[Lynn's POV]
(1 month and 2 days after Klada Disaster....)
28 days has passed since we arrived in this city.
To gather funds for our journey, together with Kyrie I stayed in this city for four weeks completing quests to earn money. This is also to help Kyrielle get accustomed to the monsters and climate of this part of the world.
After we killed the alligators we received our pay from the government. While the pay is still low compared to the adventurer guild back on Central Continent, this is most likely because we are an underdeveloped area of the continent.
In truth, they can't spare a lot of money, and with how many monsters there are around here, I understand. Even though the pay was bad, it was still enough to cover for our costs and more.
We went to buy new clothes for Kyrie. She picked out a durable long sleeved shirt and shorts, an extra set as well for changing. As for cosmetics... she bought new shoes and thigh highs as well, she's really fashionable. I wish she would've considered about saving costs though...
Finally she bought a desert coat as well, she insisted on picking a red colored one similar to the one she had before. After a bit of hesitation she finally threw away that torn coat she had on her waist as well.
Now I can finally have my comfy coat back.
And then after that we went to buy travelling equipments. Two travel bags and also two daggers to use for cutting. For now that is all that we need, and I intend to save as much as possible to buy us some rides in the future. I can walk just fine, but Kyrie is still a normal human.
As for why we are doing so much quests here? That's because like the receptionist undead said, normally we aren't allowed to do these jobs if we aren't registered tourist. This situation is just an exception because they lacked people here that can fight off these monsters, and they let us do it to kill two birds with one stone.
By the way, all the quests we did are just killing monsters that are at least B- ranked, and are usually in packs. They didn't have any adept ranked or above mages here, as such both Kyrie and I are super useful here, as either one of us has firepower that exceeds everyone in this town.
During the past 2 weeks, we quickly gained the recognition of the town folks because we helped them resolve multiple different cases of B rank+ threats, and as such we are welcomed to stay in the city. We stayed in a really cheap Inn to save costs, and usually Kyrielle can be found at the local library whenever we aren't killing things together.
Normally we would reject such offers to stay, but now we couldn't. Why? Thats because of the desert's dry monsoon. During these dry monsoons, the desert gets even hotter during the day and it gets below freezing during the night.
The winds from the desert all blows to the northern side of the continent during summer because of the increased heat here, which simultaneously carries away all the humidity of the desert away. Without humidity, there won't be a lot of rain, and the sun will become a scorching hot Ball up at the sky.
It lasts for a while as well, as it would take nearly an entire month for the monsoon to end.
After the first month of the Monsoon, things would go back to normal because winds from the south would have blew up here as well, balancing out the climate.
And so until the end of the monsoon, we stayed in this city, and it lasted for four weeks. Accounting the days we spent travelling to this city, we would've stayed for a month. During the start of our stay, Kyrie is stressed out and wanted to hurry back home, but after a while she calmed down a lot more.
"This food that these demons have taste really great! They make flat bread like food using Corn and then add toppings into it before rolling it up and eating it!"
It seems that she is liking the local food here. That is a great thing because eating is the greatest pleasure a human can enjoy and can help alleviate whatever stress you have.
"Indeed, this is called a tortilla. It's the local's go to food, basically the bread of this part of the world. It's made entirely out of corn you know? Unlike bread which is made out of wheat."
"Is that so?"
I had expected her to not like the food here, but surprisingly she does, almost as if she had eaten food like these before.... she's abnormal.
Obviously, she's getting more cheerful and happy nowadays. She has recovered from her grief a lot more and now is back to her usual self, or at least closer to her usual self than a month ago. She really is a strong girl after all, being able to cope with all these things.
Today we will head out will all of our newly acquired travel gear. Right now I'm in the government building bidding farewell to the receptionist, who have helped us out so much.
"(We will be going now. We probably won't ever come back here again, so farewell for real.)"
"(Very well. I bid you farewell as well. Almost no humans have even show up here, let alone stay here for so long, so it is interesting with you two here. This is the first time I have made friends with humans and I must say that you humans are a lot more similar to us than different.)"
"(I see.... in the end we are all people huh?)"
"(Since you will be heading out, how about you take this as a gift?)"
He handed me a map.
"(To make it in time to the next city before the wet monsoon comes, you should directly go through the Valley of the Drakes. Don't worry, there are many merchants and soldiers that use that road, so there won't be any drakes if you just use the main highway and don't stray too far off of it.)"
"(Thank you for the advice, and for this map as well.)"
"(Good. You should get going now so that you can walk as far as possible before the sun gets the hottest.)"
"(You have a point. Goodbye then.)"
"(Yeah, take care then.)"
"Let's go Kyrie."
"(Umm... Take care... mister receptionist...)" This is the first time Kyrie has spoken in the demon language, also called the Bostnian Language.
"(Yeah little girl. You take care of yourself as well.)"
"Wow, you learned to speak the demon language in just a short four weeks? That's impressive!"
"Well, I was just copying your intonations and sounds. It meant 'goodbye' right? I got that just based on context. Hearing you two say that back and forth with each other so many times is more than enough context."
"I see. That is how most people learn new languages any way, by actually using them to talk. Maybe in the next half a year you would be able to speak it fluently!"
"You think too highly of me. Come to think of it, how come YOU were able to talk fluently in it?"
"Well... it's a dark history."
"Oh... Sorry. "
"It's fine. You wanna hear about it as we walk?"
"Sure. "
"Right... I was a child born during in the middle of the Great War. I lived on the western coast of the central continent, and when I was but the age of 4, demonic army came and attacked my village. They took slaves with them, me among them. I learned my demon language like that, through exposure just like you. The reason I knew a lot about this continent is also because of this. "
"...I see..."
"Then, as a slave we worked for the farms. At first I hated the demons, just like you would after what you went through. However, I also saw other child slaves here who were demons as well. Gradually I made friends with them, and learn about their culture and their language."
"Why do demons need slaves for their farms anyway?"
"Well obviously, there are still demon races that would need to eat to survive, just like orcs or insect men. But they are only demons that are biologically alive, because undeads or skeletons won't be able to reproduce, that's why you won't see a baby undead or a baby skeleton."
"I see..."
"All the tangents aside, one day I stole a magic textbook from one of the merchants and started practising magic by myself. At a young age of 6 I had learned to use chantless magic, but it's more like natural talent."
"So you were practising magic that young huh? Just like me I suppose."
"Right. Anyway, when I grew 8, I used magic and escaped to the northern side of the Bostnia Continent, which was full of mountains. There, it sometimes snowed, sometimes rained, but the sky is rarely ever clear. I lived for 3 years there in solitude, because no other kids would dare to come with me, saying "You'll die to the monsters or to the weather!", I proved them wrong."
"Well, you ARE abnormal."
"Rude!... After I escaped, they sent some guards for me. I shot them all down with magic, but I didn't kill them as a sign of peace. That was how I was come to be known by the demons as the 'Sorceress of the Highlands'."
"So your nickname has an origin huh? But people here never use it nowadays."
"Yes, because many nowadays only know me as the Magic God. Finally, one day I would stumble across a battle on the northern side of the coast. It's the first counter invasion attempt to the Bostnia Continent led by the allied forces, but it failed disastrously. One of the soldier found me and rescued me, bringing me back to his camp where the humans treated me really well."
"Then how did you all retreat?"
"They retreated by ships, back to the North Western part of the Central Continent. "
"Wait a minute, can we take a ship to the northern side of the Central continent? Would that be faster?"
"Faster in arriving at the continent, yes. But we won't reach your home city any time soon because as you know, your city is surrounded by mountains. The same mountains extend all the way to the north, which blocks the direct path back home. You'd take the same amount of time to reach home, but you have to navigate the terrible terrains, it's better to go up from the south instead. Besides, not many ships will sail from Creimland to the North most side for Ataraxia anyway.
" I see..."
"Anyway, I lived there on the north western side of the Central Continent as an orphan for a long 5 years until I was 16 and became an adult. During this 5 years I met an orphan boy 2 years older than me who's just like me, he lost his parents in the war and became an orphan."
"Oh? What's your relationship with him?"
"We grew up together, and once I reached 16 we decided to partake in the war together as adventurers. We adventured for 3 whole years and gained recognition, as well as more friends in our party. Together, we even slew 2 major enemy captains. "
"That's impressive."
"Yeah, we were one of the many of B ranked parties. One dda, we got ambushed by an enemy general, an Arch Demon alongside his squad, who killed the entire party except me and one other teammate. We only escaped by sheer luck after our team mates held the demons back. Sigh... That was the death of my first and only love so far..."
"I'm sorry..."
"Yeah, but that's a long time ago now... about 35 or so years now... After that, the party disbanded, and I changed job. I had officially taken my spot as a magic researcher instead of an adventurer. I researched so much and got so good at magic that no mage on the allied side could best me. And after a while, only a small amount of demons could best me as well, or so they said."
"Then who could best you?"
"Who else other than the Magic God of that time? Baal, the Supreme Demon King, and Magic God of the time, had challenged me to a duel but I didn't fought him at all for years and ignored him. With my new found skills in magic, I took part in the war once again and slayed 5 generals, 5 arch demons out of the 72 arch demons, all by myself."
"That is really impressive!"
"Once, when I was camping in a walled city along with the battalion of soldiers that I was assigned to, we were attacked by the long range God ranked spell of Baal. "
"...God ranked?"
"Yes. 'Chronos Ignis', which translates to 'Time Thunder', was his God ranked spell. There's no defenses capable of blocking that, no barriers or things could withstand it because it transcends space and reality itself. "
"...then how did you survive it?"
"I intercepted the magic with my very own God ranked magic, 'Black Blade End'. I can even show you now since we have walked quite far from the city now. "
"What?... Wouldn't that be really dangerous?"
"Haha don't worry! I will aim at the sky away from the city! I will also just shoot it at half strength. We are approaching the Valley of the Drakes, so this could serve as a warning to the drakes as well."
Before I know it we had already reached the Desert Plains in front of the Valley of Drakes, way ahead put of the city already. We walked so far off the city without realizing it because we was talking as we walked.
"I see... I actually want to see it really badly... Let me have a sight of what a God ranked spell could do!"
"Very well Kyrie!"
We stopped and then we set down our hand held bags....
"Open your eyes wide Kyrielle! A God ranked magic is one that you would only see once in a lifetime! "
"Yes!"
I stretched my right arm out and opened my hand.
"Four Fold Casting...."
Behind my back, four crest for Black Spears appears. Then, all of the crests started glowing and forming into black orbs.
The crests all shattered and then I gathered the four floating black orbs and focused them onto a single location : in front of my out-stretched right arm.
The four gathered black orbs condenses to the shape of a small one handed sword, made out of pure abyssal magic.
"Now watch closely Kyrie, and don't blink your eyes.... Black Blade End!"
From the left side, I swiped it across aiming upwards towards the cloudy sky.
'Booom!' A really loud sound of explosion was heard as a wave of abyssal magic shot forward into the skies.
The wave of darkness completely covers the sky, and the wind pressure that received at us alone blew huge winds backwards at us.
"Oh my god! That is really powerful!"
After about 5 seconds, the dark beam in the sky had disintegrated, leaving a sky void of clouds because of the beam knocking all of it away.
"That was my half strength variant. "
"No way! That was Quadruple casting and you are still only at half strength?! That is insane!"
Kyrielle sounds just like a little girl who has saw her favorite animal, she's really excited.
"Indeed. And that was only my weakest God ranked magic!"
Of course, it doesn't hurt to flex my powers a little sometimes!
"No way...you have more even powerful ones...?"
"I have three God ranked magic, afterall!"
"Unbelievable.... What the second strongest one then?"
"That'd be my 'Orbital Meteor'. "
"...huh?"
"Yep. My orbital meteor strike utilizes my gravity magic to pull down huge rocks from space itself. Oh wait, you haven't learn of 'space' yet in school huh? Haha, silly me!"
"I know about space but... I thought your gravity magic had limited range?..."
"That you are correct, but! I have a trick for that which allows me to extend my gravity magic's range almost without any limit whatsoever. I won't tell you the secret though!"
"Hmm... What about your strongest god ranked magic?"
"Hmm, I used that one to surprise and kill Baal. Again, it's-a-se-cret~❤ !"
"No fair!"
"Hahaha, come on! I told you so much already! Normal people won't even get to see my Black Blade End!"
"Oh... I had my hopes up to see even more of your demonstration... Oh well, but promise me you'll show me sometime in the future!"
"Yea, if you can get strong enough to force me to use it, then I will."
"Hoh? Is that a challenge?"
"Of course it is! As it stands right now you have no way to hurt me, so as practise, if you can actually hurt me then I'll show you my strongest magic!"
"Alright then. I can get stronger this way as well!"
"It's a deal then. Now, let's continue our walk then."
We approached the entrance to the Valley of the Drakes. Two tall mountains creating a Valley about 300 meters in height and 1 kilometers in width, and almost 8 to 10 kilometers long, it's a giant Valley full of plants, animals, monsters and creeks for those monsters to hide in. But since this is the highway, no monsters would actually show up here.
The Valley is like an entirely different biome from the desert, as there are multiple plants and water inside. This is where hunters usually go to hunt their food, and sell products made from monsters.
The cities farther away from the Valley almost entirely depends on this Valley here for their economic production, if I remembered correctly. Merchants like to go to the city directly next to this Valley and gather monster skins, fur, hide, things like that and sell them at other cities across the entire Bostnia Continent.
This road leads directly to one side of the canyon, because the middle of the canyon is not walkable. There are many plants, pit falls and cracks in the middle, so the highway instead rests on the side of the canyon where a road was paved out from the mountain side.
The road is about 10 meters in width, only wide enough for two carriages to go side by side, not that the width of the road has anything to do with road convenience though... there's a reason why it's so small.
The small width of the road is instead used for fighting. Drakes are big targets, and the small width of the road wouldn't enable them to dodge around, it was a defense choice to make it like this.
That being said, normally no drakes would show up at all near the highway. Animals and monsters usually roams around the highway because of this reason, but most of them is not dangerous because only preys would flock together here.
Those reasons are precisely why that I felt something off about here. There should be normal animals and lower ranked monsters in the ambient surroundings making noises. Yet right now it is very quiet. Too quiet, in fact.
"Lynn. "
"Yeah?"
"Why is this place called the Valley of the Drakes?"
"Ah. Obviously, it is the habitat of Drakes. Primarily, Rock Drakes."
"What are drakes anyway?"
"Hmm, you should know what dragons are right? Drakes are basically dragons without their large spanning wings. They only have small wings but they have a lot of feathers. They can't take off from the ground, and can only fly after they drop down from a taller place. While they lacked in flying ability, they makes up for it with mobility and agility. Rock Drakes lacked the giant wings of dragons, this means they can maneuver around tighter space and also change directions mid air way faster."
"So that means Rock Drakes dominate valleys, and Dragons dominate the mountains correct? "
"Exactly! Besides that, Rock Drakes are stupidly good at ambushing their prey, because they only make noises when they flap their wings mid air to maintain their flight. Normally when ambushing their prey, they make no sound by gliding right above them and then before the prey notices, it slams it's body weight onto the prey."
"Hmm...."
Kyrielle looked up, and out of her mouth only came two words.
"....Oh god."
I looked up as well.
"GRAAAH!" A rock drake is directly above us and is dropping down on us with it's body weight.
"Get away!"
As I yelled, both of us backstepped away from the place where it's about to drop on us. I need to focus on protecting Kyrie now bu-
"Earth Spear!"
'Stab!'
The Rock Drake tried to use it's body weight to drop on us but that carried it right into the Earth Spear, which stabbed straight through the Rock Drake in it's body. It groaned in pain after that.
"Gaaah!"
"Now, hit it!"
"Black Spear!"
I shot the Rock Drake on the head with my Black Spear.
The drake which is about 3 meters tall and 9 meters long lie dead on the ground, with a gaping hole in it's stomach and through the back after being impaled by the Earth Spear.
"Whew... You just jinx'ed it Lynn...! I thought I was dead for real...."
"I thought YOU were gonna be a goner!... Let's proceed carefully okay?"
"Agreed..."
We picked the baggages that we dropped on the ground just now from the drake ambushing us.
"...why are there rock drakes here so close to the highway?..." I muttered.
"Well we are right at the entrance to the Valley of the Drakes, duh."
"No, Rock Drakes don't usually show up so close to the highway... I have a bad feeling about this. "
"Well, would you scout ahead then? You can fly right?"
"I can but I'd have to leave you here. "
"I'll be fine! Just don't take too long alright?"
"Hmm... You can defend yourself right? "
"Naturally."
"Then sit tight here and wait for me. I'll go take a look. I'll leave the luggage here then."
"I'll guard our things, you can go do your scouting thing."
"Right, I'm counting on you."
With super speed, I flew up towards the skies.
And then over at the distance about 5 kilometers ahead, and off the highway, I could see smokes. Most likely the result of magic being used....
I looked back at Kyrielle, who gave me a thumbs up and signalled me that she'll be fine.
I focused on flying, and then flew towards that place with my cruise speed. I reached there about 5 minutes of flying later.
Once I was there, I saw a group of 4 demons injured, and looked like they had just escaped from a fatal fight.
I immediately rushed towards there, and dropped from the sky. Dropping from the sky is actually my favorite way of making my first appearance because it's really cool.
"(What in the world are you?!)"
"(Relax relax! I'm friendly!)"
"(I see... A human?)"
When the dust cleared, I can finally see the four of the clearly. One undead, two Insect people and finally an alien looking demon with two weird tentacle like things sticking out of its head, most likely a Togruta. (Star Wars reference)
The weird alien demon spoke to me.
"(Are you really a human?... why so far west?)"
"(Yes I am a human, as for why I'm here... it's a long story. Anyway, I saw smokes at the distance, and I thought that you were perhaps in trouble, that's why I rushed here.)"
"(...Actually yes. We were indeed in trouble.)"
"(How so? Was it just Rock Drakes or something?)"
"(It was a Rock Drake Queen.... They don't show up a lot but when they do, they will ally together the normally solitary drakes and form hunting packs of up to 8 or 10 of them. We were ambushed by one of the packs of about 4 drakes and we only barely made it out alive!)"
"(Remind me, what are Rock Drake Queen?)"
"(Rock Drake Queens only show up once in a decade, and usually brings about disasters because of their dangerous ability to form packs with normally solitary drakes. Their threat is B+ ranked, and unlike their weaker counterparts they can breathe out magic! It was a nightmare to be chased by that thing!)"
"(I see... How come you lot were here anyway? What for?)"
"(We accepted a quest to help kill some Rock Drakes that lived near the highway.... We expected to fight multiple of them in a day, but not so many at once....)"
"(Alright... Can you lot make it back to the city by yourselves?)"
"(Yes we could... Our injuries are not that serious.)"
"(Good. Then you 4 can walk back to your city, first. You can leave the Drake Queen to us.)"
"(Us? You have comrades? And also, unless your team is at least A ranked, it's suicide to try to take on that queen!)"
"(Yes, I have a comrade, and we are very capable of handling it. We could help you finish this quest on one condition.)"
"(...state your mind. We need to make it out of here alive after all.)"
"(Right.)"
I told them about our situation, and about how we won't have any qualifications to take jobs and receive rewards here.
"(-If you can tell that to your government people that we receive payment for the work done, then we'll help you lots slay the Queen.)"
"(...Very well then, it doesn't sound like an unreasonable request. I thought you humans were a bit more.... audacious.)"
"(Is that so?... I don't see how I am audacious... Well, I'm only helping you out for the rewards, so we aren't exactly heroes.)"
"(Don't worry, your intention is clear. I'll make sure they pay you in full.)"
"(Right.)"
"(Now you should get moving because Rock Drakes are dangerously fast and agile, you won't know where they will drop from. Your comrades might have even been ambushed now!)"
'Boom...!' At the distant, I hear a faint sound of explosion.
"(Explosions?... Is your friend there?)"
"(Yea... this could be bad news.)"
"(Last we saw, the Queen headed for that direction! I think it was after a strange magic or something knocking away all the clouds which distracted it for us to run away. You need to hurry to your friend or else they'll be in trouble!)"
'Boom...!' Another explosion sounded again from the distance... she is indeed fighting!
"(Ah, god damned it!)" Without even bothering to say goodbye to them, I flew up and accelerated full speed towards Kyrie's direction.
Even with my speed it could still take a minute to get back there!
The Queen was drawn in by my magic... I had just jinx'ed Kyrielle again! Why do I constantly raise Red Flags?!
(Chapter 41, end)