"WOAA!"When I woke up, I was surprised to see Miss Lilith"s face right in front of me. She was bending towards me and had turned back to her usual self without horns and wings.
Since it was summer, the sun was bright in the sky. I was in the same position in which I fell asleep, so I thought it probably hadn"t been long.
"W-what were you doing?" I asked in a confused tone.
"Well, You have been like that for the whole day and night since yesterday morning, so I was checking if you were still alive or dead," said Miss Lilith standing straight and folding her arms.
"What! And you just let me be here like this the whole time?" I asked in a surprised tone.
"Huh? Did you want me to princess carry you to a bed or something?" replied Miss Lilith. Her face looked serious even though the words she said were sarcastic.
"Well, I can"t even picture something like that happening in my mind. I would probably die of embarra.s.sment if that ever happened and someone saw it."
"No no. That"s okay. At least you stayed here for the whole time so thanks," I said while standing up.
"Oh, you can thank the phoenix more than me for that. It was keeping you warm the whole night," said Miss Lilith looking towards the divine bird that was soaring up in the sky.
It came down as it saw me stand up. The golden flames weren"t visible when it was up in the sky due to the bright sunlight, but it could be clearly seen as the bird came closer.
"Master, you are awake," said the bird in his usual calm tone after it came closer.
"Yes, I am. But what exactly happened? I wasn"t feeling that exhausted a while ago but suddenly I wasn"t even able to stand," I said in a confused tone.
"It probably happened because your body isn"t used to handling that level of mana flow. Well, we can talk about that later, let"s eat our lunch for now," said Miss Lilith with a smile.
I was surprised to hear that. I didn"t know Miss Lilith could cook, and on top of that, there weren"t any ingredients here.
"Did you make the lunch yourself?" I asked trying to hide my surprised look.
"Who else here would do it?" replied Miss Lilith.
We went outside the village towards the place where she had cooked the food. She had roasted some fishes and birds. I wasn"t sure where she found them, but I ate them without asking anything since I was hungry. It lacked seasoning and some parts of it were burned while some weren"t properly cooked. But as they say, everything tastes fine when you are hungry, it was okay.
"Master, before we start our journey, can you please hear the terms and conditions of our contract and give me a name." said the bird after we finished eating.
"Ah okay. I am still not sure what I should call you so let me think. Umm... How about Flare?" I said looking towards the bird.
"Yes. Sounds good," replied the bird.
After that, Flare explained the contract. Basically, there were three main points. The first one was that Flare could disobey an order if she needed to choose between carrying out an order and my safety. The second one was that I needed to take care of Flare and take her wherever I go. The third one was that Flare could act on her own in case of emergencies.
Since Flare was a divine summon, she could absorb the surrounding mana and use it. Most of the things she mentioned were fine but there was one big problem.
"I am not sure how people will react when they see you flying in the sky," I said since Flare would stand out too much even during the day.
"That won"t be a problem since I can change my size like this," said Flare turning into a small red bird. She was so small that she would even fit in the palm of my hand.
"Y-yeah, it"s much better this way," I replied. It was surprising to see something so big turn into something so small.
I then turned towards Miss Lilith and asked, "How are we going to travel back?"
"If we fly, we may be able to reach up to the others in less than a day. But I am not sure you will be able to handle it," said Miss Lilith.
"I think I can take it. We can take breaks every few hours," I replied in a hasty tone.
I wanted to hurry back to everyone else since I was worried about them. They were probably traveling without taking any breaks so they must have been exhausted. I was hoping that Flare"s flames would be able to help in making Ronald"s condition better.
Since Miss Lilith agreed, we started flying towards the city. If my calculations were right, they must still be somewhere in the forest now.
Flying was exhausting for me since I wasn"t used to using raw mana at this quant.i.ty. I needed to take a break every two hours.
It was already evening by the time we caught up to them. We saw our carriage and Wagon far away. It looked like they were taking a break and preparing dinner. The camps weren"t out which probably meant that they were planning to keep on traveling during the night without sleeping.
Sistina was the first one to sense us coming followed by everyone else. They all looked surprised to see me fly. Both of us landed near the wagon while Flare stayed up in the air circling the sky above us in her small form
"Thank G.o.d, you guys are back. I was so scared," said Nina when she saw us land.
"I said... we will catch up soon," I replied trying to adjust my breathing. I was breathing heavily because of all the exhaustion.
As I was saying that, Marina came forward and hugged me saying, "H-how reckless can you be?... I was so worried."
She was crying so I petted her head saying, "I am back so you won"t have to worry anymore. Things will be back to normal soon." After a while, she calmed down, so I let go of her.
"Tell us everything that happened," said Princess Anna. It looked like she was still upset with me since I went back to the village despite her telling me not to.
"I will. But before that, I would like to introduce to you all to someone," I said looking towards the sky.
Next Chapter: The Only Way