Chapter 36

The knights rode closer, the one named Cedric in the front. “Please allow me the honor to introduce our company. I am Knight Lieutenant Cedric of the Imperial Order of Paladins. With me are Knight of Grace Tilly, Sergeant Alycie, Knight Elyza, Knight Watkin, and Sergeant Otho.” He indicated each of them and they lowered their head slightly in turn.

Based on the names and their slimmer appearance, it seemed like half our escort were female knights. That was good. While knights are usually seen as honorable, and their leader definitely gave off that impression, there was no guarantee that the subordinates would have been the same. I wouldn’t want to have to deal with an all male knight escort and any possible things they might do while completing their ‘duty’. It would be a problem if I had to break soldiers of the country, after all.

“It is an honor to meet all of you. We are most grateful for the escort.” Tasha responded. “We can’t really introduce all the children, but the other three adventurers are Fran, Steph and Tiara. Seri and I have already introduced ourselves.”

“I understand. We shall split up and two of us will ride at point and the rear of the group. One of us will also ride on each side. If the five of you will then oversee the children more closely, then I believe this to be the best division of power.” Cedric stated.

“We are fine with that.” Tasha replied.

“Then let us be off! We don’t have far to travel until we are out of this forest and then the threat of further ambushes will be greatly lessened.” Cedric said.

The knights split off to their positions and Tasha went off to talk to the other adventurers. The kids were looking at the knights in wonder. Not surprising really. I mean even I had to admit that just by looks alone they were impressive. I had no clue about their level of actual ability though, which was much more important.

Now that all the hassle had calmed down, I was finally aware of the fact that Rie had hidden herself behind me ever since the knights showed up. “Rie, are you alright?”

“I don’t like adults.” She replied.

“I am an adult as well, you know.” I said.

“Miss Seri doesn’t look much older than me. Also, you don’t lie to me, so you’re not like those shitty adults.” She answered angrily.

She sounded very sure of the fact that I had never lied to her. I know she hasn’t made even a rudimentary psi connection with me to know that. I would have noticed something that obvious. Perhaps she was using her psi to enhance her own intuition as well? “I see. Why don’t we ignore all this and go back to practicing. I think you’re very close to success.”

“Yes! I promise that I’ll absolutely get it this time!” Rie said excitedly.

At least her motivation was high. It still took another hour before she got it and what came out was more like a sputter than an actual proper emission. She immediately fell forward after doing so and I caught her. “Nice job, Rie. You managed to send some psi out consciously.”

“So dizzy! Now I have to try harder and touch it right?” Rie replied.

“Not really. The important part was whether or not you took note of the feeling of focusing and sending out your psi like you did on that last attempt. What did it feel like to you?” I inquired.

Rie looked down and whispered, “It felt like I was using a water pump.”

“What about for actually shooting the psi out? Was it the same feeling?” I asked.

“Not really. I don’t know what that felt like. That part was confusing.” She answered.

“Alright. Then let’s take a short break before we try again.” I said.

“I want to try again though!” Rie complained.

“Rie, you might not have realized, but you can barely walk upright at the moment. If it wasn’t for me holding on to you, you’d have fallen over. You need to recover before we try again.” I stated.

“Sorry.” She apologized.

I ruffled her hair. “Nothing you need to apologize for. This is normal. If anything you’re very skilled to get it already.”

One of the female knights came over leading her horse. I didn’t bother remembering their names. Rie hid behind me again. “Is the child alright? I saw her stumble and she seems unsteady.”

“She’s fine. She just got a bit dizzy from the long walk.” I replied. “How much longer until we’re out of this forest?”

“The edge of the forest is close. After that you will be able to see the capital in the distance.” She assured me.

“Oh, sounds good. I’m looking forward to it.” I said.

“Will this be your first time to view it?” She asked.

“Yes. I’m basically a wanderer. This has been my first visit to this country. It seems like a nice place. Better than some I’ve gone through.” I answered.

“Yes, our Empire is marvelous. Please look forward to the capital. I’m sure you will be pleased.” She boasted. Afterwards, she nodded again to me and returned to her position.

I took a glance behind me and saw some of the knights conversing with the children. Doesn’t that get in the way of their escort duty? They probably can’t help it with how the kids are jumping around them though. Excited, happy children are a fearsome foe for adults.

Like the knight girl said, the edge of the forest wasn’t far away. We got to it about late afternoon or early evening. After we exited the forest, and since the forest’s elevation was a bit above the area ahead, it allowed me to get a good scope of the area. It was a truly breathtaking sight. Plains that led into a gigantic amount of farmland that could be seen in the distance. Then there was what looked like a man made mountain beyond that. That city was huge. It looked like it had multiple wide levels. To the right of the city, I just saw a wide expanse of blue. Was that a sea or possibly an ocean? The most eye catching feature was definitely the white tower that stretched even above the rest of the city and into the sky.

So that was that dungeon Seran had mentioned. I felt my game explorer’s excitement burst out. I wanted to climb it! I wanted to see what was at the very top! Damn it! I want to do it, but doing it will get in the way of my mission! Why does life have to be so unfair!? Ahh, mission be damned! I’m going to be in the capital for a while. I’ll take some time to see the inside at the very least.

Knight girl had returned while I stood still and took in the scenery. “Quite spectacular is it not? Regrettably, despite how close it might appear, we’re still too far away to reach the city with it already being this late. We’ll have to stop for the night soon.”

“Yeah. It definitely wouldn’t be good to push the kids that hard.” I replied. Another night would let me pound the last bit of the basics into Rie. “Where will we stop?”

“The brush is cleared away from the road on both sides, so anywhere is fine. If we were further along we could have stayed at one of the farms, but those would be out of reach for today.” The knight girl answered.

“Do you mind if I ask a different question? Why don’t you clear out this forest here. It seems like it’s pretty unsafe to have a decently sized forest here unchecked. Especially with a major highway running through it.” I said.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“That is true. It can be troublesome to deal with at times. Bandits are rarely an issue, since we send regular patrols through the area, two or three times a week, to remove hostile beasts and any other lurking threats. Those bandits you took care of must have been lucky to sneak in between sweeps.” She explained.

“That still seems like a lot of extra work to do.” I replied.

“The other reason is that the Founder laid down the directive that forests should be preserved as much as possible. At the same time he told us that managing forests was also important. Cutting down older trees to be replaced with newer trees would keep the forests healthy, along with other rules to follow. There were times when we had to go against that directive to establish cities, but all the more reason that we keep certain forests while patrolling them to keep them safe. The fact that a large bandit group was able to infiltrate and raid in this forest creates a question that will need to be answered.” She clarified.

“The more I hear about the Founder, the more that he seems like a very wise person.” I responded.

“The Empire would have fallen many years ago if not for the wisdom the Founder left behind when he left to his eternal rest. His descendents have all striven hard to reach the high standards that his example established and the Empire has flourished for it.” She stated. “Excuse me, I must speak with Knight Lieutenant Cedric.” She rode toward the front where Cedric was leading.

“Rie, she’s gone. You can come out of my shadow again. Are you really that shy around all adults?” I asked.

“Just the ones I don’t know. Those knights hide their faces. It’s unsettling. I can’t trust them.” Rie commented.

“If you say so.” I responded. “Let’s relax for now until we set up camp for the night.” I ruffled her hair again. Coa whined at that, so I gave her some affection too. That devolved into both Rie and Coa fighting for it, and was only resolved when they started giving each other affection instead.

Rie was ecstatic when I let her hold Coa and the two of them played together for about an hour. They couldn’t play anything complex, but they made do with some simple things. The most amusing one was when Rie would toss a pebble to Coa and Coa would then bat it with her wing, sending it flying. I wasn’t sure what they were doing with that game until I noticed that the pebbles seemed to keep going in the same direction. Her brother was dodging them while grimacing. Rie was smiling widely as she continued to bombard her brother with Coa’s assistance. I was actually surprised he was letting her get away with that, but then I caught a slight smile on his face between shots. He must be putting up an act for his sister’s enjoyment.

Some of the other kids were looking at Rie and Coa enviously, like they wanted to play too. They were still all too afraid of me to come closer though. I have no idea how Coa would respond to being swarmed by kids. She likes attention, but so far that has always come from one or two people at a time at most.

About an hour later, we settled in to stop for the day. I thought it was a bit early, but I think the knights decided stopping here was best for the kids. We still would be getting to the capital around midday tomorrow, so it was not a problem. Some of the knights helped with food preparation, along with a few kids helping as well. Quite a big contrast from earlier this morning where the adventurers had to do all of the work since the kids were still nervous about everything that had occurred. They were definitely more chatter happy tonight.

The knights were going to swap off the watch in groups of two, which was nice for me. Hurray for sleep! I’ll make up for the fact that I’ve been awake for forty or so hours tonight. After I teach Rie, anyway.

With dinner done, Rie and I moved a distance away from the rest of the group and I had her sit in front of me so we were sitting face to face. Some people watched us, but no one stopped us. Besides, from the point of view of everyone else, Rie was probably safer by me than anyone else she could be near. “Ok Rie, it’s time to continue your lesson. First we’ll repeat what we were doing earlier and this time I want you to hold onto that feeling of pumping water like you had when you succeeded. You said you had problem with the actual emission step, so this time I’d like you to put together an image of some type to push your psi out of your body. Could be just about anything. Shooting an arrow from a bow might work if you can visualize that. Understand?”

Rie nodded. “I think so. An image to focus on...” She closed her eyes for a few moments. “I can do it, Miss Seri! I’m ready!”

“Alright. Here we go.” I put the small tendril of psi in front of her and she narrowed her eyes.

I felt as her psi concentrated properly. It was building up rapidly, but hopefully she didn’t overdo it. She doesn’t need too much psi for this exercise. I should have warned her about that. Oh well, I’ll warn her next time and it will be part of the next step, too. As long as she doesn’t lose control of it, it should be ok? The next part would be the hardest for her, since it seemed like her earlier success might have been a fluke.

Contrary to my expectations, I felt a forceful push of psi rush forward from Rie which impacted, my own psi dispersing it. Wow! That was phenomenal. I guess maybe it wasn’t a fluke after all.

“Excellent job, Rie. Let’s do it once more to make sure you have it down.” I said.

Rie nodded, but now I noticed she was sweating pretty hard. She seems determined so let’s just proceed. I put out a slightly stronger and more stable coil of psi. Let’s see what she can do to this one.

She repeated her previous effort perfectly, except she couldn’t dispel my own psi this time. She sighed as she fell backward from her sitting position. She was breathing really hard. “Sorry. I wasn’t able to… get it this time.”

“No, you did well. What image did you use for your psi? It was well formed and solid, from what I could recognize.” I inquired. Rie instantly blushed red to her ears and turned her head. She mumbled something I couldn’t make out. “You need to speak louder, Rie.”

“...wings…” She murmured again, a little louder this time.

“Wings?” I asked.

“I imagined having my own pair of wings just like yours!” She cried, blushing even brighter and covering her face.

An interesting choice. She based her psi on what she saw of mine. That does make sense in a way. I had a large initial impact on her. It does make this even easier for me if she visualizes her psi like mine. I picked up a canteen I had borrowed from the supplies. “Rie, here drink some water. We need you to recover.” She sat back up and took the canteen from me. She started greedily drinking until she started choking and sputtering. “Hey, don’t drink that fast! After you finish, get back in position in front of me and just take some large and calming deep breaths for a while. You probably have a headache or dizzy feeling again, so do that until it is gone.”

She nodded and sat the canteen back down. She closed her eyes and did as told. Her psi is still pretty limited, so it didn’t take her long to fully replenish herself.

“Take a little bit more time and just listen for me to explain this next step. In the previous exercise, you let your psi build up a lot before using it. Actually, in all honesty you overdid it and expended too much, to the point that you seriously drained yourself. Rationing your psi is imperative. For this one, I want you to focus just a small amount and then release it with each breath. The goal for this one is to use your psi in a steady rhythm. Time it as closely as possible with your breaths and use the same amount of psi each time. It doesn’t matter how long or how short your breaths are, what matters is to keep them coming at the same rate. Did you follow that?” I questioned. “Don’t hesitate to ask for clarification if you need it.”

“Miss Seri, can you show me how you do it? As an example.” Rie spoke hesitantly.

“Is that all? That’s not a problem. Here I go. Watch carefully now.” I said. I took normal breaths and with each breath I discharged a pulse of psi that radiated out from me in all directions. Breath and pulse and repeat. I kept the rhythm up for a few minutes and Rie was watching me closely. I took one last breath and stopped. “Do you think you can do it now?”

“Yes. I’m certain I can do it now, Miss Seri!” She pumped her arms to show her eagerness.

“Ok then begin, but be prepared, I’m going to stop you the moment I see you make a mistake.” I warned her.

It took her a while to keep a constant breath. That was her main problem. Her psi was pretty much spot on, but she had trouble keeping it in time with her breathing. She kept fluctuating too much between slow, deep breaths and quick, light breaths. As for her psi, the feeling of pumping water was likely helping her keep a regular frequency there. She seems to have quite the natural talent, which helps a lot too. She finally mastered it pretty late into the night. The other kids were already asleep, except for her brother, and one of the adventurers was awake talking with the knights on watch.

“Yes! I did it! What else do I need to do, Miss Seri?” Rie asked.

I poked her head. “Now, we go to bed, you overachiever. It’s already late and your brother is waiting for you to go to sleep so he can sleep too.” I told her.

“Oh. I wanted to learn more!” Rie complained.

“Sorry, Rie. This is probably as much as I can teach you for now. From this point on, you’ll need to repeat this breathing exercise sometime every day. Maybe right after you wake up or before you go to sleep. Whenever you can reasonably fit it in every day. Do it as long as you can. It will help your development. If you don’t do it, there can be serious problems that will arise in the future. So please promise me that you’ll keep practicing this.” I stated.

“Alright, Miss Seri, I promise. Do we have to go to sleep already though? I want to talk more! I want to ask you about your adventures! I bet you have all sorts of tales!” Rie excitedly asked.

“We have all the time tomorrow to chat before we get to the city, Rie. Just calm down and let’s get some shuteye alright?” I said.

“Okay…” She grumbled.

“Here, I’ll let Coa sleep with you and you can sleep on my lap again. Does that satisfy you?” I asked. I held Coa out to her.

“Yay! Come here, Coa!” Rie took her from me with a smile.

I spread out the blankets and then let her lie down with her head in my lap. Coa was lying on her chest in her arms. I took a second blanket out and covered her and me. Her brother set up his own blankets and lay down close to his sister.

I yawned. Time for me to get some rest as well.