(Phooow!!)
Without warning, a smoke bomb exploded in front of us, completely blinding us.
"Paul!" Hilda squealed in fear.
"Calm down, let's stay together," I commanded.
We had expected an ambush; after all, we were entering the territory of a mercenary group. The problem was that it was almost nighttime.
Obviously, they attacked now because of the poor visibility.
The smoke around us was thick and made my nose itch, but nothing more. I could have easily cleared the smoke with wind magic, but I needed the services of these guys.
Laws and Roxy remained alert. I could feel her gripping my arm tightly, her expression one of concentration.
About three minutes later, the smoke cleared, revealing twenty guys, all with swords and a few with bows.
And among those twenty men, one of them stepped forward, revealing himself to all of us.
He had a goatee, a black leather vest, and a sword at his waist, a classic bandit look, and he carried an unlit torch in one hand.
He took another step forward and said loudly, "What's the echo saying in response?!"
I was already prepared for this, of course. Hitogami had taught me all his code words.
"Rabbit guts," I replied.
At this, Laws and Roxy stared at me with wide eyes, but I ignored them.
The meaning of this exchange was simple enough.
The man had asked, "What's your business with us?" and I had replied, "We want to cross the border."
"What the hell?" Mr. Bandit studied me doubtfully for a long moment before continuing, "What's the thrush's chick?"
"The Striped Acorn." That was the code name for the man who wanted to be our guide. Hitogami specified that it had to be him specifically for some reason...
Mr. Bandit considered my answer, looking even more confused than before, but then he shrugged and raised a hand.
The bandits stalking us silently melted back into the forest.
"Follow me," Mr. Bandit said tersely, lighting his torch.
Hilda and the others seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, and Hilda looked at me with a big smile.
"That was amazing, Paul!" she said, jumping out of the wagon and capturing me in a tight hug.
"Yeah, I didn't know you'd actually researched this much on these guys," Roxy murmured, then patted me on the back.
"It's nothing. My father gave me a lot of freedom when it came to handling this information," I murmured with a smile. "Well, let's go," I continued.
"Good!" My group said almost in unison, and we began following the bandit master through the forest.
The man eventually led us to a lonely cabin in the middle of the woods. There was a gated area to leave our wagon and our "wildebeest" stored for the rest of the night.
The place was large enough to have a living room. The bedroom was equipped with several three-tiered bunk beds. The sheets and blankets looked damp and were probably infested with bugs, but technically, they were beds.
Overall, it looked like a slightly repurposed lumberjack's cabin.
The bandit master accepted their payment, which was 5 Asuran silver coins per person... and explained how it would work.
"We'll take you by the thrush. The trip leaves tomorrow at dawn. There's no deal if you leave here before then," the man said, and before I could respond, he walked off into the woods. Hopefully, he was heading off to find the person who would guide us.
The man hadn't asked any details about us or our plans, not even directly. In this line of work, I suppose you shouldn't pry, at least not as long as the clients are paying.
"Ugh..." I leaned back in a corner of the room and explained our next steps to the rest of the group.
We would cross the border early tomorrow with a person suggested by Hitogami, and for tonight, we had to stay here. That covered it, really.
"I guess we'll just have to pray that they don't hand us over to Darius's forces in the morning," Hilda muttered.
"Hah... can you imagine?" I muttered with a smile as I closed my eyes.
"Hey, you're not thinking of sleeping on the floor, are you?!" Hilda demanded with a frown, and I shuddered.
"Ugh... you know what? Take the sheets off all the beds you're going to be using," I said as I stood up.
Everyone did as I asked, some with confused looks.
With a little gravity magic, I suspended all the blankets in the air, and with fire magic—specifically using the Heat Island spell and a little wind magic—I wrapped the sheets in wind-controlled fire and held them like that for a couple of minutes.
The goal was to burn whatever was hiding in the sheets, whether it was mites or fleas.
After a few minutes, I removed the sheets from my spell and grabbed them before they fell back to the floor.
They felt like freshly ironed clothes Which reminded me of my home in my old world for a moment...
I shook my head, dismissing that line of thought and focused on what was in front of me. "Well, with this they should be free of bugs. They're not clean, but at least the insects won't bite them at night." So everyone grabbed their respective blankets.
Flauta, Lilia, Hilda, and Laws' wife, Anna, lay down to sleep. Since they were single beds, they were all bunk beds.
On the other hand, Laws, Roxy, and I stayed awake. I would be the first to stand guard, but they were still awake.
Two hours or so passed without incident. At some point, it started to rain. It wasn't the kind of torrential downpour you might see in the Great Forest during the rainy season, but you could hear the rain hitting the roof. This, coupled with the cold air that filtered lightly through the wooden door, created a pleasant atmosphere.
This reminded me again of my old life, before the whole damn drugs and all that shit. Sometimes during the weekdays, I used to wake up in the mornings and when The weather being like this meant it was a day off from school.
Instinctively, a smile formed on my face as I remembered this.
"Life really changes in an instant, huh?" The words escaped my mouth in an instant.
"Yeah, that's true," Laws replied without looking at me; he must have been lost in his own thoughts.
I looked over at Roxy, and she was fiddling with her staff, not paying much attention to us.
"Now that I think about it, I never asked you how you got your staff, Roxy. I got my sword as a parting gift from the Dedoldias, and you?" I asked as I looked at her.
She blinked in confusion a few times and then smiled at me.
"Heh, I got this myself with my own money. It was in Zant Port City," she murmured with a smile.
"Oh yeah, that's interesting," I murmured with a smile.
Half an hour later, we heard footsteps outside the cabin. I placed my hand on the hilt of my sword.
Roxy held her staff tightly, and Laws did the same with his bow.
The door swung open and... revealed a boy, or maybe a dwarf? A little bigger than me. He was wearing some kind of waterproof skin over it. When he took it off, my eyes widened...
"P-Philip?!" I yelled as I jumped up.
The boy raised an eyebrow and, when he saw me, froze in place.
"Pa...Paul?!" He yelled in shock in the same way.
In front of me was Philib Boreas Greyrat...
...
He looked totally different from the last time I saw him. He was dressed in a leather vest and black boots. He also carried a medium-sized dagger at his waist. His face had a large diagonal scar on his right cheek and his hair was shaved. We both stared at each other in complete shock for a long moment.
Laws and Roxy stared at me in confusion but said nothing.
"Philip?!" Hilda yelled in shock from the side and walked over to us.
He snapped out of his shock and his cheeks flushed bright red.
"Both of you...both of you are alive..." he mumbled, tears welling up in his eyes.
I walked up to him and gave him a big hug, and he responded by hugging me back just as tightly. Hilda even hugged us both, and we stayed like that for a few moments.
After a while, we broke apart, and I had a huge smile on my face.
"Unbelievable! Unbelievable! I knew you were alive! There was no doubt!" he yelled, clasping his hands and taking a few steps back while looking at us with a smile.
"Philip...what are you doing here?" I muttered, turning serious.
"Ha... that's hard to explain," he murmured.
"We were all in that disaster, there's nothing strange to explain," I murmured, and Hilda nodded.
"When I realized it, I was in the middle of the forest a few days away from here. It wasn't too difficult to find my way back. I spent the next four months trying to get back to Ars... I did things, many things, just to move from town to town... Since I was in my family's territories, it wasn't too difficult to find the roads, but when I returned to Ars... everything was destroyed," he said, his fists clenching in anger.
"Destroyed? W-how much?" Hilda muttered in fear, and Philip looked her straight in the eyes.
"There was nothing left. It's a completely desolate land... Ars as we knew it is gone," he murmured softly.
"But that doesn't explain why you're here, what led you to ally yourself with these mercenaries?" I murmured.
"Darius...the bastard is rebuilding Ars and it seems he has more authority than the king himself who conveniently survived, our factions, our factions Paul...everything...everything! That bastard killed them all! He killed the surviving Greyrats to take full control of the four territories! And when I appeared before him, the king stripped me of my title...and I had nowhere to go" Philip muttered angrily.
Hilda was in complete shock upon hearing Philip's statement, Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Lilia and Flute were also looking at him in shock, Flute apparently recognized Philip so his words had greater weight.
"W-what do you mean he kill them all?..." I muttered as I stared at him. "to all the surviving Greyrats?...is that what you're trying to say?..."
"Yeah...m-my mom survived and my dad died because of the mana disaster and that bastard Darius...he killed her!" Philip screamed and tears started to flow from his eyes again.
"..." I remained completely silent as I listened to him speak.
The implications of what Philip said made me realize what Hitogami was saying.
"Philip...don't you know what happened to my family?..." I muttered as I stared at him.
He was silent for a few moments, I could see the doubt in his eyes as if he was trying to choose the right words.
"Your father...passed away," he murmured.
"I already know that, we were both there," I said in exasperation "Don't you know what happened to my mother and my younger brother?"
"n-no... I haven't heard anything from your mother... b-but I have heard from your brother! Although I don't know if it's true, but I heard Darius say that he had one of Lord Amarant's sons captured..." He murmured softly as he waited for my reaction.
"So that bastard has my brother in captivity..." I muttered and the force with which I clenched my fists was so strong that they turned white.
"If you're here then it seems so" he murmured and I nodded.
We were silent for a few moments and then I looked around at everyone present and finally my gaze returned to Philip.
"Philip, we want you to help us cross the border. You've probably heard about the hunt proposal against me, right?" I murmured and he nodded.
"Of course, tomorrow morning we will leave" he said with a smile and I nodded.
He then looked at our group and raised an eyebrow.
"Apparently you and Hilda were traveling with several people, huh?" He Said.
"Actually, we are a group. Those two over there are also from the capital," I said, pointing at Lilia and Flauta. and they are just heading to Asura with us" I said and pointed at Laws and Roxy.
Philip looked at all this and nodded with a smile and then looked at me intently.
"Okay, come back tomorrow at sunrise, don't take long," he said and opened the door, the cold air and the rain filtered in momentarily while I looked at Philip.
"Hey..." I spoke to him before he left, he turned around and looked at me "I'm glad you're alive," I murmured with a smile, he smiled back and closed the door behind him.
And just like that we decided that it was time to sleep while I stayed on guard.
...
Early the next morning, we gathered all our things and left the cabin.
The sun hadn't yet risen, and the forest was dark and quiet.
"Okay, then, follow me," Philip murmured and led the way as we headed deeper into the woods.
Without the sun as a guide, it was hard to tell which direction we were going, but the ground sloped upward in front of us, so we were probably heading toward the mountains.
We moved silently, without any unnecessary chatter.
The forest was dense here, and seemed to have no end. But then, we made our way throughone last dense patch of undergrowth...
"Ooh..."
...and found ourselves looking at a sizable lake, with the forest suddenly behind us.
Some people might have called it a pond, since it didn't seem very deep, but calling it a lake somehow seemed more appropriate.
We proceeded to follow the curve of the lake to the cliff on the other side.
At first glance, it looked like a sheer, almost featureless rock face right at the water's edge.
However, a single gravestone lay on the ground.
When Philip performed some sort of spell in front of it, part of the cliff melted, and a cave appeared before our eyes.
"This way," Philip said. "It's easy to slip and fall here, so be careful."
With me at the head of our group, we formed a single file and carefully navigated our wagon through the area; it was surprisingly cold, given the time of year. I didn't want to think about what it would feel like to wade through this in winter. Wouldn't the horses die from exposure? Hmm... the lake would probably freeze over, actually. That might make the journey easier.
Fortunately, the cave led upward from the entrance, so we were out of the water in no time.
"Very well then," said Philip. "Follow me, and try not to fall too far behind. You don't want to get lost here, believe me." With his lit torch in one hand, he walked confidently into the gloomy cavern.
It was incredible to see how much that boy had changed in such a short time and how different situations had made him react.
I looked behind me to make sure the others were following, I made eye contact with Hilda, who was looking down at her soaked skirt with a worried expression.
"Let's wait until later for them to dry," I said.
"Oh, yes, of course!" she said, somehow managing a cheerful smile.
It hadn't been obvious at the entrance, but the floor of the cavern we were advancing through was neatly tiled. Apparently, this tunnel was man-made.
"From here on out, it gets very twisty and complicated, so stay very close," Philip murmured in a serious tone. "Stay alert, too. There aren't many monsters around here, but they sometimes enter from the deeper tunnels... Oh! And don't wander off if you see a light in the distance: we're in Red Wyrm territory now," Philip declared sternly, and we all nodded.
At this point, the tunnel had a high ceiling and was relatively wide. But, just as Philip said, it curved constantly, and there were frequent side passages and branches along the way.
It felt like we were moving through part of a gigantic artificial labyrinth.
The minutes passed, and I already felt like we had been walking through the tunnels for quite some time.
It was hard to say exactly how long when the sun isn't visible, as your perception of time changes; until you get used to walking in those conditions, a single hour can feel like three.
Moving through dark, unfamiliar terrain also tends to be more tiring.
Hilda, Flute, Lilia, and Anna were clearly tired. I was starting to hear comments like "it feels like we've been walking for days," and we weren't moving as fast as before.
But before anyone could throw in the towel, Philip finally stopped at what seemed like a dead end.
A stone tablet similar to the one we'd seen at the entrance lay inconspicuously on the ground.
When Philip activated this device, the rock wall in front of us opened... and we blinked as sunlight hit our faces.
Just like that, we were back outside. Squinting as I adjusted to the sudden brightness, I looked around.
From the looks of it, we'd entered another forest. It was dense, but not enough to obscure the sky from view.
The position of the sun told me it was a little after noon. We had left very early that morning, so in total we had walked about eight hours.
Philip took a few strides outside and turned to us, blinking and squinting.
"Welcome to the Asura Kingdom," he announced, with a playful smile on his face.
After all, we had crossed the border safely.