We arrived at the horses and freshened up. Reinhardt disinfected the bite wounds he and my sister had suffered and wrapped them with some cloth. Gwen didn’t have enough mana for everyone as she was still healing Balmund. I freshened up with some water magic and wiped the blood off my face and hands.
After everyone quickly tended to their needs, we looked for a small clearing to set up camp. After wasting half an hour not finding anything, Albrecht lost his patience, “This is pointless, we can’t keep walking around aimlessly!” he voiced angrily. “Step back,” he drew his sword, “If we can’t find a place to set up camp, I’ll just make us one.”
He took a deep breath and his blade started sucking in the surrounding air. The air coalesced around the blade and vibrated strongly. Beads of sweat fell down on Albrechts face as he swung his sword horizontally towards the base of the trees. From his sword, a long arc of glowing white air flew out and cleaved through the trees.
As the trees were felled, we took a few steps back, not wanting to get crushed under their weight. “Albrecht,” Erenwald furiously said, “warn us properly next time. We have a wounded person or did you already forget!”
Realizing his mistake, he apologized. My eyes widened as I inspected the cleanly cut tree stumps. He has some amazing control. The men carried the tree stumps and used them as a natural barricade to give us slight protection from the wild.
Now we had about 20 square meters of room to set up our tents and perhaps a fire for the night. Though the stumps were still a little bit annoying, but It would have been a waste of time and mana to get rid of them.
By the time the sun was down and the shadows started stretching, we had set up camp. Balmund was already quite a bit better, having gotten healed by gwen all this time. He could already move again and was eating some jerky to replenish his energy.
As we ate together, the others were deciding the night shift rotation on who keeps watch and when. Thankfully, my sister and I were exempted from it. Probably a good idea, I wouldn’t be able to stay awake. I yawned, looking to my sister, ”Are you tired?”
She yawned, giving me an answer, “Yes.”
After finishing up the food, we headed in for the night. To my sisters pleading, we were sharing one tent. It was only designed for one person, but since we were small enough, we fit in together.
I took off my gear and sighed in elation as I felt the relief on my body as my muscles could finally relax. We stepped into the tent and crashed in our cozy sleeping bags.
As I prepareed to close my eyes and fall asleep, I heared some shifting behind me, “Hey sis,” came the quiet voice of my sister, “do you mind if I come into your sleeping bag?” she asked timidly in a quiet voice.
Confused I answered her, “Even if you would fit in here, It would be way too hot to sleep.” I denied her indirectly.
“Pleeease,” she pleaded with me, ”It will be good to warm up in the cold night.” She tried convincing me.
I rolled my eyes and gave in to her attempts, “fine. Come on, hop in.” I said, opening my sleeping bag for her. Sensing the opportunity, she quickly crawled out of hers and into mine.
Thankfully, we were both pretty small so the sleeping bag was not too stuffed. She started wrapping her arms around me and gave me a bright smile, “Hehe, you’re the best sis.” She told me in a happy tone and I could feel her warm breath on my nose.
I reciprocated her hug, feeling her warmth as I wrapped my arms around her body. The moment passed and I closed my eyes, exhausted from the harsh day. In the embrace of my sister, I fell asleep quickly.
I woke up, feeling something wet and slimy on my cheek. Opening my eyes drowsily I saw my sisters face way too close to mine. Her eyes closed, she snored and drooled on my cheek with her open mouth. I grimaced in disgust, Ugh.
I pushed my sister off of me and wrangled my arm free from her tight grip to rub the drool out of my face. My sister stirred from my forceful action, and woke up slowly.
She rubbed her eyes and opened them, looking at me tiredly, “Morning sis,” she gave a long yawn, “I slept so good.” She gave me a smile taking me into another stuffy hug to cuddle with me.
“Ugh, stop sis,” I tried to push her off of me with failure, “you drooled on me!” I accused her, “and you snore!” I hit her back lightly.
She still didn’t let me go, “Nuh uh, I don’t snore.” She denied it, completely carefree. I felt like popping a vein at that, “A noble lady can’t snore.” She says brightly.
I sighed, Whatever, it’s way too early for this. She started chuckling and loosened her hold on me, “I’m just joking Amber, don’t take it so seriously.”
I rolled my eyes, “Very funny sis, you still drooled on me.” I complained.
She laughed, not caring about my misfortune, “That’s just how I show my love.” She said, sticking out her tongue.
Smiling innocently at that, “Oh is that right?” I asked her sweetly. Her face turned into confusion, “Would you like to experience how I show my love as well?” my mouth turned into a villainous smirk.
Her eyes widened in surprise as I started pinching her butt furiously, determined to take my revenge. “Ouch, OUCH!” she started yelling.
I didn’t stop though and started pinching her ribs too. She kept thrashing and trying to get away from me, but the sleeping bag didn’t leave her any room to maneuver. Seeing as I wouldn’t stop anytime soon, she started her counterattack in return. We spent our morning pinching, tickling, biting and screaming, making a loud ruckus and annoying our poor camp mates.
As I headed out into the camp, rubbing the red bite marks on my cheek from her vicious attack, I saw Albrecht smiling mischievously and raising an eyebrow at me. From behind me, my sister appeared out of the tent.
She rubbed her left butt cheek and pouted at me, “You went way too hard! My poor butt!” she yelled and Albrecht couldn’t hold it in anymore. He started laughing, saying things like he would have never expected to hear such words from a little noble lady.
Sis looked at Albrecht in confusion, “What do you mean?” she tilted her head, “Amber pinched my butt all morning! It hurts!” she repeated.
“You are too young to understand,” he said in midst of laughing, “perhaps you will remember this moment in a few years and understand.” He finally stopped his obnoxious laugh.
I gave him a glare for that and plopped down on a hard tree stump close to the blazing bonfire. “Here,” Reinhardt gave me a carved wooden bowl with some kind of soup in it, “We made some rabbit soup.”
My sister sat down to my left and we both started eating, filling our body with sustenance that would most definitely be used later on the way back home. Great, another day of pelvic pain. While eating our fill, I wondered what would happen to the corpses we left behind.
“Hey Reinhardt,” I said in between munching on my food, “what is going to happen with all the corpses in the clearing?” I looked at him questioningly.
He contemplateed for a moment before answering, “Hmm, If we had a bigger group we could harvest some of the meat from the feline beast,” he explained patiently, “but as it is, we will probably just leave it there, for other omnivore and carnivores to eat.”
So much wasted meat. I thought back to the gaunt people of the slums, they would probably fight tooth and nails just for a piece of that. I sighed. “I see.” Looking around, I didn’t see Balmund anywhere. “Where is Balmund?” I asked, then drank the rest of my soup.
“He went for a light spar with Erenwald, to check if there is anything wrong with his body. Gwen worked on him all night, thankfully there will be no lasting damages.” He said in relief. “When they return, we will ride back home. You can already start with packing your stuff, it shouldn’t be long now.”
Nodding, I put down the bowl on my stump and made my way to dismantle the tent. The faster I get back home, the earlier I can take a shower. Shortly after I started, my sister joined me.
As we packed our things, Balmund and Erenwald arrived at the camp and prepared themselves for a long ride. Time to go.
We got on our horses and rode back. I took one last look back. Good riddance.
It's good. Change nothing!
Thanks for the chapter.