Chapter 76 - Chapter 76: The Ambush - Part 1

Chapter 76: The Ambush – Part After the affairs of the day, they headed back to the Inn they slept in before, had some dinner and headed off to bed for an early night. It would seem with all the searching they did, and the excitement Lyrika exuded when seeing the Umbrea, had tired her out, and falling to sleep almost instantly.

Given this, nothing like the previous night took place, and to be fair, Olivia felt it would be best she get some sleep so she was ready and set for the trip.

Philly was in the adjoining room like before, but she too had ended the day early, stopping her writing early.

Although this was the case, Olivia was sure she heard the door to their room open not long after she herself had tried to fall asleep. This was then followed by a sigh and the door closing again.

‘I’ll never do it again she said.’ Olivia could help but chuckle to herself.

So aside from Philly instantly going back on what she said before, the night was peaceful, and they all managed to get a good night’s sleep.

…

As morning came, they headed down for a quick breakfast, which like before wasn’t anything to write home about, and so after finishing up, they headed out.

Leaving the village they travelled west as Teagan had said. The road they were travelling to was more or less perpendicular to the direction they were heading, so as long as they didn’t stray too much, they should hit it at some point.

Teagan said it was about half a day’s walk, which wasn’t that far. It also made sense given they had travelled north from Yoban’s village that also connected to the road.

She did wonder then why Teagan’s village didn’t connect to the road as well but soon found the answer before long.

“We have to go through that. It looks even denser than the forest we came from!” Lyrika shouted.

“Looks like it.”

“But given how close it is to the village and the road many people travel along, I doubt there will be any beasts or such. Bandits are a possibility though,” Olivia said to somewhat reassure both the girls. Besides, if need be they could go around bandits if they found any.

“I hope so. We may have gotten some training, but there is no way we could take on something like a Zentora again. Without getting away unscathed I mean. We would surely end up half dead if we did.”

Skipping past the pessimistic statement from Lyrika, Olivia started heading into the forest, stepping over some massive tree roots. With a sigh, Lyrika followed after her, and Philly actually had to take her head out of her book so as not to trip.

…

As they had expected, a lot of careful treading was needed to get through the forest. You almost had to be a master of gymnastics to get through this with any speed. But alas, none of them had such a skill under their belt. As evident by all three of them having tripped at least twice…and they were only an hour into their journey.

“This is ridiculous!” Lyrika shouted as she lifted herself up from the floor, Olivia helping her up as well.

“I know. But hopefully, it will thin out at some point. It can’t be like this all the way.” Olivia said as she helped steady her.

“How are you doing Philly?” She called out behind them; Philly having fallen behind a little.

“I’m doing, ouch…I’m doing fine. Aside from the spiky tree branches and not being able to write anything.”

“How can she want to write now? How does she have so much to write? She spent most of the evening scribbling into her book,” Lyrika said quietly to Olivia.

“I don’t know. Could be she’s writing about her whole journey, you know, as it happens.”

“That’s…weird.”

“It’s not weird. It’s called being detailed and a good researcher. As I study Olivia and the beast-kin culture I am recording all that occurs in case I miss something. I would prefer to have everything at my disposal when it comes to publishing my paper rather than have missed something I shouldn’t have.”

“But that seems so…longwinded. Couldn’t you just write about what happened at the end of the day?” Lyrika asked.

“I do that too. I fill in anything I may have missed when writing throughout the day.”

Olivia and Lyrika just looked at each other and sighed. It seemed there was nothing they could say, and really if Philly was fine with it, who were they to tell her how to do her observation and research.

“I can prove how useful it is. I bet I can tell you things even you have not noticed.”

That caught their attention. They readily agreed to it. They couldn’t see how she would know more about things going on around them, than the two of them combined.

“First of all, did you know that your stamina is increasing,” she said as she looked over at Olivia.

“Well, yeah. I exercise every day. It would be odd if it wasn’t.”

“Ah, I mean your sexual stamina. During that night together, you were almost able to go a third ti-”

“Wha- what. How do…what?” Olivia stuttered out at the embarrassment of it all, stopping Philly from continuing. For her to just casually talk about a topic like that, which she guessed was in keeping with how she usually was…but still.

“It’s true. When it happened, Lyrika had a slightly shocked look on her face. And given that you fell asleep means you were not expecting to…be able to go again.”

The most annoying thing about all of this was that if true, then Olivia and even Lyrika by the look of her face, had no idea. She did start to wonder how Lyrika didn’t know if she had apparently seen it happen, but since she couldn’t even remember Philly showing up, it wasn’t a stretch that she would forget that as well.

“That’s- You could be lying.”

That was the best Olivia could come up with. Even Lyrika had a look of derision on her face when she heard her say that.

“Well, I’m sure you will see the next time you engage in your mating rituals.”

“…”

“…”

Silence reigned for a few moments after that.

“Onto the second one then. Just several trees over to the left from when we entered this forest was a pathway leading into it.”

“…”

“…”

Silence reigned once again, but for an entirely different reason now. That is until Lyrika spoke up.

“What?”

“See, I know you did not see it. But, because I have written everything down I-”

“No, Lyrika isn’t surprised you noticed it and she didn’t. She wants to know what you mean by there was a path and why you didn’t tell us?” Olivia said while trying to contain the annoyance bubbling towards the surface.

“Ahh. Well, you didn’t ask. I also thought there may have been a reason for the direction you were heading. So, I decided not to say anything.”

No compunction. That was the main thing Lyrika and Olivia could see when they looked at Philly. She stood by her words and could not see a problem with what she did.

The worst thing though was that because of this, it was hard to take apart what she said in order to admonish her about it. It sounded like she truly thought they had a reason for entering the forest in such a way.

“Philly.”

“Yes.”

“Next time, if you see an easier or more efficient solution to something, just say something. Even if you think we have a reason for doing it otherwise.”

“Sure.”

It was done and sorted, but honestly, it felt like Olivia had lost in a big way during that.

…

Now knowing about that path that wasn’t too far from them, in place of struggling through the dense forest, they headed left towards it. There was still a good number of trees and foliage to get through to reach it, but thankfully a lot less than what they were going to be travelling through, and even what they had travelled through so far.

Before long they had made it to what was technically a path. It wasn’t anything as fancy as a cobblestone path, nor could you even call it a dirt track. It was just a thin path that had been cleared of trees and plants t some point. Nature was however starting to reclaim it, where plants were once again growing all along it, and a few shrubs and newly sprouted trees dotted it too.

But it was still good enough that they could travel down it with ease. Something they should have been doing since the start, but there was no point crying over spilt milk.

Their journey since they reached it was much smoother than before, and it hardly took them any time at all to reach their destination.

The road Ameril would be transported down.

Here they would be setting up an ambush for the carriage holding her. They would need to deal with several guards, preferably in non-lethal ways, then get Ameril out and abscond with her without the guards giving chase.

Simple. Right.