even managed to reach the last village that they passed through.
The village chief panicked for a bit then tried to console himself by saying something stupid.
“We’re a small village. I’m sure that the Undead Coalition will not be interested in our place. Please don’t tell anyone else or it will cause panic to everyone. Just leave if you’re running.”
Devon snorted and Anton sighed at the man’s stupidity. Anders just shrugged and reminded the man that he had already given his warning. Whatever he wanted to do with the information was his decision.
“Father we should warn the villagers and ignore that man. They will die once the undead reach them,” Anna said.
“As the man said, it would cause panic and the villagers may not believe us and may attack us instead so we better leave them alone. May the divine have mercy on their souls,” Lucas said.
Anna sadly turned away and entered the carriage. Everyone knew what her feeling was since they were feeling it too. Once the Undead Coalition reached this village, the people would either die or be enslaved.
Anders commanded the horses to run and Anton made sure that the animals were added to the party system. All of his auras, the Vigor, Meditation, and Prayer auras were activated and Anton could tell that the horses felt it and were invigorated.
“Three more villages and we’ll be near Tiande. We will not enter the city since we planned to bypass it but we should be safe in villages past Tiande and we can start our business of buying worn-out, used, and broken equipment. “
Anton just nodded. He could also feel what his father felt about that dreadful terror of the possibility of the undead catching up to them so he decided to grind some levels using the on-screen option and to hunt some more runes and gems to upgrade his gloves, shoes, belts, and accessories.
Right now, he was level fifty-six and by the time they stopped to eat, he should have gained a few more levels. He repeatedly killed the unique monsters in Baal’s throne room and Baal himself and when he got tired of killing those monsters, he switched to grinding runes from the Countess in Black Marsh. Even though the runes were low-level, he could still upgrade them using the Horadric Cube.
He also switched to grinding the Act IV boss Diablo and his minions as well to avoid burning out and luckily he received another Stone of Jordan which was his second one from Diablo. He also managed to upgrade his belt with a fast cast rate and resistance to cold and poison with corresponding magic find which was good. His gloves and boots were the same, having resistance and magic find.
Anton remembered how important the fast cast rate stat was in the game but since he was planning to play the Nightmare Difficulty virtually, Mark thought that the best thing to focus on was defense and resistance to different elements since it was also very useful in real life.
Playing for several hours resulted in him leveling up to level fifty-nine. He was getting stronger and that meant that he was getting stronger in real life as well which was good because with what was happening, he would need that strength to defend his family from any enemies that would arrive.
As of right now, Anton noticed that there were no more bandits, and more than likely they fled from this area already or were killed by roaming undead armies.
Anders stopped the carriage around five in the afternoon, fed the horses with grain, and asked Anton to water them with mana water since mana water helps a lot in making sure that all the animals were in peak condition.
They also needed to eat since everyone was famished due to the Vigor Aura’s side effect. Everyone was still in their peak condition and this time, Anna was not complaining too much since she was busy reading her new book, The Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings which Anton wrote down on her three notebooks.
The girls were wise in not rushing to complete the first book of the Belgariad series since they knew that they had plenty of time due to their constant traveling so what they did was Anna would read one chapter and then Lunelle next and then Nemina after Lunelle then they would discuss the content of the chapter they just read.
The girls were talking loudly enough that Anton and Anders heard every word which prompted a comment from Anton’s father.
“The book they’re reading sounds good. I think I’ll read it as well once Anna is done with her first notebook.”
“Father you should buy more notebooks in the villages that we will pass by since the book that I wrote was only the first book by a famous author based on the information that I received from the dreams. There are four more in the series and then there is a second series which is a continuation of the first series and it also contained five books.”
“That’s interesting. Okay, I’ll search for notebooks as well. Okay everyone it’s time for us to go,” Anders announced and they continued with their journey hoping that the Undead Coalition would not reach them.