Chapter 174

174 Run, please! part Ryu ended up agreeing to Heimar request, It wasn’t that he was under any threat, but he did feel a bit pressured into giving him the egg shell. Of course Heimar wasn’t going to simply take it from Ryu, and he paid quite handsomly with gold and the light blue coins that Ryu didn’t know were made of mithril, a rare metal with magical properties.

By the time Ryu got back to his villa, Luke and Risa were nowhere to be seen, instead Anne was sitting in the dinning room drinking tea with Sera. For a brief second they both seemed startled, but they quickly composed themselves.

“Took you long enough, why did he call for you?”

“Nothing much, he just wanted to buy the eggshell”

“That’s weird... Anyway, I just dropped by to invite sera to the hot springs, I’ll head back now”

“There’s no need for you to hurry”

“Actually, there is, Risa and the others are already waiting”

“Are you not going Sera?”

“I don’t know... would it be ok mister Ryu?”

.....

“Of course, why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t know, maybe you’ll need me for something”

“Not really, go on, have some fun and pass the word that we leave tomorrow at dawn break”

Finally alone, Ryu rushed to the bedroom and basked in the freedom of having the bed all to himself. It was a nice feeling, but he missed sleeping with his pets.

He spent a long while with Famine and Mochi after chasing them, he trained his skills daily and lived the kind of life he always dreamed about. Exploring new places, living off the nature and spending time with his trustworthy dog companion.

Except it wasn’t a dog but an amarok, the kind of creature that brought chills in the spine to regular people. During the period he traversed the woods he became accustomed to sleeping on his now light brown soft fur, he used to be almost the same color as tree bark but after growing up he shedded and became a different color.

Mochi too shed a lot, but instead of changing its color he simply left a bunch of fur anywhere he went. Now his two pets were inseparable, Mochi loved to hitch rides on Famine, and Famine enjoyed the constant grooming on his fur by the fat cat. At night, both his pets would cuddle up to Ryu, allowing him to get a nice warm sleep wherever he went, not just that but they showered their master with affection on a daily basis.

That meant that now, despite having the comfiest bed he ever had all to himself, he ended up feeling lonely, then bored, then anxious.

His hands started sweating, he couldn’t keep his eyes still and started looking for threats everywhere in the room, but there was nothing at all.

It was an odd feeling he never experienced before, his heart raced and time seemed to slow down. But there were no menaces at sight, nothing at all that could explain how he felt.

He picked up his soulbound card and checked on it, maybe he fell victim to a status effect without knowing it.

The first page was filled with information that was of no use at all, just the usual. The next page contained all his skills and he tinkered with them a little, there were many passive skills that he kept at the ready just in case he needed them. Most of which didn’t consume much energy.

Then it hit him, he could use sense presence to detect any possible threats that lurked in the shadows.

His consciousness expanded the same as his awareness, he was able to sense even the small bugs that lived in the bushes outside the villa. He expanded the range of his skill by concentrating harder until he was able to feel the presence of every single one of his companions. None of them seemed to be in danger, Famine and Mochi had followed them from afar and were waiting for their master just outside the Quarrydew hotsprings.

Being in a nice, comfortable, quiet room made it easy to use the sense presence skill. He practiced a bit more with it until he felt comfortable enough to use it alongside mana sense. It proved to be too difficult for him, so instead of going all in from the start, he reduced the range and tried again.

Mana sense by itself should have been able to detect anything and everything, since mana was a strange energy that was present even in lifeless materials like stones. But in truth it wasn’t nearly as convenient because it was unable to detect small amounts of mana, it was helpful in other ways nonetheless.

The mana that flowed below the ground made it clear to Ryu why did the lake affected the quality of the hot springs. There was a strong mana flow coming from the direction where the lake was located, it followed a path to every single hot spring present. Meaning, all the water that flowed from below the ground was somehow connected to the lake in some way.

It was then that, by mere chance, Ryu sensed the outline of some people inside one of the hot springs. Since the water was rich in mana, he was able to tell, with incredible precision, the shape of anything and anyone below its surface.

As fate would have it, the person he was unintendedly focusing on was Anne. Ryu’s consciousness traced Anne’s body in the same way the water did. He was able to sense her soft curves and the more pronounced ones, every small detail in the shape was revealed to Ryu. All the nooks and crannies were unable to hid themselves from Ryu’s curious mind.

There wasn’t a trace of lust or depravity, pretty much the same as the first time he peeked at her naked body by accident. It was honest curiosity and eagerness to try out the mix of his two skills.

>Skill acquired: Awareness

That message snapped Ryu out of his reverie and his consciousness came back to a blushing body that was finally able to understand that he had just sensed Anne’s naked body. Startled by this notion, he tapped on his soulbound card as if trying to hide the fact that he just acquired a new skill by peeping, but what he saw in the bottom of the last page of his card made shivers run across his back.

The feminine voice that communicated with him on rare occasions had told him to check up on her messages daily, but he had completely forgotten about it. Now, by mere chance, he looked at the page where such messages appeared and it read:

‘RUN!’