Chapter 37: Field Trip (2/2)

“Yes. First time I came to town he helped me as well, I had gone a week without orgasming!”

“Errr, dreadful.”

“I knooooow. He is so good with his tongue, and he knows how to move those hips. When I am ready to settle down, I will ask him to be my husband!”

“Wow, congratulations! I hope it works out,” Viv added, not really eager to explore the subject. “So, would you mind telling me about the south? I’ve never been there.”

Koro was successfully distracted from her thoughts and Viv learned a lot about Param’s more remote lands. The south was sparsely populated and those who endured had turned into insane trappers and hunters, as far as Viv understood. Koro was clearly remembering her homeland through rose-tinted glasses, because from what Viv gathered it was a merciless world where only the strong survived, with some tribes even preying on newcomers. She added it to the list of “don’t go there” along with Manchester and North Korea.

When they had enough wood, the pair headed back in and Viv settled on the bed closest to an open window. Arthur had the right idea by placing her nest inside and her snout outside. The place stank to high heaven.

The next day began like the previous one, except that it was still raining. Viv climbed onto the carriage and complained in her mind about the lack of distractions. Training was all well and good, but she could not cast because it made her companions nervous, and there was only so much rehashing you could do before growing bored. Arthur quickly started to fly through the air, apparently unbothered by the droplets of water rolling down her white scales.

Out of ideas, Viv crossed her legs and meditated, trying to sense mana. The constant noise and moving wagons made focusing difficult. She took a break mid-morning when they paused for everyone to ‘attend to natural needs’ as her mom would have said. She ended up striking another conversation with Koro, whose main sources of interest were hunting and shapely ballsacks. Viv learned more about scrotum in ten minutes than she had during her entire sex ed classes. The laugh she got kept her going until early afternoon, when a horrible shriek distracted her from counting the clouds.

“SQUEEE!”

Viv was out of the carriage and sprinting before her brain registered it. Marruk stomped by her side a moment later.

Arthur surged from behind a small valley, flapping her wings as fast as she could. A creature like a large puma was galloping after her. They were about a hundred paces away.

The caster was about to scream at the stupid dragon to fly up when the puma-thing jumped and Arthur veered away. She was holding on by the skin of her fangs. Viv’s vision turned red.

Power answered.

As eager as ever, black mana flooded her conduits and burned in her palms. It twisted into a ball as time slowed down and Viv’s Power ability allowed her to overcharge a purge spell. The ball grew, and grew. It rose above her right shoulder like a thundercloud.

“PURGE!”

Black mana was mostly silent, and that made the hiss in the air that much more terrifying when a spear as thick as an arm shot forward. Viv had aimed slightly too high. It did not matter. Black mana moved for her, and the spell angled down by her will to carve into the puma-thing like a nail through a piece of balsa. The monster’s leap was interrupted when it died, falling into a hollowed-out carcass. A few intact organs spilt on the ground in a steamy, bloody mess.

Arthur finished her trajectory in Viv’s arms. The weight almost threw her to the ground.

“You’re fine. It’s fine. It’s over.”

“Squeeeeeeee.”

Arthur fixed her gaze on the dead creature as the temple guards approached it. They were not too worried.

“A rathclaw. Good spell. Good range. I wish I had my bow,” Koro said by Farren’s side. She had not left her charge during the commotion.

“It’s a mountain and forest medium predator. Normally, they avoid humans,” Farren added.

That was medium? She would hate to see good-sized ones. Or she had, with that giant tortoise. Anyway, Arthur was safe.

Viv was a bit curious so she moved closer, with Arthur hanging around her shoulders and Marruk by her side. One of the temple guards was kneeling by the body and removing the skin with a knife.

“Rathclaw meat is decently rich in mana, so we should not let it go to waste,” he said.

“I can cook it in clay tonight, at the camp,” Koro said with a smile. A little drool foamed on her lips.

“But what pushed it to engage?” Farren asked, a bit worried.

The first temple guard pointed at the creature’s back. The fur there was intact, save for a small space matted with blood. The wound really matched a certain flying creature’s jaw.

“Seriously?” Viv asked.

“Squeeee…”

“It’s at least fifty times your weight! Glutton!”

“Squee.”

“You can’t just run around attacking everything you see! What if I’m not there? Isn’t there something above squirrel that you can try first?”

The rest of the group watched mesmerized as the caster headed back to the wagon, bemoaning her creature’s appetite and apparent lack of common sense. It was, to them, inexplicable.

“She’s talking to it like it’s a person,” one of the guards said.

“How long has she spent in the deadlands again? Mana poisoning is a dangerous thing,” another added.

Marruk vocally and deliberately cleared her throat, then turned the carcass. It squelched. There was perhaps half of the original body mass left. The rest had been vaporized by a spell that had cut earth to its very bone, leaving behind a deep furrow of glistening grey rock.

It certainly put things into perspective.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with, you know, being eccentric,” the first guard finished in a timid voice.

It was all well and good to be a highly trained fighter with some fancy path. Most of the people present knew they could take a rathclaw alone and win. They could not trounce the thing in half a second and only leave a butcher shop accessory behind, however.

“Less talking, more cutting,” Marruk finished. They obeyed, with Koro being the most efficient. They managed to salvage most of the meat in a reasonable time frame. Eventually, the ex-hunter led the loaded group back, chewing on a piece of raw liver.

They reached the foothills shortly after.

Dinner that night was delicious.