As Eizit looked behind the bushes a huge wild boar growled at him, it seemed that it was angry and wanted to attack him.
As a reaction, Eizit quickly moved backwards and positioned himself next to Sophie.
"A wild boar, get ready"
***
Dahlia was looking attentively at the bushes as they shook, and suddenly a small pink cat jumped out of them. It was a nekomata probably, since its tail split in half towards the end.
Dahlia raised an eyebrow and looked at the cat, which was pretty much fat. She sighed.
"Get away from me, fat cat."
The cat looked at her and simply sat there, she grinned her teeth and yelled at the cat.
"GET AWAY FROM ME"
The cat looked at her with a scared expression and rapidly, as fast as a fat pink cat can, got away from her.
Dahlia ended alone and went to sleep
***
Back with Eizit and Sophie, the wild boar appeared through the bushes, getting ready to attack them. Sophie whispered to Eizit.
"Do you think we'll awake Azael...?"
She seemed slightly worried, Eizit replied almost instantly.
"Nah, don't worry. I discovered these last days that he has is almost unwakeable when it's sleep time"
She left out her usual short giggle and nodded right after, focusing on her magic. Instead of a star, like last time, a circle appeared in top of it. The circle shined and was absorbed by the staff, which then released a spell.
The spell transformed into green flames that surrounded the tip of her staff, transforming it into a fire blade. Eizit looked at her surprised.
"Wow, that's interesting."
Sophie slammed her staff on the wild boar, which was charging at her. However, as the boar saw the fire, it rapidly stopped charging. Running away.
The magic fire dispelled right after. Sophie smiled in satisfaction as she managed to be useful.
"You did it, Sophie!"
She smiled back at him and raised one thumb, after that, the night remained silent and without any complications. Eizit and Sophie spoke about the spell she had just done and how it could be very useful if she applied to an ally's weapon.
It was past 4 am already when they finished talking about that spell, and then kept talking about random stuff until the day.
As the day approached, at 10 am, Azael woke up after 8 hours of sleep. The group resumed their journey.
Well, they were going to, but suddenly they heard wild boar noises approaching. Azael got in guard, Sophie sighed and Eizit yawned. Azael raised an eyebrow at them.
"We have been beating wild boars all night, how many, Sophie?"
"At least 5, yeah..."
(Yes, I lied earlier, they did actually fight all night)
Azael was simply surprised, he would demand hearing how that went later. For now, however, he focused in the 5 wild boars that appeared from behind the bushes.
"Oh, Sophie, look. This is new!"
"Yeah, they finally came in group!"
"Wait you mean these are the 5 boars you've beaten?"
"Yup, probably."
"Yeah they are for sure, look at that one with the red nose, that's from Eizit's punch"
"Cool, let's beat them twice now, then."
Said Azael cracking his fingers, he raised two shadows from the ground and shaped them into dual sickles. Then, he charged at the boars.
"Kill just one! It'll be enough to eat."
Said Eizit, in guard ready to intervene if necessary. He didn't want to explode his body and until he got a weapon that was his only way of attacking. Instead, he just got ready to get people out of the way or push the boars if needed.
"Okay, just one more lucky spell!"
Sophie said as she channeled her magic into her staff, activating the power of her star. Two stars appeared in top of the star, hovering, and they got absorbed by it. The energy manifested as a spell, and Sophie used it.
"Eizit!"
Eizit approached her, understanding it was a team based spell. She touched his shoulder and he could feel what it was, so he yelled Azael to get out of the way.
Azael grinned his teeth and did, he wanted to hunt some wild boars. Eizit opened his mouth and released a lightning dragon breath attack, incapacitating all wild boars but one, which managed to dodge it.
However, Azael intercepted the boar and slashed the back of the boar's neck from behind with his two sickles, killing it in the process.
"This will show these beasts who's in top"
Sophie and Eizit looked at eachother, thinking it sounded a bit cocky.
Azael looked at them.
"What are you laughing at?"
They both responded in unison
"We're not laughing"
They were laughing.
After some time of Eizit and Sophie swearing they were not laughing, which they definitely were, the group resumed their journey.
It was currently 16th of April, Thursday. The group had 4 days yet to travel in order to get to the Iron Gate and, unbeknownst to them, they were being followed by another subordinate of Void-Man.
It was already 1 pm when Eizit mentioned how well Azael had cut the legs of the wild boar for eating later, which made Azael remember something he wanted to ask them.
"Oh yeah, tell me the full story regarding the fights against the boars in the night-time"
"You seem excited about it, why is that? You're not like that most of the time"
"Why would I not be excited, Eizit? You managed to beat wild boars 5 times without me noticing. Surely you did flawlessly!"
"Yeah... Flawlessly..." Mumbled Sophie.
"Tell him, Eizit"
Eizir started to explain how they beat the wild boars, the first time was at almost 4 am and she managed to get a spell that made her mace become a flaming green sword, the wild boar simply ran away scared at the fire.
"The second time was approximately 30 minutes later, a wild boar appeared ready for revenge. Sophie's staff got 2 stars absorbed but the spell was a support one, so I had to intervene. I simply hit the boar multiple times with a stick and the beast eventually fleed scared."
Sophie kept explaining.
"The third time was probably at 6 am, the sun was still under the horizon and far from rising. The boar came for us and I prepared my magic. I got one star and used my spell, which happened to be an useful spell that gave Eizit a magic armor. With it he was able to not only keep the boar at bay but also damage it enough with his punches as to make it run away."
Eizit resumed the story.
"Around 7 am, just 30 minutes or so before the sunrise, a new boar came for us. It was the fourth time already. This time the boar was a slightly bigger one and seemed stronger. Sophie used her magic and got another 1 star spell, the spell ended up being one that allowed her to convince the boar that we were friends. And the boar turned around and left."
"Really?"
"No, the boar actually turned around last second and charged at Sophie"
"Yeah, but Eizit run in the way and pushed me out of the boar charge, the armor I made with my magic broke but at least he's fine."
"Eizit doing sacrificial stuff once more"
"I'm grateful he's like that"
"Anyways, she counter attacked with a circle spell, all she needed was a swift move of her staff and in the blink of an eye the boar was stabbed from inside by powerful ice. It was so cool!"
Azael seemed surprised "wow, her random magic is actually useful."
She giggled slightly embarassed "it's nothing crazy guys... It was Eizit who ran in front of me"
After a short break, drinking water, she kept explaining. Mentioning the last boar attack.
"The fifth boar attacked us 2 hours later, around 9 am I assume. He was way bigger than the others. My staff generated a circle, which was absorbed to fuel a spell. The spell was only magic hand, I tried to slam the boar with it but it didn't seem enough. Eizit did as always and held him back, protected me, until I had my magic recharged."
"With it my staff summoned a single star and then absorbed it, generating a new spell. I used a rope to make a trap in the floor that the spell made disappear. Eizit quite literally pushed the boar into the trap, and the rope Immobilized it."
Eizit finished the story
"Since the boar seemed to be sorry about what he did, we released him. And then at 10 pm they all came back together, you know that one."
Azael nodded, he knew that one. In that one Sophie got a good offensive spell, which she activated through Eizit, knocking out 4 out of 5 boars. Leaving Azael kind of waiting for his opportunity to do 7
After the storytelling, the group kept galloping. They were only 3 days and a half away from the Iron Gate.