# 019

"A bit light today." I grumble a few minutes later. "Some adventurers must have come through here recently. You up to moving on your own yet, Katie? There's another decent spot nearby that I haven't hit in a while."

"I'm good." She tosses back my almost empty canteen.

"Gee, thanks for saving me some." I take a swig before clipping it to my bag. "Alright, set the pace." I point my chin in the direction we need to go and fall into step beside her when she starts out.

...

"...help..." A faint cry gets carried to us on the wind.

"Where are you going?" I throw my head back in annoyance when she changes course. "You know better than to help the adventurers, it just encourages them. Ugh, fine!" I grumble and scoop her into a princess carry so that we'll be able to get there in time to help whatever idiot can't even handle a few slimes.

"I hate you." Katie blushes red at being carried again, but knows that speed trumps embarrassment right now.

...

"Fucking seriously?" My left eye starts twitching at the sight before me. "This one's on you, Katie. You can help him if you want, but I say we just leave him stuck in the tree. Someone else will be by sooner or later."

"Oh, would you just tame the slimes already so he can get down?" She smacks me on the chest. "And, you, quit shouting already!" She snaps at the moron who somehow got himself chased up a tree by a dozen slimes. "We're standing right here."

"Save me, please." He doesn't quit shouting.

"I'd rather not, but I need the slimes anyways." I retort and pull out enough wands to catch all of them. "You do know if you weren't leaking mana like a sieve they wouldn't be trying to get at you right now."

"I-I can't help it." He stutters in response. "I always get like this when I'm nervous."

"And, yet you still thought it a good idea to enter a forest filled with creatures that eat magic?" I scoff before sending the newly tamed slimes to join the pack behind us. "I suggest that you find a different place to play adventurer from now on."

"Ahh!" He screams and would have collapsed after stupidly putting his whole weight on a very swollen ankle, but the tree was there for him to grab on to.

"See, this is what happens when you help the idiots." I bop Kaitlyn on the head again to take out some of my frustrations. "They always want more help. And, I am certainly not going to carry him in my arms all the way back to town."

"Well, I can't carry him." She whines and rubs her head. "Queenie?"

"Hah. He wishes he was worthy enough to be carried by my pet." That and I haven't trained her to carry anyone yet. "Nope, I'm going to build him a travois and you're going to drag his ass back to town."

""Noo!"" They both cry out in unison.

"That or we leave him here." I turn around and start for home; I'll just get the rest of the slimes tomorrow. "You wanted to play hero, this is what heroes do. And, you." I point at the adventurer. "You had to be rescued by a twelve-year-old girl; it's hardly any more shameful to be dragged back into town by her."

"I'd beg to differ." He glares at me. Right now, only the aid of the tree he was hiding in is keeping him upright, and with the way his ankle looks, I doubt he'll even be able to climb back up.

"Don't care." I roll my eyes at him and turn to Katie. "You know the rule; you have to do everything I say when we're in the field. So, choose. Leave him to get eaten by the next slime that comes by, or pull him back into town."

"Just make the damned sled already." She grumps out and flops down next to a tree. "I know you wouldn't just leave him out here, you just want me to do all the work."

"Yep." I smile down at her before drawing one of my swords. "But, just think. This might be the start of your romance, just like what happened with me and Maddie." I start cackling as each of them duel to make the most disgusted face. "That was a joke, by the way. If you touch my sister, you'll wish you were eaten by slimes."

The guy, who looks to be around my age, gulps when my sword blurs out and cleanly slices off a branch as thick around as his arm. He then pales when I slice it lengthwise down the center before it can even touch the ground.

"When are you going to teach how to do that?" Katie whines, she has something of a love/hate relationship with my sword skills. She loves how cool they look, but hates that she can't do them.

"How's your progress coming on the sword dance?" I ask while stripping the smaller branches and weaving them into a platform to carry the adventurer. "Because if you mastered the transition between the seventh and ninth stances of the third form, you would be able to do that yourself."

"But, they don't even look anything like what you just did." She hops to her feet and tries to practice the moves I just mentioned.

"Start with stance one and work through just the odd moves." I shake my head when she nearly trips over her own feet. "I've told you before that there is more than just one pattern to the dance; this is one of the easier ones to find."

"Meaning I should have found it by now." She hangs her head with a sigh. She only gets three moves in before fumbling.

"Practice when we get back home." I ruffle her hair for the good attempt. "You have an adventurer to rescue right now."

"Nng." She grunts but drags the sled over the wounded idiot. "Get on already, I can't wait to try this out."

"You're not really going to make your little sister carry me all the way to town." He pleads with me.

"She's stronger than you are." I laugh in his face. "Now, get on the sled or we're leaving without you."

...

"Please just leave me here." Mister twisted ankle pleads to be dropped off just inside the woods. "I can just hobble into town from here."

"Are you trying to cheat my sister out of the recognition she deserves for saving your life?" I ask, shocked. "And, after all the hard work she put into hauling you all this way." This might go over better if she were even breathing hard right now, but I've been cheating a bit with magic to lighten the load she had to carry. I'm not that mean, after all.

"Please, I'll give you anything." Now, that's what I was waiting to hear.

"What could you have that she might want?" I sigh and pull out a sack filled with the cores of the slimes she killed earlier. "She collected all of these on her own, just this morning. No, I don't see you having anything she might need. Come on, Katie; let's get this over with so you can practice your swords."

"Wait!" He fishes around in his shirt and pulls out a pendant.

"A low-grade mana focus?" I identify it after just a second, and find myself less than impressed. From the quality of his clothes, I thought he might actually have something worth taking. "How many of those did you break before Dad quit making them for you?"

"I lost track." She shakes her head and continues on the way into town. "And, he never stopped; he keeps trying out different formations looking for one that I won't manage to fry."

"Nng. I-I have a wand too." The poor guy looks crestfallen when his prized possession is nothing more than trash to her.

"Decently made, but..." I pull a much better one from a slot in her bracer. "She's not really the magic type anyway, mostly just uses this to make ice cubes to cool down her drinks." I use it to shoot a foot-long, hardened icicle into the ground before returning it to Kaitlyn's bracer.

"What do you want from me?" He begs.

"Nothing." I tell him honestly. "Just relax and we'll get you to the guildhall in no time. I'd have her take you directly to the healer, but the guild is closer. You don't want her to have to carry you any further than necessary, right?" I definitely don't just want to see everyone's faces when she hauls him up to the guildhall.

"Please, there must be something." He's past begging and just whining now. "I'll never live this down."

"Set him down for a minute, Katie." I crouch down next to him and conjure a ball of raw mana. "Make your own and hold it for a minute without leaking. Do that and I'll take over the sled. As much as I dislike them, the world always needs more adventurers. And, you have more than enough mana to make a decent mage, if you could control it that is."

"Th-that's all?" He swallows and tries to do as I asked. Failing straight away.

"Let's go." I just shake my head. The first real monster he meets will kill him if he continues down this path. Hopefully, the humiliation of being rescued by a little girl will change his mind about being an adventurer.

"Wait, please. I can do this." He tries and fails again.

"Even Kaitlyn here can do this and she's worse at magic than our Mom." At my words, she condenses not one but three balls of mana with no issue.

"You're not cut out to be an adventurer." I tell him plainly. "Go back to whatever small barony you came from and live comfortably as third son while the real adventurers keep the world safe from monsters." He stares at me like I'm a mind reader, but I saw the signet ring on a cord around his neck when he fished out the pendant.

"Fourth son, and my father's a count. And, fuck you!" His mana finally comes under control, and a dozen orbs appear and hold steady.

"Sorry, I already have a girlfriend." I snark back, just to be an asshole. "And, very impressive. But, can you hold it for the whole minute?" He starts sweating well before the time is up, but manages to make it. "Well, thank fuck for that. Holding this damned gravity spell was giving me a headache."

""What?!"" Both he and Katie shout the question at me when his weight returns to normal.

"You didn't really think I was going to make you drag someone twice your size into town on your own, did you?" I tousle her hair and take over the poles of the travois. "And, you're welcome for the lesson, by the way; you're lucky that Mom told me to be nicer to adventurers."

"That was you being nice?" I can feel him shaking through the poles I'm holding. "You tried to extort me!"

"Only until I saw the signet ring." I roll my eyes even though he can't them. "Well, that and, for a count's son, you don't have anything worth taking." I add with a laugh.

"Shut up! It's not like I just walk around to woods with a pouch full of gold." He tries to defend himself, but it only makes me laugh harder.

...

"Did someone order an adventurer with a side of twisted ankle?" It's less loud in the guild than last time, so I don't bother going up to the counter before speaking. "If this becomes a regular thing, I'm going to have to start charging for each rescue."

"What happened?" The receptionist and several others walk up next to me at the door to gawk out at the poor guy stuck in the sled.

"He let his mana leak." I explain and then roll my eyes at the looks of confusion on everyone but the receptionist's face. "Slimes eat magic." I refuse to spell it out any more than that. "Now, does someone want to haul him off to the healer for me, I have stuff to do."

"Are you sure this doesn't have anything to do with the rumor I heard about you and her apprentice?" The receptionist teases.

"Mhm." I just grunt, earning a smirk from her. "Freakin' small-town gossip." I shake my head in annoyance and take off back home to see if Katie has made any progress with the sword dance. I gave her my bag and told her to get the new slimes settled in when we passed by home.

***