237 Survive the mana season, I beg you! part After a full day under the harsh weather, Ryu was starting to fear things weren’t as simple as he initially thought.
When the weather became windy, he thought nothing of it. It was simply a mild storm, there was nothing to worry about. Except there was, it was a non stop whistling that left everyone deaf within the first few hours, their eyes were so dry they couldn’t afford to keep them open and, as if that wasn’t enough, they were starting to take constant damage.
It wasn’t as bad as a tree falling directly on top of them, just small pebbles that would find their way to their eyes or the soft spots in their skin by luck. It was nothing to worry about, as long as it lasted only a few hours.
But the winds were raging nonstop and there wasn’t any sign of them decreasing in power, if anything, it only seemed to become stronger and stronger.
“We need to get going!” Ryu shouted to the top of his lungs, but the strong winds made it impossible for Bardun to hear him. Besides, the chief goblin was already too busy helping his brethren since most goblins were so small they were having trouble to remain standing.
When Risa noticed Ryu was trying to speak, she quickly ran towards him, tapping him on the shoulder to catch his attention. It was impossible to speak, but even if it wasn’t, the ringing on their ears would have made it impossible for them to understand a word they were saying.
Fortunately, Risa had already experienced something similar.
She was summoned to a city near Celarent, it was only a few days of travel, but it was the farthest she had ever been from her hometown. She was acting as a ranger at the time, her duty was to keep the roads safe for travel and to check the woods on a daily basis. Rangers were like adventurers, but they were under the kingdom’s orders so she couldn’t refuse the kind ‘invitation’ she received.
The task at hand was nothing out of the ordinary, all they had to do was slay a wyvern that was wrecking havoc in the city of Belore. Although it was common for wyverns to attack that city from time to time, this one was determined to razing it to the ground.
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Risa had just been promoted to C rank and her main task was supposed to be support and rear guard, but as soon as the wyvern appeared most adventurers and rangers broke ranks forcing her to take active part on the subjugation. freewebno(v)el.com
Wyverns are strong, cunning and powerful creatures, they can fly, spit poison and they can also fight in land making them versatile killing machines. But that’s not everything, their winds carry an enormous air pressure that produced an effect similar to what they were experiencing now. Risa’s commander had taken preemptive measures and ordered everyone to tie themselves to a companion, thus reducing the chance of being sent to fly and it also helped them communicate.
Risa grabbed the end of a rope with her mouth and encircled Ryu who quickly understood what her intention was. He finished tying the rope to his waist and then tied it around Risa’s waist leaving about three meters in between them.
Then Risa tried to teach him how to communicate with it, but having no hands made it impossible to explain using hand signs. She waved her stumps in the air making no sense at all, forcing Ryu to interrupt her.
He tugged the rope one time and pointed towards his eyes, then two times and so on.
In the end it was something similar to what her previous commander had devised.
One tug meant ‘attention’, two tugs meant ‘are you ok?’ or ‘I’m ok’ if used to reply. One strong tug meant ‘danger ahead’. They also made some other ‘phrases’ to communicate, but it was nothing they couldn’t express with their body, like saying no or yes and only agreed on those signs just in case their visibility was affected too.
The beastkin girl watched everything they did with her mouth agape, despite the strong winds, and she imitated Risa bringing Ryu a piece of rope to be tied to him too. Being her first attempt of communication with Ryu, he happily complied and now he was tied to both Risa and the beastkin girl.
After a while it was clear that she didn’t understand a thing about the code they just came up with and tugged randomly on the rope with a smile on her face.
Both Risa and Ryu were surprised about her odd behavior, but they were glad for her nonetheless. It was weird, but at least she didn’t mind being tied up like last time.
It took some time to teach the goblins about their code, but being tied together not only solved their communication issues, it also helped goblins to stay earthbound, allowing them to resume their travel.
Ryu then noticed the absence of Famine, he was nowhere to be seen and they were already on the move. He attempted to activate mana sense, but it proved to be a huge mistake, making Ryu realize the reason why Famine was lost.
The air itself was filled with mana, so dense it was like staring at directly to the sun, something like that was extremely painful for a beast that relied heavily on his mana sense to track prey and guide himself. For Ryu, though, the shock was so sudden that he almost fell limp on the ground right then and there. Fortunately for Ryu, mana sense didn’t use a specific organ, it wasn’t like he could have been blinded, but he did feel awful and his head ached even more than before.
After a couple minutes to recover, he started to move towards what he believed to be the south. There was no way for him to know for certain that he was moving in the right direction, but it’s not like they had a choice. Visibility had became scarce and they couldn’t even fully open their eyes without getting hurt.
They moved slowly through the forest, being Ryu the one leading the group, taking turns with Risa as soon as he got tired. Every few minutes they had to stop to wait for someone, some goblins were having trouble keeping their feet in the ground and they were flying like kites.
The winds roared stronger by the minute, everyone’s health was decreasing at a slow yet steady pace and Ryu was starting to regret asking everyone to come with him. Each step became increasingly more difficult, walking against the powerful air current also drained their stamina so fast they were starting to feel hungry, even though they had enough to eat before setting off.
Impatient to reach a safe spot, Ryu remained on the lead position a few minutes longer than he should have, he tugged on the rope once to catch Risa’s attention and she took the lead position again giving him a much needed respite.
Thanks the the wind current flowing directly in front of them, they were able to reduce the damage taken and the fatigue by walking in a straight line. Things seemed to be going well, if it wasn’t for the fact that each turn was shorter and shorter.
Both Risa and Ryu were already tired and they were the only ones capable of withstanding the brute force of the nature.
After a while, the moment Ryu had been fearing for a while now became a reality. When he tugged on the rope, instead of getting a reply, the rope was loose. Risa fell face first to the ground, causing her a nosebleed.
The poor beastkin girl wailed and cried, she poked at Risa’s cheeks, but she wasn’t responding and her wails were lost in the wind.
Ryu attempted to pick up Risa, but he was already fatigued and he was unable to lift her from the ground. Calming down the beastkin girl was also impossible as he couldn’t speak to her because of the deafening noise. freew(e)bnovel
He was left with no choice but to tap her on the shoulder, but he feared that she might attack him if he touched her. When Ryu bought her and Bardun, he asked them to be delivered without their slave collars, but now he was scared of what she might do to him.
He was fatigued, low on health points and there was no one else strong or big enough to cover the strong winds with their bodies. All Ryu could do was place his hands on the ground, activate his earth magic and create some cover.
The natural mana was abundant which should have made things easy for him to alter the dirt, but if the winds on top were strong, the mana flow underground was unstoppable. As soon as Ryu expelled his own mana he noticed that his range had been decreased.
It didn’t mater how much mana he mustered, he couldn’t control it as easily as before.
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