Martyr woke up to heat beating up against his face.
The two of them had decided to just spend the night in the tree while they waited for Martyr to heal.
Vanagloria hadn't figured out how to access her light powers yet to heal him so they simply just had to let time do its job.
They had really gotten themselves into a terrible situation. Martyr could barely lift his head without a sharp pain going straight to the back of his head. On top of that he had to protect Vanagloria.
Martyr was so scared for her that she didn't even let her go out and search for food, or some kind of magical healing herb. Much to her disappointment.
Vanagloria hadn't been able to sit still during any of it. Blair had mentioned she had ADHD and Martyr hadn't really noticed it until he got to see it in full effect last night.
He didn't see her completely sit still until she fell asleep. Whether it was picking at the walls of the tree or shifting her position, Vanagloria just couldn't seem to sit still without messing with something.
Martyr would be lying if he said he didn't find it cute sometimes. Although it looked like it came out of a place of anxiety rather than boredom. And rightfully so, Martyr was really worried for her.
Which led him to where he was now.
As he slowly regained his vision he ran a hand through his hair to find his head covered in sweat.
His forehead and cheeks were covered in sweat as well.
All it took was one look out of the hole in the tree to see why.
The whole rainforest was on fire.
He snatched up his satchel and grabbed Vanagloria's hand.
"Wake up we gotta go!" Martyr's was fully panicking now.
He could let her die here.
She woke up shocked but quickly realized what was happening and ran out of the tree with him.
The entire forest from where they came was on fire. The roof of leaves was open and falling onto the ground. Rain was pouring in, but not enough to put it out.
Martyr pulled Vanagloria over past the tree, out of the fire. Thankfully the fire hadn't spread far past their tree.
There were fiery branches falling all over, birds flying out with their wings in flames and little and big creatures running out for their life just like them.
Martyr's heart was racing.
"Wow, that was close." Vanagloria looked back at the hellscape behind them.
"Yeah we should get away from that for sure. Where was that floating island you saw? Because if that does have the Draconic rainforest underneath it, then we should go there to meet up with Vega. It's probably where she thinks we'll go." Martyr made sure he still had his satchel on, and everything inside it.
He hadn't really packed much now that he thought about it. Martyr got some clothes and money from his backpack but he didn't pack any food or water.
"I think it was this way." Vanagloria pointed in the opposite direction of the fire.
"Okay cool. Stay behind me okay, I don't know how dangerous it's gonna be. Just let me handle any creatures that come at us." Martyr buttoned up his satchel and started his hike.
"But… I wanted to fight something. I'm not gonna get any stronger if I don't have some real practice." Vanagloria said, a little bit of annoyance in her voice.
"Huh. I guess that's true…" Martyr stopped for a second to consider it. Looking at her he pondered if it was a good idea.
"Like, I get that… I get that you're a lot stronger than me right now, but I was at the top of my A tier class for my last year without any elemental power. The second highest person at my school without any powers was in a C tier class." Vanagloria tells him with a wild amount of confidence.
"I think I could still fare pretty well, especially now that I have one of the most powerful hybrid powers there is, even if it is probably the most complicated element to use."
Her confidence really was wild. Martyr had to give her that.
Martyr really did doubt himself quite often when it came to becoming a knight. It took a lot of courage and confidence to get him to where he was now.
But Vanagloria was different.
She really did have something that he didn't. Her confidence really was something special.
But…
"I get that, but… I'm sorry. You've had your power for only a few days and we don't have Vega with us. We're in the wildlands right now. It's supposed to be so dangerous that people can't even live here… just let me handle this."
"I know but I need to train for…"
"I know, but we are in danger right now. We have plenty of time to train after, your life is more important than getting a little bit stronger."
Vanagloria hesitated. It looked like she was trying to come up with a response for him but couldn't. She looked extremely frustrated at him.
Martyr felt bad but he knew he had to do it.
Right now they were in a lot of danger, he had to take some initiative in this situation.
He knew it was inevitable that he would end up being the leader of their five person team, so this was also good practice for that. Martyr has always had positions like this in his friend groups, but now it felt like he had to take his role seriously.
"I'll let you take on a small creature by yourself if you want. But please… just let me handle this. At least until Vega finds us." Martyr told her, trying to comprise, even in the slightest.
"Yeah." Vanagloria grumbled.
She had stopped making eye-contact and was looking down at the ground with an annoyed expression.
Vanagloria definitely had potential. I mean, she had gotten to the top of an A tier combat class without an element.
Before Martyr got his element he had just gotten into the only S tier class in his school. So if anything, Vanagloria's potential might be a lot higher than he thought. Maybe even similar to his own.
He wanted to tell her this but he felt like he had said enough.
It definitely didn't look like she wanted to talk to him anymore.
They spent a lot of the day like this as they walked through the forest, or at least what the thought was a day.
It was impossible to tell what time or what day it was when the sky was covered in a roof of giant green leaves. They couldn't even tell if they were getting close to the Draconic Rainforest.
They didn't encounter any sort of big animal that wanted to kill them but Vanagloria did spot a ridiculous amount of fruits and berry bushes along the way.
Unfortunately, they couldn't eat a lot of the food they found.
They decided not to eat any of the fruit they didn't know in case it was poisonous. And a surprising amount of the fruit were just too big for them to bring with them, as they still had to stay on the move.
Thankfully the farther and farther they got into the rainforest, the more and more dragon fruit they found. Pitaya, (what it's scientifically called or whatever) is one of the most common and valuable fruit on the islands because of the Draconic rainforest.
It's practically the only edible fruit for humans to eat in the forest wildlands and it is by far the most common fruit in the rainforest.
It's value came from its capability to hold pure elemental power. The type they use to spike gatorade in or the type that Martyr used to heal his eye a few days back.
Small doses of this type of element is really useful for healing and energizing the body, but a lot could overwhelm and damage the body.
For some reason the specific path they took didn't have as many as was deceived to Martyr, but was still more than enough to keep them from not getting hungry.
The path they took seemed almost completely cleared out of most life if Martyr had to be honest.
It was way too peaceful.
Martyr did end up having to kill a few creatures like a few goblin gangs and a crap ton of elks.
All of them were wildly easy for Martyr to slay. He left some room for Vanagloria to attack, but for the most part he ended up doing most of the work which she wasn't happy about.
Their travel was a lot more peaceful than he thought it was going to be.
As unhappy as Vanagloria was at him, she still looked like she was enjoying herself.
She just seemed so calm walking through the forest.
Martyr was stressing the whole time about the danger of the forest.
True, they didn't get into any real danger, but Vanagloria didn't look worried at all. She was walking through the forest like it was just a normal hike and she was appreciating the scenery.
Honestly Martyr couldn't tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing.