Fantasia

Arc2: The Quest

Chapter2: The girl with the green hair

Juan's unusual curiosity led him to follow some rogue named Barth, who was revealed to be a member of a group of hoodlums that resides in the hill roads that leads to the rich city of Clavia.

There he saw that one of the thieves –namely Saimon- is about to assault a knocked out young woman, the hero didn't tolerate the idea of leaving her with him so he hastily rushed into a huge boulder, and using his grazing staff he pushed it violently to roll down toward the wagons of the gang making such a noticeable ruckus.

Hearing the noise caused by the crash, the gang went alerted and headed as well as Saimon leaving the girl unharmed, and that was the chance were Juan sneaked directly and carried her away.

Unluckily a thief saw him and alerted the rest of his comrades, making the whole gang –who were about fifteen- run after him.

"This is bad! This is bad!" the young man murmured, after seeing them getting closer, on the other side he reached the edge of a valley that seemed bottomless to his fearful mind, he stepped back for moments as they approached him, surrounding the area.

"Some kid you are!" the leader complimented Juan's bravery.

"B...Back off!" Juan responded with an accent full of fear.

"Heh…aren't you the mouse that roared?" Saimon mocked while pulling his dirk.

"Now wait everyone, he's just a kid!" Barth said holding his friend back.

"Back off Barth, you have annoyed me enough" the other man scolded.

"A kid with a treasure…" Barth stated making everyone in confusion even Juan.

"What treasure?" the boss asked.

"Well…I met the lad earlier on the road, he seemed to carry some fine locked chests with him, obviously he's holding their keys, he could probably be some traveling jewel dealer…who knows" the man explained.

"Is it true boy?!" the leader shouted at Juan, who was shivering in fear.

"Here let me deal with him, he's scared of you" Barth suggested, while going near the young man, and slowly rising his hand toward him, showing some strange grin, "Easy kid…just give me the keys and no one will get hurt" he said and with a swift move he pushed Juan toward the cliff to fall down.

"Dammit! He's such a reckless kid!" Barth said showing anger, "Well I guess it's was a loss, we lost his treasures…and the girl" he said while giving Saimon a disgusted glare.

"Idiot! You should've been faster!" the leader scolded his underling…

"Sorry Boss!" Barth apologized, while giving his back to his group heading back to their camp.

Meanwhile, Juan miraculously was saved because his arm stretched and hanged him to the wall of the valley in a similar way to the day it did when it saved him and his brother from falling to their doom during the ragons invasion.

He noticed a small opening on the same side as he, as his hand was going numb from carrying him and the girl's weight he had no choice but to swing himself back and forth until he safely landed in that cavern.

He took a moment to breath and rethink of what happened, then he noticed the girl near him, she seemed strangely cute, as she was about seventeen with a peculiar long green curly hair, a fairly pale skin, a slender body, wearing an orange sweater that reached about the length of her knees, with long dark brown stockings that covers her legs.

He approached her trying to touch her face to be surprised by a slash from a small dagger she held in her hand, luckily he managed to evade it with just a little cut over his nose.

"Back off pervert!" she yelled at him, then she examined her surroundings after she's calmed, "Where are we? Who are you? You don't seem like the guy who knocked me off." She asked.

Juan stared a moment at her round honey colored eyes, then he pulled himself together: "Sorry…miss…um what was you name?".

The girl stood and bowed presenting herself: "Sorry for my manners…My name is Ce…um…Marcy…yes Marcy…and you? Who might you be o young man?".

"Juan! Juan Rocux…sorry um, I'm just a bit tense, for I never been so close to a female human before" the young man answered, to be replied by a deep laughter from Marcy

"I beg your pardon but…." He tried to ask.

"I'm sorry…what was your name again? Oh yeah! Juan…I'm sorry Juan but you really are a funny guy." Marcy answered.

"Funny? I didn't notice that I said a joke…it's just you know, we beastmen aren't very social with other tribes" the man wondered.

"Beastman?! Oh God! I got kidnapped then I was saved by some joker!" she said in laughter.

"No really! I may seem like a human but I truly am a beastman" Juan explained.

"O really?" the girl showed her surprise, "Well then here (she threw a small stone at him) eat it!" she told him.

Juan stared at her a bit then he tossed it away: "Sorry, I can't" he replied.

"Anyway, where are we?" Marcy said trying to change the subject.

"Well we are somehow on a small cavern on a cliff the leads to…I don't know" Juan answered.

"Any idea how are we going to get out, because I really have some important stuff to do" the girl asked.

Juan pointed to the other side of the cave –which was obviously obscure- "It seems that this is the only way out." He said before going through the tunnel, as Marcy followed him.

And so the two travelers crossed their way through the dark grotto, Marcy –who was scared of darkness- held the hand of Juan so tightly: "Are you sure of the way? I mean can you see in darkness?", the young man stopped for a moment and clashed two flints he picked from his pocket together, using the sparks that flickered he examined the girl: "Aha let's go this way" he said grapping her in a rush.

"What's going on here?" Marcy asked.

"I used the light weight of your hair to study the direction of the air current, knowing that will give me an idea about the entrance and the exit whereabouts; so if your hair was waving toward the south which is the cliff opening, then it's logical that the exit is on the opposite way." Juan explained his method.

"Wow!" the girl expressed her impression.

About an hour or so the two managed to leave the cavern from a pitfall to find themselves about half a day walk far from Clavia, and in order to kill time the two started a conversation that Juan begun:

"So Marcy, something I want to ask…is your hair originally green?"

"No actually, I can alter its color using my magic"

"Really…wow I know nothing of magic actually, care to show me? Please"

The girl tilted her head and suddenly her hair turned pink.

"Holy God! That's impressive!" Juan said.

"Oh I know more then this" she said shortly before pulling a golden wand -that holds a star on the tip centered by a red heart- from her bosom: "Behold! The mighty summoning spell!" the girl incantated, but suddenly she halted and rubbed her head: "Um sorry I forgot how to do it, but believe me it's awesome!" she added.

"Yeah right!" Juan said then he asked: "By the way Marcy, you didn't tell me, why were you all alone in such a dangerous road?".

"Well I actually was looking for an empyrean mage to heal my petrified father" she answered with a sad voice.

"What?! Your father as well?!" the young man showed surprise.

"So you are looking for that magic too?" the girl replied.

"Yeah you see…my whole village was petrified" Juan answered in depression, but Marcy interrupted him with a light kiss on the cheek hoping to cheer him up, making him back off blushing.

"Wh…What was that for?" Juan asked.

"C'mon I tried to cheer you up…wait a minute! You are not…you know" She said with a grin.

"What?! No no no!" the young man responded as he tried to change the subject.

"So do you read? I can tell from your proper accent that you have a fine cultural background"

"Well I had a library at my house in Clavia, it's full of different sorts of books, but my favorite series are Alexer's adventure books I had the whole eight volumes"

"Wow! I actually had only two volumes, it's hard to have these books in Ardneria, and hey! You are from Clavia I didn't know that, I thought you are from Espada or Nanali"

"Nah I'm from Clavia, suppose we should visit it because we lack food and traveling equipments."

"It's a wise idea, but you see I'm in short for money, I mean three hundred golden Muns won't buy us that much"

-Mun: across the land of Féena there exists many currencies, mostly due to the independence of villages and territories, but in order to simplify the commercial trades between different tribes, they all agreed on a united currency called Muns, which can be forged on four types; Iron, Silver (ten Irons), Golden (Fifteen Silvers), and Paper labels, however the last type isn't used as a direct currency but as a trading items that you can exchange to gain their equivalent of metal coins from special offices-

"Oh that'll be no problem" the girl said pulling her wallet from her bosom, she opened it to reveal that she carries a lot of five hundreds equivalent Golden Muns labels.

"Whoa!" Juan said in surprise.

"Hehe…My dad's was kind of a wealthy man…so probably one of his haters is behind his petrifaction."

"Yeah…that's probable" Juan answered, but suddenly the girl halted and pointed, making the young man do it as well, and there were they faced the great gate of Clavia.

To be continued