Chapter 31 - Pepper

Despite my urge to immediately rush out towards the forest, my rationality told me that it was probably too irresponsible.

My feet reluctantly brought me back to the palace.

By the time I got there, the sun was about to set. There was a faint glow of orange about to disappear in the grey sky.

At the palace entrance, Ela was waiting there with her hands clasped in front of her.

"You almost didn't make it back by nightfall."

My face was expressionless, except a small frown.

"Sorry, something... happened, I'm going to be away from the village for a while."

Ela laid one hand just under her neck.

"Excuse me? What could you possibly wish to do outside the village?"

I turned around and watched as the last sliver of sun disappeared.

"Answers..."

My head turned to face Ela.

"There are answers out in the forest. I will find them."

The inner corners of Ela's eyes angled up.

"...May I come with you?"

My head faced forwards again. The sun was gone.

"No, the forest is too dangerous."

Ela grabbed my arm.

"Then why must you go there?"

My free hand pushed off Ela's grip.

"I need an answer. Don't worry about me, I have... something that assures me... I will keep living."

There was a light sniffle. Ela's voice became weak.

"You must come back."

I started to walk forward.

"I will."

Just not in the way you would think.

...

Upon reaching the borders of the village the fire went out. Feeling the cold assault me, I went into the forest. Alyx's spell, the healing spell, and a firebolt were prepared on the way.

There were no longer shadows from the trees, making me feel at a loss at which angle I should hide.

My figure flitted between the trees in an effort to make it harder for anything nearby to see me.

It took a few steps before my footsteps were once again silent.

The darkness was getting worse, my vision only stretched to about two meters ahead of me.

My breaths were still normal, I had forgotten to slow my breathing.

My muscles tensed from this realization. Slowly calming them down, I began preparing the lightning spell.

Staying as still as I could, the lightning spell slowly finished.

As the lightning spell was being cast my hand whipped it in a direction. There was a strange sensation coming from there like something was watching me.

The spell zipped forward, briefly lighting up whatever it passed by.

My eyes were peeled open, catching a glimpse of a wolf about six meters away staring at me with its green eyes.

My heart clenched, then slowly released.

My feet quietly traversed in a different direction while my mind was focusing on preparing the wind spell.

As my mind visualized the angle of the wolf's vision, the wind spell was ready.

My foot paused after I was behind a tree. With a light toss, the wind spell was cast from my palm. It stirred up the snow behind one tree while I walked behind another.

From there, my steps continued forward, quiet and slow. My head was down, but my vision was hardly affected, being barely able to see.

Gradually I became accustomed to the night. Despite my senses being more or less muted, my ability to navigate between trees became better.

Feeling less like a fish out of water, my aimless walking reminded me about how strange my route to that village was.

It consisted of aimless wandering from one place to another, blacking out and being taken into a cave, then estimating the demon's destination and following them there.

Hmm... I guess if there are many demons around, it won't be too difficult to find the place from there.

There were some dead branches on the ground that I had taken by pinching them with my index finger and thumb.

Finding a nice tree, My fingers delicately released the branches putting them in a circle. After casting the tunnel spell, the tips of my fingers tipped the branches onto my head.

My eyes closed.

...

There was faint sunlight peeking through the branches.

My hair was dirty, but there was not much one could clean with while in the snowy forest.

As my eyes struggled to open, my hands fumbled with the tree, searching for a branch. Scaling up the tree was easy enough. While shivering, a ball of fire appeared above my hand. Slowly, two tunnel spells were being prepared inside my body.

My eyes scanned the tree for good branches. There was a decent branch, after pulling it out and stripping the smaller branches, I went to work.

After directly breaking the stick in half, my grip tightened and forced the branch to sharpen by scraping it against the trunk of the tree.

Satisfied, my feet slid down the trunk and the ball of fire was dispelled.

My shadow once again blended among the trees.

It did not take long for me to find and hunt a rabbit.

After cooking, eating, and dispelling the fire spell, my journey resumed.

To my surprise there was an empty patch of snow, in this patch was a small plant that had borne two peppers, one yellow and one red.

After observing the pepper for a few moments, my hand clutched a fist full of snow and threw it at the peppers.

The snow coated the peppers, then there was a sizzling sound. The snow melted off the peppers and it was like there was never snow in the first place.

Out of curiosity, both my hands went to pick up snow and hurl it at the peppers, before picking up more snow and throwing it again.

The snow coated the peppers once again but sizzled off soon after. All the snow that came subsequently immediately melted.

Stepping closer my finger slowly extended to touch the red pepper. As the finger got closer, strangely there was no heat. After touching it, my hand whipped back.

The pepper felt normal but started to make a sizzling sound.

My finger and thumb subconsciously rubbed against my chin.

Inside my body, the encase spell was being prepared as I pondered on this pepper's properties.

While lacking conviction, my finger pointed towards the peppers and released the encase spell.

The peppers quickly froze over.

My finger was tapping my knee.

A few moments passed...

The peppers were still frozen over, there were no changes that were observable.

One of my hands grabbed the peppers encased in ice, my other hand used the sharp part of the stake to break the stem that was still connecting them.

The remains of the pepper plant approached the ground with trepidation. Upon touching the ground, the remains decomposed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Using the fire spell to reduce the ice casing to a smaller size, let it fit nicely into my pockets.

Now that the peppers were dealt with, my objective was to find a demon, to lead to other demons.

A chilling wind blew, making me shiver uncontrollably.

...For now, the objective was to find a wolf I could use to make a coat.

My shadow melded with the trees and from there began my search for a wolf.

The sun started to set, contrary to my expectations, it was quite difficult to find a wolf.

When I was about to call it off and search for a rabbit to eat, a large wolf leisurely walked by.

Slowly, my shadow got closer to the back of the wolf.

The tail brushed wind in my face, my steps were still slow and continued forward. Right before the tail hit me, Alyx's spell flew out from my fingertips and I climbed onto the wolf's back.

The wolf was still in a daze when my feet stepped on its neck and the stake was raised high.

Plunging downwards with both hands, the wolf awoke and started to struggle fiercely.

One hand held tightly to the stake that was still inside the wolf, the other held onto some fur.

The tenacity of the wolf shocked me, it began barreling towards a tree smacking headfirst into it, with no regard for itself.

The sudden impact was unexpected and sent me flying off its back. The stake was stuck.

I really should use something that doesn't get stuck all the time...

The wolf was in a frenzy, biting and clawing aimlessly.

Before it reached me, my body dove underground, submerged by the dirt. The top was covered soon after and the wolf's thrashing continued.

My breathing slowed.

The tremors above started to settle down and my hands pushed aside the dirt that was above me.

After taking in a deep breath, my eyes darted to the wolf that was no longer moving.

Rushing over, my hand gripped the stake hard and started to peel off the pelt. Carrying the pelt with me up a tree, my new coat was now in the making.

Compared to my last coat, this one was much easier to make and covered more of myself. The pelt not being ruined was probably the biggest reason.

As the coat wrapped around my body, there was already warmth spreading throughout my body. The wind was unable to batter me as hard as it did before.

Sliding down the tree once more, my stomach urged me to find a rabbit.

Not long after, my stomach was full and the sun was about to disappear.

Finding some branches, I tunneled beside a tree and covered my head with the branches.

The only sound left was my soft breathing.