Chapter 196: New team forms up
Reaching the place where Teria requested to have a duel with me wasn"t a problem at all. In fact, if motivated, I could reach it in just a few moments by mixing all kinds of movement techniques, tricks, and spells I had at my disposal. Sadly, the same couldn"t be said about my unnecessary companion, who did nothing but considerably slow me down.
"Can you slow down a little, please?" In just a few moments after starting our run, Arsha proved that my guess about her apt.i.tude towards fast travel was correct. Even though we were running for a measly half an hour, she was already covered from head to toe in sweat, clearly unable to take a single, proper breath.
"Slow down? Don"t you know that we are in a hurry?" Not holding anything back, I asked. Right now, I couldn"t care less about being gentle for women. From the very moment this girl decided to join hands with me and follow along, she signed all her privileges away, turning into a soldier I could work to the death if I wanted.
"I know! But I can"t last much longer!" My attempts at getting her to think logically only resulted in her protests growing in intensity. "I don"t know what kinds of tricks you are using to move so d.a.m.n fast, but unless you teach me how to do it too, I won"t be able to follow after you at all!"
Screaming from the bottom of her lungs, Arsha suddenly calmed herself down, as if something shocked her to the point where her previous fit no longer seemed meaningful.
"I"m sorry…" Suddenly apologizing out of nowhere, Arsha finally managed to catch me off guard. In the end, I wasn"t insane to the point of expecting the girl to say her apologies right after throwing a fit! "I know that each spell and trick is one"s lifeline… But can"t you understand how frustrating it is?"
Suddenly posing a strange question, Arsha continued to take me by surprise with each of her words and actions.
"Frustrating? What is frustrating? The fact that you took more on yourself than you can carry? Or the fact that you can"t pull your own weight even when it comes to traveling?" Being intentionally harsh like that only had one purpose. To get rid of the girl and force her to return to the rest of the party. In fact, doing so would give me yet another opportunity at convincing everyone that I was actually a criminal they would have to commit their hearts to chase!
"Blame me all you want, but I won"t change my mind." Most likely noticing my intentions, Arsha"s face tensed as she answered. Yet, rather than acting strong with her words alone, she actually took a few, deep breaths to calm herself down before starting to trod forward.
"Heh…" To say that I would be surprised would be a gross understatement. I saw how her face looked. I saw how her muscles tensed, how she fought for each of her breaths. Being a former member of the athletic club in the school was more than enough to be able to spot such minute details. Yet, despite her clear exhaustion, she still started running, as if to prove her words weren"t empty at all.
Ever since that moment, our journey turned just as slow as I was worried it would be, but at least Arsha somehow managed to keep her pace constant. By the time we finally arrived at the spot where I could finally see the rough outline of Teria"s body high in the skies, Arsha looked more like a corpse than a living human.
Crash.
Descending to the ground without any prior warning, Teria scanned the two of us with cold eyes. Then, after pulling her sword out, she pointed its tip at the girl.
"Didn"t I tell you to come alone? I didn"t expect you to drag a meatshield here like that." Looking down on the girl, Teria smirked before squinting her eyes and focusing her entire attention on me.
"Are you for real?" Leisurely taking a moment to regain my breath, I turned my entire body to look at Arsha before turning my head to Teria. Allowing my eyes to widen, I slapped my forehead against the quickly approaching palm of my right hand. "Do you really think she could be a threat to you in such a state?"
Pointing my hand at the trembling body of the poor girl, I felt a sudden bout of ridicule appearing in my soul. Before I could contain it, my lips twisted and words flowed out. "If you are wary of someone so weak, how can I even take you seriously?"
Shaking my head, I ignored the lethal stare that Teria sent me, before approaching Arsha and grabbing her under her left arm. "Come on, how long are you going to wait? If we want to hurry, we will need to carry her with us."
As the warmth of Arsha"s wet sleeve touched my fingers, I couldn"t help but feel a little bit of disgust. Ever since I left earth, it was the closest I was with any girl. With the addition of her hormones-rich sweat a.s.saulting my nostrils, it was no wonder my body started to react to her smell and proximity… At the same time as my morals went into a frenzy.
Tormented by this ongoing fight between my sanity and my urges, I tightened my grip over Arsha"s arm a bit, resulting in the girl twisting her face in pain before releasing a pained moan.
"Ah, sorry. That wasn"t intentional." Noticing my slight mishap, I looked towards Teria only to see her still rooted on the spot, with her sword firmly in her hand. "How long are you going to wait like an idiot? Come and help."
In times like this, when the other party could have doubts about our relationship or how much she could trust me, ignoring all the complicated mess of relationships and opinions was usually the smartest choice. By pushing the girl into action without any regard for her feelings or thoughts on the matter, I could hope that she would turn gullible enough to actually do what I wanted.
"I"m not going to move an inch unless you tell me something." Standing her ground, Teria sadly proved to have some basic intelligence. Now that she proved immune to this little trap I was offhandedly preparing, I couldn"t help but get curious just what kind of question she had in mind.
Because form what she said, she appeared to be quite willing to help if my answer could satisfy her.
"Shoot." Given how simple the entire situation could turn out to be, there was no need for me to stall or build tension. Rather than that, going straight to the point and explaining everything at a face value appeared as a more beneficial option in my current situation.
"What do you actually want? What is your real mission here?" Teria"s fingers gripped the handle of her sword so hard that the whites of her bones appeared underneath the skin of her knuckles.
For a moment, I wasn"t sure how I was supposed to answer that. I already proclaimed the content of my mission to not only her but everyone in the group as well… Or did I? While it was the case for my original mission, the same couldn"t be said about the missions that I had to fulfill right now!
Yet, that didn"t mean I was willing to reveal their content just yet. In the end, in a world where I knew the least of the commonsense amongst the people, I would be traveling with, revealing the real reasons behind my behavior would make me predictable, and as such, easy to trap and cheat.
But that didn"t mean I could just get away with some kind of cheap lie either. Ignoring the fact that it would only take a short while for it to be discovered, once more and more information would unveil, I would have no other choice but to keep building upon that lie all the way to the point where some small detail would result in my entire story crumbling apart.
"You know, this time, I"m even more confused than I was before. But from the looks of things…" Reaching out to my pocket, I pulled the sacred core out before taking a long look at it.
"You know, I believe that right now, I need to somehow bring it to that princess…" Raising my eyes at the girl, I added, "you know, the princess that was the child between the human king and the chief chieftain of the winged tribe."
This time, I could only reveal my guess. "Reuniting the family." That was the second sub-mission that I was supposed to fulfill, and with all the knowledge I already had, the guess that I revealed seemed to be the most likely solution to the mission. Yet, whether or not it was actually true, I had no clue.
"Good. " Surprisingly, my words somehow managed to get the girl to put her sword down and relax her grip on its handle. At first, she closed her eyes and took a few breaths before opening them up again and moving forward.
After reaching my position, Teria followed my earlier request and grabbed Arsha by her shoulder before moving their head to the side and casting me a weird look. "Are you ready?"
As little as I expected this outcome, I wasn"t the man to say no to a free opportunity.
"Yeah, let"s go."