Chapter 9 Setting Off

"Granny, stop joking," Duncan shook his head in clear exasperation.

"I am not joking boy," Granny Jiao admonished by bonking his head before continuing. "You are at that stage in life where you are yearning for something new. Nothing in this town interests you and you feel as if being suffocated. What you are looking for is excitement, boy. And the best way to find it is to search for a comely wench and marry her. I heard that you took the crofter's daughter to bed. Pity, she had already married last year."

"Granny!!!" Duncan huffed in exasperation.

"Don't Granny me boy. I have seen countless younglings like you enter this state. Marriage usually calms them down. By the time a year or two rolls by they will have a little sprog of their own and the itch to seek something new wears out," Granny Jiao said admonishingly.

"I don't wanna get married," Duncan said mulishly before draining the rest of the tea in his cup with a single gulp.

"Ah, it's a pity. I would have like to see your little sprog," Granny Jiao chortled good-naturedly before finishing her own cup of tea.

"Anyway, if you don't want to get married, then the only thing you can do is to leave this town," Granny said with a small smile. "You have seen everything in here. A little bit of travel wouldn't hurt. You are young yet, and traveling to the nearby towns or even to the Starmist City would help you get the itch out of the way."

Duncan sat there weighing Granny Jiao's words. This suggestion sounded good. He had already exhausted all the avenues he had in this town. With the cultivators treating him like shit and all his inquiries ending up in vain, there wasn't anything else he could do in the town anyway.

"But, you have to be careful if you choose to travel. The world isn't a kind place. There are lots of dangerous things out there. Wild beasts and demonic beasts will be the least of your worries. The truly dangerous things are other humans and cultivators," Granny Jiao cautioned him with worry in her eyes.

"Cultivators?" Duncan asked eagerly.

"Indeed, our Starsinger Town is just a frontier town. In fact, if not for the spirit mine there wouldn't even be a town here. There are other bigger towns out there and not to mention the cities. I heard that even the Starmist City is only a small city."

"I could hardly imagine how anything could be bigger than Starmist City. After all, Starmist City is already very huge. It would take you an entire day to walk from one end of the city to another. Can you even imagine that?"

"Tell me about the cultivators," Duncan urged not caring about how big a city truly was.

"Why do you want to know about them? If you know what's good for you boy, you would stay far away from them. If you think the cultivators here are bad, then you don't even know how bad they could be. Compared to those people outside, these ones are tame."

"How come?" Duncan asked in shock.

Duncan's experience with cultivators was anything but good. They were rude, disrespectful, and had sadistic tendencies. Even the better ones looked at you as if you were vermin. How could it become much worse?

"Hmmmph, you are truly naïve boy if you think these ones are bad. At most, the ones here will only humiliate you. That is because they couldn't kill the people here. If they did, there will be no one to work for them in the mines. Not many people are willing to work in a mine, you see. That is the only reason, why some of the worst ones here haven't gone on a killing spree."

Granny Jiao's face was entirely grave by now.

"Remember Duncan, in the eyes of cultivators we are nothing better than livestock. Outside of the Starsinger town, they would kill you in a blink of an eye. They don't even need to have a reason to do that. They would kill us on a whim. So, stay away from the cultivators at all cost," Granny Jiao finished grimly before rising up and leaving towards the kitchen.

Duncan sat there stunned as he digested Granny Jiao's words. He already had a low opinion of cultivators, but Granny Jiao described them as something akin to monsters. He truly didn't know how to feel about that.

"Granny, how do you know all this?" Duncan asked rousing himself from his stupor as he saw her emerging from the kitchen.

"Hmmmph, did you think that I spent all my life here? When I was young, my old man and I traveled even to Starmist City. If you go traveling, you should definitely visit there before coming back here," Granny Jiao preened causing Duncan to smile.

"Anyways, I am sure a young man like you has lots to do. So, get going. If you decide to travel, come see me. I will arrange some safe passage for you. It is better to go in a group than travel alone. That way it will be much safer," Granny Jiao shooed him away.

Duncan rose from his seat and bid her goodbye. He walked out of Granny Jiao's house deep in thought thinking about what Granny Jiao had said. While his situation wasn't exactly the same, it was identical enough for him to start considering traveling as an option.

On week later, Duncan was determined to travel. Anyway, he had nothing left to lose with seeing more of the world. If what Granny Jiao said was true, the world was much bigger than he had initially thought.

Who knows, he might even find some solution to the problem that had been plaguing him somewhere out there. With his mind made up, he visited Granny Jiao and informed her of his decision. She merely gave him a knowing look, before telling him to come see her one week from then.

Meanwhile, Duncan began to settle his affairs in the town. He informed the supervisor in the mine. The man grumbled and dragged for a few days, before eventually agreeing to his request. Duncan even sold off his house to one of the new miners who had been in dire need.

He bought himself a travel sack and even upgraded his clothes to something respectable. Since he had been a miner for a long time, he had never cared about his clothes much as they would all eventually become dirty. Now that he was going to travel, he needed something clean to at least start off with.

He even settled down in a small inn for the remainder of his time in the town. He visited Bessa twice and enjoyed her until he had his fill. Bessa was a little reluctant to see him leave, but in the end, she sent him off with one last mind-blowing sex that even tired him out.

Big Rock learned of his decision and gave him some good common sense advice like hiding money in different places, buying some small knife for protection, and even teaching him some tips on how to wield it properly. He warned Duncan of showing his money in public places where it might invite a calamity on him and even gave him a sendoff with a large pot of wine.

Duncan arrived at Granny Jiao's house at the appointed time. Granny Jiao brewed him a cup of tea and informed him that he will be joining the merchant caravan that usually brought her medicines to the other towns as a guard.

Considering his big stature and hard muscles, it wasn't much of a problem according to her. She also gifted him with an old sword that belonged to her old man. Duncan embraced Granny Jiao with tears in his eyes and bid a hearty farewell to her.

As Duncan was leaving the house, she once more stressed that he should stay away from cultivators for his own good and advised him to come back only after sating his wanderlust. Duncan smiled in reply, before gifting her with a forehead kiss that earned him a swat in his ass as Granny Jiao chortled merrily.

Duncan walked towards the town square to meet the merchant caravan with steady steps and large anticipation in his heart. Little did he know that this was the start of his journey towards things that were far bloodier than anything he had prepared himself for.