Mr. James who didn't notice anything, placed his fingers in front of his lips and whistled three long notes. Quickly, three other notes resonated in the mountain, forming a small calming melody, reminding Nem of the songs of birds in the morning.
He chased a flying bug from his face impatiently.
'Those things really are everywhere in the mountains, it's so annoying.'
Those security measures taken by Mr. James and the other person were making Nem a bit anxious. It had been a while since he left the monastery, and before that... Well, he wasn't really going outside either. He couldn't help but be a bit on edge this morning, even when he was convinced that this trip should be quite safe.
In the end, Nem calmed himself down, thinking that he couldn't go back anyway.
'What will happen will happen I guess.'
The three people from the monastery turned at the same time towards one spot, hearing footsteps. Quickly, a young woman wearing a black blouse and a large pair of dark pants emerged from behind a large rock. Despite her appearance being pretty ordinary, her dark-brown hair tied in a ponytail and healthy tan gave her an adventurous feeling.
Seeing Mr. James and the two kids, she nodded, looking rather relaxed, and said :
"Follow me, we're going in 10 minutes, there is no time to waste."
She then left immediately, and Nem and the others hurried to follow. The woman led them away from the river, towards a small clearing. There, Nem saw two large wooden carriages, much larger than normal, and also completely closed. It seemed more like boxes on wheels rather than a vehicle.
His eyes looked for horses, thinking that they should also be quite strange to be able to pull this for so long, but the horses were of normal size, calmly drinking at a small stream. There were also a few other people dressed in dark travel clothes, talking or working.
'How exactly are we supposed to travel like this ? Are the blessed of Darkness really so awesome ? How come my power is dying my hair ?'
Nem started feeling a bit depressed now, something he got used to again after curing his mental illness. Still, now that he thought about it, he would still be happy even if he didn't get any powers, just not being crazy was good enough. Thinking of it this way, Nem felt a lot better already.
Mr. James signaled the two of them to come closer.
"Now pay attention to what I'm saying, when you arrive at your destination, you'll be left alone until you find your contact. Your priority is to find him the quickest way possible, since if you don't he'll assume something is wrong and try to pull you out with force."
He waited a bit to make sure the two children understood and cleared his throat before continuing.
"You need to remember this, first Lana, your contact's name is Shannon, she will be the one waiting with a yellow hat and metal glasses. Just say her name when you find her." The girl nodded with a serious expression. "Nem, you need to go to the Leo Hotel and ask for Carl at the reception. He always has a golden sword on him."
"Understood." Nem couldn't help but wonder what kind of personality such a man would have. As for escaping before meeting him, he did have a bit of hope originally, but now...
'Seems like I'll have to do this for a while after all, I really don't want a guy with a sword to get all angry and ask me why I didn't say hello.'
In the monastery, swords had quite a disadvantage against staves, but there were still used by a lot of orphans. Those really skillful at it were very impressive, and could completely dominate the rhythm of a battle despite having a short reach and difficulty guarding against heavy attacks.
Personally, Nem always had more trouble dealing against them rather than staff users or others, since his agility and stamina weren't of much use against them. Relying on his short sticks, he often as to try to outsmart them instead, lest he would pull off some kind of inhuman feat and tell everyone he was a Cursed.
'Anyways, Carl at the Leo Hotel uh ?'
The instructor then signaled for the woman to come back. He pointed at Lana first and told her :
"Jokain, up North. And the boy goes to Lunhart. They're ready."
"Alright, nice to see you James, it's been a while. I suppose we'll meet again on the way back, let's talk then."
The only response she was given was a tired look from Mr. James. After which he directly gestured a goodbye and left while stretching his arms.
"See you when you come back." He threw at the two children before disappearing behind a tree.
The woman with the ponytail chuckled helplessly and pointed to one of the carriages.
"This one is for the south and the other for the north. Just hop in and make yourself comfortable. If it's your first time traveling with us believers of Darkness, I suggest you don't look out the window. Oh, and the big space at the back is for the horses at night, so don't go there."
'For the what ?!'
Nem thought he misheard her for a moment, but looking at it from a shorter distance, it did in fact look like it was made to contain a horse.
'What does that even mean ? We aren't going to stop during the night ? Can they actually magically pull something this big across long distances ?'
The adults already stopped paying attention to him, and they seemed too busy to answer any questions. Nem simply shrugged in his mind and got on the carriage, in the space reserved for him. The room was truly big, and it even contained a small bed despite being only part of the carriage.
There was a plank of wood he could slide to open a window to the outside. Nem made the strange observation that this window was actually larger than the one he had back in his single room in the monastery.
Nem was quite glad that he had some privacy, even it was a bit unexpected, but he feared being bored. Thankfully, the woman's earlier comment suggested that the view from the window would be scary, which meant exciting, as long as Nem was concerned.
The window was quite at a comfortable height, and he could look through it sitting on his knees on the bed, even resting his head on his arm.
He waited as the believers of Darkness were preparing to leave.
'They really don't waste any time, I guess they must do that a lot... Those guys actually seem pretty nice despite the word Darkness in their religion. They also seem to travel a lot, I wonder how they do it.'
Suddenly, a shout resonated in the mountains and the horses started pulling the carriage. Nem couldn't quite see them from his position, but he could feel and hear it. As the carriage started to accelerate, Nem felt confused, there didn't seem to be anything weird going on here...
'Wait, isn't that a little too fast ? And also, why is this so smooth ? This is a crappy mountain road so how come I don't get jerked around ?'
Looking down at the road, which seemed to be passing by faster and faster, Nem finally noticed the anomaly. There was a sort of viscous black substance on the ground around the carriage, and the wheels seemed to be sliding on it rather than rolling, similar to a sledge.
The speed was now a bit alarming, though not much for someone who knew modern cars, and Nem was actually a bit concerned. Especially now that a turn was coming.
'If we're going so fast while sliding, that means this power eliminates friction to a certain extent, right ? Then if we need to turn while going at this speed...'
At this point in his deductions, Nem's brain seemed to shut down as the horses were already turning and he let out a low scream.
"Aaaaaaaaah..."
The next moment, the wheels seemed to completely lose contact with the ground, and he felt the centrifugal force twisting his stomach. The next moment, the carriage seemed to rearrange itself in a strange way, like a spine going back into place, and quickly faced the new direction, accurately killing the momentum during a process Nem didn't understand.
Nem, his eyes widened and mouth still opened in fright, realized that their speed had barely dropped, and that they were no major discomfort even during a turn. The speed stabilized at a bit above what a horse was capable of on his own.
He laughed.
"Damn that's cool."
***
In the other carriage, heading in a different direction, Lana was also looking out the window in a private room. Amazed, she couldn't stop looking at the landscape, revealing itself before her eyes at high speed.
After a while, she became lost in thought and remembered what the boy had given her on the way here.
Nem originally didn't leave much of an impression on Lana, as she found his personality annoying. But after witnessing his progress in combat training, even she started to feel pressure. During the last month, she had even started exercising by herself again, like she used to do when she first joined the monastery.
Lana was forced to admit that she had gotten a bit too easygoing there since she could easily win against everyone, and that was why she was happy about leaving on this mission.
She could be said to be grateful to him in that sense, but still treated the boy with indifference, since she believed he wasn't ever going get better than her now that her progress started again.
But... that movement he showed a moment ago, this was not something he should be capable of. Lana saw it clearly, Nem had dashed instantly at a sprinting speed and arrived before her eyes without making more sound than a normal footstep.
At this moment, Lana felt really pressured, completely unsure of the outcome if they battled. As a believer of the Goddess of War and Disaster, this was always the way she thought.
Promising herself to not slack off again, she opened the scroll and read it. It was a method to practice something called meditation and there were a few notes crammed at the end, in a different shade of black than the rest.
"Since you are such a faithful believer of the Goddess of War and Disaster, I figured you should have it. If you practice this every day, you'll probably succeed in becoming a Blessed of your religion and become a lot stronger.
More importantly, the Church of Peace is not how you think it is. There are a lot more evil than it seems, and it is my sincere advice that you find a way to escape during this mission. This is what I will do as well.
Please find a way to burn this scroll once you memorized it entirely, and don't tell anyone about what I wrote.
With the best intentions, Nem.
PS : I hope we meet again one day, so you can thank me."