The first thing I did when I got the four girls out of the carriage was to check if they were all right.
"Thank God they're all still alive."
I checked the heart rate and breathing of each of the girls.
Although they weren't in perfect condition, they were still within acceptable parameters.
A recovery potion probably wouldn't help in such a situation, so I just decided to let the girls rest for a while before trying to wake them up.
Meanwhile, I went to fetch all the supplies that we'd brought with us from the carriage.
'Should I try to dig the carriage out of the snow?'
I was considering whether it would be a good idea to continue clearing the snow around the carriage in the hope of continuing to use it on our journey.
'No, wait. The horses are dead! Even if I managed to get the carriage out in good order, it would be useless without something to move it...'
I had imagined for a moment myself moving the carriage with the girls inside.
Immediately after, I shook my head.
'Goodbye carriage, we'll miss you.'
I began to load the boxes and bags of supplies that were still inside the carriage.
What bad luck to meet an avalanche just now. But what I find strangest is that it formed so quickly and traveled at such high speed.
I mean, we barely had time to notice the avalanche until it was already on top of us.
If we had been aware of the avalanche in advance, we could've solved the problem in a myriad of less risky ways.
To begin with, I could charge my sword with an enormous amount of mana and make it disappear quickly.
Unfortunately, because I had the carriage so close to me, I had to restrain myself considerably.
I didn't want to destroy the carriage by mistake.
It would've been a ridiculous situation.
Another method could've been to try to get Angie to float the carriage in the air with her power, thus managing to get out of the impact zone of the avalanche.
In any case, none of this could be done due to the lack of time to react.
'It almost looks like the avalanche didn't form naturally.'
Suddenly.
- CRACK-!
Again the sound of something breaking and collapsing could be heard from the distance.
This time I wasted no time and looked in the direction from which the sound came.
From the top of a mountain, far away in the distance, rocks and snow began to come crashing down as if an explosion had taken place there.
However, this wasn't what actually surprised me.
From the place of the collapse,
Dozens,
No.
Hundreds of Wyverns began to come out from the depths of the mountain flying into the sky.
Soon, the entire sky was filled with Wyverns flying in packs.
"This isn't normal at all."
I'd studied the behavior of different species of monsters during my stay in this world.
Wyverns usually live in packs and hide in the mountains, but very rarely attempt to leave their habitat en masse.
'The previous avalanche must have been caused by the mass migration of Wyverns.'
I came to that conclusion.
But then the question remained,
Why are the Wyverns behaving this way?
I continued to look at the hundreds of Wyverns flying through the sky.
I was able to superhumanly expand my vision using a technique that involved concentrating mana into my eyes.
So, I could see something interesting.
The Wyverns that were at the highest altitude tried to continue flying vertically but suddenly stopped as if they had collided with something invisible.
'The Anti-Magic Barrier,' I thought.
This is getting more interesting.
The barrier affected the manifestation of magic and even seemed to block whatever was inside it from getting out.
What will be the criteria behind that?
It might block only monsters or maybe any living creature...
No, maybe what it blocks are beings that have mana in their bodies.
Anyway, it's not something I can know exactly without seeing the magic circle myself.
While I was thinking of a new idea that had occurred to him while looking up at the sky...
"Ahh... Where are we..."
"Hmm??"
"..."
The girls began to wake up from the great noise that the Wyverns were causing.
"Oh, you guys already woke up!" I responded with a smile on my face.
"What is happening now, Franz? What is that sound?" Eva asked with a somewhat sleepy voice after just waking up.
I raised my index finger pointing towards the sky and said:
"I was thinking about how to attract our new means of transportation."
Angie, Eva, Jess, and Nat, who had finally woken up, all looked up at the sky at the same time.
!!!
"W-Wyverns!?"
"F-Franz, what do you mean by our new means of transportation? P-Perhaps you want us to ride Wyvern now?" Jess asked while trembling.
Jess was already terrified of heights, so the idea of riding a Wyvern horrified her.
Unfortunately for her.
"Yeah," I responded nonchalantly.
"Franz, did you finally lose what little sanity you had left?" Angie decided to face me this time.
"Maybe, hahaha. No, but seriously. Do you guys know the situation we are in? Traveling by carriage will no longer be possible due to the horses being pretty dead. Considering that we are a considerable distance away from Winterland and returning to the village is also not an option at this point, we can only try this option now."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
The girls looked dumbfounded at me.
"B-But Franz, is there really no other option? T-Traveling by riding a Wyvern sounds a bit too crazy, you know?" Angie asked.
"The other option would be to walk from here under the cold snow for at least a week."
My response was like a bucket of cold water for the girls.
"It's good that we all agree then! We'd better hurry before all the Wyverns disappear."
I seemed more excited than I should be in this situation.
'Heh, I've always wanted to try something like this!"
My eyes sparkled like a child's when getting a new toy.
"Though Franz, how do you think we're going to catch the Wyverns in the sky? They're so far away that I can barely see them..." Nat said worriedly because she saw a clear flaw in my plan.
It was a fair question considering that Nat didn't know all the extensions of our abilities.
Angie's telekinesis wouldn't be useful because she had a distance limit to use her ability.
Also, Jess's ability, though for different reasons, wouldn't be helpful in this situation either.
On the other hand, Eva's unique ability would be quite useful because she could try to shoot air bullets at the Wyverns.
Similarly, I had the option of using another of my four main weapons.
My golden bow.
However...
'It's not a good idea for me to use my bow now. Also, it's not a good idea for Eva to participate either.'
I was very sure that by using either of the two methods we would be able to hit the Wyverns on target, but that wasn't the problem.
Even if we managed to hit one of the Wyverns, they would probably end up dying or at least seriously damaged.
For Eva and me, controlling the lethality of our attacks wasn't an option in the first place.
'In that case… I
still have that other option.'
Fortunately, I wasn't worried because I had an alternative that spent even less mana than using my golden bow.
"Please, don't come near me right now. It could be dangerous," I alerted the girls first.
In the next instant, a large amount of mana poured out of my body, and soon, all of that mana clumped onto the blade of my sword.
Quickly, I positioned myself in an attacking stance…
No.
To be honest, it was more like a baseball batter's stance instead.
In this way, I looked up at my target in the sky.
I gritted my teeth.
I narrowed my eyes.
I frowned.
And with great force
I hit.
Or rather, I shot out as a projectile all the mana that had previously accumulated on my sword blade.
This energy attack could take any form the owner chose.
In this case, it was in the shape of a baseball.
The ball flew at high speed toward the sky.
Nothing stood in its way until it finally managed to get close to its target without him noticing anything.
5 km.
3 km.
1 km.
The ball continued its course until it finally collided with the body of one of the Wyverns.
'Homerun!!!!'
The public went crazy.
By that, I mean the girls, of course.
No.
To be more exact.
The one that went berserk was the Wyvern I had just hit.
It didn't take long for him to spot me and storm off in our direction.
But that's just what I wanted.
[ Sky Cutter ]
A skill not exclusive to one of my weapons but used by any swordsman who reached Master Rank.
This ability consisted of accumulating mana on the blade of the sword and launching it as a projectile that allowed swordsmen to perform long-distance attacks.
The reason why only master-rank swordsmen used it wasn't just because of the difficulty of the technique itself, but because it required parting with all the mana that had been gathered.
To put it bluntly, you needed to spend a large amount of mana.
Normally, one would keep their mana constantly on the sword, so the waste of mana would be minimal.
But in this case, one would end up losing all the mana gathered in a single attack.
The funny thing about all this was that this still spent less mana than using the abilities of any of my weapons.
Of course, its destructive power was significantly lower.
Anyway, this attack was the most effective because I could easily control the amount and form of the mana in order to perform a non-lethal attack.
"ROOOOOAARRRRRRR!!!!!"
The Wyvern landed in front of us while roaring in anger.
Its body was gigantic, and its jaw full of sharp teeth was terrifying to anyone who looked at it.
"HAHAHAHA."
Except for me.
I jumped straight at the Wyvern.
Since it wasn't a dragon, I wouldn't have to worry about being burned alive.
I thought it would be a bad choice to use my sword, so I charged up my fists with a high concentration of mana to give the Wyvern a small beating.
Even in human gangs, this is the most effective method to make someone your subordinate.
However, when I was about to land a blow with my fists charged with an incredibly high concentration of mana.
"???"
The Wyvern lowered its head in complete submission.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Hey Franz, what just happened?"
Nat who approached me from my right side asked me.
"Hmm, I'm not quite sure..."
I decided to cancel the mana in my fist.
The next instant, the Wyvern's attitude returned to being aggressive.
So I charged my fist again with a high concentration of mana, and the Wyvern returned to its submissive look.
"..."
"...Okay, guys, our Wyvern ride will be easier than I thought."