Chapter R8: The Journey to Luth E'll

(Ride's POV)

That morning I woke up without any problems. The young girl with the purple hair didn’t appear in my dreams again like yesterday. I was rather worried about the matter, but I just kept it tucked away in the depths of my mind. Was the young purple-haired girl the embodiment of the cursed sword? Or was it just my mind playing tricks on me. 

I really need to find a curse expert soon.

I got up from the bed and noticed that my friends were still sleeping. Looking towards the window, I could see that it was still dark outside. Dawn has yet to rise. I wasn’t feeling particularly sleepy anymore so I got up from the bed. My sleeping attire sticking closely to my body. I was sticky all over— must have sweated quite a bit last night. I slowly got out of the door to get to the shared bath of the inn; leaving my friends behind me as I close the door. I then proceed to walk briskly through the dark hallway, touching the wall to feel my way.

“Ah!”

My body bounced back as I bumped into somebody in the hallway, a surprised gasp rang out. I cleared my eyes as I try to identify the person that I bumped into. On the floor was a young girl with golden yellow hair with her face flat on the floor—a soft grumble from her mouth. Her butt was sticking out towards me. Unlike her normal clothing, this was a very thinly veiled clothing-

!

I quickly averted my eyes and stared away.

“Sorry about that,” I said to Lanarya.

“Ride? Is that you? Muuuu, you should watch where you’re going…” She chided me as she slowly got up from the floor. She turned around to look at me. Her golden colour eyes on my own.

“Y-yeah… I’ll be more careful next time.” I said to her.

“It’s alright, I don’t mind,” She let out a soft chuckle “You don’t usually wake up this early, having trouble sleeping?”

Ah right. I’m usually the late sleeper, aren’t I? Scorch asked me the same question yesterday too. 

“Nah, I don’t know why, but I don’t really feel tired today,” I said to Lanarya, “What about you? I didn’t think you were the early type."

“That’s pretty mean you know. In case you didn’t know I always wake up before dawn! It’s ingrained into me by my late grandmother,” she puffed her chest out proudly. Her two big round— I averted my eyes again. I didn’t think much of it before, but the clothes she usually wore doesn’t do her real figure any justice.

“I would always watch the rising sun with her before I start my morning training,” She continued on, not realising the fact that I averted my eyes from her figure. She did a slight pause before continuing- "That’s right! Why don’t you come with me, Ride! Let’s watch the sunrise together, it’s a real good feeling you know! We can train afterwards. I think I finally got the hang of this skill I’ve been trying to do for a while now!”

She grabbed my hand and started guiding me out of the inn. Wait! I haven’t given an answer yet!

.. ..
.. ..
.. ..

I sat down next to Lanarya in an open area beside the Inn and looked towards the east. Lanarya said that this place had a surprisingly nice view of the sunrise, so I’ll just take her word for it. There wasn’t anybody around in the area.  Well, not many people wake can wake up before dawn after all. Lanarya just swayed her body left and right while humming some sort of song softly. 

“Here it comes!” She said excitedly as the skies started to change from black to shades of orange and pink. Over the Horizon, the small ball of fire started to peak out and its ray started to illuminate the forest nearby and soon enveloped the city. Shimmering yellow could be seen from the ground and the roofs of the buildings.

It was a standard sunrise. It looks nice, I guess, but I never really understood the craze for it. I looked towards Lanarya to see her reaction to it. What came into my eyes wasn’t a scene of Lanarya excitedly looking towards the skies like a child but one of a serene beauty looking towards the sun in calmness. Her eyes intently followed the sun, not even blinking once. While her face was carved with a smile, her eyes were different. It had a tint of bittersweet in them.

The sunrise must have held an important place in her heart. 

“Nice right?” She asked me when the sun had truly risen.

“Um? Oh. Yeah, it looks nice,” I replied to her absentmindedly before looking away from her face.

“Come on! Let’s get some training done!” She said to me as she went to pick up a wooden sword lying around the area. She then threw it at me and I caught the sword magnificently. Lanarya proceeded to pick up another wooden sword before doing some light stretching.

“Wait? Are we doing it now?” I asked her.

“Of course! Bath always feels nicer after a good exercise!” She replied to me as she gets into a combat stance. “Let’s go, come on!”

Somehow, it felt like I got forced into this. Nonetheless, I got up and assumed a combat stance. 

The result of the match was lost for me. I tried my best, I really did. But there was no way I could concentrate on fighting someone wearing that light of a clothing!

 

* * * * *

 

The unfamiliar sound of an eagle could be heard. It wasn’t like any other eagle I’ve heard before, it was like a tiger trying to roar like an eagle rather than an actual eagle. I looked towards the skies and saw a weird-looking white bird flying in the air. It looked to be heading north, towards Luth E’ll. It was quite a distance above, so I couldn’t really see it clearly.

“What’s wrong?” I could hear Tyle asking from behind me.

“Nothing. It’s just that I thought I saw a new species of bird or something.” I replied to Tyle.

“Think we have any chance of capturing it? The rewards for reporting a new species is always good."

“Nah, the bird is too high up and it flew away already,” I said to Tyle.

“Ah, alright man. Come on, Let’s finish packing up” 

I nodded and get back to getting our luggage onto the carriage. The belongings that we managed to retrieve from the forest when we had to leave it behind and a huge sack of gold. Our belongings were easy. It’s not that much and can be easily carried by one guy. The big sack of gold on the other hand…

All because of that greedy idiot. 

We crunched our brains last night trying to think of a way to transport all these gold to Luth E’ll and we decided on splitting a part of the gold on each of our luggage and pouches. The rest we just store it into this multi-layered sack. The gold inside arranged in such a way that it wouldn’t make much noise when moved around. It was heavy, obviously, but better this than let people know that our party is carrying around a big sack of gold. Tyle and I carefully put the sack onto the carriage. We then hid the sack behind the rest of our luggage.

The first thing that we were going to do once we reached Luth E'll was store all these gold in some sort of bank or something or spend it all buying some real equipments for once. Whatever our decision was, we were going to have to wait till we reach Luth E’ll.

Having done our job, we regrouped with the others who were currently introducing themselves to other people who were going to ride with us in this carriage group to Luth E’ll. Pun not intended.

There were going to be six carriages in total for this entire one week trip. Each carriage will have a party of adventurers protecting it. Since we were going together we might as well coordinate our efforts. But first, we will have to introduce ourselves to the client and the others we were going to be travelling with.

“Just in time, Over there is the rest of my party. B rank Ride and C rank Tyle.” The greedy idiot introduced us to our client just as we arrived. It was a young-looking merchant who bears an uncanny resemblance to the adventurer’s guild branch leader Hamza.

Or rather, it was Hamza. 

“Ah! Yes yes, you must be the adventurers that my brother talked about! I now see I am in good hands.”

Yesterday, the branch leader gave us an offer to escort him towards Luth E’ll. That was his proposition. There were things he wanted to do at Luth E’ll and that he wanted to go there in disguised. I have no idea why, but it’s not our duty to ask. We just do the job and get paid.

Tyle and I gave Hamza our greetings and went on to greet the other passengers we will be escorting. A group of five other men and two women. Most likely guild staffs. The handsome guild receptionist that always tended to us during our time in Cezza was among them. We all know the drill at this point, so we just gave them a small briefing before we went ahead to meet the people of other carriages.

Most of the people of the other carriages were mostly civilians and merchants. All we did is just give them quick greetings and proceeded ahead. All except one carriage… 

A weird black-purplish carriage carrying a weird logo on it. Unlike the others, it was a fully covered one with no windows attached. On the back of the carriage is a platform where a bored looking petite girl with crimson red hair and eyes sat down. She was wearing a black one-piece dress and a pair of sandals. On top of her head is a white mask. I didn’t recognize the design.

Was she alone? Are her parents inside? 

We greeted and asked her a few questions, but she ignored us. Seeing that we couldn’t communicate any further we simply left her alone. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for people to just keep to themselves in these kinds of situations. I assumed it must have been some big company or group. Her parents must have told her to not talk to strangers.

Soon after that, all the adventurers or mercenaries gathered in the middle of the plaza to discuss plans and strategies. Everyone introduced themselves and their party. Most of them being either D or E ranks with a couple of C ranks sprinkle in between. Our party got quite the attention when we mentioned our party’s adventurers rank; with me getting the most attention since I was the sole B rank of all the people here. Various faint whispering of adventurers around me could be heard.

“A young person like that is a B rank?”  
“All of them are C rank and above? Damn”
“What’s a high-rank party doing in Cezza?” 
“You think they were the ones who got the leaves from the cave?”
“So young”

Despite that, I wasn’t the most famous here. The most attention went to a rather odd group. Or rather an odd individual.  A young crimson-haired girl with blood-red eyes. The same girl sitting down on the weird carriage just a moment ago. She was just standing there among us before introducing herself.

“Aattroo Phia.” She said to the group. Her voice despite having the young voice of a child was cold and apathetic. “I alone will be defending my own carriage. I have no need for rotations nor will I assist in others with their task. Feel free to exclude me from your planning," she spoke in a very mature tone before leaving the meeting to her carriage.

“Oi oi. Is she for real?” Kranis asked out loud.

“Wait, what? SHE'S the bodyguard?!” Scorch asked upon the revelation.

“No way right? She looks so young!” Lanarya said out loud as well.

“Forget about that, she says she’ll be doing it alone!” Kranis said.

“You guys think that the girl could be a demonfolk? She has those red eyes,” I asked the party. It was not rare for age-old people to take the form of young children after all. I heard fairies do that often.

“Maybe…” Tyle responded.

It took a while, but everyone soon calmed down and we began discussing plans on one the week of escort. To cut it short, the four main points are:-

1. Each party will keep night rotation as per usual. There will be five people watching over at any given moment during the night. (Six minus the one carriage)
2. Each carriage and party will find its own meal.
3. We will share a campfire every night, but that’s about it.
4. We will depart roughly two hours after sunrise and stop roughly two hours before sunset

Our route will be the long road that connects Cezza and Luth E’ll. Once everything is done and all preparations completed. We began our journey to Luth E’ll.

 

* * * * *

 

Everything went well on the first day of the journey and our carriage soon stopped. Kranis gave the signal to the carriages to notify that it’s about two hours from sunset. The other carriages saw this and stopped as well.

Just stopping wasn’t enough of course. We then coordinated our carriages and parked it in such a way that we make one large circle. This is useful in many ways. One is to block the wind from blowing during the night and to block the light from the fire from spreading too far. The other reason is that if a monster were to attack, the carriage will act as a wall that will protect the passengers.

I held the reins to the horse as I slowly guided them to park the carriage. I ordered the horses to stop as soon as I got into a good enough position—behind the weird purple-ish black carriage. Once done, I got down from the front seat and started to grab the carrots to feed the horses. Standard escorting quest stuff. 

The horses let out a very pleased neigh as I slowly fed them with the carrot. Good horsey. I hope you guys behave well for the next few days as well.

“...”

I could feel someone coming up next to me as I fed the horses. I turned to the location of the said person, curious about his identity. What I saw was the young figure of a crimson-haired girl, just standing there next to me. Staring intently at me feeding the horses.

“Can… Can I help?” I asked the young-looking girl.

"..." She didn't respond and continued to look at me.

"You… want to try feeding the horses?"

"..." Her stare made me nervous. But it wasn't as bad as the soul-piercing analysing look that Effinshia has.

I took a carrot onto my hand and held it out to her. She stared at my hand and slowly took the carrot. She then proceeded to offer the carrot to one of the horses. Because she was short she had to raise her hands quite far to the top.

*crunch

The horse saw this and chewed on the carrot. The young-looking girl didn't say any words. When the carrot had been completely consumed by the horse, she held her hand towards me. Her gesture poised as if asking me for more carrots.

I didn’t say anything and gave her another carrot—which she used to feed the horse once more. This continued for quite a while until the horses decided that they ate enough and refuse to eat any more. Just me and her in this awkward silence.

“...” 

Without any warning, she just walked away. A carrot still in her hand. I’m so confused.

Acting as if that event never happened, I went over to the rest of the group which were gathering around a campfire.

Food wasn’t a problem for our carriage as the guild staff packed lots of it. They were pretty good at cooking too, so we just did our own thing as the sunset came slowly. The others weren’t so lucky, so they went into the nearby plains or forest to hunt for something. Deciding that we still have time before dinner I went over to an open field right next to the campsite and drew out my sword. The normal one.

I might as well get some training done since I got all this free time.

Truth to be told, I’m still a little bit angry having lost to Lanarya this morning. Sure I made an excuse for myself but that new skill of hers did got her the advantage over me. Not to mention the skill Iron Body. It was a really powerful skill that she could use at any moment and I have a hard time getting around it. It was like a get out of jail free card. All she needed was to use it when I get past her defences.

I did try to get her to teach on how to use Iron Body but… she was a horrible teacher. I do not understand her instructions at all.

“To use Iron Body you need to become one with your sword. Permeate your body with mana and your skin becomes hard like metal!” was how she explained it to me.

I don’t get it. What does becoming one with your sword has anything to do with a skill that enhances your body? Permeating my body with mana doesn’t really help either. That’s like the basis of every skill. You just pump mana into the body parts you wish to use the skill on. I need to know the element, the type of spirit and the composition of the skill Lanarya!

If I didn’t know the girl, I would say she was holding back on me. I just let out a sigh and took combat stance.

It will take quite a while before I could learn skills from her. I need to decipher her teachings somewhat. But I do have another skill I’ve been working on recently. Crescent Slash. I’ve always been able to use the skill but I’ve never perfected it. It was always a clunky move. Although it was strong, the skill just doesn’t have good enough balance and took a lot of mana from me. 

Meeting with Effinshia the other day made me realise the true power of the skill and how to perfect it.

“The trick is to charge only one side of the blade instead of the whole th— ah crap," is the exact words that Effinshia said in that cave.

To charge only one side of the blade. She cut off near the end of the sentence but I think I roughly know what she meant by it. She didn’t tell us the whole trick as I don’t know how are you going to keep the full power of the skill with just half the mana but I think she wanted us to find out for ourselves I guess.

I started out by pumping mana into my sword. Just half like what Effinshia told me, on the front edge of the blade. The sword glowed red on one side as well. I then swung my sword in a forward slash.

“Crescent Blade!”

What came out was a whole load of air and nothing else. I had trouble keeping the sword in place during the execution of the skill. Looks like this was going to be harder than I thought.

 

* * * * *

 

Days two, three and four went well with no problems at all. We rode the carriages and the guild staff handled the meals. Every evening after we stopped for the day I just went and did my usual training. Trying to perfect Crescent Slash. It seemed that I got quite the audience from the other adventurers as I’m trying to perfect this skill.

The other C rank saw this and each one of them gave me some advice based on the observation they did as I executed the skill. Keeping my footing stable, keeping my swinging more evenly distributed and things like that. The other members of my party ‘Providence’ just sat by and cheered on for me as I tried to perfect the skill. It was embarrassing to say the least but they had nothing else better to do I guess.

Lanarya tried joining me for a while but she gave up halfway when she understood that it wasn’t as easy as she thought. She hasn’t even perfected the full mana version of Crescent Slash, so it was understandable that she won’t be able to pull this off. It’s just like me with Cross Slash. I could never pull it off normally. How I managed to execute that skill during that fight with the End Wolf, I may never know.

“Crescent Slash!”

I shouted the name of the skill as I swung my sword forward again. Unlike my first day, there was actually a crescent blade this time that came out of the sword. But it was very faint. It won’t be able to cut down any enemies at that state. Not satisfied, I charged my blade once again to execute the skill.

“Dinner is almost ready Ride, we’re going ahead," Scorch shouted out to me.

“I’ll be right there,” I shouted back.

I was then left alone as the others made their way to the camp. I decided to get in a few more rounds before dinner. Unsatisfied with my current results, I charged my blade once again to execute the skill.

“Crescent Slash!” I shouted.

This time it was a dud, not even a faint image of a crescent. I let out a sigh. This was getting to be quite frustrating. I reset my position and got ready to launch another one.

“Your control of mana and conversion of magic is sloppy.” 

Eh?

My movement stopped when I heard the voice of a young girl. Mature but cold and apathetic. I turned around to see the crimson-haired girl just sitting on the back of her carriage. Looking at me with a carrot in her hands.

“You are attempting to do something without mastering the basics. When one narrows a river in half, one does not expect half the water to flow. Some water might be held back but generally, the water will simply flow faster. Pressure will accumulate to accommodate for the lack of width. You are failing to understand that concept and thus, as a result, you are failing to control your magic output.” She started to lecture me.

“I’m sorry?” 

“You are doing this exercise in futile. You do not understand, and you are slow in trying to understand it. It’s not efficient. You need to re-learn the basics of mana control and the theory behind it," she said to me as she walked away.

…

I just stood there in awe. Having the truth being revealed to me like that, it was kind of depressing. No longer having the mood to continue training, I just packed up and went straight for dinner. 

But still, it was a shock to me that the young girl went and told me all of that. She was quiet the whole trip, why suddenly talk now?

 

* * * * *

 

The days went by and we were finally on the last day of the trip. Luth E’ll was almost in sight. Having been revealed that what I was doing was useless, I decided to take Aattroo’s advice and re-learn the basics of mana manipulation. I asked Tyle to guide me about it and the both of us grouped together to practice our basics. Lanarya followed soon after and the three of us began practising together. 

As expected, being the mage of our team, he was the best at doing it. I was a second place, behind Tyle. That’s just in position,  I was nowhere close to his skills at manipulating it. Surprisingly, Lanarya was the worst among all of us at manipulating mana. Which came as a shock to me because of how precise her sword skills and her ability to use the Iron Body skill flawlessly.

It was a first for me too. Seeing Lanarya this frustrated at not being able to do something successfully. 

The sun had rose for a while now and the carriage was about to depart. Tyle gave me a signal that he was going to do his business and I just nodded back. He then got up and left me and Lanarya to do his business. Lanarya only tilts her head in bewilderment as she saw this.

“Where is Tyle going?” Lanarya asked.

“Oh. He’s going to use the toilet before we depart” I told Lanarya. Still doing my Mana manipulation exercise.

“I see…” Lanarya just nodded and she kept up her exercise as well.

Silence came over the two of us for a while, when Lanarya suddenly broke it.

“I’m jealous you know.”

Huh?

“Jealous about what?” I asked, perplexed by her statement.

“Nothing really. It’s just that you all have these signals and body cues and you guys just instantly know what the other is thinking.”

Well… I have known these guys for the better part of my life after all. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that our minds were in sync.

“You guys might not notice it, but you all do it a lot. I get left out plenty of times. I just thought how nice it would be if I could communicate like that to you guys. I just need to look at you a certain way and you can instantly understand what I’m trying to say.”

Is… is that why she kept doing all those strange signals and gestures to us these past few days? 

“Not only that but in battle, you guys just know what each other are going to do. I can’t help but feel jealous of that bond. I just feel so left behind in this party”

“I see…”

“...”

We both just kept quiet after that. I wanted to say something to her but I couldn’t think of anything.  It was during that moment in the carriage when I suddenly heard a scream.

“Monsters!”

I surged upwards as I heard that. Without any hesitation, I quickly drew out my sword and went outside to see the situation. Lanarya followed behind me.

“To the east! A bunch of sabertooth! Scorch is holding on there with the other adventurers!" Kranis yelled out to me from on top of the carriages. He then drew out his bow and nocked an arrow into it before firing at something.

“Got it” “Aye Aye sir!” 

Lanarya and I answered and started running east to intercept the monsters.

“Sabertooth from the west!” Tyle voice rang out in the area before we could move far.

What?

I turned around only to see Tyle running away from a number of sabertooths as well. 

“Ride!” Lanarya shouted to me.

I just nodded and rushed straight to intercept the sabertooths from attacking Tyle. Lanarya joined me and we regrouped with Tyle.

I positioned myself between Tyle and the sabertooths while Lanarya covered Tyle from behind.

“Tyle think you can make a firewall? We can block them from reaching the camp.” Lanarya asked.

“I’ll try!’ Tyle responded as he started to cast the spell firewall.

I nodded to Lanarya and she nodded back to me. We both went ahead and covered Tyle for the duration. The big cats tried to breach our defenses but our combo game was better. 

When time was up, Tyle casted the firewall to block the sabertooths. Having their way blocked by a wall of fire, we decided to run back and regroup with the other party members at camp. What came into view is more Sabertooths coming in from the south and the north. The other adventurers barely holding on. 

What is with this numbers?!

Kranis tried to defend as many positions as he can from the top but one managed to slip pass from the south. I quickly handled the monster before it managed to get any closer to the camp. Tyle took position next to Kranis and started casting spells to rain down upon the monsters on the south side. Lanarya and I act as a wall to prevent any monsters from breaking through.

“Ride! West! They manage to break through the fire wall!”

That was fast! No way we can hold the west and south on our own! Having no other choice, I nodded to Lanarya to tell her to continue defending South while I handle the west alone. I don’t know if she understood me or not, but I got no time to wait for a reply. 

I sheathed my sword and proceeded to gripped my other sword. The good one. However, before I could draw it, I heard a strange sound.

*Pew!

A black beam came out of nowhere and hit one of the sabertooths coming from the west. The parts of the body that got hit by the beam got disintegrated and what was left of the sabertooth just fell to the ground.

*Pew! *Pew! *Pew! *Pew!!

Four more black beams shot out and hit four more sabertooths. Killing them instantly. The rest of the sabertooths from the west side saw this and ran away. I let out a sigh of relief and tried to find the source of the black beam. My eyes traced back to a strange carriage. A petite young girl with crimson hair standing on top of it. Her finger pointing towards the west.

It was Aattroo Phia. She changed directions and pointed south instead. A small black ball of energy appeared at her fingertips.

*PEW!

A large beam came out from her fingertips and hit a sabertooth on the south side. Unlike the other beams, this one was bigger and just let out a continuous stream.

She moved her finger towards the east and then ended on the north. The beam followed the direction of her finger and left a scorched mark on the ground as the beam moved. Sabertooths that got caught by the beam instantly died. The remaining ones saw this and ran away. 

What was left after the carnage was the mark of black soil burnt to a crisp. The smell of burnt like charcoal assailed my nostrils.

Seeing that we are safe again. Aattroo jumped down from the carriage and went back to her seat. Waiting for the departure of the carriages. I could only stare in astonishment at how easy she handled the matter. She’s definitely not any normal child. If she is a child at all. She could be several hundred years old for that matter. Being a demonfolk and all.

“I've seen people some crazy strong people before you know.” Suddenly Effinshia’s words rang out in my mind as I witness everyone else being awed by the sheer power of the young-looking girl.