The following morning was a bit strange. I was walking around without my illusion up, and people would first jump in fright, then after remembering who I was, they would smile, wave, apologize and wish me luck.

Despite it being barely after sunrise as the ten of us walked out the eastern gate, we were practically the stars of a parade, with people cheering us on as we walked past.

I don’t like being a celebrity. I didn’t even do anything except get cursed! I’m so glad that illusion magic is a thing. I’ll be able to avoid being recognized that way.

Apparently, there are enchantments for dispelling illusions in certain places, but there isn’t much point in doing that these days. Illusion dispellers would mostly be used in government offices and other important places.

From what I’ve seen of this world so far, the government maintains a facade of trying to work with the people and provide for them, but they still do plenty of other shady shit, even though the world falling to pieces around them.

Even in this kind of situation, the people in charge of things are the conniving type, hence the constant summoning rituals. There are many times when it seems like they’re summoning people in excess. That’s going to be a massive problem to deal with if we do make it to Moriste and the Cursed Ones are taken care of.

Unfortunately for us, the continent is massive and we can’t just take a flight or drive across it. We’ll have to walk the whole way while always being on the lookout for monsters and Cursed Ones, as well as hunting and gathering food and taking care of our supplies. It’s going to be a slow, arduous journey.

———

Izzy’s POV:

It’s been a week since we left Triteos, and I’ve been in what is probably way too good of a mood. I guess having your best friend come back from the dead will do that to you.

On top of that, she actually looks like she’s comfortable now. She’d always looked at least a little bit tense and anxious, and would only wear clothes that were baggy and all-encompassing. That comfort hoodie she used to wear had actually been a dysphoria hoodie.

She complained a little bit about how now that she finally knows she wants to wear cute clothes, she’s instead wearing armor. I pointed out that she looks incredibly hot in that, which she surprisingly agreed with, something she wouldn’t have done before.

She also mentioned that there are so many body types, cultures and customs here that you can wear just about anything and no one will find it weird, but that she still wants to eventually wear something cute.

Just like Yrro had said, me and Kyle have both been doing a lot of the grunt work. Carrying things, cleaning things, preparing food, setting up camp and putting everything away, etc. It varied, but we were always busy doing something.

Unlike what you’d expect based on Earth, the people here greatly appreciated what we were doing. There wasn’t any looking down on us just because we were doing chores that just about anyone could do. Someone still had to do them, and they respected us for that.

And it’s not like they didn’t help out at all, either, they just mostly did the more dangerous things, like scouting and hunting and so on.

We also took the time to train a bit each day, increasing our ability to handle our weapons, our efficiency and usage of spells, and Ivy practiced with her gun.

One of the fascinating things about this world was that because of the existence of mana, there isn’t really an upper limit on how strong someone can become.

Up to 50 capacity is relatively easy to achieve, but it slows down after that. At 100, it then slows down even more. That’s why, even with how long-lived people can be here, there aren’t a bunch of immortal people walking around everywhere. This also makes Ivy’s capacity of 86 seem even more astounding.

I know there were circumstances behind that, but she still reached that far in only a year and a half. Ah, I’m thinking about hugging her again.

I didn’t get to talk with Ivy as much as I would’ve liked to during the day, but after the others made sure that we could handle watch duty together, they put us with each other in the watch rotation. I felt a little bad for Kyle, but he was completely understanding, and it’s not like we were completely avoiding him or anything, so it wasn’t a big deal.

Ivy and I were currently on watch duty, sitting in folding chairs and silently watching the fire. We were holding hands, something that we’d been doing pretty much every chance we got.

I felt like even though we’d reunited only a week ago, I probably wouldn’t get this close with anyone else. If it had been Kyle in Ivy’s position, I certainly would’ve hugged him a lot and spent a lot of time with him, but I wouldn’t basically attach myself to him like this.

Ivy and I had never been attracted to each other before, but I definitely think she looks hot as fuck now. She’s my best friend, she’s super attractive and we’ve been all over each other, so I’m certain that I’ve begun crushing on her.

That also made me feel a little guilty because I’d never seen her in that light before. It wasn’t like her previous body was hideous or anything, but neither of us had even been aware that she was a woman, and I definitely only have attraction for other women.

I guess the femininity she had even on Earth is why I still got as close with her as I did despite not being attracted to her then? Too bad it’ll never happen…

As if reading my thoughts, Ivy broke the silence with a shocking statement, “I’m not aroace, I just realized.”

“What…?”

“Um, before, I just hated myself so much and was so uncomfortable with myself that the idea of being with anyone felt horribly wrong. And whenever someone said I looked nice, it felt like they were lying to me, or even insulting me.”

“What brought this on?”

“Well, this,” she said, raising her hand that I was still holding. “I can actually properly feel emotions now, and a lot of that self-hatred I had is gone. Even with all the ways my body is no longer human, I still look at my body and feel happy.

“Holding hands like this, sleeping in the same bed and even flirting, I’ve realized that I like you. I probably have for a long time, but was unable to notice it before.”

I began laughing but quickly stifled it to not seem mean and to not make any loud noises. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh. I was just thinking about you like that, too.”

“You were?”

I nodded, “Yeah. I actually feel guilty because I only started crushing on you now, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”

“Well, even if I’d been transitioning before, it’s still not guaranteed that you would’ve liked me. Maybe you would’ve been attracted to me, maybe you wouldn’t have been. Brains are stupid and they like who they like. The fact that you like me now is enough.”

“Mm. Can we kiss?”

She smiled, and though it no longer shows on her face, I could tell she was blushing. “Yes! Ah, I’ll probably be super bad at it, though.”

I shrugged. “Sloppy make-outs are good, too.”

Ivy and I both leaned toward each other, though she had to bend down a bit. I put my arms around her neck to keep her in the right place as our lips met. She was definitely inexperienced, but that’s fine. She’d get better at it, and just kissing her made me happy.

We broke apart pretty quickly, deciding to be practical and take our watch duty seriously. We could kiss more before going back to sleep.

“So how was it?” I asked. Ivy had tried to be in a couple relationships before she met me, but she’d said she just hadn’t felt anything except for wanting to get away.

“Good, I suppose? I could tell I was really clumsy, but you’re the first person I’ve actually wanted to kiss, so it felt good.”

I smiled, “That’s good. Just tell me if you’re ever not sure about something.”

She nodded, “I will.”

We shared another quick kiss and then went back to watching the fire, this time leaning against each other as best we could on our little folding stools.

When our watch ended, we crawled back into bed and kissed a couple more times. Having her arms around me as I drifted off to sleep felt cozier than ever.

———

Ivy’s POV:

Two years have passed since we set out from Triteos. The farther east we traveled, the more dangerous the monsters became, which slowed us down more and more.

Apparently, monster attacks became more frequent and dangerous as more people are around. This side of the continent had more cities around, so that meant we had more monsters to deal with as we traveled.

We were fortunate enough to never get caught up in a massive Cursed One attack, but we did still encounter plenty of them along the way.

Whenever we stopped in a city, we never stayed for more than a few days. We resupplied and would use those days for rare breaks from everything.

I also showed myself to everyone as a morale booster just like I’d done back in Triteos. It was extremely awkward every. Single. Time. I felt less like a person and more like a thing whenever we did that.

And it still amazes me how happy people are about me. I mean, I look like their nightmares, right?

According to pretty much everyone, the way Cursed Ones move and behave, in addition to how they’re wild and filthy, makes it pretty difficult to see me as one of them. If it weren’t for my solid white coloring, they probably wouldn’t at all. It's just the brief shock of seeing a person who's solid white that gets them.

Out of the initial ten of us that had set out, there were two of us that died. I don’t really know if that means we did good or bad. Was it only two deaths or only eight survivors?

They were two of the people that Yrro had sent with us. They were good and nice people, and seeing them replaced was a bit hard. It was considered disrespectful to feel bad about someone who had died fighting, though, so we tried to not let it get to us. The rest of us had had more than a few close calls ourselves, but we managed to pull through.

About a month after Izzy and I got together, Kyle ended up with Rhem and Sarrin. Those two had a balance of being serious and calm with each other, and Kyle would disrupt it all by being a goofy dumbass. Somehow, it all just worked. All of us used our rare rests in cities to go on what passed as dates in this world.

It was also around that time that I got a [Curse countermeasures completed.] notification.

I hope that can somehow help the people in Moriste.

The entire time we traveled, we were all worried about whether Moriste had fallen. We didn’t hear any news about that, but travel between cities and towns was rare, so the lack of news was expected.

What really brought out that worry was the several fallen cities we passed through as we trekked across the continent, but there wasn’t anything we could do except keep walking. All the cities we stayed in except for one were on the smaller side. Between the small cities and the fallen ones, it felt like the world was shrinking.

Everyone’s capacities and skills had greatly increased as well. My aim with the gun had improved greatly, though it still wasn’t a weapon I could use frequently due to the ammo situation.

As for my capacity, it was now at 116. It had taken me a little over a year and a half to get it all the way to 100, and the drop-off in speed after that was extremely noticeable. And it would only continue getting slower and slower the higher that number got.

Izzy and Kyle were at 97 and 96 the last time they checked. I swear that Kyle is somehow deliberately staying exactly one level behind her at all times.

As for my efficiency, I was now using my energy 83% as well as I possibly could. Increasing my efficiency basically felt like I was increasing my capacity. It’s actually one of the reasons that someone’s capacity level is only used as a base indicator of what they might be capable of.

And now, at long last, we saw Moriste’s walls in the distance. Everything was still intact and we could just barely make out the tiny dots moving around that were actually people walking along the walls.

“I wonder if this is how Frodo and Sam felt when they saw Mount Doom,” Kyle said, ruining the moment.

“More like everything up until now was Mordor and we’ve just arrived at the Shire,” Izzy retorted.

“Shut up, nerds,” I said.

Regardless of our antics, we were all ecstatic.