[Sulphat Superhighway, Duchy of Grahm, Dalycon Union of Duchies]
(29th, Black Sea Moon (VII), 644 ASY)
"Daniel… Can we please stop to rest?" A panting Ashe mumbles out.
"Has it even been forty minutes since we rested? Even Angelica can last longer than that," Daniel shakes his head. The heavy summer sun pierces their skin with heat as they trudge the dusty road, the cloud of dirt that their movement spurs sting their eyes and nose, and the wind rebuffs them at every moment. Most of the Duchy of Grahm is a dry savanna, without much agriculture or industry. The only thing that the Duchy does have is a vitally important port city in Acnoc and a near-uncrossable border with the Greyvan Kingdom in the form of the Katakama Desert. As such, the part of the Sulphat Superhighway that does go through the Duchy is a mixed gravel and dirt path large enough for three carriages to travel at once, instead of the immaculately paved roads of Tatochi or Cordata. This is where the band of six find themselves right now. Tyson is currently in the lead, seemingly immune to the dust or sun. Moricant and Daniel follow him closely, Moricant enduring the terrible weather and dust, while Daniel has lived through worse. The three of them were laughing and talking like they were walking to a convenience store. Meanwhile… The less said about those two girls the better. Lucya is fine as she is an adventurer, but being the mages they are, Ashe and Angelica have fallen behind to the point where Lucya has to warn the boys the two groups will be separated if they move any faster. To Daniel and Tyson's complete horror, Ashe and Angelica asked for breaks about every hour, slowing them down to the point that they would have to sleep on the road for tonight instead of reaching their original target of Zaphrius.
"Yeah… But I feel like my legs are going to break if I walk any further…" Ashe groans.
"Come on Ms. Voltmare, it's going to be ok. You've just hit a wall, you'll feel fine as long as you don't rest!" Moricant smiles at her.
"No, that was four hours ago. Her body has completely run out of stamina at this point," Daniel counters.
"Wha- How do you know that?" Moricant raises an eyebrow.
"Long version or short version?"
"I think I can handle the long version,"
"Usually what we think of being tired during long walks or jogs wherein the body uses small amounts of energy is due to the body running out of ATP from glucose, and thus it starts to break down fat to get the necessary energy to keep going. In this case, however-"
"Short version please,"
"This isn't her running out of energy, but rather the muscles have started to break down,"
"You could have just said that…" Moricant sighs.
"Don't bother Moricant. He's going to go into detail if you ask for the long version, that's just how he runs," Tyson sighs from about two meters from Daniel and Moricant.
"Are we going to rest or not? I'm dying over here…" Ashe moans from further back.
"Tyson, can you carry her?"
"Huh?!?! Why would I do that?" Tyson's angry cry rings out. Well, not completely angry. A hint of embarrassment and frustration comes with it.
"It'll save us a lot of trouble. Oh forget it, I'll magic up a carrage," Daniel sighs.
"You know, you could have done that at any time…" Moricant sighs as the front three people stop to wait for the other three to catch up. Daniel puts a hand to the ground. Forcing his will into the ground, he remembers a cart that they saw when they first came to this world. Copying that into the command, he drags the metal around the area up to fill the image in his command. Instantly, the area around Daniel starts to get dustier than usual, and it starts to harden into a cart that could be pulled by a horse.
"You could have done that AT ANY TIME!" Moricant forcefully spits out.
"I didn't know you were so weak Moricant. A knight can't even keep pace with a measly alchemist?"
"Urk-"
"Stop that Daniel. You're going to make him cry," Tyson snorts sarcastically. This only makes Moricant closer to tears.
After a while, Ashe and Angelica trudge up to where the four of them are. Lucya got bored and ran up to the boys about five minutes after Daniel made the cart.
"Yay, rest…" Ashe sighs as she collapses onto the metal cart, not realizing what every child on a metal slide realizes. "AAAH! Why is it so hot!" She screams as she immediately jumps off, her body ignoring the fatigue that she had complained about for the past two hours.
"Because it's been siting in the sun for the past twenty minutes?" Tyson sighs?
"Has it really been twenty minutes…?" Ashe lays on the ground, utterly exhausted.
"Yes, it has… We weren't even that much ahead. You took a rest during that time, didn't you,"
"Angelica, could you use {Asteral Servant} to make this cart work? I'll go make some cushions…" Daniel shakes his head, completely ignoring the argument that has come of Tyson and Ashe's conversation.
"Why me? Isn't Ashe better at magic than I am? Should you, in your perfect reasonableness, ask her?" Angelica sighs, also completely exhausted.
"That's what I would have done, but Ashe just spent the better part of yesterday morning and the day before that using a sensory nullification spell. Even with her skill, it's going to take some time for her to recover, and as you know, {Asteral Servant} takes a lot of energy to keep going," Daniel shakes his head.
"Alright… I'm still tired too… Can't you spare some though for me?"
"Do you want to have a cart or not?"
"..." The look on Angelica's face says everything she doesn't. Daniel rolls his eyes and gets on with making the cart more ridable. The scorching heat from the sun has heated the metal cart to the point of causing burns, but Daniel calmly grips the metal and forces its atoms to slow down. Instantly, the temperature of the cart drops.
"Ashe, now you can get on. If it gets hot again, I'll cool it down," Daniel gestures to Ashe. Without a word, she climbs on and just lays down, not even sitting on one of the two benches.
"Jeez, she must be really tired…" Moricant puts his hands on his hips. "Now what? How do we move the darn thing? I don't I can pull it that far."
"Angelica?" Daniel turns his head to look at her.
"Fine. Just this time," Angelica hops onto the cart, careful not to step on the sprawled figure of Ashe. Conjuring a spirit from magic, she casts {Asteral Servant} and commands it to pull the cart. Daniel and Moricant hop onto the cart, while Tyson stretches his limbs. The cart lurches forward, pulled by a mysterious force. It races forward fast enough for the scenery to blur. Tyson keeps up with the cart by simply jogging along. His 'gift' was to be able to use any weapon art with complete efficiency, weapon arts being the equivalent to magic for melee weapon users. One of the arts that he learned was the ability to run at amazing speeds, which is what he's using to keep up with the cart, even though it's moving about 50kph.
As the sun sets on a scene of the desert, the group of six are setting up camp in the sandy dirt. Ashe is still asleep, and Angelica is dozing off from overusing {Asteral Servant}. Tyson is wiping off the layers of sweat that have coated his toned body. Moricant is setting up a tent that Daniel has just made. Lucya is finding their position from the stars that have just appeared. And where is Daniel? He is not with the group, and his disappearance has not been noticed by the others. He sits on a rock about a kilometer further up the road from the group. He had already slept enough during the seven or so hours that they had been on the cart, and he decides to explore the area around them. As he makes use of the last few meters of sunlight that the sun is providing to write down the day's events in excruciating detail. Suddenly, something perks up in the back of his head. Finishing his notes, he stands up and surveys the area around him. He can't see anyone, but this feeling has alerted him to people's presence before, and more times than not it's ended with a fight or brawl. Sliding his notebook back into his shirt pocket, he not carefully scans every area with his Alchemical Sight.
"Behind!" He thinks to himself as he pours alchemical energy into the ground. Massive spikes of rock shoot out from the ground, arcing unnaturally to strike at a target in the distance. Instead of simply stopping there, he conjures up a pile of earth in a humanoid shape, and then he drops to the ground, slowly crawling to the area where he sent the spikes. After a few minutes, the spikes suddenly split open. A coughing figure emerges in the now dark sky. Upon closer inspection, Daniel can classify the being that he had suddenly smashed with rock spikes. A vampire, their eyes glowing crimson, sprouts wings and takes flight.