454 Dry Spell (1/2)
It has been two weeks since they left the cacti-folks and Zero would always make it rain in a five-mile radius whenever they stopped to set up camp. Truen didn't say anything about it. In fact, it was probably a good idea. After analysing many of the flowers they collected, Mii and Wii stated that every petal of those flowers could be used to make high-grade mana elixir or a very potent medicine. Zero wanted more of them because he had no intentions of ever returning to such a boring place which Truen fully supported. Hence, this became their new routine for two weeks.
”What's wrong?” Truen asked. Zero looked slightly out of it this morning at breakfast. The normal Zero would be very thrilled about planning a good breakfast menu, claiming that it was the most important meal of the day but this morning, he finally ran out of seawater to make rain. There was no more need to collect flowers and Zero was feeling restless.
”I've been thinking,” Zero started. ”It's been two weeks since we left that village to travel west. When was the last time we've been attacked by monsters?”
Now that Zero mentioned it, all three pairs of eyes looked at him. Zero might have been too preoccupied earlier to bring this up because he was overly excited about his flower haul but these people should have noticed it.
”Now that you mentioned it...” Jermine began. ”Ever since last week, they stopped appearing.”
Truen paled. He hasn't realised it at all, the archer blamed himself for being too relaxed. Then again, they hadn't seen any sinkholes around. Could it be a false alarm? No, it was better to still check and be sure before leaving the area.
”My apologies,” Truen said. ”I didn't realise it until you brought it up. We'll start searching for a possible sinkhole in the area.”
Bob shared the same guilt that Truen did. He was far too busy dismantling beetle corpses to even realise that they weren't getting attacked. ”I'll help, master.”
Zero shook his head. ”No need, there should be an easier way. This is a mana hotspot, there should be spirits nearby that I can summon for questioning. Truen, I need you to shoot them with the truth arrows while I trap them. Bob, you do the interrogation in your dragon form. We'll be able to get the exact location soon enough. No more delaying, it has been almost two months since we left Rockett Mountain if not more.”
Jermine was excited when she heard that. Now that the desert poppy was found, the only remaining objective was to find gnomes and bring them back to Rocket Mountain.
”Let's settle here for now. It might take a few attempts to get one who knows the answer so we might be here for hours to days.”
Since the leader said so, Bob and Jermine started putting up tents and digging underground. Truen and Zero dismounted the sand walkers and left feeding them to the other two children while they prepared for the first summoning.