Michelle

“Are you alright?” Amber asked worriedly.

Michelle exhaustedly nodded. “Yeah. Uninjured but shaken.”

Sarah said, “It got in when we were finishing up with the deer and were distracted.”

Instead of continuing to talk with them, Michelle went to check on her daughter.

“M-Mommy! That was so s-scary!” Luna cried. Michelle got in the sidecar with her and put the canopy back up to muffle the noise.

Michelle held her close and rubbed her back. “It was. But they… are dead now. We killed them. They won’t be coming back.”

She hadn’t planned on saying that at first, but decided to go with it, as she felt that anything less than the truth right now might cause more harm in the long run. Real monsters attacked them, and were killed.

As Luna began to calm down, Michelle decided to help with dressing the carcasses, mostly so they could get the hell out of there sooner. She also needed to make sure she knew how to do it correctly. The three adults worked on their gruesome task, while comparing their knowledge and skills of everything they already knew about how to do it.

I’m so thankful for Diamond’s existence right now. Luna would be having a much more difficult time without her to hold onto. Maybe the goddess predicted this?

It was disgusting and messy. They all had the same idea to coat their hands with their respective magics to make it slightly easier. Because of how hot the carcasses were, Amber and Michelle dealt with the warmer parts, as Amber wasn’t affected by the heat and Michelle could cool her hands down.

In a way, the sudden appearance of the wolf was actually beneficial. They would make a bit more money today, sure, but more importantly, they had learned that they really needed to keep a better eye on their surroundings and to not let their guard down. They hadn't even been given a chance to fall into a pattern of bad habits.

With everything set up for transport, they packed everything into the bags they had prepared beforehand for this very purpose.

“Guess it’s finally time to see what my ice-cycle can do,” Michelle quipped.

Amber sighed. “Really, Michelle? A pun?”

“You’re just jealous that you didn’t come up with it.”

“No, I came up with it months ago, but I knew it was bad, so I threw it out.”

“You missed your opportunity, then.”

Because her magic motorcycle didn’t need all the machinery that a mundane one did, that left plenty of room for storing things within the body. The back, front, and side could all hold things, and the sidecars added even more storage space.

Luna sat in front of Michelle, and Amber and Sarah sat in one of the sidecars, their belongings were all stored away, and all the meat and materials from the monsters had been stored in the other sidecar.

Michelle slowly poured her mana into the vehicle, causing it to inch forward. She was transporting much more weight than in her tests at the base, so it required more mana this time. She kept adding more and more until a decent speed was achieved.

She had to go by sight and feel to figure out how to adjust the flexibility and rigidity of the pieces connecting the three sections. It was tedious work, and maneuvering was awkward because of how dense the forest was in a lot of places. There was no convenient road for her to use.

Amber helped a great deal by evening out the terrain as they moved, and Michelle added her own ice to the ground to help things even more.

Despite the slow going, progress was still being made. Michelle got better at driving it, and Luna put in some ice to cool the air around them so she would have something to do.

Even though the motorcycle was made of ice, it didn’t feel cold at all unless Michelle willed it to. She did do that where all the monster parts were stored, though.

———

They had stopped on the way back a couple times because of other people coming into sight. They were still incredibly wary of revealing their Gifts, but it was after the second group went by—a group of locals—that Michelle realized she had been excessively cautious all this time.

The group did look at the motorcycle a little strangely, but didn’t really care all that much about it and moved on pretty quickly.

She hung her head. “So it turns out that I’ve been way too careful, and that this isn’t some coveted thing that tons of people will want.” She sighed. “I should’ve realized that when I saw other people using their Gifts here.”

Amber shrugged. “It turned out okay, didn’t it? That means you can finally openly use it. I’m still a bit wary about revealing my Gift, though, but we’ll deal with that when we have to.”

Sarah comforted, “It’s still good to be careful, though. It turned out okay, but given our situation, I think it was the right call to be wary.

Michelle chuckled exasperatedly. “Yeah. Anyway, let’s get moving again.”

They loaded all the supplies a third time, and Michelle drove until they reached a distance that was near the gate before dispelling the motorcycle. Once again, they received slightly odd looks, but no one really cared. From the conversations they could overhear as they passed people, it sounded like some were even wondering if it was a Gift or not.

I don't have to fear people wanting me to transport things and people around for them, at least. And I guess previous Earthlings might’ve shown off their Gifts a lot more.

They handed their haul to a clerk, who commented, “Seems you didn’t die out there. That’s more than I can say for a lot of you.” He eyed their armor as he said that.

“The stains…” Sarah muttered in shock and disgust.

Michelle shivered, and tried to keep her mind off of it.

Giving some advice, the clerk told them, “Your dressing job was passable, but learn from someone else when you can.”

———

Returning to their room at the inn, Michelle instantly collapsed onto the bed.

“You okay?” Amber asked.

“Driving the motorcycle around took a ton of energy from me. I’ll need to increase my mana pool a lot before I can just use it whenever I want.”

“Oh. Well, you should get up before your armor starts digging into you.”

I don’t want to get up.

She sighed and pushed herself back to an upright position. “Yeah. I need to eat and wash all this sweat off, too.”

Sarah said, “We have a bit of free time now, so I’m going to gather information from a bookstore. Maybe ask around, if I can find someone willing to talk to me.”

“Not going to change out of your armor?” Amber asked.

“Not really comfortable walking around this city without armor on, to be honest.”

“Oh… Yeah, good point. I’ll go with you.”

“Thanks,” she smiled.

“Mom?” Luna hesitantly asked me.

“What is it, sweetie?” the older ice elf replied.

“Um… Can you… teach me how to sword fight?”

“I was going to start tonight. But why do you ask?”

“I don’t… I don’t want to be scared like that again.”

“Of course, Luna. I’ll teach you.”

“Thanks, Mom. I love you.”

She smiled and hugged her. “I love you, too, sweetie.”

———

After that first night, the four of them fell into a routine over the next month.

Prepare for a mission, both mentally and physically.

Fight something, while being as careful as possible and learning what they can along the way.

Motorcycle back to the city.

Gather more information and supplies.

It wasn’t exactly pleasant for any of them, but they were doing well enough for themselves, which is more than they could say for a lot of the other Earthlings.

Michelle taught Luna what she knew about swordsmanship. She knew it could be better, but she was confident in having at least a decent level of proficiency with the sword, given how much she had played the game in the past and the amount of effort she had put into actually properly learning it.

It had become quite clear to them the longer they remained here why the residents hated Earthlings so much. Every five or so days, a fresh batch of them would arrive and cause a ruckus. They went around to the same places, asking the same questions, and tried their hardest to get more out of the shops and to avoid having to kill monsters for real.

And many of them weren't considering the culture in Elsanth at all, and did and said a lot of rude things. And the desperation many of them were feeling also led to many bad decisions being made.

It was sobering to realize just how many of them had already died. And with so many of them also becoming homeless, it meant that many had had to resort to stealing, because no one wanted to hire them or have anything to do with them. Even though the residents did understand the situation, all the Earthlings still came off as ignorant and obnoxious.

It was a vicious system that threw all of them out into the world with no real way to prepare for it.

Luna had also asked the devastating question of if she could help them fight monsters. It was hard, but Michelle relented that she eventually could, but after they were in a different city. She wanted more time to prepare her daughter, better equipment, and to also get away from all these people who hated them.

Once they finally settle down somewhere, Michelle planned to also get sword lessons for both of them. She knew that her own skills needed improvement as well.

Michelle had an idea of how Luna could help in the meantime, so she suggested that she could have Diamond join the fight while Luna remained safe. As a wolf, it had fangs and claws that it could fight with.

Using mana to keep Diamond out for as long as possible, as well as increasing the wolf’s size and having it fight, would also have the additional bonus of helping to increase the capacity of Luna’s mana pool. She could still only make one animal at a time, though, which seemed to be a limitation of the Gift.

Michelle also gave Luna a goal. Once she could keep Diamond out full-time, even when she was asleep, then she didn’t have to put her away when out in public anymore. Tamed beasts do exist, but Michelle was worried about Luna suddenly becoming the subject of attention if Diamond suddenly vanished and her mana was depleted.

She had given herself a similar goal with her motorcycle. Just keeping it out took some mana, but not much, at least not in comparison to her total mana pool. But she had already achieved it, as it was just a stationary object when not in use, unlike Luna’s Gift. The animals she created even mimicked breathing.

Diamond actually turned out to be an invaluable tool for teaching Luna how to fight. Even though the wolf was made entirely out of ice that Luna had produced herself, she still didn’t want to see it get injured.

That meant she had to consider when and where Diamond should be in order to work with everyone else, get an attack in, and escape from danger. When Luna eventually faces a monster directly one day, she’ll already have had experience in that kind of thinking.

Ideally, that day will never come…