Chapter 14 - WE RIDE

Adrius and Courtney's friends were colorful to say the least both figuratively and literally, no one had the same goddamn hair color or at least the same combination. There were three in total, there were two girls and one guy. The guy,whose name was Simon, seemed relaxed, almost a permanent state of relaxation. He had shoulder length green hair that was tied in a messy ponytail. I had some doubt about his combat potential until he said he found a fly annoying and a fly was impaled by a needle 10 metres away.  The two girls appeared to be exact opposites. One had long blue hair and the other had short orange hair. The one with short orange hair, her name was Jennifer,  seemed discipled and carried a broadsword that looked comical when she held it, however I had the feeling not to laugh in front of her...I wasn't scared. The one with blue hair ,Alissa, was someone I would admit to be scared of, she liked knives to a point of fanaticism. She had two foot long knives as her main weapons but I was sure she had many many others hidden away, I even saw her securely store a knife on Courtney without her noticing.

There reactions to me were a nice surprise, it was lackluster. Usually a student tried to butter me up in hopes of receiving my favor and I have to say while it is nice to be respected it gets somewhat old. I had a feeling this trip would be a fun one.

Courtney and Adrius both had a carriage each, guys in one and girls in the other I had initially planned to ride on Flynn but when I saw the interior of the suspiciously lackluster carriage I decided to stay in the carriage. Some sort of magic had been worked as the interior was nearly double the size of the exterior. I could see some of the magic formations and made a mental note to study them during the trip, perhaps I could gain another elemental core from my efforts. To top it off there were couches and beds and multitudes of other comforts again another aspect that tipped me in favour of riding in the carriage opposed to Fynns rather uncomfortable back, in the long term at least. The cat in question actually loaded himself into the carriage as well to enjoy the comforts, lazy ass cat.

Setting off I got some greater detail about where we were going. We were heading towards one of the large untamed forests that held a huge natural bounty for those who could survive. We were scheduled to pass through a fairly large city and then delve into the forest, the time it would take to get to the forest was half a month and seeing it was a 6 month journey total we had 5 months in the forest. We were going to make a quick stop in the city to buy some supplies and I was fairly interested in what stores in the city sold being the country bumpkin that I am.

We had been traveling for a few days and throughout that time I had continuously been trying to decipher the spell formations on the side of the carriages. However it was proving more difficult than I had previously thought. Somehow the spell script was blurred, it seemed to be someone's spiritual force actively resisting my attempts at understanding the spell formation. Needless to say it was very annoying.

On the fourth day something straight out of a fantasy novel we were besieged by bandits, however according to the alarm on my compatriots faces I realized something I hadn't considered before. Due to their age it turns out they had only done practice battles and had no real experience killing anything, while saying that I realize the same could be said about me excluding crazy plants of course. However with the scary number of bandits outside it seemed to flip some sort of switch in Adrius who was, out of all of us, the most powerful. He decided apparently to go berserker style and flew out of the carriage and began to attack, Simon sighed and followed after him and began fighting with scary efficiency, I began to doubt my previous thought about lack of fighting experience for him specifically. Jennifer and Alissa excited their carriage and began fighting as well, and then I saw Courtney enter the fray and was suitably terrified after finally seeing her fighting style. Her fighting style of which she wantonly swung a metal club the size of Lester around.

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Breathing in and out I also exit the carriage, I also needed experience in battle. As I exited the carriage I manifested my defence spell loosely termed “entangling roots” 5 roots half foot thick roots appeared around me. I also formed 8 fire bolt spells in a horseshoe around the front half of my body, I initially felt like making a circle around me but how could I aim my spells behind me. The roots did their job efficiently, whipping into bandits that charged towards me making them retreat, I found with a large sum of spiritual force I could forcefully take over a root for more fine control meaning I could grab and throw bandits with one root, unfortunately that also meant forgoing the fire bolt spells otherwise there was too much of a drain on me. I elected to keep throwing fire due to the fact it was awesome and fun. The fire bolts when hitting a bandit made a very satisfying impact, often blowing them off their feet and flying back a metre or two. Of course it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows due to the now apparent bloody cavity in their chests.

Of course I wasn't the only force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. There was Jennifer flying around with her huge sword neatly cutting her enemies to pieces. While it seemed it was her first time in a battle like this, life or death she seemed prepared for it in some strange way. Aliisa on the other hand was straight up sadistic, almost dancing through bodies and laughing all the way, the scariest part was where the blood landed. Any blood that hit her slowly but surely was absorbed into her body and behind her formed a blurry red phantom with an undefined form. Simon had bodies around him on the ground twitching and moaning in pain with needles sticking from certain body parts.

The most eye catching performances however were by my long time friends Courtney and Adrius. Starting with Adrius who now looked to be covered in scales, had claws, hair waving in the hair lifted by some force and his eyes turned reptilian. He was ripping enemies apart with brute strength, his house crest of a dragon made more sense now. Courtney had some sort of white aura around her forming the blurry figure of a white raven on her shoulder with red eyes. It had its beak open and every time an enemy fell something flew into its mouth.

The battle honestly was anticlimactic. Most likely the fear we held before was the expectation that the bandits would have some power. While they were cultivators capable of dominating mortals they were facing a rare magus and 5 royal blooded special technique holders. After the battle both Aliisa and Courtney had to meditate to consolidate something, it had something to do with their techniques. This blossomed an interest in me to look at some martial techniques in the future, for academic purposes.

I myself sat down after the battle and let the adrenaline fade away. I realized I had just killed multiple people but for some reason I didn't feel affected. It wasn't as if I was emotionless it was more off a feeling knowing it had to be done therefore why dwell over it.

That day passed and again we set off to wards the city before the forest, of which it was called Almor city, and the forest itself was the Almor forest. Two days later we reached the city.