I'm a Immortal Tavernkeeper, But My S-Rank Daughter Doesn't Know That!

Elban’s appearance had left Victor a little dazed, so he still wasn’t fully focused. On the other hand, a monster like the Blight in front of him didn’t have that problem.

Victor somersaulted to the side to dodge another attempt by the Blight to lash out at him. When he raised his head, he saw several other vines moving rapidly towards him. Yet Victor was quick and cut through them all without difficulty. There was no chance of him being hurt by a single Blight.

Cutting through the vines, Victor advanced across the clearing, and Blight kept trying to hit and grab him in every way as Victor ran towards it, but the hunter’s handling of the sword was something absurdly fantastic. At the same time, the torch in his hand flickered in the wind.

Victor had to be careful that the flame of the torch didn’t go out, because the Blight would only die if its main body caught fire.

However, although this Blight was still a monster, it had once been a conscious spirit, so it had an enhanced level of intelligence that needed to be taken into account. This one, who Victor was fighting, had a backup plan, and while Victor was dodging and slashing most of the vine’s ’arms’, it positioned a creeping vine and as Victor stepped over it, the creature grabbed his foot.

Victor fell face down on the ground, and his torch flew forward.

At that moment, the Blight surprisingly concentrated its efforts not on Victor, but on the torch, which didn’t go out even as it fell to the ground, and all the vines advanced towards the torch. However, in the blink of an eye, Victor was already on his feet and with his bare hands grabbed the first vine, stepped on one part of it and pulled the other hard, tearing it apart.

At the same time, another vine tentacle came from the left and another from the right, this time targeting Victor again. He was unarmed, but he wasn’t a warrior with just his sword, especially when it came to fighting monsters, his specialty. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Victor held a vine tentacle with his right hand and with his free hand he did the same, holding both. Then he jumped, spun in the air and tied one vine to the other, tying the tentacles in a knot. This gave Victor time to get to his sword before the thing managed to free its plant arms.

Blights deliberately made the two main vine tentacles rot in the part where they were tied and then the rest regenerated, thus freeing themselves from the knot.

Victor, sword in hand, turned towards the Blight and, instead of cutting the tentacles, he threw the sword as hard as he could.

The sword with its yellowish, crystallized pommel flashed across the clearing like a thundercloud and struck Blight in the middle of the forehead, who was logically trying to keep as much distance as possible.

In the next instant, the tentacles shriveled up completely, their pointed ends just a few centimeters from Victor’s face.

Victor took a deep, relieved breath and complained:

"In my prime, I would have taken care of that in an instant. It seems that retirement has taken its toll on me."

Finally, Victor picked up his torch from the ground, tore a piece of fabric from his cloak and wrapped it around the base of the torch, increasing the fire again.

Victor walked to the other side of the clearing, where the Blight had been driven into a tree with his sword, and before removing the sword from the head of the monster, which was still alive and only regenerating more slowly, Victor put his torch to the Blight’s abdomen, which immediately started to catch fire easily.

Only then did Victor remove his sword from the monster, wipe off the intensely green sap that covered the blade on his own clothes and put the sword back in its leather sheath.

As proof that he had killed a Blight, Victor had to wait until the creature was completely on fire to take the crystallized heart from it, which in this case was literally a tulip made of glass.

"I’ll never get used to something so beautiful coming out of a creature with such an... unusual appearance. Anyway, now I have my first silver coin of the day, four more to go." Victor said and put the tulip in his pocket.

Victor then looked back in the direction where he had seen Elban and saw the same glow as before. However, now it was clear, it wasn’t a torch he saw, but a floating, orange orb.

"A spirit..." Victor recognized.

In the past, Victor had actively studied spirits and the supernatural to try to understand the logic behind the elves’ magic so he could teach it to Wanda, which is why he knew so much about these beings.

"Is that really you, Elban?" Victor wondered as he watched the floating, ethereal-looking orb enter the forest. "Well, if it is, that would make more sense than him reviving. And something tells me there’s only one way to find out."

Victor watched the floating orb carefully as it disappeared between the trees of the forest, going even deeper. He knew he couldn’t ignore this encounter and decided to follow the orb into the dense vegetation of the forest.

The orange light emanating from the orb guided Victor’s steps, creating a luminous path between the trees and leading him to meet other Blights. All of them were quickly killed by Victor, who had no trouble dealing with tentacled Blights, nor with the thorny ones, nor with those that could multiply.

As he made his way through the forest, Victor wondered why Elban’s spirit was still there and if that was what was making the veil so thin or even awakening mocking, evil spirits? If it was, Victor would need to find a way to guide Elban.

The light from the floating orb led Victor to a hidden clearing in the heart of the forest. There, amidst all the mist, he saw Elban again, back in humanoid form.

Elban emanated an aura of mystery, his eyes shining with an intensity that was both welcoming and intimidating. In a way, he seemed alive, but the light pierced through his body, and now Victor no longer had any doubts that he was a spirit.

"Victor, my old friend," said Elban in a voice that echoed like the whisper of the wind among the leaves. "We haven’t met for a long time. I see your skills are still sharp."