Awakening the Divine Spark-Chapter 223: Dante.

"Good afternoon, Sir! Is there a place a traveler could stay in the village?" Lee asked a middle-aged man, currently occupied with stretching a wolf hide over a fleshing beam.

The man looked back at him in confusion, then glanced around, and said, "Are you crazy, boy? Go back to where you came from!"

The old woman turned out to be right. It actually took Lee over three months to find the first human settlement. It turned out to be a small village, no more than twenty families.

Before entering it, he took out a large stack of hides from his spatial ring. He prepared them on the way to play the role of a lost hunter, but apparently something was off.

Initially he thought that his ragged looks would work well in this situation, but the villager shooed him away after barely glancing at the tired traveler. This was not how usually people in the country behaved.

"What’s wrong? Are there trouble?" He asked the man, but the latter murmured too late! instead of answering.

And a moment later Lee realized why. Five people, apparently soldiers, dressed in elegant leather armor with swords at their sides, walked over with quick steps.

Lee considered whether he should run, but it was unlikely there were any elemental lords here. He could deal with one or two elemental masters, thus there was no need to panic.

In fact, he didn’t want to fight at all. After spending months in the wild, battling beasts on every step, he was constantly tormented by pain day and night. He dreamed of spending few days, maybe even half a month in a peaceful place to meditate and recover.

From the never ending agony, his mind was short of collapsing, and arriving to a peaceful village was like a dream come true. He urgently needed to settle down the raging elemental particles within and stabilize the three sparks.

Every time he fought he felt like his Dantian might explode, and it was highly likely he was receiving internal injuries whenever he used any of the elements. Probably only the effect of the water spark kept patching him up, but it couldn’t last forever.

The five soldiers quickly arrived, and their leader, a burly bearded man around thirty years of age, asked, "Dante, what’s going on here? Who’s this?"

"Commander Jules, hello!" Dante, the middle-aged man Lee was talking to, said. It looked like he was inwardly struggling for a moment, but then his eyes lit up and he said, "I’m finally honored to introduce you to my son, Hale. Hale, quickly greet Commander Jules!"

Lee had no clue what the man had in mind, but the whole thing stank of trouble. The obvious choice was to play along with the villager, though, so he passed the stack of skins he carried to him, and said with a slight bow, "I’m sorry, Commander Jules, for the lack of manners. This wasn’t how my parents raised me!"

"I thought your mother was long dead!" The commander snorted in return.

"That’s a figure of speech, my apologies." Lee said.

Clearly the manner he spoke didn’t fit a simple villager, but fortunately the soldier fixated on something else entirely.

He asked, "And where were you all this time? How long it has been, a year and a half?"

"I’m sorry!" Lee said, "I got lost in the forest."

"Ye? And how can you prove that?" The commander pestered.

"I ..." Lee wanted to think of something, but Dante interrupted.

"Here’s his token." He said, pulling out two tokens from his pocket, and passing one to Lee, "He left it with me to not lose it while hunting."

"Looks like you’re a family of losers!" Commander Jules said, "Make sure to pay the tribute in full the next month! Otherwise you’ll both loose your heads!"

"Thanks, I guess." Lee said after the five walked away, laughing and ridiculing Dante and his fake son, "Killing them probably would’ve been the wrong choice."

"Are you nuts? The Dominion would erase the village from the face of the earth!" Dante said, throwing a glance at the backs of the five soldiers, "Come, help me with the hides. Good thing they didn’t notice you have no clue how to properly skin a wolf. More importantly, you can’t show you’re capable of killing a bear, boy! No one will believe you’re one of us!"

"Sure." Lee said, "But would you mind telling me what exactly is going on?"

"Not now!" Dante said, "They’ll be drunk later in the evening, then we’ll talk."

***

Lee’s dream to have a rest had to wait.

The second part of the day he spent learning how to properly cure hides. It was purely a physical exercise and he had been curious about the process for some time – after all during the past months he had killed wildlife in numbers that would’ve been enough to populate a small world.

When the sun was about to set, Dante motioned for Lee to follow him into the small wooden hut. It had only two rooms – a larger one that served as a living room and a kitchen, and a smaller one that was likely the owner’s bedroom.

While preparing a simple meat stew he finally was ready to talk.

"I don’t know where you came from, boy, but you’re clearly not from Dominion." He said, "Maybe there’s a better world on the other side of the forests, but please don’t tell me anything. Hale had a dream of finding a place where all people lived in peace, but he never came back ..."

"So the token was ..." Lee wanted to ask, but Dante guessed his question.

He said, "Right. It’s Hale’s. Keep it on yourself at all times. Every citizen of Dominion has to have one, otherwise they’ll be prosecuted and spend their days in mines."

’How the fuck every other world has slavery!’ Lee thought, ’Why can’t people simply employ others? Isn’t it more productive?’

"I don’t know what your intentions and plans are, but you have to be careful." Dante continued, "The army is basically omnipotent anywhere you go. And don’t try to fight your way through them. I saw the bear pelts, I know you’re strong, but you’re nobody compared to the true masters of the Droskar Dominion."

"Can you tell me more about it?" Lee asked.

Dante shrugged, "There’s not much to tell. Dominion been around for generations. It was before my father’s time, and before his father’s as well. It’s been said that the Dominion is the only country in our world. The forests and swamps surrounding it are too dangerous. That’s why no one leaves and no one fights the Dominion."

"I don’t believe there’s no resistance." Lee said, remembering the Sunwell and the Hand of God.

"Shhh! Never ever speak of that again!" Dante said, throwing a vigilant glance at the door, "Lord Duvant is the leader we all love! Long live the lord!"

His expression and tone completely contradicted his words, but Lee easily guessed what the man wanted to say to him.

"Thank you!" He said, "Sir Dante, can I hang out here for a few days? I promise to help you around the house as soon as I recover."

"You’re injured?" Dante asked, inspecting Lee from head to toe with his eyes.

"Minor internal injuries, nothing serious." Lee said, forcing out a smile.

"Alright, but call me father." Dante said, "And now listen, I have to teach you the names of all the other villagers."

"Right ... they’ll recognize me not being ..." Lee said, realizing the implications, but Dante interrupted.

He said, "No, they won’t. I’ll visit them in the morning and tell them you’re my son. They’ll understand."

Lee didn’t like the fact that his fate was entrusted to people of twenty households keeping a secret. On the other hand, he could deal with the handful of soldiers stationed here anyway. Thus, for the next twenty days he played the role of an obedient son of a leatherworker, recovering, learning about tanning and skinning, and occasionally hunting.

He left as soon as his three sparks had completely settled down.

Dante said goodbyes with tears in his eyes, knowing they would never meet again. Lee guessed that during their brief time together Dante had carried the illusion of taking care of his real son and passing on the family craft. Strangely enough, by bidding farewell to a stranger, the man found closure for his own tragedy.