Perspective of the Blood-Sucking Demon
Unfortunately, our travel supplies didn't include a dunkel, which is basically this world's equivalent of a horse, although it's more like an ox. Something to pull the supplies, and more importantly us, could've been useful, but Xedne said that the ones they had were too valuable and Kala talked about how expensive they are.
Well, at least I didn't need to pull the cart, Emily's doing that fine. When I tried to ride on it, Emily got angry and said I needed to walk for the exercise, so walking it is. In my bat form, it would've been easy to just ride on someone too… although that would be difficult in the daylight.
It's going to take some time to get to the capital, although there are at least a few settlements along the way. Xedne gave us metal adventurer cards and some letters to help. We left town in the opposite direction as the forest and went over a bridge across a river. After farmland, it was mostly just plains without really much to see. Well, we should arrive at the next village in a couple of days.
I soon noticed something approaching us in the air. It started a dive, and so I prepared my staff. It looks bigger than the bird monsters we fought before. Wait, is it…?
"Sora! You're late! What's been going on, man?"
"Emily, do you think crossing between worlds is easy? Well, in any case, wait here. Now that I've confirmed your position, I'll get the others." And he flew off.
Yaten looked amused. "One of your friends?"
"That was Sora, the tengu." Emily explained. "I guess you can say he's a bird demon? He can be rather full of himself, but he has a nice side as well."
We went to a nearby tree for some shade while we waited for the others. It didn't take too long, about half an hour.
"Sora! Hinoko! Mizuki! Nice to see you again!" Emily called out.
There was also one other person I didn't recognize. As they came closer, Hinoko ran up and hugged me. "I missed you!" She then moved on to hugging Emily next.
"Greetings. Ms. Xedne of the adventurer's guild has already explained everything. You must be Kala and Yaten. I'm pleased to meet you." Mizuki bowed.
"I'm Laura, the witch. I heard you have a book on magic circles? If I may borrow it, I might figure out how to get us out of this mess." I looked towards the others and they seemed to trust her, so I gave her the book. I already had everything copied into my system notes anyways.
They explained everything that occured on their side. Laura wasn't happy about the situation, but the rest of us supernaturals didn't mind the detour too much. I suppose that's what happens when you're long-lived. The witch notably was not.
Sora, Laura, and I(at night) can fly, but that doesn't really help too much when the rest couldn't. Our travel situation hasn't really changed much aside from the addition of more chatty folks.
Although I was aware of the other supernaturals in the area while I lived in Japan and did know and meet them every now and then, I was still mostly a loner and didn't interact with them much. Frankly, I'm not very good being with so many people nearby, so I kept a bit of distance as we walked. The others, especially Hinoko, got along with Kala and Yaten quickly.
There was another loner, or at least, she was too preoccupied with my book to socialise with the others. My distancing ended up with myself close to her and we ended up walking together. That said, she was so focused on her book we basically ignored each other.
Compared to the last several days, this was paradise.
"Monsters." Sora called out.
"Where?" Kala strained her eyes towards where Sora pointed. "Argh, I think I might see something moving in the grass. How good are your eyes?"
"Best in the world, well, best in any world. Although if you could sense their movement from here, you're better than most I know."
"Oh, uh, thanks. What's that you're carrying anyways?"
"This? This is a katana, a curved single bladed Japanese…"
"No, I can tell that's a sword, I mean the other thing."
"Oh this?" He opens it up. "This is a fan. Useful for keeping cool during the summer."
"But it's late autumn. Are you going to use it in combat?"
"If my katana proves insufficient, yes. But I'm confident with my skill that it shall not be necessary."
"If you're so confident, why do you have it out?"
"It is beautiful, is it not?"
The conversation stopped there. Everybody had their weapons out, ready for a fight. Kala and Hinoko each had a bow, Yaten and Mizuki each had a spear, Laura and I each had a staff and Emily had her club. We were doubling up a lot on weapons, is that okay?
Sora described the monster as something like a medium-sized cat with a bladed tail, which Kala and Yaten confirmed to be a monster in these parts. We cautiously neared the monsters and…
…Well, to be honest, it wasn't that much of a fight.
