————

This is rather annoying, yet I can't really do much with Caroline on my back—

"Mhmm, you missed." I innocently point out, as another of her firebolts was avoided by the swift flier that came very close to reaching us just now.

With me securing her in place she is free to cast spells without the fear of falling off, trying to shoot the annoying bastard from the sky, as we run along the road and among the low, rolling hills

"I know! Can barely see it through this damned fog, and you moving like this doesn't help." She flips after my comment. -Good, she is back to her usual self. Caroline was strangely subdued for for a while now.

—But we couldn't just leave her alone, not with that thing still up there; and neither of us wants to lead all these undead back to the cove where people are frantically preparing the ship, so dropping her off with them was also off the table. The sole reason we are even out here was to lure the threat away, so that's what we've been doing.

Using my superior mobility we were basically kitting the undead until this point. Would've been nice to group the mob together into a tight target, so they could be dealt with in one go. One big spell to get us rid of the nuisance...

Too bad this body I'm stuck with right now isn't the best for the task.

I realized too late that we are very limited when it comes to Magic right now.

That's the annoying part; this form's lack of magic, it feels almost like when we are under the effect of Empower - I must have messed something up during the transformation. To be fair this was a sort of experiment; the timing was just bad for doing something like this...

Attributes were altered, and my Mana Channels are in a disarray - no wonder considering this isn't a humanoid body, and it is messing with any more complex magic that isn't of Air element - that's the strange part, and even then I have to use Presence as a crutch to control the wind.

-Not checking the status after transforming was a mistake. When did I become so careless?

It's as if the Skill really just tried to turn me into a normal horse, and those are not very magical creatures. The strange, odd feeling I've got before altering it with Presence must have been its abysmal stats and lack of Magic.

Our cat-form had no such problems; we had little issue controlling mana with it. Does a cat simply have a much higher magic affinity compared to the horse, that seems only good with wind, or is there something else going on? The difference is staggering between the two forms and I will have to investigate that later—

"Say de— Red, what are you really? Back then—" Our passenger suddenly asks something odd, before growing silent and not finishing her question.

What does she mean? I'm a bit confused.

"Huh, what-?"

"Actually never mind. Forget I asked." Caroline cuts me off.

She is clearly lost in though after that non sequitur — what's wrong with her? She's been acting strange for a while.

—Anyway, I hope they are almost finished with loading up the damned boat, since I'm done; these people are plagued by bad luck and I can't wait to be free of them... not a single day of peace.

We can't ride too far away from the cove either, and risk running into even more of the roaming undead; we have already encountered a third marauding band at this point and it's getting hard managing them all. Having to keep a certain distance with our pursuers, so we don't lose this train, is also getting annoying as we pick up more and it leaves us open to attacks from above.

Yes, this game of tag has been going on for far to long already and we ran a fair distance, so there is no risk of them going after the ship now. Time to stop playing around; even if I honestly enjoy running freely like this, feeling the wind brush through my mane - eh, must be this body's influence.

—This should be far enough.

I take a sharp turn to the right, getting us off the road and start climbing up a low hill to the side; jumping over rocks and small shrubs while ignoring the protesting witch clinging to me for dear life. For now we will take a wide arc around the mob that still keeps relentlessly following us on foot, and turn back north so I can deliver on my promise.

*Tsk.

...And we still have to to come up with a solution to this air-born problem we are facing.

I focus my senses on the flier as they seem to prepare for another attack. Yes, dealing with them will be a pain—

> Wyvern (10), Skeleton (10).

-Identify won't show any details...

Back then, the thing diving from the clouds surprised me at first, as I wasn't paying attention to what's in the skies; no one mentioned anything about there being flying undead traveling with the hordes. -Damn, I'm really glad we were able to Blink together, without leaving Caroline behind; I had no idea whether it would work, never tested that— but there was no time to think and it was an emergency.

-Might have panicked a bit.

Thankfully, grasping at her with Presence, allowed me to take her with us through the space distortion... And with its target suddenly gone, the wyvern then crash-landed among the scrub throwing off its rider. Unfortunately, teleporting blindly ahead almost had me run into another group of enemies - this one accompanied by a spell-casting variant; something I actually hoped to find and study, but maybe not in our current circumstances.

That's when I discovered the Magic problem and decided that running was our best option, until I discovered what the issue was.

Too bad the fucking lizard didn't break apart on impact with the ground. When their first assault failed, the dangerously fast spear-wielding skeleton mounted back onto its wyvern after the reanimated beast untangled itself from the crash... Now they are circling above, hidden in the dense fog, swooping down on us whenever there's an opportunity and forcing me to avoid its long talons and the enchanted polearm; all while the rest of the annoying bastards chase us trying to get close.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

—Cursing as she's being rocked about, Caroline sends more fire after the approaching wyvern, her aim was good but this attempt got dispersed by the enchanted weapon of its rider, eliciting even more profanity from our current passenger.

> Skeleton (10), Beast-master (10), Knight (5).

I pick up my pace, racing for the top of the hill.

Besides the flying menace above, the rest of them aren't making it easy either. Since were are back in their range after abruptly turning around, I have to create a crude wind barrier to buffet yet another volley of arrows that came from the road and dodge a lance of stone lunched at us by the magic wielding skeleton.

This thing...

> Skeleton (10), Mage (15).

Peculiar, are their similar levels just a coincidence—? Hmm, unlike the beast-master who still kept his abilities, this one was raised as a seemingly generic undead; and it is classified as a Mage rather than a Witch that I'd expected seeing her reanimated bones. Hmm, I wonder why that is. Its magic is rather strange to my senses and not at all like the original's. It's also much different from Caroline's, but that might just be due to it being a corpse. The dark miasma swirling around the old bones is clearly affecting the spells.

That's another unpleasant issue...

It seems that my past is yet again here to haunt me.

The memory is fresh in my mind since I recalled it just the other day; I recognize that skeleton's weapon and its now not-so-dead pet. And despite many years passing, the robes on this caster also look familiar.

They dug them up... I'm not even surprised at this point.

—I can study it later when we don't have to worry about the mortal under our care. For now we need to deal with the wyvern that is a much higher potential threat to the ship and people at the shore; thankfully we have its undivided attention. Honestly, it is the only dangerous enemy around; all the other are just random skeletons - generic mobs really, with little intelligence that I could have left in the dust at any time if we didn't have to worry about them turning back and finding the ship.

This whole ordeal makes me consider picking up Necromancy, if just to learn how it works, but I hope we won't have to deal with undead anymore after today.

"How is the situation with the others?" Caroline asks, trying to spot anything in the dense mists after the wyvern abandoned its attempt when we hid behind the hillside after cresting the top before it could reach us; she can't see much in the murk brought by this clearly magical haze.

"We are too far away, but from what I could tell when we ran past, Marcus should have disposed of a few stranglers that wandered down there, most followed after us-"

The mist is no obstacle to me; I sense the undead started climbing up the hill, so it's time to head back.

"-I expect he will come looking for us when the ship is ready to sail." I finish while running downhill through the short grass, waving between short pines growing on its northern side, back towards the cove. "Despite my earlier promise, I'm sure the old man wouldn't let you to be left behind and will make sure to find us." I bet he is already worried we have been gone for so long.

"Ehem. Anyway, before that, we have to do something about this wretched thing." Caroline points to the sky, vaguely towards the dark, winged shadow that's back on or tail. "It has to go; or the ship won't be safe even on the open sea—"

She paused as I take a long jump down onto the road, forcing her to lay flat over my back. Another stone spike flying harmlessly above when my hooves hit the paved surface.

"-ugh, that was a long fall... So, any ideas about how to deal with it?" She recovers fast and asks. Her hair blowing in the wind as I pick up speed on the now empty road; no longer worried about leaving the undead behind. Mobility is this forms only advantage. -She actually started smiling.

"Mhmm, depends on how do you feel about playing a bait." This half-joking remark from me wiped it off. "My casting is seriously limited in this form, so you would have to get off."

The wyvern is getting closer despite me running at full speed. It has some control over wind that I'm sadly unable to contest right now. We still have two fireballs left in the Spell Matrix but that enchanted spear is a problem, don't want to waste them.

"Thought you were just fooling around-"

"Hold tight, and get ready!" On my warning she immediately focuses back and prepares another spell, mana flowing into her hands.

I jump to the side avoiding a lashing tail and a thrust of the long spear as the skeletal monster swooped over the road. Again, the blast of wind I've sent their way got dispersed by this enchanted weapon and the wyvern's own ability. Caroline is fast to throw a firebolt after them that narrowly misses one of the wings.

This thing is very good at avoiding attacks, some sort of skill or ability is at play there.

-It's fine. Soon we will leave Caroline with Marcus and wreck this fucker when I drop our transformation.

"Damn it, why can't I hit this wretched thing! As expected, even after death the kingdom's wyvern-riders are a pain to deal with." Her growing frustration is obvious as she curses at the retreating duo.

"Wyvern— rider? An apt name, but what do you mean? This kingdom is using such creatures?"

"Yes, it's an elite division within the military; knights that use wyvers as mounts to patrol and defend the skies, with best training and equipment Kora had to offer. We had some training and drills with them back when I still served-" She pauses, her face growing grim. "Seeing it like this is a bad sign, didn't expect how dire the situation was up north if the army started losing such valuable units to the undead."

"I'm pretty sure it's been dead for a long time, so it might not be that bad. And about hitting a fast flying target, something like a flak projectile would be much more effective."

"Flak— what is that? haven't heard the term before." She seems intrigued while looking back to me with slight confusion.

Right, maybe they have a different name for that. "You make your spell burst in the air, when it is near the target. Have it explode at a certain distance or set up a timer, maybe on proximity if you can manage that."

"Hmm, that's actually a very interesting idea— but I'm not sure how to pull it off on short notice- maybe if it was..." She frowns, thinking deeply on my suggestion as the hills pass by at high speed and we are back in a more flat terrain.

Here the undead rider will have easier time striking at us, and I can already sense it get in position for a next fly-by. Meanwhile, Caroline started to cast a much more complex spell than what she usually throws around, a more proper fireball this time instead of the simple firebolt -but it's unstable and there is something extra mixed in.

"You can see it up there, right?" She asks suddenly while trying to control this 'flawed' magic, and I nod at her question. " Tell me when it gets within— maybe around 30 meters, and where it's coming from."

Oh, she seriously went for it. Well, that's fine with me; we should be getting close to the path leading down to the cove anyway, why not let her have some fun and experiment with magic before we drop her off. I should have proposed to spot for her much sooner, instead of letting her waste magic on a target she can barely see, but I was too occupied by all the threats around and my own thoughts.

"Alright, I will turn to have it straight behind us and try to maintain the distance on its next assault, can you keep the spell stable until then?"

"Yes—" She is struggling a bit, good thing they are already coming.

The attack will come from the left this time— not ideal. I slow down almost to a stop, so the wyvern has to over-correct it's course, before turning slightly towards the coast and sprinting ahead through the low scrub, now having the approaching enemy right behind us. Caroline almost lost control of her magic during this maneuver but managed to hold on to it.

"Get ready— 50meters, 15 degrees up― 40– 30!" I'm running full speed now, focused on the skeletal pair zooming over the ground behind us.

Caroline immediately turned around and unleashed her improvised spell at the looming shadow behind us— as expected, the thing swiftly beat its wings and tried to barrel roll over the fast approaching ball of fire... It went almost perfect. The spell *exploded right in front and under the monster, engulfing both assailants in flames - she put quite a lot of her mana inside and even gathered some more from the surroundings.

Unfortunately she didn't manage to pull off a detonation, and the shock-wave was minimal; still, her fires cling to the target that's madly trying to gain altitude and leaving a smoking trail through the fog. Old bones and the parched, torn leathery wings of the dead flying-lizard being highly flammable despite the moisture in the air; the wind magic of its ability actually fanning the flames even more —Caroline learned how to add wind into her fire to make it stronger during the battle at the inn, creating an interesting effect where they feed on ambient air mana; her new skill.

I should have paid more attention to where we are going - or at least slow down, rather than watch the burning undead crash to the ground ahead and the triumphant fire witch on my back cheering at her success a,so distracted me.

We are almost back at the cove, and I can feel Marcus and others fighting ahead and down below... The path leading into the old quarry is going to the shore following a deep ravine cutting into the cliffs— the one right in front of me. -When did I become so careless? We break through past a fragrant bush and the ground is gone..

*Nyah!

I mewl out when we are now airborn.

"Eek, Reeed!" -Very cute Caroline, I can see the problem, thank you.

————