43 The Waterfall

Now with this woman in his arms, he felt body shivering as if she was in a winter wonderland instead of a tropical type of forest. With two spiders trying to circle around them to cut off their path of escape, Leo withdrew some of the venom's antidote his squad members gave him and poured a drop in the woman's mouth.

The battle earlier between this woman and a single spider proved to Leo that the spiders were indeed formidable, and he was not confident to take out two on his own while protecting this woman at the same time. Luckily, the woman's skin started to show a peach coloring on her cheeks as she woke up for a moment.

"W-Where am I?" the woman called out as she looked up to lock eyes with Leo. Trying to shove Leo away from her, she was unsuccessful and realized how weakened she was. After thinking for a moment and seeing multiple spiders approaching their location, the woman began to instruct Leo.

"My village is many miles away from here to the east." Pointing her finger towards the east, the woman continued to explain. "If you carry me with you and run full speed that way, we might be able to escape these spiders and their friends. We must hurry, or our deaths are guaranteed!"

"What is your name?" now that he had a better game plan, Leo couldn't help himself and tried to ask this woman her name. His reasoning was that not only was she a beautiful woman, but if they fled back to her village, he needed to at least know her name so there would be no misunderstandings.

"My name is M- "before she could finish, the woman fainted yet again. The poison within her body was not something that she could handle, even with the antidote slowly healing her. Forced to improvise now, Leo placed this woman's body leaning comfortably against a tree as he walked towards these spiders that were rushing towards them at full speed!

"Light as a feather, and firm like a tempest. Air Sprint!" casting a wind type spell for the first time, Leo holding onto his sword darted forward into the air, as if he could even touch the clouds. In this moment, Leo was clearly walking on the air and was sprinting towards the closest spider.

Unsure on how to reach Leo, the spider continued its rush towards the poisoned woman. Its instincts told it that the other human used a technique to retreat to avoid being eaten. After several breaths of time, the spider was closing in on the woman with Leo still out of its vision.

Splash! Agheeee!

Now several feet away from striking the poisoned woman, the spider felt its neck being pierced by an extremely sharp object, yet, this object was unable to chop its neck completely off. In so much pain, this spider let out a cry before collapsing on the spot, regretful to not have been able to eat this tasty looking human.

"Huff huff huff!" landing besides the spider corpse that he just slain, Leo was gasping for breath as sweat poured down his face. "I can't believe such a simple spell would take so much out of me. I shouldn't do that again unless I am in a life or death situation."

Turning towards the woman one last time to make sure that she was still safe, Leo turned back towards the other spider that was now slowing its approach. After a standoff between the spider and Leo, the spider decided to retreat once it realized that Leo was the one who killed its ally.

Not taking any more chances, and if the spider was looking for reinforcements, Leo grabbed onto the woman and fled towards the east. He was not sure how the village would treat him, especially all the misunderstandings that would spring up in a conversation upon his arrival. However, right now a misunderstanding was still a path of not dying, so he kept moving at full speed towards his new destination.

Unfortunately, once he arrived near a small waterfall, he couldn't see an escape route. Spiders were surrounding this area and were keeping a close lookout on new prey. Since there were no spiders directly near the waterfall, Leo decided to move towards it, in hope that they wouldn't spot him.

Within this waterfall, was a small crater that left enough room for two humans to rest in comfortably. Also, after watching the spiders circle the waterfall many times, Leo realized that the spiders were unable to sense him or the woman now. This seemed like a safe enough area to allow the woman to rest and heal from her poison.

Watching the spiders finally retreating to what he assumed was the big cave, Leo finally decided to rest as well. It was now night time and the antidote had clearly healed the woman's poison. All that was left to do was to let her rest and recover for the night and to go their separate ways in the morning.

It was now morning and Leo woke up early in order to cook some food with a small fire before any spiders would approach the area. Thanks to the waterfall, the smell of the food couldn't be traced right away back to them, but Leo did not want to test this theory out the hard way.

Once he finished eating, Leo quickly made a small bowl of soup for the woman for when she woke up. "I wonder what the name of this beautiful maiden is?" thought Leo as he accidentally burned his finger on the pot during his day dreaming.

"Father…. No… please….." after rubbing his finger with some ice to cool off his finger, Leo heard the woman talking in her dreams. He felt that he shouldn't wake this woman up, but hearing her begging her father in her sleep caused him to assume what it could be about.

"No!" shouting at the top of her lungs, the woman woke herself up from her own screams before looking around in a panic. Noticing that it was just a nightmare, she started to calm down slightly. However, her scream caught Leo so off guard, that he fell into the waterfall itself and slowly walked back inside.