The East Mountain
"There you are."
"Ah…you"re awake then."
"Something roused me. And you were gone."
Daniela said as she tossed a stick into the fire.
"And then I detected five humans a short distance away. One of them was you."
"Uh-huh."
"But now they are gone. …Were they bandits?"
"Yeah."
"I see."
"Their base is somewhere halfway up the east mountain. We should be careful that we don"t b.u.mp into them…"
Daniela pulled at my sleeve while I talked. What? And so I sat down next to her.
"You must be tired. I will take the watch from here. You should rest."
"My time"s not up…"
"It is fine."
Her arm went around my shoulder and pulled me down so that my head landed in her lap. It seemed that there was no room for argument…
"I am not such devil as to force you to stay up when you look like that. Get some sleep."
"I look fine."
"Not to me."
She slowly ran her fingers through my hair. If I fell asleep like this, she would end of with rather numb legs. But I didn"t want to move… Her hands made all of my thoughts melt away. And like that, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
"Asagi. You are more tired than you know. It is on your face. I am here so that you are not crushed. Not broken. Rely on me while you are alive. It is one of my joys in life."
I thought I could hear Daniela"s voice.
Morning. I woke up feeling quite refreshed and with my face on Daniela"s thighs. Maybe I really was that mentally drained… I could only be grateful to her.
I thanked Daniela as I got up and then took out our breakfast from the hollow bag and then handed it to her. It always felt good to watch her enjoying her food. Now, to eat mine.
"Mmmm… We should arrive at the mountain before midday."
"It did seem like the bandits had walked here."
They had probably used a telescope to find us. d.a.m.n it… What if they attacked while we fought the dragon? That would be terrible.
"Well, there is no point in worrying about that. We will start searching from the top when we reach it. Can I count on you?"
"Yes-yes."
Our discussion on magic defense tactics continued as we walked.
"What about ice and water? Have you come up with any good ideas?"
"Yeah. There is something I"ve been thinking about using in the tournament. But it"s more support magic than defense magic."
And so I told Daniela about the mist spell I was thinking about using.
"There is something like that. Rainy Mist. You use it to blind enemies with mist."
"So it already exists…"
I was horribly disappointed at the revelation that I hadn"t invented it. And this had happened before as well…
"You could use that as a starting point and alter it?"
"Starting point… I see."
Creating mist alone was simple enough. If you could use water magic, anyway.
So, what could I do? I would have to give it some thought.
First, using multiple spells of different attributes at the same time. I had a.s.sumed this was impossible until recently. But if I could use ice and water simultaneously, perhaps I could create something that was easier to control.
For instance, freezing mist. A tornado iceberg. Shaved ice…ice cream…no. My mind was going to weird places. Hmm. My head hurts. I hate thinking about these things. Magic was often about your imagination, but I wished it was simpler.
And so I practiced using multiple spells simultaneously as we walked. "Jack of all Trades, Master of None" was quite useful here. I could see the swirling current of magic within my brain. And there, I would create the colors of ic and water. It reminded me of that first time Daniela checked what magic I could use.
A rushing river. It was cold, frozen. But then it started to melt from the water beneath it. And then it flowed on without stopping. My magical energy. Towards the exits. My left and right hands.
"Oh?"
"I did it…"
A block of ice was in my right hand and an orb of water in my left. I kept them there and then slowly moved them. They floated away from my hands and then orbited around me like satellites. They could go up or down. I could adjust their speed. They could reverse their course. While this wasn"t particularly useful, I now knew that I could do it.
With a sigh of relief, I deactivated the magic. And then a wave of exhaustion rushed through me. It used a lot of energy…
"We should have bought some potions."
"We were in a hurry…phew…"
"But this is amazing. You have done something that even I cannot do, Asagi."
"Hehe. Thanks."
I basked in the sense of accomplishment as well as the fatigue as we walked. Then Daniela suddenly stopped.
"What?"
"Is this it? Where you fought?"
"Hmm…oh, yeah. It"s here."
This is where I killed the bandits who had tried to attack us yesterday. There was so much on my mind at the time, that I had just left them there. All four of them.
"I"d like to bury them."
"I will help you."
"Thanks."
Daniela used earth magic to create four holes. And then I lowered the bandits that I had killed into them. I put my hands together and prayed for their souls before throwing the dirt over them. Then I put the swords over the graves and we were finished. I felt a sense of closure.
Daniela had even joined me in my prayers. Always kind…
"…Alright, let"s go."
"Aye. We should hurry."
"Got it."
My little indulgence had cost us some time. It would now be past midday when we arrived. Still, I felt good and optimistic. I knew I wasn"t being the easiest person to be with, but this was one of those things… Well, it was just how I was…
It was with such reflections that I followed after Daniela.
In the end, we reached the foot of the mountain before I had a single good idea. Daniela didn"t have any either, and she focused on creating her own magic. It had only been a short time, but she was already starting to activate things.
"If I could only freeze time…"
"It is impossible. Well, maybe with dimension magic."
"Grrr…"
Imagination was key, but that was hard. You had to take your fantastical ideas and imagine them as if they were real. But it was hard to imagine things that seemed impossible. Why couldn"t I just imagine things as a very vague image?
"If it were that simple, everyone would be a great sorcerer."
"You"re not wrong…"
d.a.m.n it. The world really was against you sometimes.
"We should focus on just finding the dragon today. And when we do, run immediately."
"Shouldn"t be too hard with my legs."
"Indeed."
"What about the bandits?"
"Nothing. We can tell the guild as part of our report."
"Right. There"s no need to go the extra mile."
"Exactly."
It was past midday now. We quickly ate our lunch and then prepared for a possible battle. Of course, I would be carrying Daniela, and she wouldn"t be able to do much in that position. But, we prepared our minds to use magic.
After a brief rest, I picked Daniela up and activated Legs of the G.o.d Wolf. The platinum and green wind blew as I stepped on air and launched us into the sky.
While I did say it looked like a table mountain, there weren"t exactly precipitous cliffs. A manageable slant, really. And it was halfway up that slant that we saw the bandits. Well, there was a pillar of smoke that marked them out. You couldn"t miss it.
"So that must be their base."
"Looks like it. They"re drinking like a bunch of idiots."
It was as if they had long forgotten about the four who had not returned in the night. Some friends…
Well, it was nothing to me. I was their executioner.
"Alright. We"ll go around them and reach the mountaintop from the other side."
"Yes, it would be very annoying to be caught."
I nodded and changed course to the southeast. We could see it from here, but we would have to get closer and land in order to investigate, and we"d surely be seen… d.a.m.n it. Bandits were just about the most inconsiderate people in this world. I sighed and continued to rush through the sky as if sliding on ice.