This immediately makes me sad, most likely I will not be able to take Kechara off this mountain. Just the thought of having to say goodbye to her is enough to make me start crying. Since Kechara is still young and I don't really know how long I will be on the mountain I decide to delay telling her.
If I wait to tell her, hopefully she will be more mature and have an easier time understanding. I know it is going to break both our hearts but if it can't be avoided all I can do is try to make it easier. Easier for Kechara anyway, my heart is already broken just by thinking about it.
When I open my eyes I see Kechara's worried eyes staring at me, I quickly wipe my face and tell her nothing is wrong. I am not lying to her, nothing is wrong right now, my tears are for future problems. Pushing all that to the back of my mind I calmly explain the rest of what I found out to Kechara.
The original amount of energy was only meant to bring her to being a sacred beast. The addition of my energy turned her core into a sacred one straight away and the remaining energy joined what was already in her core. This means it should at least take her to rank two, maybe higher if I feed it more energy.
It will remain a slow, gradual process but since Kechara isn't done growing yet that is probably the best way to do it. I think I can extend the process to allow her to go to higher ranks by feeding my power into her core. However, that would mean stopping my progress with my own core so I will probably wait to do that until I reach rank four.
Since Kechara has a little sacred power, about a hundred, I do teach her how to feed it into her core. I tell her to only do it before sleeping and only if she is in a safe place, since it will lower her ability to defend herself. This way even if I am not around to feed her core she will be able to advance at least a little bit farther.
After talking to her for a while longer about what I know of sacred power and cores I start cooking lunch. While lunch is cooking I have her start practicing flapping her wings, even though they are still growing she can start developing her muscles. Then after we eat lunch I spend the rest of the day continuing her combat training.
Now that I know we will probably be forced to part I am even more serious about teaching her how to fight. With Bones helping I even work on teaching her how to fight multiple enemies at once. While Kechara is obviously having fun she is also taking it seriously enough that it eases my worry a bit.
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Seeing how fast she is progressing in a week or so she should be fairly proficient in combat. Even if I get to rank four before then I think it will be worth the extra time to finish training her before I head to the temple. Since I have no idea what I will have to face in the temple it will be much better to have her fighting beside me instead of having to protect her.
By dinner time she is really worn out so I dismiss Bones and head inside to start cooking. She follows me inside and after having a long drink that empties the basin she lays down next to me and watches me cook. Seeing how tired she is I decide to double her portion size, since she is still growing I figure she probably needs it.
While her rapid growth still worries me I haven't seen any negative effects so far. Besides, the bigger she is the more she will be able to protect herself. That and once she learns to fly she will have a major advantage against most things that might bother her.
Since the driders I saw didn't have any ranged weapons or spells a flying enemy is probably their worst nightmare. If any of the barriers were to fail it would be the guardian's job to kill any that escape, so that was probably intentional. The guardian was probably designed to be the best possible weapon against the driders.
Thanks to our little adventure Kechara will at least have seen what they are like if she ever ends up having to fight them. The thought does cross my mind that if I wiped out the driders and whatever is making them that Kechara might be freed from the mountain. Considering their numbers and how much I still don't know about them I think that is probably outside my capabilities.
However, that is how things currently stand, I still have years before the war with the demons, who knows what might happen. I also can't help but wonder if I will still die after the war, I doubt the goddesses expected me to become a sacred beast. Maybe if I become strong enough I will be able to live on without Krenocia's power.
At least that is what I am secretly hoping, although I am trying my best not to get my hopes up too much. I really like this world and I have come to enjoy this life, especially the people I have met. Lizzy and Kechara are counted among those people, even though they are technically beasts.
Once the food is done cooking I stop thinking so much and just sit back to enjoy my food. For once I have made enough that Kechara doesn't end up stealing half of my dinner. By the time she is done eating she can barely keep her eyes open, she doesn't even protest when I tell her to go to bed.
After she climbs into her nest I pull out the book and work on my translations. I am finally getting to the point that I can slowly puzzle out words instead of just going letter by letter. If I am not completely wrong then it seems this history book is starting thousands of years before the humans arrived.