61 Inteiru Expota - Escape (1/2)

We reach the base of the mound, but it's too quiet. It should be quite noisy if everyone's fighting off a monster attack considering that a roar came from this direction two minutes ago. But the only thing we hear are the sounds of our feet hitting the ground. It gives me a bad feeling as we climb the hill.

At the top, we freeze, as my fears become a reality. No one standing to be seen. Only a large group of tigers numbering at least a dozen feasting on bodies lying on the ground. One tiger stands out from the rest; it's the only one with red fur with yellow and orange stripes. The remaining tigers have orange fur and black stripes. It only takes a moment for the monsters to realize that we're here. They stop eating and turn their head our way. They stare at us with blood dripping from their muzzle.

”Run, run!” I exclaim and quickly do a 180-degree turn back to where we came. Anyone they're gorging on right now is definitely dead. Nothing we can do for whoever was unfortunate enough to be caught. Not even if it was Marin or Ruby, but there's no way they're dead. Captain Albius must've evacuated everyone.

”They're catching up!” Ada yells from right behind me. ”Turn right!”

I do as she says. We need to get out of this overgrown forest as soon as possible. At this rate, those tigers are going to catch up to us in no time. It's too hard to run at full speed on this terrain. And both of us are injured. I could use Enhancement to run faster, but I would end up leaving Ada behind.

Suddenly, the ground in front of us rises. It blocks our way forward. The fuck?

I stop running right before crashing into it. No time to process what just happened. We'll have to go around it. That's what I thought, but the ground around it rose up too. I widen my eyes. It's the monsters. They can cast Intermediate Evocation magic. We need to turn around before we're trapped. ”Go back!”

I turn around, but it's too late. The ground rises with no other way out other than above. But that'll be a dead end too because they could always make it higher. It would take a while to climb too and wouldn't work since they're nearby. This is bad.

There's only one way out of this. I need to focus.

”Wha-what do we do?” Ada asks, shivering. She widens her eyes and jerks her head toward a monster roar. ”What do we do?!”

”You're seriously asking me?” I ask, surprised how she's depending on me to get us out of this. I'm working on something to get us both out, but she doesn't know that.

”O-of course! Who else would I be asking, you idiot?”

”Well considering what you did to me in the past, I think I'll just leave you here. No one's watching anyway.”

”Wha-what?! No! Please, I'm sorry. Don't leave me.”

I smile and turn my back on her. This is too good. I stay silent.

”Look, I know I treated you like shit, and it's all my fault. I was skeptical whether you were a part of them or not but I convinced myself that you were. That it had to be the truth. I couldn't just take it back when I pushed it that far.” Loud rustling noises nearby. The monsters are here. ”Please!”

Wow. I didn't expect a full-on confession from her. Here I thought that she wholeheartedly believed that I was one of the masked men. When really, she was only half sure and never verified it. That's really scummy. A part of me wants to leave her here, but I won't. It's not like I get anything out of it. I could use this to climb up the ladder quicker.

”Shut up and grab hold of my back, tightly,” I instruct. She says nothing and wraps her arms around my chest plate. The monsters growl. We're lucky the tigers gathered around us haven't pounced on us yet, but it would be stupid to risk waiting any longer.

My magic activates, finally reaching their destinations. A portal appears in front of me wide and tall enough so that neither of us would be in any danger of breaking the boundary rule.

I run through, appearing in the air far above us, beyond the smaller trees that covered the area around us, though nowhere near reaching the top of the gigantic trees. Luckily, the monsters can't see us from up here because the crown of the trees blocks the view. We quickly fall into an upright position. Ada screams.

I point to the direction we ran in before the ground rose and yell, ”Hurry, use Wind magic to get us out of this place!”

Our bodies jerk toward the complete opposite direction than I indicated along with our body orientation. We're now gliding through the air head first and face down in our point of heading. I warn, ”You're going the wrong way!”

”I can't change directions now!”

I wasted too much time teasing her that I didn't leave any time to fill her in on my plan to escape. It would be too hard to change directions now taking account into the monsters catching up too. At this point, she'd better do a good job of committing to this heading. Land first and take care of everything else later. I don't like the idea that my life is in Ada's hands, so I'll prepare something just in case. I tilt my head up, looking ahead.

”Front, in front! Watch where you're going!” I exclaim, too late to prepare any counter-measure. We're headed right into the edge of the trunk of an overgrown tree. Edge or not, that's going to be enough to stop our full momentum. She turns our course slightly, narrowingly avoiding crashing.

I don't think I'll be able to do much with my magic. I can't see what's under the crown of the trees below us to know where a portal would put us. It could be deadly if a tree or rock were directly in front of the portal. The best I could do is activate the exit portal above ground somewhere before activating one in front of our heading. It would put us closer to where we started. If the monsters are following us, they could catch us. That's dangerous because I don't know how much Mana Ada has left, and it's not like I have an infinite supply either. If we're both left with no Mana, we wouldn't be able to survive this place after landing.

Our distance from the ground shortens rapidly. It would be nice to land in an area clear of these annoying smaller trees. I'm assuming that the wood in this forest isn't brittle, so it's not going to be pretty if we brush along the crown at this speed.

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”How're you planning to land?!” Ada asks.

”That's your job! Hopefully by redirecting some of the force below us to fall slower!”

Our bodies thrust upward, now going a bit diagonal, but slowing down to only vertical movement. I hope she understands that we're trying to go down, not up. The climb upward halts, and we drop down. Every few moments, a burst of air launches us up slightly, probably to stop us from falling too fast down. Her control sucks.

I can't complain too much, though. She's keeping both of us alive. Should I burn the top of the trees below us? No, because that might attract monsters. I hope we land safely.

I didn't see this before, but there's a place nearby without any trees. I point and ask, ”Hey, can you land over there?”

”I'll try.”

She flies us over in spurts diagonally upward toward the open area. She could be more efficient, but it's working. She switches back to the vertical descent when we pass the trees. Finally, we reach the ground, with the grass reaching as high as my chest.

Ada lets go of me and drops to the ground. she mutters, ”We're alive…”

I sigh and sit down too. ”Yeah…”

This open area is much nicer. Though, it's like we're ants in a regular forest considering the presence of these extremely thick and tall trees. There's a large amount of space between each of them with hills everywhere. If those tigers track us here, they will able to track us in the air. So in that sense, it was nicer where we were.

”Your plan... You were planning all along to use me in your escape but didn't say anything...”

Oops. She figured it out. This is the part she'll take back everything she said and blame me.

”I deserve it...thanks for not abandoning me. I'll do anything to make it right.”

It's too bad I can't see what kind of expressions she's making with this grass in the way. I smile and ask, ”Oh, anything?”

”No-not anything.”

”But an eye for an eye. It's the only way it's fair. You saw and assaulted my bare body, soo...you know.”

”You sick—I mean...” she mutters and then sighs.

Speaking of ants…if the trees in this place are so much bigger, does that mean the monsters here are huge too? Those tigers were menacing, but only because there were so many. They didn't scale up to the size of these trees.

I thought a part of an overgrown tree moved in the distance before, but now I'm sure it did. Currently, it's moving in a different spot on the same tree. Several spots, actually, like a thick line wrapped the tree. Oh, no…

I stand up immediately, realizing the impending danger. The grass blocked my view before, but now I notice that the monster is close to the base of the tree. I don't see the head or tail.

I'd rather be in the mini forest compared to out here. I say, ”Get up, now.”

”Wha-what? You want that now?”

”I'm not screwing around. Get back into the forest, now,” I warn while walking backward, inching closer to the forest.

”I didn't agree to it yet,” Ada says, still not standing up and having her misunderstandings as usual. To begin with, I wasn't serious about that.

”Get up, unless you wanna end up eaten whole by a snake.”

She jumps up to her feet and runs over to me. We hurry into the edge of the forest and then hide behind a tree.

”Where's the snake?” she asks.

I inch my head out. I point to the tree that I saw it on. ”It's that one. It's hard to see since it's camouflaged, but it's moving.”

”I don't see anything.”

”What?” I check for myself once more. She's right. There's nothing there unless it's not moving and blended in really well. I don't think things are going to work out that conveniently for us. The other outcome is more likely. ”Shit. It's already moved off the tree. Let's move.”

”Aren't you being too paranoid? It didn't see us.”

”Maybe, but I don't wanna take any chances.”

”It's not headed our way. The grass is completely still.”

She's right. It's easy to see the grass around the base of the tree because we're at a lower elevation compared to it. There's no movement around the tree whatsoever, although, it might have some way of moving through the grass without disturbing it. Or it could be going around the grass entirely.

”Either way, I don't wanna stay in an area where monsters are a hundred times their normal size. If that snake was that big, we're screwed if something with better eyesight sees us. I definitely don't wanna wait around for monsters to come around and eat us. We're both bleeding, so…”

Ada gulps and answers, ”Ye-yeah…you're right.”

We head in the direction we flew from at a slow pace, paying close attention to our surroundings, when my stomach growls.

”Hungry?” Ada asks.

”Yeah but I'll deal with it,” I say. She should be hungry too. We ate at the same time over six hours ago. ”We don't have time to look for food.”

”It's everywhere. We don't need to look,” Ada says with open stretched out arms.

Is she referring to the mushrooms and berries around here? ”We don't know which ones are poisonous. It's too risky.”

”I know all about them. My parents ran a restaurant, and they taught me all about the edible goodies,” Ada says as she crouches next to a tree. She cuts some hairy thing from the bark. Now she's on the ground on all four, plucking some oddly-shaped mushrooms. She hands me everything and says, ”Look for these. They're all edible non-poisonous mushrooms. Make sure the color matches exactly for the ones I got from the ground.”

It's hard to believe this white hairy thing from the tree is a mushroom let alone edible. It literally looks like hundreds of white strands of hair hanging from a pole hidden in the center. I didn't want to waste time like this looking for mushrooms, but a few more minutes can't hurt. I split up from Ada to look the hairy thing on trees because it looks the most interesting. The other ones give me bad memories of my 5th year. I don't want to wander too far, though.

I circle each tree individually. It takes a few to find my first one. I use one of my swords to scrape it off the tree. These things aren't on every tree, but it looks like they're common enough to gather in a short amount of time. It's a bit annoying to drop everything on the ground to cut the next one I find, pick everything back up, and restart the process. I head back to my starting point with plenty of these hairy mushrooms in my arms.

”Ada, I got a bunch of the hairy ones,” I say. Dead silence. Not sure if she heard me, but I don't want to yell. It could alert predators. ”Ada?”

Nothing other than a few small noises in the distance. Did she wander off somewhere else? Or did she get caught by a monster?

I drop all the mushrooms and unsheathe both of my blades. I search the vicinity of the last place I saw her. I move through the area with light steps, turning slowly around the large scattered boulders.

If it were a monster, she would have screamed unless something got her in an instant. And she wouldn't dare try to split up from me. She knows that she needs me to survive. She's not stupid enough to wander off either.

Her legs are sticking out from behind a bush. She's on the ground. ”Ada?”

No response. I gulp and slowly walk toward her, not knowing whether she's dead or alive, my heartbeat racing.

I don't know why I'm concerned about her safety to this extent. I wanted nothing more than for her to suffer for what she did to me. But it increases my chances of survival if I keep her with me.

I find her intact in one piece with no signs of battle or monsters nearby. I sigh. But there's still the problem with Ada. Did she accidentally eat something poisonous? There's not much I can do for her if that's the case.

I kneel next to her head. Her breathing is heavy, and sweat drips from her face. I put my palm over her forehead. She's burning up. Her left arm catches my attention. The wound she suffered is turning slightly yellow on some parts of her raw skin. I don't think a wound would be infected this quick, but that guy might have done something else to her too.

Do I wait here for her to recover or bring her with me? We're out in the open here, so it would be risky to stay. But it would also be risky to carry her and continue onward. If I ran into any trouble, she's toast. I wouldn't be able to protect us both. I need to find a place where it's safe to recover. Nowhere is completely safe, but there has to be a place.

In a tree could work, though getting her up there would be difficult, but doable. I climb the thickest nearby tree and then stand on top the branch closest to the ground. It's thick enough for my purposes. I release a short stream of Fire magic made from Unrefined Mana from my left palm. I guide the flames to the trunk of the tree.

I'm not trying to burst the tree into flames, instead, only to weaken the wood. It doesn't burn at first because of the presence of Mana inside the tree. It's only a matter of time before it can't protect itself from my magic.

Hopefully, the wood on these trees isn't too hard to break. I only have Iron swords with me because of the basic equipment requirement of the Rising Champions.

Finally, a small piece of the tree burns and smoke rises from it. I use my sword with my free hand to scrape off the smoking pieces from the trunk. It doesn't take much force to separate it from the rest of the tree, which is a relief. I repeat the process of burning and scraping the tree, eventually carving out a hollow shell of the tree enough to rest Ada inside. Now all there is to do is bring her up.

I jump off the tree and slam my blade into the tree tip first, pushing it until my hilt touches the wood. It's comfortably high enough for me to jump to it easily while carrying Ada. I'll put the second one off to the right and equidistant between the first and the branch with the burrow. Now, I'll be able to climb up the tree with no hands.

I sweep my hands from under Ada to pick her up. The mushrooms she collected are piled under her. I go over to the two steps I created and then go from one foothold to the next. Finally, reaching the branch, I rest her back inside the opening I made while balancing my weight. Her legs hang off the edge because the tree isn't thick enough to hide her entire body. This won't protect her completely, especially if monsters here uses magic.

While I'm waiting, I'll cook those mushrooms. I'll toss them in a pile and use some Fire magic. I go back to gather the hairy mushrooms I dropped and add them to the heap Ada collected. Things won't turn well if I use Fire magic on the clump of mushrooms. It'll end up too burnt that way. But it's not like I have any cooking supplies either. And it would be too much of a hassle to set one up. I don't want to set the environment on fire if possible because monsters might smell the smoke. It was already risky to burn a part of the tree, but that was only a little bit at a time.

So I'll have to cook over mid-air, which means I'll have to skewer the mushrooms with something. My swords and Ada's daggers are probably too thick for the job. However, I could use those twigs on the branch. Those should be thin enough for the job.

I take my weapons back from the tree and then put them back into my sheaths. I climb the tree and use one sword to cut off I the most straight-looking twigs from the branch. I jump down to the ground where they fell, remove the leaves, and then skewer all the mushrooms on them. I bring them up on the branch with me.

I sit on the branch next to Ada with my legs hanging in front. I bond my Scrap Mana to Fire Affinity to create a small flat surface of fire with the heat pointing up. I split the twigs among both of my hands and hang it a few inches away from the fire. It won't be evenly cooked this way since I'm holding a clump of twigs in each hand. The ones near the top won't be cooked well. I don't have the patience to do this one by one.

I opt to create more flat surfaces of Fire, all pointing toward the skewers. I form a box of fire, leaving the front and back empty because I don't want to burn the twig. Since I'm unsure how long I need to cook for, I'll leave it like this for a while. The rumbling in the distance worries me, but it's all good here, so far.

”Ugh…” Ada moans.

”Don't try to move yet. You're weak.”

”Where am I?”

”I made a hole in a tree. ”

”I see. Sorry for the trouble… Look. I really don't want to owe you anything, so I'll swallow my pride just this once. I'll let you do whatever sick thing you want me to do as payback, and I won't tell anyone about it.”

”Forget it. I wasn't serious about that,” I say. General Nero is the real person to blame here. He's the one who triggered everything. ”Instead, you can tell me what General Nero told you that day.”

”That…” she pauses.

Speaking of which, General Nero told me to keep my mouth shut regarding the punishment. He must have done the same with Ada…and Captain Albius. I don't know how he intends to make sure no one knows, but it's best not to let something slip. Even now, someone could be listening. Highly doubtful, but there could be a way for him to know whether any of us ratted.

”Nevermind. He probably told you to not speak about it or else. The restaurant your parents run. Convince them to give me a free pass for a lifetime. You can do that much, right?”

”I…can't,” she answers after several seconds. The tone of her voice has a tinge of sadness. Then I make the connection. It all makes sense now. Her blind anger toward me and why she's in the army instead of continuing to help her parent's business. Everyone's in it for revenge, after all. Maybe I can use her help with the upcoming Inteiru Expota.

”Sorry, I should've known that you lost them, all things considered. Everyone from the Academy who joined has the same motive.”

”It's fine. So, sorry. I won't be able to do that for you either.”

”There's something else you can help me with, but you have to promise me that you'll stay calm no matter what I tell you,” I say. Ada furrows her eyebrows and nods her head. ”First, you should know that the man we fought earlier…was one of the masked men.”

”What?!” Ada exclaims and leans forward. She clutches her left arm and lets out a cry of pain.

”Quiet. I told you to stay calm. And your body isn't in the best shape right now. You didn't feel it earlier because of an adrenaline rush,” I say. Although I could say the same for myself, my left forearm is throbbing with pain. I won't be able to fight with full strength. It's also a gamble whether or not my weapons will hold up against monsters in this forest.

”I can't sit let this bother me after what you've told me. How'd you find out?”

”It was his—”

Loud rumblings in the distance. Louder than before. The vibrations shake the branch a few times before going. No signs of any monsters nearby, though. I continue, ”It was his parting words. I've met him before, twice.”

”Twice?”

”Yeah. The first time was at the beginning of the attack. The second time was in the Underground area of the Academy. That time we went to look for survivors during our enlistment into the army. He left with the same parting word. He called us, 'suckers.'”

”If he was one of them…do you think there were others?”

”I'm not sure. That's why it was good that I didn't chase after him. Hopefully, he was the only one. Otherwise…”

”No, Aisha wouldn't be dying to the likes of them. We all survived together the first time. Captain Albius is there too.”

”You're right. Even if there were more of them, I don't think they would've finished anyone off. After all, we're alive.”

”I'll make him regret it for not killing me when he had the chance,” Ada says and sits up completely. She scoots next to me.

”You're fine already? What about your fever?”

”I'll power through. Are those done yet?”

”I'm not sure,” I respond. They've been roasting for a while, so probably. I send out some more Scrap Mana to deactivate my Fire magic. The mushrooms' color has browned and blackened on the surface. Hopefully, not too burnt. I hand the twigs in my right hand over to Ada.

”Thanks,” she says and then separates one twig from the rest. She blows on them. ”So, what did you need help with?”

I give her a quick summary of what we learned from Viessa while we eat the food.

”I haven't updated Hina, but I'm sure after running into one of the masked men today,” I say. ”We'll do our own investigation during the Inteiru Expota. General Nero knows everything I told you, but he wouldn't approve an individual investigation. Make sure to keep the inner circle on who knows small.”