The Arcane Archer - Chapter 39 Buff Wizard

At the first sign of light in the morning, I peaked out from underneath my nice warm covers before quickly putting them back over my head. It’s been a long week and I could definitely do with an extra hour or two of sleep.

Thankfully I was able to get my wish and get an entire extra hour of sleep. Un-thankfully I was rudely interrupted from my sleep with a loud banging at my door.

“FBI? Is that you?” I asked groggily

“The F-B what now?” I heard Ava ask from behind the door, not sounding even slightly hangover from all the drinks I paid for her last night. I had a feeling that she might be able to out drink a dwarf with how high her constitution was.
for visiting.

A few seconds passed before I eventually got out of bed and changed into some comfortable clothing, I bought from the system a while ago. Opening the door while yawning, I saw Ava turned around with a mug already in hand and chugging whatever drink was inside it like there was no tomorrow.

“What did you wake me up for Ava?” I asked as she finished the last of her drink and turned to me.

“Well, I heard from the bartender last night that you had to put a lot the drinks you bought me on tab. You got to pay the Bartender back within a week or he’ll hunt you down for fun. But I’m feeling nice after you bought me all those drinks so I’m here to give you a job so you can pay him back!”

Shivering slightly at the amount of money I would have to pay back, I quickly agreed.

“Alrighty then, just get all your gear ready and we’ll go out hunting for some food and monsters.” She said while already leaving and waving goodbye. “Meet me outside in around 10 to 15 minutes!”

Equipping my gear and keeping my broken bow in hand, I just gave a deep sigh at how much this place might cost me to replace it. Heading downstairs to the main area of the Inn, I saw Ava packing some stuff into two separate bags.

As soon as I got within 10 feet of her, her head came up from the bags to look me directly in the eye.

“It’s only been 1 minute and 58 seconds. Either you’re a really quick at getting dressed or you used some sort of magic. Hopefully you didn’t use magic as we have yet to add you to the list.”

“What’s this so-called list? I heard you say something about its last night, but you never went into details about it. Also, I’m just a quick dresser. Don’t want to get caught with my pants down because I took my sweet time getting dressed.”

She chuckled slightly at the last bit and went back to filling the bags. “The list is a magical Artifact from centuries long past that we were lucky enough to stumble upon. The list looks like a regular notebook and shows no signs of magic but Harold, our Sorcerer Wizard who spent many years learning about Artifacts, just barely knew what it was. When you write your name in this Artifact in the Ancient Language, your magic becomes unreadable and untraceable my normal means.”

“That sounds very powerful and useful. Would be horrible if it in the wrong hands.”

“Correct. It’s why Harold did some enchanting on it so that it would be teleported somewhere very far away and hard to find if anyone but he himself uses it. Now catch.” She threw the one of the bags she was previously filling at me.

Caching it in my free hand, I noticed its weight and figured out that it was full to the very top. Slinging it onto my back, I showed Ava my bow and asked if there was anyone around here who could fix this quickly.

She said she could before she put out her open hand for me to put it into. Not knowing what else to do, I simply complied. Putting it on the table, she put a magnet in each hand before curling that hand into a fist and held it slightly away from the break point of the bow before she closed her eyes.

After a minute, her eyes opened and instead of the previous brown colored eyes, her entire eyes were now glowing a mint green. The break point of the bow started shaking slightly as I saw the previously broken wood start to slowly fuse back together as if it was never broken before.

Once everything was fixed and fused back together, her eyes stopped glowing as she shook her head as if to get rid of some dizziness. Picking up the bow, she pulled the string back slightly to make sure everything worked out properly before handing it back to me.

“Should work completely fine now. Mended the broken area as if it was never broken.”

I took it back gratefully and thanked her for fixing the gift I got from my friends. She just smiled before saying to eat the breakfast she packed at the top of my bag.

After eating the quick breakfast which she packed for me (Just some bread and beef jerky), we headed outside. There waiting for us were two horses already saddled up and ready to go. The one horse, which was grey with black spots, was the one which Ava climbed up onto.

The other was a simple black horse that I assumed was for me. Climbing into the saddle with some difficulty, I eventually got into place without making myself look like a gigantic idiot, only a small idiot instead.

“Never ridden a horse before?” Ava asked.

“Not once in my entire life.” She laughed at that.

“Good thing is that we’re not heading to far out. It’s only a few hours ride away and then we won’t have to do any more for the next two or so days.”

I nodded once before she started teaching me the bare bone basics of what I needed to know so that we could get to wherever we were going. I did ask once where we were going but she just put her finger up to her mouth and said that it was a secret.

After that, we started heading a bit deeper into the town. After a few minutes, we eventually got the door of a giant stone tower that I somehow never noticed previously. Ava jumped off her horse before going up and knocking on the doors.

A minute passed before the door opened up to a very old buff guy wearing robes.

“Oh Ava, it’s so nice to see you! What brings you here today?” The buff old man said in a kind grandfatherly voice with a giant smile on his face.

Immediately after hearing that she wants him to put my name into The List, his smile turned into a deep scowl. He stared at me for a bit before grumbling something to quiet for me to hear.

“Boy” The buff wizard said. “Can I have your hand for a second.” He said in more of a command then a question.

I hesitated for a moment before he just grabbed it.

“And what is your name Boy? I need your entire name. First, middle, last, and anything your parents added to your name.”

“My name is Leo Ernest Walters.”

“And is that your entire name?” He said while raising an eyebrow.

“Ye- “Before I finished saying even a simple yes, I was stabbed in my hand with a knife. “s-AAAAAAAA!” I screamed out in pain.

“Such a baby.” He said while shaking his head and holding a glass jar underneath my hand, letting the blood flow freely into it.

After a few seconds passed with me screaming and the blood flowing into the jar, he eventually took out the knife and casted a spell on me that quickly healed the stab wound as if nothing ever happened. Immediately he left to go back into his tower leaving me and Ava standing out front of his door with blood all over my shoes and on the floor.

“Huh, I seriously thought that he was going to do something worse then that. He let you off easy for giving him some work to do in the morning.”

“That was easy!?” I asked while constantly massaging the area that previously got stabbed but was now completely normal.

“Yeah. The one time, we woke him up very late at night and he just cut off that person’s entire leg and right hand for disturbing him at that time with some work to do. He even waited an entire month before giving the limbs back to him.” She shook her head and shuttered slightly. “He should finish writing your name in The List in about an hour or two and then you’ll be able to cast magic freely again. Until then, we’ve got some riding to do!”

She jumped back onto her horse and immediately set off. I cursed slightly before jumping onto my horse (Very badly I might add) and then following behind her after I eventually caught up.