A few days have passed here on the Barren Lands, the desert I reincarnated, we often cross paths with monsters, when I asked about it Ayla explained:

"What you call mist is actually their aura leaving the body after death, the reason there's nothing left afterwards is because most of the monsters in this area are constituted solemnly by aura, no flesh at all. You're included in that group, that's why you can regenerate half of your body like that."

"So I'm just an agglomeration of aura that happened to form a body?"

"Well, demons are agglomerations of aura, but not 'just', you didn't come to life out of nowhere I imagine."

"I broke out of a bubble with red liquid."

"Those are called Demon Sprouts. They agglomerate aura and give it a conscience, then a demon is born."

And so I learned about how I came to life... About the 'regenerate half of your body' incident... Ayla tried to teach me magic without teaching the fundamentals, come on, who says 'externalize aura and create strings the same shape of this' while showing me a magic circle.

No need to note how it didn't work, the magic backfired and half my body was blown to smithereens. Then I regenerated, to the exasperation of Cass and Elijah.

This kind of interaction happens on the daily, when night falls Ayla uses Terrain Sorcery to build tents and then Inferno Sorcery to create a fireplace and warm up the rocky tents, then they just sleep on the ground. Can't have a luxurious life out here in the middle of nowhere I guess...

Then they eat while chatting or in silence, when you're together all day every day, sometimes you run out of conversation topics. After that these three go to sleep, I stay up to keep looking out for monsters. Ayla was concerned before because even though I can't sleep I can still get mentally exhausted, not physically though, that's impossible.

I explained that I just need to rest while awake, this way I don't get mentally tired. The two boys weren't that pleased to sleep with a demon so close by, so during the first nights they just stayed up while laying down, pretending to sleep. By now they realized I'm not going to stab them in the back, so they are finally able to get a good night's sleep.

How did I know they were pretending to sleep? Well, during one of Ayla's lectures about the fundamentals of magic (after 'that incident') I picked up how to channel aura around my body, that's what made my punches strong against that troll and the giants I've fought, though those I made intuitively.

Seems like if I channel aura to my ears, I can hear even heart beats if the ambient is quiet enough. When I questioned Ayla about it she said:

"Oh, you picked up one of the fundamentals of techniques! I'm not too knowledgeable in that field but Cass is a pro with those, maybe he can teach you?"

"...Maybe another time."

And that was the end, I didn't have the guts to bring the subject up again so I still don't know what techniques are.

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Some days ago grass started to appear among the sand and now we entered some kind of plains, no sand anymore! though the grass is quite yellowish, probably thanks to the hot climate here.

But more importantly we reached what Cass called the 'checkpoint'. Ignoring what the name makes it sound like, it's just a stone pole with a rocky horse stable with food and water almost running out and three horses.

In the end that's something Ayla created with sorcery to keep their horses until they left the Barren Lands, as it would be dangerous for everyone to bring them in. Keeping them safe while fighting off monsters would be quite the challenge.

From then on the travel was quicker. To test my physical ability I tried to run against a sprinting horse and... I'm slightly slower but I win in endurance. Of course, I am incapable of getting physically tired.

According to Elijah, the next day we're supposed to reach the village of their quest, he also took the time to explain how I need to keep my aura condensed inside all the time. Not doing so would only cause trouble to the villagers and could result in them hunting me... Well, he does acknowledge that it wouldn't be much of a problem to me, but that could put people actually capable of taking me down on my track.

That night something weird happened: A giant boar and salamander appeared during nighttime, changing areas actually changed the variety of enemies, who would've guessed... Wait, that's not the point. My aura control isn't perfect so there's always a little bit leaking, and both Cass and Ayla let their aura leak during night because it fends off weaker monsters, meaning these two here aren't afraid of that?

Well... I imagine these three will have much to do from tomorrow onwards, so it's best to let them sleep. I grab my baton and channel aura so my scythe forms, I've taken quite the liking to it. The spear mode is probably more useful in combat, but the scythe is cooler, so that's my choice.

I accidentally let my aura leak, making the two creatures scared, with that opening I rush and swing from the top, chopping off the head of the boar, one down.

As I step down in order to rush towards the salamander, flames come gushing over me, I try to defend myself to no avail, I jump out of the way just as the flames disappear, so this creature can produce fire huh... Ah, I'm burning! I need to end this quickly and put the fire out!

The flames come to me from the monster's mouth again, As I'm already on fire a bit more shouldn't be a problem so I rush into the flames and pin together the upper and lower jaws. The flames burn the insides of the mouth, the body is moving all around, trying to escape but it's useless.

You see, the scythe went through the brain, even if I let it go, it'll die.

As the body stops moving I pull the remaining aura out of the weapon to separate it from the monster easily, then I activate it again, and chop off its head... Just to be sure.

Then I make my clothes disappear along with the flames on them and slap the burning parts of my body to extinguish the fire.

"Ayla, is something happe-" - A sleepy voice speaks to me, it's Elijah of course. I create some clothes in the blink of an eye so he doesn't see me naked, the burned parts are still healing though.

I tried to be silent here in order to not wake them up, but he probably heard the fight anyway, beastman have naturally enhanced senses after all.

"Don't worry, just some monsters, I took care of them."

"Wh- Is that a monstrified boar and salamander? I'd need to wake Cass or Ayla up to deal with this... Hahahah, you're in their league too, it seems..."

"Uh, yeah, sure... You should go back to sleep, there's much to do tomorrow isn't there? Sleep a full night at least. Everything here is taken care of."

"My... My head hurts... There's another crazy strong person in the party hahah... Does she even count as a person, I wonder?" - Says the half asleep beastman as he goes back into his tent. Though, you could've left the last comment out, couldn't you? So mean...

Later during morning both Cass and Ayla were shocked with the two corpses lying down by the tents, Elijah was face-palming and saying 'So it wasn't a dream, huh'. But that's a story for another day.

—

We finally reached the village of their quest. It's not too big nor developed, it seems like merchants and adventurers go through here often, stay the night and then move on, that's why there's both a Merchant's and Adventurer's Guild branch here, as well as multiple inns and taverns.

I wonder what the heroes have to do here...