Old Man

Solam didn't waste any time. He stripped to the waist, grabbed his axe, spat into his palms, and brought the weapon down in a heavy, cleaving strike against the Snow Dragon's neck.

Keeping the head of one's prey is a tradition for many hunters, especially when the catch is this rare. This Snow Dragon was simply too massive for Solam to haul away in its entirety, so he had to settle for harvesting the most valuable parts.

"Damn. Son of a... that is one tough hide."

Solam's first strike barely made a dent, blocked by the Snow Dragon's rock-hard cervical vertebrae. It looked like he had his work cut out for him. However, he realized he didn't need to rush; when he'd used his lightning magic to kill the beast, the intense current had traveled through his sword-spear, essentially roasting the dragon from the inside out. There was very little blood, the scent was faint, and with the snow falling, it was unlikely any other predators would be drawn to the scene. This gave Solam plenty of time to process the carcass.

The most precious part of a Snow Dragon is, of course, its snowy, smooth fur—beautiful, durable, and possessing impressive magical resistance. The wings had taken the brunt of the damage, but most of the body's hide remained intact. Next was the skull, the sturdiest part of the beast. Even after taking two heavy blows from Solam's Thor's Hammer, it hadn't cracked. While the bone was hard, the brain inside wasn't nearly as resilient; those two impacts had likely caused a severe concussion at the very least. That's the vicious nature of heavy weapons like warhammers and battleaxes—even if you block the strike, you can't block the concussive force.

But the true value of a Snow Dragon's skull isn't just its hardness; it's remarkably lightweight. In fact, the entire skeleton of a Snow Dragon is light, and since the bones possess decent magical resistance, the skull makes for an excellent shield. Not that many people in Avalon care for shields, so the craftsmanship for making them is lackluster at best—usually just two leather straps tied on so you can hold it. Solam didn't care, though; having something to use was better than nothing, so he wasn't about to be picky.

Solam was quite different from other Orcs. He had no aversion to using shields or defensive gear. If a shield could better protect him in battle, why wouldn't he use it? He wasn't like the other Orcs who took pride in being covered in scars; he thought being clean and unblemished was just fine.

Solam busied himself, and time flew by. It took nearly three hours to fully dismantle the Snow Dragon. He packed up the head and the hide, but left the rest behind; the other bones were too numerous to bother with, and the meat was pointless. While Snow Dragon meat isn't poisonous, it usually gives the average person a bad stomach, leaving it only of interest to wild beasts.

Some of the organs were edible, but Solam had no interest in them, so he tossed them all to Frostfang. In the wild, organs are a luxury and a vital source of salt, so Frostfang happily devoured the heart and liver. As for the intestines and stomach, Solam discarded them. They were too filthy—not that he had any particular aversion to eating organs, but the lightning strike had cooked the guts along with everything else, including the waste inside.

If Frostfang ate that, there was a good chance it would get an upset stomach. Plus, even though Frostfang was an adult, it still loved to lick Solam's face with its massive tongue. If it licked him after eating that mess... Solam couldn't even bear to imagine the scene.

Just as Solam was finishing up, he suddenly heard the old man let out a groan.

"Ugh... where am I?"

Seeing the old man wake up, Solam immediately ran over to help him sit up. Even if the guy was a dead weight in a fight, Solam still felt that one should show a minimum level of respect to the elderly.

"Uh... old-timer, do you not remember what just happened?" Solam wondered if the man had been knocked silly.

"Just now... right, just now, that monster..." The old man's eyes gradually cleared as he recalled the battle.

"Heh, I killed that Snow Dragon. You're safe now. But you seem to be a human—how did a human end up in Avalon?" Solam was genuinely curious about the man's origins. Humans rarely set foot in Avalon. For one, very few outsiders knew its exact location, and Avalon Orcs traveling abroad generally wouldn't speak of their homeland unless they trusted someone implicitly. It was only because of a life-or-death bond that Solam's father in this life had managed to have the infant Solam sent back to Avalon.

"The battle is over? Hah, I've spent my whole life hunting birds, only to be pecked in the eye by a goose today." It was clear the old man was ashamed of his lapse in focus during the fight.

"Young man, let's not talk about how I got to Avalon yet. How did you get to Avalon?" The old man was clearly still wary of Solam and wasn't about to reveal his reasons, turning the question back on him instead.

"Uh... old-timer, what kind of talk is that? I grew up in Avalon. What do you mean, how did I get here?"

"That's impossible... you are clearly a human. How could the Avalon Orcs adopt a human?"

"Cough... I'm a half-orc. I'm really not human." No wonder so many people in Avalon said Solam looked like a human and nothing like an Orc. As for being a half-orc, Solam didn't feel there was anything to hide. He didn't feel ashamed of it; it wasn't his choice, just the result of his father's reckless antics.

"Half-orc??? I've seen half-orcs before, and you look nothing like them." The old man used to work in the slave trade; how could he not know what a half-orc looked like? Yet the youth before him clearly had the features of a human—half-orcs were far more rugged than this.

"I'm different from other half-orcs. I'm a mix of Orc and Elf."

"Beast Elf??? In all my years, this is the first time I've seen a living Beast Elf." The old man stared at Solam with piercing eyes, only becoming convinced once he spotted the slightly pointed ears.

"Damn! Don't tell me I'm a rare breed?" The old man's words startled Solam. He had always assumed there were others like him in the outside world. From the old man's tone, it sounded like being a half-orc, half-elf was incredibly, incredibly rare.

"A rare breed? Heh, indeed." The old man chuckled at the term. If he were still in that line of work, such a rare Beast Elf could fetch a massive price. There was no other reason than the rarity; plenty of bored nobles would pay a fortune for a Beast Elf, a creature that might not appear once in a hundred years.

If Solam knew what the old man was thinking, he'd likely use Thor's Hammer to give him a lesson in "re-education" from the perspective of the working class.

"You mean people like me are rare out there? Why?" In Avalon, few people talked to Solam about his heritage, fearing it would hurt him. But clearly, the usually rough Orcs had let their rare moments of sensitivity go to waste; Solam didn't care about that at all, he was just purely curious.

"Don't you know that Orcs and Elves are mortal enemies?" The old man looked at this strange Beast Elf with confusion.

"I know, but isn't that ancient history?" Solam had lived in Avalon his whole life, and the Avalon Orcs were perhaps the least hostile toward Elves of all the Orc clans.

"That's a long story. Besides, are you just going to watch an old man like me sit in the snow forever?"

Solam saw the old man's complexion was indeed poor, and the snow was getting heavier. Leaving an old man out in the wilderness wasn't right.

"Alright, wait a moment. I'll pack this up, and then I'll take you to my camp."

He quickly used leather cords to bundle the Snow Dragon's hide and head, then gestured for Frostfang to carry the old man. At first, Frostfang was reluctant—Wargs are loyal creatures and rarely let others ride them unless they are family. But Solam used his "Communication" ability to coax the beast, eventually calming it down. Solam helped the old man onto Frostfang's back, dragged his spoils along, and they headed toward the camp.

Before long, they returned to the camp. Solam quickly lit a fire and prepared a pot of hot soup for the old man, whose color improved after warming up by the flames.

"Old-timer, how did you actually get to Avalon? I know for a fact that the outside world has no idea how to find this place. Even if they found the path, they couldn't enter without the permission of the Heroic Spirits."

Seeing the old man looking better, Solam continued his questioning.

The old man looked at Solam and thought for a moment. After their time together, he felt this young man wasn't a bad person. Despite having been betrayed by his own confidants, the old man still had some confidence in his judgment; after all, how much guile could a young man like this really have? Besides, he had already entered Avalon, and if he wanted to find his old friend, he would need the help of this local.

"My name is Arando Schindler, from Canlus. I'm here to find an old friend. We adventured together a long time ago, but we parted ways due to certain events. Now, for various reasons, I have no choice but to seek this old friend out for help."