Chapter 63 - Woes And Worries

Waking up, dusty backed and sore armed, I crack my neck and take down my stone hut after changing back into my robe and traveling clothes.

The camp was as quiet as it had been for the last five months of travel.

Every morning with these three was roughly the same. Teresa was always the first one up, waking up even before me, and starting a fire to cook her breakfast on.

Then I woke up and changed, giving me just enough time to cook my breakfast as well as breakfast for Ivy and Flare. Teresa elected to learn how to cook her own after realizing she would be awake for about half an hour before me.

After I woke up fully and cooked the others' breakfasts, Ivy would wake up and come join Teresa and me around the fire.

Flare was always the last one up, silently wolfing down her food, making it so everyone finished eating around the same time.

Sometimes there would be idle chatter, but recently there's been a comfortable silence. Yet, something has been bothering me.

It started around the first week of travel, and by now it's festered to a problem. My relationship with Ivy and Teresa has been getting better, with Ivy and I going hunting a few times and the 'Ice Freak' name finally being dropped for the much less problematic 'Icefield'.

Teresa and I have also steadily gotten closer, swapping magical advice and even a few spells that brought me to around Dux tier in healing magic, also known as light magic.

However, the problem stems from my third traveling companion, Flare.

Back around a week after we left Sanmara, Flare repeatedly pestered me to teach her the spell I used against her in our duel, Despot's Grasp.

When I continued to say that it was something she wouldn't be able to use, she eventually got upset and stopped pestering me. However, whenever I try to mend the relationship with her, whether by talking to her about different sword styles, advice on magic, or how to apply a cloak, I'm always met with the same response.

'No, not unless what you're offering can affect a person's cloak.' It was the same reply every time, like a kid who got their toy taken away and was pouting in protest.

I was hoping it would pass in time, but as the months have ticked by, she's just been getting angrier and angrier with me, especially after she challenged me to another duel and still couldn't figure out my 'trick'.

In all actuality, I just shot her with a ball of Divinity and then an Eisdamon. That spell is really lethal against a person with zero defense aside from their natural strength and internal cloak.

What am I supposed to do in this situation? What am I supposed to say? 'Sorry, but I got this power from someone who's the equivalent of a god.'

No!

There are so so many things wrong with telling her that, most importantly due to the fact I've heard nothing from either of them in months!

Sighing deeply, we took down our camping supplies and continued on our journey. We were five months out from Sanmara, yet three months from the next closest city, truly in the middle of nowhere.

"Teresa, how many times have you been attacked in the past?" I ask, letting my worries flow a bit. If there was an ambush coming, right now would be the prime time to do it.

"Counting the time with Ivy makes nine in my travels so far, why?" She asks, yet before I can answer, a look of understanding comes over her face. "Yeah, I was kinda thinking the same thing."

Turning back, Flare is sleeping and Ivy is throwing up off the back of the cart for the second time today.

Great, scouting is on me then.

Pulling the cart off to the side and tying it up, I nod to Teresa as she goes to explain the situation to Ivy.

Channeling a bit of wind mana, I begin to hover just a few centimeters off the ground. It's a spell I developed to help with hunting with Ivy, Silent Step.

Okay, the real reason is all the coolest villains float menacingly, and it feels really cool to ominously float everywhere, but I can't say that out loud.

Flying horizontally along the ground, weaving in between trees, I can cover a pretty good amount of distance almost silently.

Once I'm a good few hundred meters from the cart, I can activate the second hunting spell I developed, this one relying on my apparently heightened mana sense.

Pouring wind mana out of every one of my pores, I focus on spreading it as far and as thin as possible, currently, my range for this spell is around three hundred meters or roughly one thousand feet.

Once the mana is spread out, I simply wait.

To everyone else, it apparently feels like a gentle breeze. Wind Web doesn't let me do much aside from one thing, feel movement.

For hunting, we just go after the first small movement I feel, yet for this, I need to wait until I feel some type of major change.

I tried to teach this to both Ivy and Teresa, but Ivy can't force magic out of every part of her body, and Teresa can't feel anything outside of around a one-meter radius.

Also, Teresa claims the spell uses a decent amount of mana, but I think she's just doing it wrong. You can't force it out, you gotta just let it flow.

After only twenty or so minutes of waiting and focusing, I felt an insane amount of movement. All of which was headed directly towards where we parked the cart.

Canceling Wind Web and Silent Step, I cast my other spell for flight, Jetstream.

The main reason I don't use this spell for hunting or for scouting is due to noise. Jetstream surrounds my feet in a thick layer of fire mana, my body in a layer of wind mana, and then sets off a huge explosion fueled by wind and fire magic at my feet.

Once I'm catapulted through the air, a cone of wind is formed at my front and the rest of the wind magic is used to keep me roughly on the course, letting me fly close to terminal velocity without any of the drawbacks that flying at such a speed would bring.

The downside is the extremely loud nature of the spell as well as the fact it makes me just about throw up every time I use it.

But I can't worry about the noise or eardrum damage, or even my stomach health right now.. Based on how fast and powerful that movement was, the people attacking the cart will be there any minute.