It has been 4 days since we had another run in with Diego. We have been staying inside the cave these past 4 days, laying low. We are running out of food though, and could probably only last 1 more day. Maybe if we rationed our remaining food we could last 2 more days. During the time we were laying low, I continued my physical training and my multitasking skill. I had no real improvements though. That is not all that I have been doing though. I have also been fighting with Ana and Astra. This helps me get familiar with their fighting style, and also allows them to have combat experience. Even though they have been hunting our food, they still haven't really gotten much experience. Also, they have been mainly fighting demonic beasts, whose only tactic is brute force. Sure there is the occasional intelligent one, but they are too few and far in between. I won't say that I am an expert, but at least I can show them some other fighting styles, which will allow them to have different experiences.
"Oh you guys are awake," I say to Ana and Astra who have just made their way into the kitchen. "I'm cooking today, so don't worry about it. However, we are running a little low on food. We will definitely have to go hunting today or tomorrow. If we want, we can push it to the day after tomorrow."
"We should probably start hunting today," Astra says. "I'm sure Diego and the others are still looking for us, and if we don't have enough food, we may not have the energy needed to fight. Delaying our hunt would only hurt us more. Especially, if they are planning on hunting us long term."
"Agreed. We also don't know if we will be able to catch anything, so we should hunt early. Also we should be fine with sylvi's hiding spell. I doubt we will be seen through." Ana says with absolute confidence. I wonder where she is able to get that much confidence from. While my hiding spell is impressive, it isn't omnipotent. While we are hidden, our tracks aren't, and it also had been seen through in the past.
I decide to voice out my concerns saying, "don't be too confident, since my spell isn't omnipotent. Also, it has been used in front of them on multiple occasions. They should have thought of different measures to take against it."
"It's better than doing nothing," Ana says righteously. "Also if they do find us, we can always just force them back. They didn't do anything to us when we were in a group, so they won't dare do anything again."
"Ana, don't look down on them," Astra scolds. "We may be stronger, but that doesn't mean much. Stronger people can still be taken down due to carelessness and overconfidence."
Ana begins to open her mouth to counter, but I quickly interrupt saying, "Ana, Astra was just trying to look after you. She was just making sure you knew not to underestimate them."
Astra seems to have a smug look after hearing me side with her. I'm sure my next sentence will wipe that smug look off of her face.
"Astra, while I understand where you are coming from, I think you are giving them too much credit. Sure it is important to be cautious, but we can't overestimate them. Anyways, we will be leaving after we eat, so be prepared."
With that I go back to cooking breakfast. I was honestly only putting the finishing touches to it before they came in. I then handed them the food, before we began to eat it in silence. I'm sure nobody liked that conversation we had, but we had to have it. Ana seems to be too confident in me, but Astra seems to be too cautious of the opponent. I hope they learn to remedy this by themselves, and don't need to be reminded by me. Soon enough we had finished eating.
"Okay, I'll chant my hiding spell now. Turn back into your human forms, and hold my hands so the spell can work at all times." I tell this to the both of them, and they nod their heads before turning into their human forms. They had turned right in front of me, and were completely naked, so I turned around in embarrassment and let them get dressed. When they are finished changing, they each grab one of my hands. Once they have grabbed my hands, I chant my hiding spell.
"O spell of wind flow around our bodies to hide ourselves."
With that, the spell was chanted, and we became invisible. I could still feel their hands in mine though, letting me know they were by my side.
"Follow me, and let me set the pace," I say out loud as I tug their hands. Luckily Astra had the magic bag before we did this, so we didn't have to get it. I led them out of the cave, and we began to head to the human zone. On the way, I would try my best to cover our traces, trying to make sure our home wouldn't be found. I had also decided that we would hunt in the human zone because it was far away. I hoped that Diego and the others wouldn't search the human zone. After all, the Forest of Calamity is massive, and they wouldn't have enough resources to scour it in its entirety. I had explained my thoughts to Ana and Astra on the way, and they both agreed with me.
It took a while since we weren't moving at our fastest speed. After all, we were invisible to each other, and I was trying to actively hide our tracks. Either way, we made it to the human zone, and once there I cast my detection spell.
"O spell of wind spread with me as the center to detect my enemies."
It was only at this moment that I realized that I should have had that spell active throughout our entire journey. After all, it would tell us if we were being followed or not. Luckily, it didn't seem like we were being followed, so we decided to head to the closest demonic beast. It was a solitary demonic beast that looked similar to an ape.
"So how do you guys want to fight this guy?" I ask out loud.
"I feel that the best way would be to kill him from a distance," Astra says. "This way, we won't be seen, and still kill him quickly."
"Even though I like melee more, I have to agree with Astra here," Ana says. "Killing him from a distance would definitely be easier in our situation."
"Okay, I'll let the both of you do this then," I responded. "After all, most of my spells are focused on melee. The only good ranged spell I have is the fire tornado, and that one will just attract too much attention, which isn't what we want right now."
"Okay, we'll be able to do this. Right Astra?"
"Yeah, definitely Ana. We were able to win against demonic beasts in The beastmen zone. Ones within the human zone will be far easier."
After that, they begin to attack the demonic beast. Ana starts to summon water, and forms it in the shape of arrows. Astra does a similar thing with fire. Once they both have 5 arrows, they fire them at the demonic beast. The demonic beast seems to notice the arrows, and dodged to the side. Some arrows were aimed at the location in which the demonic beast might dodge, but it swatted those down with its hands, minimizing the damage.
The demonic beast then starts charging at the area in which the arrows were fired from. We have already long left that place though. Ana and Astra had actually left once all the arrows were fired, in case they didn't work. I was just following them. The demonic beast begins to thrash about wildly, probably hoping it would hit something. It could also be thrashing in anger, but that doesn't really matter since Ana and Astra have begun to gather mana for another attack. This time, they gathered much more mana, and compressed it into lances. Ana made an ice lance, while Astra made a fire lance.
The lances were launched once they had finished forming, and headed straight to the demonic beast. The demonic beast didn't seem to notice, as it was busy thrashing about, so the lances were able to hit it. The lances didn't hit a vital spot though. They were able to penetrate the hide of the demonic beast, and get to the other side of it, causing some serious injuries. It is a real shame that the lances didn't hit any vital spots because if they did, the demonic beast would have been dead. Well, they still do need more combat experience, so I can't hold this against them.
With the lances causing wounds in the demonic beast, it's movements began to slow down. Also blood began to flow from the wounds, however it wasn't much. After all, one wound still had the lance stuck into it, while the other had been cauterized by the heat. There was no real threat of this demonic beast dying from blood loss, so Ana and Astra continued to attack it. They attacked it with a large barrage of arrows. The demonic beast wasn't able to dodge the arrows, and soon fell to the barrage. Once it had died, I went to store its body, and do my best to clean up the scene. I didn't want to take any chances with Diego and his group. The cleaning part took the longest of all. Once the area was sufficiently cleaned I rechanted the hiding spell after holding both of their hands.
"O spell of wind flow around our bodies to hide ourselves."
The spell had been disabled when we moved since I wasn't holding their hands. I kept my detection spell up throughout the fight, so I didn't have to chant it, and began to search for our next prey. Soon enough we ran into another demonic beast, that looked similar to a deer.
"Okay, I'll let you both handle this one again," I say to Ana and Astra. "This time, start off with your strongest spell. It'll make the cleanup easier, and make it so I won't have to rechant the hiding spell."
"Sorry about last time sylvi." "Yeah sorry we couldn't kill it in one hit."
"It's fine, just keep getting better," I say as kindly as I could in response to their hurt tone. "I believe you only underestimated the demonic beasts here since we are in the human zone. Just don't underestimate them anymore, and practice on your aim. If you can accurately hit their vitals, then killing them in one shot will be easy."
"Okay sylvi/Sylvain, we'll both grow stronger," the both of them say in near perfect unison.
"I'm sure the both of you will," I reply happily. "Now prepare your strongest spell."
With those words out of the way, they began to prepare their lances again. Even though this isn't their strongest spell, I can see why they would want to use it. After all, with this spell they would be able to train their accuracy. It seemed like they were going to be using this outing as training. I thought that I should do something similar, so I began to work on multitasking four spells at once. I would stop, only when my mana was reaching dangerously low levels.
The rest of the morning continued in a similar fashion. Ana and Astra were definitely getting better at aiming. They were even able to kill some demonic beasts in one hit. However, even if they were getting better at aiming, each demonic beast was different. As such the vitals spots of one wouldn't necessarily be the vital spots of another. So while their accuracy was improving, it wasn't really showing since they weren't able to hit the vital spots regularly.
Soon the sun flew high into the sky, signifying that it was time for lunch. Ana and Astra wanted to eat where we were before continuing our hunt. However, we eventually decided to head back to the cave, so we could cook and eat in peace. After all, if we were to cook and eat out in the open, we would have to remain vigilant of our surroundings, which would in turn ruin the experience. We could also have an unfortunate run-in with Diego and his crew. Due to all of these reasons, we decided to head back to eat.
I kept the hiding spell and detection spell active on our way back. I was able to find groups of four on the spell, but none seemed to be following us. One of those groups could be Diego and his friends, but I wasn't interested in finding that out. As such, I avoided all demonic beast groups that had four or more people in it. As for the others with less than four, as long as they weren't in the way, then we didn't kill them.
It took a little while before we got back to the cave. Probably because we had to take detours to move around the groups of demonic beasts with four or more people, and because we deliberately took a detour to try to see if we were being followed. The return trip could have been even longer because I wanted to create some fake clues to have them follow. I was dissuaded by Ana and Astra though since the fake clues could give us away, and because it would take longer, delaying lunch.
Anyways, once we got back to the cave, Astra immediately got to work cooking. I didn't want to see what she was cooking, so I went down to the dismantling/storage room. Once there, I headed to the dismantling area, before bringing out all the dead bodies. I then began to dismantle the bodies with my dagger. When I finish the first body, I begin to think upon how this dagger has lasted for so long. I mean it had lasted for over 15 years, while being under almost constant use. It probably lasted this long because of the material it was made from, and my meticulous caring. However, while I was thinking about this, I heard a loud snapping sound.
My hands continued to move before I registered the snapping sound. Once I registered the sound, I looked down at the demonic beasts. Inside of it was the blade of the dagger I was using, while my hand was holding the handle. It had snapped cleanly along the base of the dagger. Well not entirely cleanly, but that is what it looked like. The dagger my father gave me, was broken just like that. Tears began to roll down my cheek as I realized that the memento from my father was destroyed.
"He would understand right?" I questioned myself. After all, it had been broken from constant use, so it could be considered a good thing.
"Lunch is ready," Astra called while I was still coming to terms with my broken dagger. When I heard her call, I decided to quickly get up, and go eat some lunch. Before I headed up, I wiped away my tears so that they wouldn't be worried about me. After I had wiped them away, I went to the kitchen.
"So what is for lunch?" I tried to ask as casually as I could.
"What happened Sylvain?" Astra asks immediately afterwards.
"What do you mean?" I ask back playing dumb since I don't want to talk about it right now. I was planning on telling them about the broken dagger after lunch though, since it does concern them. However, if she continues to ask me, I will answer her. It's not like I need to keep it a secret.
"If you don't want to talk about it, then that's fine," Astra says, convinced that I am hiding something. "Let's just eat the lunch that I have made."
I don't really know how to respond to this situation. It feels like she'll be able to find out the truth if I do respond. Again, even though I'm not going to hide it from them, I don't want them to know about it right now. Luckily, Ana came into the room to interrupt the awkward silence.
"Why does it feel so tense in here?" She asks upon entering the room.
"Nothing really," Astra quickly responds. "Sylvain just seemed a little down, so I tried asking him about it. He didn't want to answer though."
"Oh," Ana replies. "So that is what happened. Come on Sylvain, if something is bothering you, then you can just tell us."
Seeing as they are both asking me about it, I feel like I have no choice. However I still want to wait for after lunch, so I say. "I wasn't really trying to hide anything. I was planning on telling you guys, just after lunch. So let's first eat a good lunch first."
"I guess we'll believe that," Ana says. "Let's eat quickly then."
With Ana's words as a signal, Astra begins to serve us. She had made us a type of stew along with some bread. The bread and the stew complemented each other very well. I could tell that the bread was made with sweetwater, and the stew had a heavy use of salt. I guess this is the reason that they both complement each other so well. However, I'm not sure where she got the salt, or how she produced the salty flavor.
"How did you make the stew salty?" I ask Astra, curious if we have salt now.
"I used rock salt," Astra responds calmly.
"When did we get rock salt?" I and Ana ask at nearly the same time. I'm sure Ana also wanted salt so she can adjust the flavors, and experiment more with cooking.
"You know when I was mining out the storage area," Astra says, pausing for us to nod our heads. "Well while digging, I was able to dig into a little cave, and on the side of the cave was rock salt. Honestly, that cave was the reason why I was able to double the storage area over the winter. It really helped to expand the storage."
"So you've had this since winter, and didn't tell us," Ana says with anger in her voice.
"I wanted to cook with salt," Astra says. "Besides, I found it, so I should be able to use it as I like."
"Is there any more," I ask hopefully, since salt would allow us to better preserve our food, and because I really like salty food.
"Yes there's more," Astra replies. "I've stored it in my room for now. There should also be more rock salt if we dig in the same direction."
"Looks like we'll be expanding the storage again," I mumble to myself.
"So we've finished eating Sylvain," Astra says. "So why don't you tell us what has been bothering you."
"Yeah, I'll tell you," I responded a little irked because Astra didn't tell us that she had salt. "Well, just right now, while I was dismantling, my dagger broke." While talking, I also pull out the broken dagger to show them. "This means that I won't be able to dismantle anything until we get a new dagger."
"Wasn't that dagger a momento from your father?" Ana asks.
"Yep," I say as a tear swells within my eye. "But I'm going to save it, and get it repaired later. Besides, he should be happy that it got broken due to constant use."
"Well, at least you're taking this well," Ana responds after seeing my semi-positive reaction.
"But how are we going to dismantle things now," Astra interrupts. "If we can't dismantle, then one of our main food sources disappears. We can't get a new dagger, or repair your old one in the Forest of Calamity, so we are in a bit of a pickle."
"Can't sylvi, just use his spell sword?" Ana asks. "It should have enough cutting power, and he should be able to change the spell's shape."
"I'll probably be able to do that," I respond. "However, I'll need some time to get used to it. I'm glad I was able to dismantle some bodies before the dagger broke. We'll have to rely on those until I get familiar using my spell sword to dismantle."
"Okay," Astra says. "Looks like we'll be rationing our food once again."