Chapter 30

Maracas

"Sacred Yorin is ..."

I glance over at the elf walking down the road beside me and grin. "Intense?"

Ayre swallows and gives a silent nod. After a moment, she offers, "Maybe it was just nerves. A priestess is strange enough, but you didn't tell me she was a sacred priestess."

I rub the back of my head as I try to figure out any obvious difference between Yorin and any other priest I'd met. Unfortunately, I come up blank and smile apologetically back. "Sorry, I don't think I know how to tell the difference ..."

She gives an exasperated pout, complete with drooping ears. "You really aren't from the empire ..."

"Eheh ..." I turn my attention ahead again, more serious. "Sorry if Yorin seemed a bit much, that's probably my fault. I know I'm ... a lot ... for her to deal with. I don't mean to be, and she's really a lot of fun when I'm not causing her trouble."

Ayre looks back at me with a puzzled expression. "What do you do that causes her so much trouble?"

I blink as my mind stalls on how to summarize the last month within a digestible sentence. "Uh, see, that's the problem. Like I said, I don't mean to be causing issues, so I don't realize I'm doing it until after I'm already in trouble for it."

A criticizing frown fills the archer's face at that. "Are you saying jumping dividers and tackling people aren't wrong where you're from, or is what you've done worse than that?"

I swear the back of my neck feels chill with sweat at that. "Eh, well, worse is such a relative term ... I told you I have a place in the village, I just ... did some work on it."

Ayre's face remains suspicious. "That doesn't sound bad."

"No, it really doesn't, does it?" I ask with a nervous chuckle. "Like I said, it can be hard to tell."

She watches me an awkward moment longer before looking forward again and changing the subject. "You travel very light, Remmi. Are you sure you have everything you need?"

I shift my backpack I got from Jentas with my shoulder at that. Inside is a good amount of rope, some food, and a sheathed hatchet. Besides that, my gun and my ammo, all I'm carrying is a simple dagger on my hip and a canteen clipped to the bag.

"Yeah, it's enough," I conclude. "I've gone out with less, the weather's nice, and it's not like we're heading out for a week. I've got everything I really need."

Really, I could have gotten away with bringing even less if I wanted to rely on the points store. Yorin and I both agreed, though, that it was a waste to do so when these things weren't even that heavy. Or expensive, for that matter.

Ayre is shouldering a somewhat larger bag. It's not horrible, but it looks bigger than it needs to be next to her slender frame. Not that she seems to be struggling with it. It's got a brace against her lower back to take weight off of her shoulders, a mount for her bow, and stops short of reaching her quiver at her hips.

"But what are you going to do for shelter," she asks. "What if it rains? Did you remember food? A change of clothes? Firewood? Fire starter?"

... Well, now I know why her bag's bigger.

"I don't think we'll see any rain for the next few days," I answer, looking up at the cloudless blue sky. "And if we end up being out so long we need to make camp tonight, I can build a campfire and any necessary shelter with what I've got."

The elf's eyes widen with awe. "You're trained in wilderness survival?!"

... Is that supposed to be impressive? I kind of figured bushcraft would be a really common skill in a world like this. "Um, I'm not sure I'd call this survival, but sure?"

I was decent enough at it before even showing up in this world, what from spending so much time in the woods growing up. I wasn't some deep woods survivalist or anything, able to survive in every environment with a pocket knife and a length of paracord.

I knew how to clean my water, though, how to start a fire, how to keep it safe, how to put up a tent, how to build simple structures. I trusted my ability to navigate, too, and I'd done my share of hunting and fishing.

Mostly, though, anything I wanted to do in the wilderness was still limited to the tools I brought with me. One of the general skills I had to pick up on the estate, however, was, in fact, Wilderness Survival. Now, with that and the other crafting skills I picked up, even the knife and cord may be optional.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Well, provided I'm around a forest, anyway.

I focus my attention back on Ayre. "I'd have guessed it a pretty common skillset for adventurers. Isn't it?"

She gets a look on her face that tells me I put her on the spot, but she makes a motion with her hand. "Ehhh, to some degree? Some more than others. I suppose you can count on most of us to start a fire or pitch a tent, but we're using strikers or magic for the fire, and somebody has to bring the tent. And we know what berries not to eat, even if it's just from experience."

Ayre shifts her shoulder to indicate the bow strapped there. "I'm good at hunting so long as I don't have to do the tracking, and monster furs are usually pretty good money, so I learned to skin them. But honestly? I've never really seen eye to eye with the outdoors. It's all itchy and bitey and windy and, and ... temperaturemental."

For her sake, with how embarrassed she looks, I hold back my giggle at her wordcraft. Still, an urban elf, whodathunkit. "Sounds like you prefer your bed soft, your walls insulated, and your ingredients from a store."

She actually lets out a full-body sigh, half slumping over with the release of tension. "Oh, Essence, yes ..." Then she snaps back up like she'd been caught using foul language, covering her mouth as she turns back to me. "Ah, is that bad?"

This time, I actually do chuckle a little, but I wave my hand back and forth to dispel the idea. "Not in my book, not at all. It's a really common preference back home. I'm considered the weird one for actually enjoying roughing it."

I scratch my chin in thought. "The weird part, if there's any, might be why you'd choose to be an adventurer, then. But I guess there isn't actually a whole bunch of travel, necessarily. A lot of work can be done right out of cities if you aren't taking on anything too complex."

Ayre nods energetically in confirmation. "That's right! And longer trips almost always reach a waystation by nightfall, that's the whole reason they're spaced that way. So you can still spend most nights in a lodge or an inn."

"Yeah, I noticed that on the trip to Dabun," I agree. "I expected more camping, but it was basically never necessary. We never left the road, though, either."

The elf's nod is slower at that one. "Yeah, all of those nice things go away when you go off the road ..." She brightens up a bit, though. "But that still means camping out a lot less often than you'd have to otherwise!"

That whole off-road bit is why we're not taking the wagon, despite how badly I wanted to test the new upgrades. It doesn't really work off of cleared, level paths, and the nest is estimated at only a few hours outside of town on foot. With trees and other obstacles, even just taking horses wouldn't save us enough time to be worth the expense, either.

It's probably for the best. I've been thinking of forging springs for the seats, too. Might as well wait until the whole package is done.

We're not on the road much longer before we're leaving it behind, but that doesn't mean we're tramping through underbrush. There's plenty of dirt tracks, and then we have game trails showing us the paths of least resistance.

For the most part, the worst we have to worry about are tree limbs that are high enough not to have bothered our four-legged predecessors. We're even able to take a break alongside a creek where we refill our water and grab a bite to eat.

We aren't on our way long after that, though, before I'm slowing down again, my neck craned back as I'm looking at the surrounding foliage.

"... Hey, Ayre ..."

"Hmm?"

I reach out and rub one of the leaves within reach between my fingers. It's stiffer than it seems like it should be, and the green isn't as vibrant as the Spring growth should be. Maybe it's just me, but it seems darker, like what I'd expect to see in early Fall.

"Do the plants here look kind of sickly to you?"

She trails my hand up to the leaves I'm holding and steps over to squint at them. "... Are they not supposed to be green?"

... Right. I'm just going to assume that's rhetorical.

I'm just about to try using Diagnose on the tree when an angry rattling my mind instantly associates with maracas comes charging toward us from the bushes ahead.

I throw one arm out to drive Ayre back as I draw my gun with the other. I barely register sharp teeth before I reflexively squeeze my trigger finger.

It'll only be later that I realize I don't hear birds and critters fleeing the sound of the explosion.

The maracas fly back into the bushes from the force of the impact and Ayre and I are left alone in the expanding silence as we both try to process what just happened.

Both of our hearts have slowed down by the time she finds words.

"What the [otso] was that?!"

I blink, trying to reason out the strange sound that left her mouth between the words I recognized. No matter how my mind twists it, it can't make it into a coherent word. Is that what an untranslatable word sounds like to others?

"... Otso?" I repeat back, aware that it doesn't come out quite right.

Ayre immediately clamps both hands over her mouth, loosening them only to let her words out. "Oh gosh, did I say that?!"

Okay, so it was exactly what the context clues made it sound like. Good to know I just added a new swear word to my lexicon.

"Don't worry, Ayre," I tell her with a roll of my eyes. "I don't know what it means." Instead, I motion toward the bushes. "But to answer your question, it was something with teeth."

"Not that!" She wheels on me like an accusation. "What did you do that made such an awful noise?!"

"... Oh." Yeah, I probably should have figured that was the bigger shock. "I shot it."

I bring the gun up for her examination. "It's a weapon from my homeland. I told you we don't have magic there. What you heard was a chemical explosion that launched a shaped chunk of metal at supersonic speed."

"... Supersonic?" Her nose is wrinkled up as she tries to puzzle out the weapon.

"... Faster than sound?" I try, and then she shifts her gaze to me like I'm talking nonsense again.

"Remmi, sound doesn't have a speed."

... Ah, right. I keep forgetting the difference in education. If this place is really medieval, calculating the speed of sound is still at least two or three centuries ahead of them. All progress being equivalent, anyway.

My brain re-engages a moment later, though. "Wait, how do you guys explain thunder traveling?"

"That's the movement of the air carrying it, obviously. Why, what were you tau--"

I hold a hand up for quiet as I turn back toward the bushes. I could swear I heard a sound like maracas rolling over.