Another three days passed before Orisa could recover completely. By the end of the ordeal, Kanai stopped being as red and embarrassed as he was at the beginning:
"Okay, time to harass your brawny back," he said and pulled a clean cloth and a bottle of water.
"Do you really have to say it like that? What about giving me a cloth massage? Or you can call it making a girl wet, I suppose."
"I see you are as lively as before. If you need to get yourself wet the rain is still here. Go help yourself."
"Boo, and here I thought we became family. You know, overcoming obstacles together in exile, living a poor but lovely life," Orisa rolled her eyes and made a tragic gesture befitting the best actors on stage, all while Kanai was working with her back.
"Poor? You can buy half the Carne village with your money."
"It's our money, Kanai, our war funds presented by our goddess Rita."
"Whatever, I'm done here."
Kanai went to the entrance of their hideout to clean the cloth while Orisa was putting back her bra and shirt. She couldn't help but chuckle from his innocent behavior of getting red and excited below the waist every time he saw her like that. Not that Orisa wanted to get naked in front of men, but Kanai's reaction was just too much to pass by.
"Do you think you can start moving again?" he asked a minute later, setting the cloth to dry on an improvised handmade rack.
"Of course, bro. Thanks to your tender care, I'm at one hundred HP again!"
"Are you embarrassing yourself on purpose?"
"Nay-nay-nay, the plan was to embarrass you."
"Yeah, we already know by now how good a planner you are," Kanai quickly got back at Orisa with a verbal touché.
"Jerk! Lecher! Pervert! Noble!" she burst out in a fake rage.
"Yes-yes. Okay, I'll go back to the village, resupply, and be back in two or three hours. The letters should be waiting as well. Try to be ready by then."
"Sir, yes, sir!"
"Urgh, I'm already tired of your excitement..."
Kanai left, and Orisa dropped back into her nest to warm herself and laze around a bit more. Various thoughts plagued her mind, but one of them became bigger and impossible to ignore, always jumping in front of her mental queue. Kanai.
'I wonder why he is like that. And what's going on between us.'
Outside of their harassing and toxic banter, the way Kanai treated her with such care and gentleness almost stunned Orisa. Despite that, all her subtle and not so subtle probing returned only one result - he wasn't interested in her physically. But at the same time, without a doubt, Kanai wasn't gay since his body was more than happy to see Orisa's feminine parts.
Her own reaction was also alarming. Mentally, she was appalled by the thought of associating with men. Her hormones, however, had other plans and thoroughly ignored their owner's ideas - not once during these days she found herself hot not only from fever, especially in the morning after sleeping the night skin to skin. To her shame, every time Kanai went away to do some chores or stretch his body, Orisa's hands immediately moved down to her panties.
Kanai, perhaps, had it even rougher than her, considering how average male body behaved near a half-naked woman. Various charitable but horrific thoughts frequented her mind, and she had to go on a mental rampage to throw these mad ideas out of her head.
Setting sexual matters aside, the way she felt around Kanai could not be overlooked either. She was at ease, calm, secure, and happy. Talking to him was like conversing with your own clone, albeit with minor differences. They understood each other well; they liked to talk or simply stay by each other's side.
'And what does it make us, then? A family? Best friends? Soulmates?'
---
---
The other party was having exactly the same internal debate, doubting and figuring his feelings and plans. Kanai had a hard time balancing between his thoughts and his needs. Several times his hands even moved on their own when he was half-asleep. Thankfully, Orisa wasn't awake either, which saved him from even more embarrassment.
Among other plans for the day, he also scheduled a visit to his room in the inn. Without Orisa to constantly keep an unintended eye on him, now Kanai would have a chance to release some of built-up stress and frustration, although his mental fatigue wouldn't leave as easily.
Several hours later, a well-fed, somewhat rested, and fully restocked Kanai left the Carne Village. He also paid a short visit to that bizarre family to inform them that Orisa was leaving. The kids were sad without a chance to say goodbye to their Big Sis and the parents gave him a mushroom pie with several fruits. Despite their rough start and limited time together, Kanai also found the family cute. In their own way, of course.
"Greetings, sir. Are you leaving on another patrol, sir?" asked the same senior guard when they encountered each other near the city's northern exit.
"I plan to give another round, and if there are no signs, I'll go deeper into the forest for quite some time. If anything happens, just inform my division. Can I trust you with this?" Kanai said in a serious tone. This play was getting on his nerves, but he saw no other choice but to continue.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
"Yes, sir! Please, take care."
And with that, the Carne Village was left behind.
---
---
"Now that we are relatively far away and all set, I'd like to further discuss our plans."
Orisa and Kanai were sitting at a campfire in front of a tiny tent. It was their fourth day after leaving the proximity of the Carne Village, and by Orisa's insistence, they had moved deeper into the wilds. To the west of the capital was an enormous area called the Western Reach without any cities or villages due to a high concentration of Beasts and lack of safe locations to establish a human habitat.
This location was a rather obvious choice when it came to running away from the Military. Still, Orisa judged it a safe decision for several reasons: first, the area was large, more than a hundred kilometers long and half of the size wide making any searches a complicated and almost pointless endeavor; second, the density of Beasts’ here added more difficulties for the potential pursuers.
They had set up the camp for the first time today, being content with only sleeping bags while sheltering inside caves or caverns. After looking for a suitable cave for an hour, they gave up and decided to unpack the tent and place it under one of the big trees that made this part of Western Reach. Its branches went as far as thirty meters away from the trunk, giving a lot of space relatively free of rain. Magic made everything somewhat easier, as well. They cut thin branches of nearby trees to make firewood and dried them a bit with Mana-made fire. Orisa also produced an improvised shelter from her Force Walls, creating a roof above the campfire. They no longer tried to hide their presence from Beasts as a part of Orisa's current plan.
"I can understand us getting stronger through Beast hunting, okay," Kanai began, while carefully steering a stew inside a pot hanging above the fire. As it appeared, he was a rather competent cook, not as good restaurant-level chief as their training camp squad mate Crion but skilled in cooking something edible from almost any ingredients. "I get it. But what's your global plan? Why are we god knows where? What are we going to do next?"
"Do you remember our goal? Our quest?"
"I do," he said after a long pause. It was the topic Kanai tried to avoid for the longest time, still doubting their chances and the whole idea of saving the world. "How are you so sure? Do you really think you can pull this off? And, please, what it is exactly you are trying to pull off? I don't see any dragons or demon lords here. Who are you going to fight to win this?"
"Kanai, I won't say that I understand your frustration, but at least I understand your doubts. For me, there is no other way. I can't sit and wait not doing anything at all. And as for the dragons, I know where to start. But to reach the place, we must get stronger, way stronger than we are now."
"You know the place? You mean the tower? No, wait..." Kanai looked at her with an overwhelmed expression, not wanting to believe what he just thought. "No-no-no, say I'm wrong. You don't mean to go there again?"
"I do," Orisa answered firmly and looked Kanai right in the eyes.
"For fuck's sake, you never learn!? I don't believe it. You can't be serious."
"There was no point in saving me if you only wished to live several months of peace, Kanai."
"You don't care, do you? About Iten, Onuki, about everyone else. You only want to be a fucking hero, a world-saving legend because anything else is not enough of glory for you, right?"
"I do care, but maybe in my own way. I care about them. And even more so about you, mate. That's why I'm doing this, that's why I'm willing to risk everything. If you think about it logically, is there any other way?"
"I'm sure there is, but you haven't stopped for a single moment to give it a thought since it won't make you a bloody martyr."
With that, Kanai stood up and stormed away into the forest. Orisa had a hard time keeping her temper under control. She wanted to say lots of mean things but knew better. Exploded like that because he was genuinely worried about her. Perhaps deep down, he even knew she was right but didn't want to go through the nightmare of seeing her hurt again. She understood all that and tried her hardest to not lash back at him.
Several minutes later, Orisa took the pot off the fire and left it on the ground before leaving to look for Kanai. She had no difficulties finding Kanai since her Mana sense range has increased to almost fifty meters. He was sitting on a broken tree trunk not far away from their camp, gazing into the distance with a depressed look.
"Let's go back. The food doesn't taste right without you," Orisa said, slowly taking place by his side on the improvised bench.
"So now I'm a bad cook?"
"Why now if you were always like that?"
"Ah, that's how it is, then. I see."
That sat in silence for some more time, each thinking their own things.
"I know you are worried and don't like the idea at all. I'm worried too, about the whole thing. And about you, as well," Orisa began.
"Wow, that's something new. How so?"
"Don't make me spill any more embarrassing things, okay?"
"Oh, so now you are embarrassed to talk to me? I see I see," Kanai said, slowly stretching his words. Orisa knew where this is going, which made her heart light again:
"You senseless and cruel jerk! Of course, I care about you so much. Way more than about anyone else," she spat out these words, and her face turned pink.
"So, you are saying that I’m more important than Tiana?"
"Probably the same, but in a different way," Orisa answered after a long pause. It was still hard for her to think about Tiana. "She is, well, like a daughter to me, I guess."
"Then, who am I?"
"Do you want me to die from embarrassment or something?" Without a doubt, neither of them knew how to name or even describe their relationship. After not saying a single word for a minute, Orisa suddenly continued, "I promise to back off if we find another way, or if someone can take the lead."
"Must be nice to promise something when you know there is no chance it could happen," Kanai said after a long sigh and stood up. "The food is getting cold. I don't want any more whining about my cooking skills."
"Then just git gud, kid."
---
---
The rain went from a waterfall to light and almost non-existent dripping. The pair was sitting by the campfire, enjoying its light and warmth. During their travel, they end up missing such a simple thing and now were catching up as if trying to store some of the warmth for future uses.
Fifteen Beasts attacked their camp today, and the friends made a quick work of them together. Kanai dealt damage with his Corrosive Ray, and Orisa kept his Mana pool from drying up. They also went on a trip across the surrounding area to try and round more Beasts, but nobody attacked them. On the bright side, they found a tiny stream of water and thanks to Kanai's disinfecting spell their water supplies were now limitless.
"Okay, give me a quick summary of your plan," he said after pouring another cup of tea.
"Yes, sir, at once, sir! We are in the first phase now," Orisa began, but Kanai quickly chimed in:
"At least not in the endgame..."
"Right, thank you. The first phase is simple - go find Beasts, smack them. When we become confident in kicking their butts, we move to the second phase."
"Which is?"
"Khe-he-he," Orisa released a creepy laugh, "I call it a One-time Beast Amusement Park."
"Okay, seems like you finally went senile. Good luck, was nice hanging out with you, ciao."
"I knew you would say that. Anyhow, after that, we are going to take a short break and then move to the cave. From there, I honestly don't know."
"Yeah, depends on how many limbs we would have by the end of this phase," Kanai sighed again. "Well, this is all great and fun, but we need to figure out how to sleep tonight. I mean, there is only one tent."
Orisa gave him a long look, and Kanai shivered from a mad glint in her eyes:
"What if... I put my bed... next to yours... Just kidding! Unless..?"
"Oh, for fuck's sake, Orisa! Why did I even bother asking? Sometimes I forget that you only look human, you filthy nerd."
"Bro, why are you fretting so much on this topic? I'm mostly used to your morning spear techniques, although I'd prefer full-plate underwear to keep myself from being pierced..."
"Okay, death it is, then."