Chapter 104 - Everyone’s Progress 3

Cecil made a mental note of the cave's location and rushed back towards his party's camp.

When he got there, Silver was lying down by the side of the carriage in his battle form. The large white wolf opened its eyes and his two ocean blue eyes stared questioningly at him.

Silver saw the n.a.k.e.d Lucia wrapped up in Cecil's robes in his embrace. It 'smirked' and 'bemusedly' barked at the boy.

"Woof!"

Cecil only looked back at his friend with a questioned look.

"What?"

"Woof!"

Cecil shrugged since he didn't understand. He went into the carriage and placed Lucia onto the seat to let her sleep.

"What happened to you Lulu?"

As he was about to stand up, the 5 tails that were wrapping around him suddenly tightened, he was surprised and collapsed on top of Lucia who responded by hugging him back.

'Mnyah~ Cel~"

"Hey! Let go Lulu... what the heck..." Cecil became a bit fl.u.s.tered. He tried to pry off the tails from his body, but they only tightened around him in response.

He could easily escape if he wanted to, but that would mean causing unnecessary harm towards Lucia.

He helplessly sighed and pinched the middle of his brows.

Cecil sat upright with Lucia's clinging tightly onto him.

He could feel Lucia's breathing down his neck. It caused him to tingle a bit. He frowned at this and began tickling her, but unfortunately the only response was her tails tightening around him.

'Hmmm... It usually works.'

Cecil changed his strategy and pressed a couple of pressure points on Lucia's arms and body. It caused her arms and tails to become powerless for a moment and Cecil used this chance to slip away.

He quickly took out a blanket and placed it over Lucia. He also carefully readjusted her body and made sure he stayed away from her tails and arms that were, for some reason, searching for him.

If he didn't confirm the fact that Lucia was indeed asleep, Cecil thought that the girl was only playing a prank on him.

When he was about to exit the carriage, he heard Lucia mumble his name, "Ce~el..." He looked back and saw that Lucia was sleeping normally. He walked out and spread his Mana Sense into the mountains once again.

He quickly found his friends. He looked up and saw that it was almost lunchtime. "I guess I'll cook this time..."

Silver who heard him mumbling started whining.

"Tsk, hey! It's not that bad y'know! I can grill a good meal y'know!"

'Yes, and that's literally all you could do, grill' was what Silver expressed with the pitiful look in his eyes.

"Tch... it's not my fault. Lucia fainted for some reason and it doesn't seem like she's going to wake up anytime soon."

"Woof!"

"Yeah, yeah..."

Cecil quickly started a fire. He took out the meat that the group had prepared for their lunch. It was still the demon hawk king's leftover meat.

The corpse of the monster king was pretty large, so even after a couple of days cooking and eating the meat there was still some left over.

He used the remaining bird meat and began cutting them up into small pieces. He pulled out a small basin and the sauce he had prepared and stored inside his ring at all times. He never got to use it though since it was always Lucia doing the cooking.

He poured the sauce into the basin and dumped the small chunks of chicken meat into it.

Cecil waited for over an hour before he began skewering the meat onto thin wooden sticks he had already prepared. Cecil quickly stuck the skewers over by the fire and waited for it to cook.

With the fire going, the smoke that rose into the air served as the signal for the rest of his party to come back and have lunch.

First to come back was Ainz, he was still as high spirited as when he first left, although he did look a bit battered. He washed his face in the nearby river and sat around the fire and waited for the rest of his party to come back.

Not long after, Velicia and Fina came back together. The two were visibly exhausted. Velicia had a couple of cuts and bruises all over her body. Fina was extremely pale. She didn't have any visible wounds, but her mana had sunk to a dangerously low level.

Eli came back a while later. She looked completely unruffled. She came back in the same condition as when she first set off, but Cecil knew that she was the one who pushed herself the most amongst the rest of the party members.

She would fight multiple Armamite golems at the same time and she would quickly fell them without too much difficulty. Her quota of 5 golems were long since achieved and she stayed in the mountains to train and hone her skills and spells. She also had the leisure time to pick some herbs that Lucia said would be great for crafting potions, salves, or even used as food ingredients.

Once everyone had arrived, Cecil served the meat skewers he had grilled. They ate ravenously, but felt that it was somewhat different than Lucia's usual meals. They also looked around and found that the girl wasn't even there.

"Cecil, where's Lucia?" Fina asked

"Huh? Oh, she's asleep in the carriage." Cecil said and pointed at the carriage. Silver barked in response.

"Woof!"

"Oh, is she okay? Did she not get enough sleep last night?"

"No, it's not that. She just had a breakthrough with her mana cultivation and she fell asleep."

"Oh that's good!"

"How come she fell asleep though?" Eli asked skeptically.

"It's just a side effect of her cultivation method, don't worry about it. She always sleeps like this."

"...okay."

Cecil didn't want to reveal that something unusual had happened to Lucia, so he just chalked it all up to some side effect of her mana cultivation method. This was a lie of course, but Cecil didn't want his friends to worry.

Once the group was finished with their lunch, Fina had rested enough and her mana had recovered. She quickly cast a healing spell onto Velicia and healed her wounds, she also cast one on Ainz, Cecil and Eli just in case. After that, the 4 teenagers presented to Cecil the monster cores that they each had.

Ainz had 4 and he was only one core away from reaching his quota, he couldn't fulfill his earlier promise. He wasn't discouraged by that though. He only said that he was currently testing out some new spell combos and that if he used his normal spell compositions then he would have definitely finished his quota already. Velica and Fina had 3 each and only Elizabeth had 5.

Cecil nodded and he opened his hand and 10 more monster cores appeared. "This is mine and Lucia's. Alright, Fina, Veli and Ainz, head back up and finish your hunts."

"Okay!" The three replied in unison.

"Once you guys get back, I'll continue explaining my mana manipulation method and we'll begin our training."

The three people quickly started heading back up into the mountains again.

Cecil turned towards Eli who was seeing off her friends and asked, "What about you Eli? Since you're already done, what do you plan on doing now?"

"...let's spar?"

"Haha, okay! But, no magic! We'll polish your sword skills today!"

Eli smiled in response, "Great!

Cecil walked a bit away from the campsite and pulled out his sword. He motioned for Eli to do the same.

Eli quickly unsheathed her rapier and focused her mind. She breathed out and turned her focused gaze onto Cecil.

Seeing this, Cecil smiled and said, "Start!"

"HAAAAAAAAA!!!" Eli lunged forward with her rapier piercing towards Cecil. Cecil parried the rapier with his sword while at the same time turning his body.

Eli stomped her foot to stop her forward momentum and swung her rapier to the side. Cecil blocked the swing and raised his foot to kick her.

Eli blocked the kick with her free hand and began to continuously stab her rapier at her friend. Cecil calmly blocked each stab with a slight smile on his face.

'Good, she can now chain her stabs continuously without creating an opening! Good, very good!'

Cecil focused and began blocking and parrying her attacks while at the same time intentionally trying to breaking her stance. He wanted to see how Eli would react to this and whether or not she would unintentionally create an opening for him.

In the beginning Cecil's blocks and parries did cause Eli some problems since all her stances were repeatedly broken and she had to readjust herself before attacking again. Gradually however, she was able to adapt and after 30 minutes of the back and forth bout, Eli was able to somewhat maintain her stance stably even after Cecil intentionally tried to break them.

"Urgh, you're so annoying..."

"Ahaha, well this just means you have to train more. I'll be adding punches and kicks now~"

"..."

Eli refocused her mind on the battle. She took the initiative and dashed towards Cecil once again. It was a repeat of their earlier bout, but this time Cecil mixed in punches and kicks after he blocked or parried her attacks.

Cecil didn't show mercy anymore and he would punch or kick her if Eli showed even the slightest bit of an opening.

'It's better if her body got used to it~ so please forgive me Elizabeth~'

The two's spar kept on going until Eli collapsed onto the floor all battered and bruised from Cecil's attacks.

"Ahaha... sorry about that Eli..."

"Urk... no... It's fine... ouch..." Eli shakily got up and began walking back towards the campsite. Cecil stretched and sheathed his sword before catching up with her.

"Well, how was it? Technique and skill matters a lot right?"

"...how many times have you told me this?"

"Ahahaha! Well, you are progressing well. Your rapier skills are becoming much more polished and refined compared to a month ago. Keep training hard Eli."

"...Of course."

Eli sighed helplessly looking at the training freak telling her to train harder. 'Geez, I'm a princess and this is how you treat me.'

She always felt it funny that this boy next to her and her friend that was currently asleep treated her just like they would treat any other girl. Eli knew for certain that Cecil and Lucia were well aware of her identity as the kingdom's princess.

Even then, the two didn't give her any preferential treatment. The same went for the other princess in the party. The two treated Fina and her the same way they would treat a friend.

Although, there were times when Eli would complain in her heart at Cecil's unreasonable method of training, but she was even gladder to find friends that treated her genuinely, without any ulterior motives.

She really didn't like the moniker of being a princess affecting her relationsh.i.p.s with the people close to her, so she very much welcomed the treatment even though she wanted to complain and whine sometimes.

"Hey Eli... what the heck is that?" Cecil patted her shoulder while pointing in the distance.

"Huh?" Elizabeth eyed the direction at where Cecil was pointing. She found a dust cloud rising in the distance and it seems that the source of the dust could was moving in the direction that they were in.

"Let's quickly head back. That may be trouble."

"Okay."

The two quickly made their way back to the campsite and put out the fire. Cecil quickly packed the things into the carriage or into his ring and he vigilantly waited for the dust cloud to approach.

Eli was next to him and she had already applied some healing salve and drank a healing potion. Her hand was on the hilt of her rapier, ready to draw it at a moment's notice.