Travellers - An Isekai, Cultivation Fantasy

Elwin Reynard, Zhao Gaumond, and Brain Klington. These were the people sent out by the Jain village. Out of the three, Zhao was the strongest at the perfect stage steel body, and Brain was at the middle stage steel body. However, despite his age, Elwin wasn't far behind, and was at the early-stage steel body.

During the last few weeks of the expedition, they often encountered many demons and onis, but they managed to fight them off. Zhao stuck very close to Elwin and protected him with all his might.

From Leon, Jin Tong stood out the most. Like Elwin, he was a once-in-a-generation genius of martial arts who wielded a spear. He was at the middle-stage steel body so was even more gifted than Elwin despite being the same age.

Of course, this was also due to the help that Leon village martial artists got from the Zenith pills, which caused them to be able to cultivate slightly quicker. Along with Jin Tong was a muscular, burly man wielding a mace at the late-stage steel body, and a tall thin man who was also at the late-stage steel body, who fought with a sword.

Finally, the three elves from the elven village were quite mysterious. They were of a different race to humans and considered themselves to be superior. They hardly mixed with the humans on this trip.

However, if there was a fight, everyone would cooperate.

The elves were all warrior mages and were also powerful archers at the tempered body to early-stage steel body level. They covered the rear and shot down enemies with incredible accuracy. Often, one of their well-timed bows and spells would change the tide of the battle and save many people. As a result, the rest didn't mind their aloof attitudes and were still treating them respectfully.

Elwin and Jin Tong took the front lines, closely protected by the veterans Zhao and the burly man respectively. The tall thin man, along with Brain stayed in the centre, protecting the elves at the rear from sneak attacks or from any enemies that broke through the front lines.

This was the formation they had gotten into.

Although they often suffered injuries, one of the elves knew healing magic so would heal them whenever they had a break, thereby constantly maintaining their strength.

They had slowly gotten past the areas with weak demons and now finally arrived at the place where more and more demons and onis were around, along with groups of demons moving together. It was not uncommon to spot warrior class demons here.

But now, they were facing off against a pseudo-commander class elephant demon.

"Take this!" yelled Jin Tong as he used a critical opening to stab at the elephant.

It roared in pain and was going to counterattack but Elwin used this opportunity to slash at its knees. It immediately lost its balance, falling sideways onto the floor. At once a myriad of attacks was unleashed by everyone, completely killing it.

"What's going on? In the last two days, we have fought six, extremely powerful warrior class demons and now, a pseudo-commander class demon!"

A warrior class demon had strength equal to a martial artist who cultivated up to the steel body or a warrior mage. However, everyone gathered here had at least cultivated an early-stage steel body and also had expert fighting skills, so they could easily tackle warrior class demons.

However, commander class demons were something else entirely. If they encountered one, they could only run away in despair. A pseudo-commander class demon, although not as powerful, was not a walk in the park either. They could deal with it if it was only one or two.

The group was nearing the end of the region that had been mapped by the villages. After this region, till they reached their goal, they would have much less information as the path wasn't mapped properly.

They were trying to avoid as many known territories of demons as possible but there were many more powerful demons running around than expected. These demons wouldn't normally leave their lairs and since they were powerful, the villages had long since been keeping tabs on them.

But so many powerful demons were showing up one after another.

If a horde of these were to attack their villages… Nobody wanted to think about that.

After this fight, the whole team was exhausted, pushed to their limits. After finding a hiding spot, the healing mage tried his best to heal the most critical injuries possible before he collapsed out of exhaustion. They could only use physical methods to heal the rest to conserve strength.

After a while of resting the group mostly recovered their strength and started moving.

If all went well, they could make it to their destination in half a day and finally start returning to their villages. Everyone had to constantly be on guard in this place which was mentally exhausting.

They were walking alertly when one of the elves called out.

"Careful! Several powerful demons are fighting a few hundred meters to the east."

They used a bird-like spirit that was excellent at scouting.

"There is a total of four of them all fighting against each other. From this report, they all are pseudo-commander class demons."

Everyone was dismayed. Just fighting one such demon was enough to almost break their group, but there were now four at once.

"We should take a detour," said Elwin. "It's too dangerous."

No one argued, only a fool would go into such a dangerous situation. Everyone decided to pause while the elf investigated a route for them to take. After about half an hour, he had a general idea about the surrounding demons and told the group a route.

"That will extend our journey by another three days!" the burly man complained. The elf bitterly laughed.

"It is the only feasible route. In the east, the pseudo-commander class demons are fighting, and I am not sure how long it will be before they finish. Even afterwards, the scent of blood will draw other demons there, so it is not wise to use that route. To the west there lies a den of vampire bats numbering in the thousands. Each of them is at least a powerful servant class demon, and many are warrior class too. Disturbing them is suicide. We can only retreat the way we came, go around the den of vampire bats and circle back. That's the only way."

Everyone was hearing this helplessly. They wanted to leave this death trap as soon as possible but things didn't often go the way they wanted.

"I agree with this plan," Elwin finally spoke. It was better to be safe. There was no need to rush. They had enough supplies for a while, so another two days should be fine.

"Me too," the tall and thin man spoke. He was the representative of the Leon village. After deciding on this, everyone finally resumed their journey.

…

Back in Jain village.

Sam was alone inside a room.

On his bed lay a beautiful girl, however, she was in an extremely sorry state. She was barely dressed, her clothes were ripped, her skin was torn and carried many bruises.

"Nala…" Sam held her hand as he started crying.

Sam had gone through a lot. His parents had all died at a young age, so he was left to fend for himself. But the world was cruel, and he was young. He would just steal some bread, or eat some food thrown in the trash to survive.

That was until he discovered martial arts cultivation.

Finding cultivation techniques was very difficult. Sometimes even if people find a technique, it may not be suitable for them, but they will cultivate it anyway as they don't have a choice.

Sam was such a case.

One day as he was running away after stealing, he hid in some dark and quiet street.

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However, this time, there were two martial arts cultivators fighting to the death. Sam didn't know why but they clearly had some deep grudge and so they fought until only one of them was left. The other man spat on the corpse and left immediately, as he was weakened from the fight and didn't want to get sneak attacked by anyone else.

Sam therefore approached the corpse and looted it, finding more money than he knew what to do with. But more than that, his biggest gain was finding a martial arts cultivation technique.

With this, he knew his life could change.

So, he bore through the pain and cultivated it like a lunatic, eventually reaching the tempered body. This gave him strength that people respected, allowing him to do better jobs and earn more money.

It was at this point in his life when he met Nala, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. It was love at first sight for him, and Nala was equally interested. They had many things in common and shared many wonderful times together.

But all good things must come to an end.

She was sold as a slave in a fit of rage by Henry for a trivial mistake.

He had worked with Astoria to get revenge, but then Astoria was kidnapped.

And now, after coming to Jain village, he finally saved her.

Or at least what was left of her.

As it turned it out, Nala was indeed still alive and was still a slave. He found out that she was bought in an auction by some random man. Sam offered him a large sum of money to buy the girl off her. The man was interested, but he could tell that this was an opportunity to make a fortune so he kept increasing the price to an exorbitant amount, more than what Sam could afford.

Helpless, he could only turn back to the Reynards. Hearing this Drake was extremely furious. He hated the concept of slavery anyway, so he came to see this man. Upon suddenly seeing master Drake appear at his doorstep the man was terrified!

He immediately offered to give the girl free of charge, knowing that he had chosen to mess with the wrong person. Drake scoffed in disdain at this man, but he nevertheless accepted and asked him to bring Nala out.

But what they saw was beyond their expectation.

Nala had been beaten and abused in so many ways for his sick sense of gratification. Her mental state was completely shattered, and she did not speak at all.

No matter what they did or said, she would not respond. Seeing this Sam was furious and was about to beat the man to a pulp but was stopped by Drake.

Sam was an outsider so if he hit a member of Jain village, others would not take kindly to it and will try to seek trouble with Sam.

As for Drake, he could indeed try to take revenge for her and beat that man up, however, how could he? This was the world he lived in now. The man had done nothing wrong in the eyes of everyone. In fact, if she wasn't related to Sam, Sam himself wouldn't care at all about what happened to her.

If Drake, the son of the village head, decided to use his position of power to attack a common man for doing 'nothing wrong' that would reflect extremely badly upon Holt and everyone else in his family.

Because of this moment of rage, everyone would start thinking that Holt and his family are corrupt. This would in turn affect his father's life.

Drake couldn't do that.

As a result, he shot the man a cold gaze and left quietly with Sam.

He may not be able to do anything directly but that didn't mean he would just let him go.

So, after leaving Sam and the girl alone in their room, Drake sent a servant to find out where that man worked and bribed his boss to fire him. The servant was also tasked with keeping tabs on that man and made sure that whenever he applied for any job, except a select few, extremely horrible and low paid jobs, he would not get it.

Those that could find out behind the scenes information such as the village elders, would not actually be able to prove Drake did anything. Even if they could, they wouldn't bother to ruin their relationship with him in exchange for protecting some random man.

However, at the same time everyone would realise how much Drake hated slavery.

His family had always known that Drake protested having slaves. But they obviously couldn't stop just because he said so.

Despite this, Drake tried his best to often feed the slaves good food and treat them with kindness, and even buy and release them whenever he could. This way then, those people would hesitate slightly before buying slaves. After all Drake had the identity of a mage and would become an extremely important person in the future so they wouldn't want to risk doing anything that Drake would be displeased with.

At the same time, they would also realise that offending Drake, and largely the Reynards, would not go without consequences and so they will be less likely to try and plot against them in the future.

Overall, then, this would improve his and his father's image slightly in the eyes of elders.

This was how this world's politics worked, which Drake knew very well.

As for that man, he ended up working for an extremely low salary in a farm doing the worst kinds of jobs under a horrible boss. He had barely enough money to buy food every day.

But that was all for later.

Sam was seeing Nala lying down pathetically.

Eventually, Holt arrived at the scene. He didn't have high hopes for Nala. He knew how pitiful the lives of slaves were. They could even be killed in a moment of rage and the master would go unpunished. So, he wasn't too surprised at her condition.

Holt knew healing magic, so he came to help her. He summoned his healing fairy and started healing her wounds. As a warrior mage, his summon would be more powerful than Drake's, hence he asked his father to come along.

Soon her body was completely recovered.

"This is all I can do," he said shaking his head. "I have healed her body but her mind, it is unknown when it will recover… if at all."

"I understand," Sam said solemnly. "Don't worry, I don't intend to go back on my promise."

Holt sighed gratefully.

"Thank you, I will definitely not forget this favour."

But Sam didn't reply, he was holding onto Nala's hand and reminiscing about some distant memories. Holt decided to leave them alone and returned to his mansion. After some time, Sam appeared.

"I am ready," he said. "But I have one more condition."

"Speak," Holt replied. He already knew what he was going to ask.

"In case I don't make it through this, I need you take care of Nala for me."

"Of course, that is only natural. She will be treated with the utmost care; you have nothing to worry about."

Sam sighed. "Then what do I need to do?"

…

"Quickly run!" Zhao screamed as he led the way.

They were being chased by several dozen vampire bats!

These bats were three foot in size. Despite their name, their colour was a brownish green which allowed them to camouflage into the forest. Their fangs were several inches large and extremely sharp and poisonous. They also spat out toxic venom that could shoot out a meter forward.

Worst of all was their bloodthirsty nature. Once they set their eyes on a target, they would not easily let go. Since they could fly, they had the advantage in movement, allowing them to easily give chase. If it was only one or two, the group would fight but against several dozen, including a few warrior class vampire bats, their chances were slim. There was no need to engage in a death battle here when they hadn't even reached their goal yet.

"If we go forward a bit more, we can reach the territory of the commander class azure lion. The lion is currently away from its home so we can enter it. However, the bats will be hesitant after sensing its residual aura and stay away. Once they're gone, we can retreat before the lion comes back." The investigative elf spoke.

"Keep it together everyone, we're almost there!" Elwin screamed.

The group rushed with all their strength. Occasionally, one of them would throw a few attacks at the vampire bats but the bats easily dodged them all.

They eventually came to the azure lion's lair. This was a commander class demon and was far more dangerous than the blood bat group. If it was still in its lair, the group wouldn't dare to approach it at all, let alone when they were so exhausted.

Luckily, the vampire bats were not intelligent so after sensing the lion's aura that marked its territory, they retreated.

The group paused and everyone collapsed, panting for breath.

They tried their best to be discreet, but two bats were still alerted to their presence. They engaged in a small skirmish which attracted even more bats. Helpless, they could only retreat while fighting against them. Eventually the group of bats chasing them reached a dozen, and then several dozen, but they managed to create some space between them and ran at full speed, finally reaching here.

Everyone was weakened, the healing elf went around to treat people's wounds.

He stopped before Zhao and looked at his arm. The armour around his forearm had broken off, revealing two deep holes penetrating into this skin. The area around the two holes had turned completely black, and slowly but surely, the rest of the arm was also turning black.

The elf sighed helplessly, "I can treat physical wounds, but I don't know any summons that can treat such strong poison. Not to mention, your arm is already deeply affected by the poison as well. To prevent it from spreading further, I can only suggest… amputation."

Zhao heard this but didn't show any change in expression. He laid his poisoned arm on a rock, took out his sword and gave it to the elf.

The elf was amazed at his resolve but took the sword with a sigh.

Then, with a single swing, he chopped his arm off.

Zhao didn't scream. It was as if he couldn't feel pain. Everyone was surprised at his determination but the elf immediately worked to seal the wound and stop the bleeding.

Brain was cursing himself.

He had been careless, and a warrior class blood bat was about to strike him. If it landed, he would have surely died. But at the crucial moment, Zhao took a risk and pushed Brain out of the way, however, his hand was bit by the bat giving him this wound.

He felt terrible!

This was all his fault.

But he was also very experienced, and knew these things were common during dangerous missions like this. People often made mistakes and there was nothing one could do about it.

He told himself that he would pay back this favour if given the chance and calmed himself.

Zhao had suffered the most severe injury so far. But the others were suffering in other ways.

Elwin and Jin Tong were at the front lines and were getting injured constantly. If not for the healing elf and the pills they had carried with them, they would have succumbed to their injuries long ago.

Elwin's main sword broke a while back and he was using the sword made by Drake. Though he had practised with it before, he was still surprised at how light and sharp it was, easily able to pierce through anything. Yet it was still extremely durable, even more so than his original sword.

Jin Tong was working closely with him and also had to swap out weapons several times. He was intrigued at seeing Elwin's weapon and asked him about it. After hearing about his brother, Jin Tong decided that he would remember Drake's name.

Others were also injured and many of their weapons were broken, and their supplies were dwindling. That tall thin swordsman had an eye injury that stopped him from being able to see temporarily. Luckily, it could still be treated but it would require more advanced magic than the elf could use.

So, if he survived this battle, once that man returned to his village, he would have to request Myra for her help in healing him.

The elves' magic was extremely useful to everyone.

"We're almost there everyone, let's keep going," Elwin spoke up after some time. Everyone nodded.

Just as they were leaving however, a roar sounded out from behind.

"It's the azure lion!"