Chapter 30: Chapter 30: Elsewhere – Julie
Julie watched as the party of 5 evolvers in front of her left the clearing they had been camped in. Waiting for another half hour to be sure they were not returning she entered the clearing as stealthily as possible; she approached the stamped-out campfire and started looking around it for any scraps of food left by the group.
She had been observing this group for almost two weeks now and one thing she learned about this group was they were very wastefully when it came to food. They would consistently be leaving perfectly good cuts of meat from their kills by their old campfires. When she watched them kill an animal they would butcher it badly and leave a lot of meat that could have been harvested.
Of course, she wouldn't complain as she was able to benefit off these hunters that would make terrible butchers. She had even found a small carving knife on the ground at one of their campsites. They seemed pretty friendly in their group, all of them getting along and the girl in the group looked perfectly fine, in fact she even seemed to act like a leader to the group.
Julie would have revealed herself to them but after what had happened not long after she had been summoned she was not very trusting of people right now. When she had walked into camp with their scouting party and had seen the goblins attacking the women along with the half-eaten bodies of the men it had taken everything in her to not vomit and lose consciousness from fright.
Something in her had worked though as she hadn't paused to see the scene for more than a second before turning and sprinting back into the forest she had emerged from. She could hear as the men she had been scouting with that afternoon tried holding off the goblins chasing her, but the sounds of fighting had died pretty quickly, only to be replaced with the sounds of goblins in pursuit of her.
She had been almost caught too; she had managed to get away because she had dove into the river running not far from their camp. She had tried holding her breath as long as possible, but she ran out of air eventually. Thankfully, right as she couldn't hold her breath any longer her hands, which had been flailing around the bottom and sides of the embankment found what felt like a hole, tempting fate she grabbed what felt like the edges of the hole and pulled herself in. To her immense luck after a few feet, she felt the opening turn upwards and squirming through she found she was in a small den that had an air pocket in it.
She couldn't see in the dark, but she was able to use her hands to feel that the little den she found herself in was no large than 6ft (183 cm) across, it seemed to be in a dome shape, and she hadn't been sure how deep under water she was when she had found the opening, but she guessed that she had been above water level.
Julie had waited for hours on end according to the basic system she had as a summons. When she had finally decided to emerge, it was 10 hours later and late into the long night. She had not found any of the goblins around and deciding to play it safe she began making her way upstream. Her thoughts were, if she was looking for someone who had dove into the river that person would most likely end up downstream. So, she would go upstream where they wouldn't expect someone to go. She had spent 5 days trudging her way up the stream until she felt safe enough to emerge from it.
After emerging from the river, she had spent 3 more days wandering around the forest around her and eating berries and drinking river water. It was on the third day that she had heard the fighting, not being able to hold back her curiosity Julie had may her way over covertly to see what was going on.
That was when she came across the group she had been following ever since. Of course she didn't follow them back to their base, she would however tail them to a certain point before letting them disappear from her sight. They would end up reappearing each day to hunt and she was easily able to locate them and trail them while waiting to gather their scraps of food.
At this point it had just hit a little over one month since she had been summoned. She had found a piece of cooked venison that looked like fat trimmings that were cut off, but the person left a lot of meat on the trimmings. Sitting by the smoking remnants of the campfire she feasted on the tender juicy meat reveling in the taste of food. This meat was so much better than berries and raw fish.
As she ate Julie silently lamented her lot in life, she had died when she was young, only 19. She had been a butcher's daughter and had worked in her father's shop. She had learned to skin and butcher all sorts of animals from her father, and from the hunters who had brought their kills to be butchered she had learned how to hunt.
Her village had been attacked by a group of Onis, devil looking beings that were blue or green skinned. Their distinguishing feature was a single, curling, spiral horn coming out of their forehead. She had fought them along side her father with their butcher knives but after killing 5 her dad was overwhelmed and killed, she was killed shortly after.
The next thing she knew she had been summoned; she had been excited at first thinking she would have a shot at a new life. She faced a harsh reality when she first met the guy named Cooper, he had called himself king, but she wasn't sure what he was a king of, other than a small patch of dirt. The image of him calmly watching as the goblins had been committing such atrocities haunted her every night. As she remembered those haunting eyes, that had met hers right before he had ordered her capture, a shiver went up her spine.
Finishing up the meat Julie was satisfied and planned on going back to the tree she had been using to sleep in for the past few nights. As she got up and began making her way back into the tree line a voice caught her off guard.
"You ate the food my people left you, but wont stay to have a friendly chat."
Julie froze, her mind immediately went to 'Cooper had found her', but then the rational part of her brain kicked in. She had heard Coopers voice, and it was definitely different, Coopers voice was high pitched and whiny while this man's voice was deep and had a calming and entrapping tone to it.
Turning slowly around Julie looked at who had spoken, at the tree line leaned a giant of a man wearing a metal faceless mask with only holes for his eyes. His arms were folded over his chest, while one of his ankles crossed over the other as he causally leaned against a tree taking in her battered appearance.
His skin was a dusky color with what looked like a golden glow trying to break free from inside him, his pure white hair was shaved almost bald on the sides while the top was long enough to be pulled back into a braid. Her green eyes met his violet and gold ones from across the clearing as she stood there staring at this giant. He had to be a few feet taller than she was.
Julie glanced at herself as she stood in front of this imposing figure, she looked completely opposite of him. She was skin and bones with not much meat on her. Her clothes were dirty and torn from catching on brambles, branches, and other things in the forest. Her brown hair was matted and tangled from her not having washed properly in a few weeks now.
Her cherubic face covered in dirt scrunched up as she heard her own voice for the first time.
"Wh..what..what do you want, please I just want to be left alone." Beginning to tear up she watched as the man stood from his leaning position and placed his hands in front of him as if he was warding something off.
With a deep sigh and a constipated look in his face he answered her.
"It's fine, I am not here to harm you. In fact, I want the opposite. My team tells me that you have been following them for a couple weeks now. They have been leaving food behind here and there and I see you got the knife they left you too."
Hearing what he said it was like a lightning bolt had struck her mind, Julie completely froze. They knew, they had known this whole time?!
Seeing the panic in her eyes the man continued.
"They did not follow you but, my people are not weak, they could tell they were being watched and when they determined you were no threat they allowed you to follow them while leaving food behind without alerting you to knowing they saw you."
He motioned to the stumps by the campfire in the clearing.
"You seem like you have bee through hell and back if you don't mind I brought a couple big cuts of steak and some clan water to drink. I cant eat it all myself and could use some help eating it. While we eat maybe you can possibly tell me what brought you to this state and my side of the woods."
He motioned towards the campfire then walked over and began working on getting a fire going again. She stood rooted as she watched him get the fire going and began cooking the steaks he took out of thin air. Everything in her said to run as he had his back to her, but a small voice in her mind said this man wasn't like Cooper and that he didn't mean her harm.
After he settled in and began watching the steaks cook over the flame, he glanced at her over his shoulder and nodding his head at one of the opposite stumps he asked.
"Coming."
Julie made her decision, she cautiously circled around to his front maintaining a distance from him. When she was on the opposite side of the fire she sat down, all the while not taking her eyes off him.
He pulled a water skin our of thin air and looked like he was going to toss it over at her but stopped mid motion. She heard him mumble.
"Probably will think its poisoned."
Opening the water skin, he drank a bit before closing it up and tossing it at her. Julie deftly caught it and opened it to drink. As she greedily drank the cold delicious water from the skin she heard him speak to her again.
"If you wouldn't mind can you tell me how you ended up like." Motioning at her he continued. "Like this."
Frowning and a little insulted she sat up a little straighter as she defiantly looked back at him. Seeing his expectant look she quietly began slowly narrating her story. The man listened attentively frown at a lot of the story and poking the steaks every now and then. After around 30 minutes she finished her story and looked at him expectantly.
He sat quietly, seemingly in thought for around 5 minutes before he looked her in the eyes. His mask was intimidating, but she ignored it and stared back.
"My name is Rosario Morlux, I am a collective noble with 10 subordinates under me. Would you like to join us and become strong enough to take your own revenge?"
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
PrimordialGio
PrimordialGio hello all sorry for the delay in posting my Internet was down yesterday night and did not come back till this morning. enjoy the chapter.
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