The days of their small journey passed without much issue. The lantern was doing its job and drawing creatures in as they went, but anything that came their way had been small enough not to pose any real threat to a carriage going through the nearby road, and Thera was able to swiftly deal with them with her earth magic without much issue as they went.

It had just been dull and Ben couldn’t help but continue to reflect on what a waste of time it was for him personally to do this; instead of working to improve his skills or build better tools, he was acting as a tagalong for what was really more Thera’s quest than anything.

Not that he would want to leave her to walk through the woods by herself for a few weeks, there wasn’t a single thing he liked about that prospect, he just wished they’d been given something that could be done a little quicker as they tried to pass the time.

At the very least he had his enchantments to work on, even if he was beginning to have to stretch his creativity a bit to figure out what to put on the items he had. There were only so many things he could do to some knives and brass knuckles that would actually be worthwhile, and if he were to just keep building the same ones over and over again then he’d get less experience overall.

Let’s see, I think I’ve pushed enchantments with the time attribute as much as I can, the only one I haven’t combined it with yet would be space, but what would even be the point of that? Unless… Could I create the enchantment to collapse space instead of expanding it like I would for a bag? A knife that could draw in flesh to it would cause significantly more damage if it stabbed someone, wouldn’t it? Might as well tie in another skill as I do. Maybe sacrilege? Live the ultimate dream of making a god-killing blade? He thought to himself with a chuckle and assumed Myriad must have been busy since the thought didn’t draw any comments.

He took another moment to figure out what to do with the other three weapons in his hands before getting to work, experimenting with what he could do by both blending and weaving his mana as he went, trying to tease out what would be particularly efficient or if he was managing to get any unexpected results as he worked.

Though he believed he hadn’t gotten too lost in his task, doing his best to be aware of his surroundings as they went, he felt Thera give a strong tug on his arm.

“Ben I know you want to get the quest over with but you need to slow down a little, we can’t just rush through it,” She slowly told him, breathing slightly harder than he would have expected for the pace he thought he had been going.

“Huh, sorry I guess I didn’t notice while I was working, I’ll take a little break,” He told her, slipping his tools away since he’d been at it for hours by that point anyway and figured that giving his brain a little rest would help him have an easier time thinking of different enchantment options later on.

They continued on, Ben looking to certain points in the woods as they went each time a sound caught his attention, but since neither of them were seeing anything assumed it must have been the normal sounds of the woods until Thera grabbed him again.

“Seriously, why are you going so fast today?” She wasn’t exactly struggling to keep up, but if anything she was the one that typically needed to wait for him. She knew he was looking forward to getting to Anailia, but didn’t think he would be in such a hurry.

“What are you talking about? This is how I always-” Something clicked in his mind and he acted fast, pulling Thera in close to him as he threw his barrier bracelet to the ground, trapping them both in a space he’d originally designed to fit just one.

Thera readied her staff, assuming Ben must have seen something to react like that but with nothing in her field of view. “What is it? Did you see something?”

“Maybe nothing,” He admitted, though still feeling cautious. “As far as I can tell I’m walking my normal speed and we both know I’m not faster than you. I’m worried something might have been debuffing us.”

“Hmm, you did see unusually swift, but we would be able to feel the difference if we received a speed debuff by ourselves, I didn’t feel sluggish at all. Maybe you were buffed? Are you sure you didn’t feel faster or more energized?”

“No, normal,” He told her, going through possibilities in his head before coming to a conclusion he very much did not like. “When I spoke before, how did I sound? You seemed a bit slow to me.”

“Hmm? I guess you seemed a little fast. Wait, you aren’t thinking time magic, are you?”

“It’s my best guess, my resistance is so much greater than yours that even if we were both hit with it I might end up faster than you,” The barrier had his resistances tied into it on top of the ones he naturally had they would both be barely affected by it at this point, but if he was right then this really was a whole other problem.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“There shouldn’t be any creatures in this area with a strong time affinity though,” Thera said, sounding troubled and he completely understood why. Aside from the fact that creatures with time spells could definitely cause a much greater impact to travelers, it would also potentially signify the progression of a change to the forest they were already looking out for because of the stone ape, and a major one at that.

“For now why don’t we wait here a bit and see if anything feels like coming out.”

Thera agreed easily enough and they waited, watching patiently for anything to come out to attack, Ben struggling to reach into his bag to try and grab a tool in case anything came out as Thera tried to deal with the tightness of the situation, her back pressed against the barrier while her face was stuck in Ben's chest.

“Might I recommend making this to be slightly larger in the future,” She said after a bit, feeling less on guard and more awkward as anything failed to show up.

“Sorry, it didn’t occur to me that we might have to share this. Since nothing has come out yet there’s a decent chance it isn’t being affected by the lantern anymore since it would be reduced by the barriers resistances, want me to take it down?”

“Mmh, I’ve heard time affinitied monsters are typically tricky, let’s give it a little longer just to be on the safe side.”

Some magic just seemed more intuitive for different creatures to use than others, meaning that if something had one like space or time, a person that ran into them needed to expect more craftiness than they might get from something that used the more physical magics.

They waited a little longer, hoping something would come out to put their minds at ease, but as the minutes passed and nothing seemed to move they were prepared to give up, until they found themselves in a far worse situation than they’d expected to have.

They’d expected only a couple targets, but in the blink of an eye they were suddenly surrounded and Ben could only curse. Time spells couldn’t just slow things down after all, but also speed them up, and it seemed the human-sized, ferret-like creatures that surrounded them had taken full advantage of that fact to appear en masse.

The only positive was that of the dozen that surrounded them, three had managed to injure themselves, not seeing the barrier in front of them and slamming into it head first, but they were completely trapped. Bringing down the barrier would give them an avenue to attack, while leaving it up would keep them safe but trapped.

“Well, I may have messed up on this judgement call,” he tried to joke, though unable to help but feel worried. “On the plus side we have food and water, we can wait them out and hope they go to search for some easier prey.”

“We can’t just do that,” She told him with a shake of her head. “The whole reason we’re out here is to deal with any dangers that might affect travelers.”

“Then what are you thinking? Hit them from behind when they start to leave?”

“Lowering the barrier when they can raise their speed and lower ours sounds a bit too risky,” She said with a bit of hesitation before continuing. “I have a pretty bad idea, think you can trust me?”

“Of course.”

“Great, I’d say you should hold on, but I guess there isn’t really anything to do that on. Um, this will probably be fine,” She told him, lowering his confidence somewhat as she drove her staff into the ground and activated her spell. While she’d struggle to create it through the barrier, that didn’t apply to the area within, running her mana through the ground around them and raising both them and the barrier up into the air, bringing a few meters of earth with it.

Before the creatures surrounding them could react, she treated that giant lump of earth like she would any other earth bullet, directing her mana to smash into them each with a ferocious speed until the smarter of the beasts collected their wits and began to run, their speed enhanced with their magic, though meaningless compared to the sheer amount of mana Thera had at her disposal. Mana, but still no control.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Ben croaked out as the shaking and twisting of the boulder they were attached to kept throwing them both into one another as well as the barrier itself, with Thera doing her best to keep them in a mostly upright position but the stability getting worse with every tree they plowed through to reach their targets.

“Just a couple more and then we’re done,” She told him with gritted teeth, feeling the effects herself.

With one last burst of speed, she threw them at the last two as they raced off, turning both creatures into a pink paste as Thera brought them to a rapid stop with it done.

Too rapid. While she could control the momentum of the rock they were attacked to, the speed their bodies had picked up wasn’t lost. Ben was able to get his hand behind her head to keep her from smashing it into the barrier, but it didn’t protect her from his own momentum carrying him forward, smashing against her and hitting his face against the barrier himself with a loud thud.

The wind was knocked out of her but when she got her voice back she checked on Ben. “Oh gods are you okay? That sounded bad.”

“I’m probably fine,” He told her as he rubbed his head. “Just want to lay down for a bit after all of that.”

She set the boulder down, in a hurry to get out of the barrier so she could start healing him, but the moment the spell was canceled the rock rolled, leaving them at the terrible angle of almost forty-five degrees, head down.

Thera landed on him as Ben let out a grunt and a small, pained expression painted his face.

“Well, um, I guess I need a bit more practice if I’m ever doing that sort of thing again,” She said awkwardly, gently taking his face in her hands to start applying her healing magic to him.

“Mmh, maybe just a little. I’ll get us out of here in a few minutes, I just need to settle my everything.”