The two of us were a little closer to the blast than I had thought we would be. The gouts of flames and crackling booms were quite a bit more spread out than expected. Clearly, the worldstriders had tried to prevent my illusion from teleporting out of the explosions.

Luckily, we’d been overcautious. Anise and I had stayed at the edge of the valley, and we were quite a ways away from the Worldstrider camp. The explosions were still unpleasant, but nowhere near deadly.

Even so, my ears were ringing as the explosions ripped the world asunder. I completely lost control of my illusions, and the collapsed into flickers of light. At the same time, I started to feel the distinct presence of manifestation essence. The worldstriders had done something to boost the explosions, although I had no clue what.

After the rattling of the world started to slow down, I saw the worldstriders fly higher and start to examining the area. Unlike us, and the now-charred prairie, they were completely safe from the explosions. They went to work putting out the fires they had started with their explosives. More concerningly, they started looking for something else.

It didn't take much though to realize they were looking for my illusions, or their corpses. Anise and I took out a few animal corpses, and then used magic to shred the corpses to pieces. We had originally planned for the illusions to die in a different way, but we could make adjustments.

After about thirty seconds of prep, I teleported several bits of rabbit bone and flesh into random parts of the valley. I sincerely doubted the worldstriders would expect an intact corpse after the explosions, so this would do well.

Then, we turned around and left. My illusions had already harassed this camp for days. Now seemed like a good time for them to make their exit. Besides, the Worldstrider camp was almost out of soldiers. There wasn't much left to do if we wanted to keep our moral code.

We spent the next half hour sneaking away from the camp. The dimensionally prolific creatures didn't notice our exit, and so we didn't run into any trouble. We also got a few System notifications as we departed the area.

Influence: Make a [???] Contribution to the Vernese-Worldstrider war

Note: Since the conflict is still ongoing, the impact your actions have had on the war have yet to be determined. Please wait until the conflict ends to receive payment.

Achievement +???

I looked at the unpaid Achievement total and shrugged. I wasn’t worried about waiting another year or two to get my reward. I was happy that we now had confirmation our actions had done something. And we had managed to stick to our moral code and still impact the war a bit. Figuring out which Worldstriders were soldiers took up a lot of extra time… but we had still accomplished something. I felt much better about our actions, and we had still succeeded.

I started to think about how much time we had spent fighting this camp, and how much time we had left. We had originally started with about two weeks of break. If we wanted to return to school on time, it was a good idea to leave Verne within the next five or six days.

That was still plenty of time to hit another camp or two, but not enough time for more than that. As we walked and searched for another camp, I decided to call Felix. I missed talking with him. It only took a minute before he responded to my communication bracelet call. I smiled as I felt Anise join in.

said Felix, before he sighed at us. I could hear pride in Felix’s voice, and it made me smile. Inventing trains in a new dimension was no small feat, and Felix had every right to be proud of himself.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

For a moment, the conversation fell into an awkward pause after that. I waited for Felix to say something else, but it took him almost a minute to continue speaking. When he spoke next, he sounded uneasy.

I said. I said, trying to inject a bit of humor into the conversation.

said Felix.

said Felix, after some hesitation.

Anise said. Then, she hesitated.

Asked Felix. He didn’t sound scandalized, but he also didn’t sound happy about it. He sounded almost… confused?

said Anise.

I said.

Then, Felix sent a wave of confusion through the bracelet.

I said.

Felix sent me a sigh.

I said.

said Felix.

I asked.

he said. he said.

I said sheepishly.

said Anise.

I smiled. Anise got it!

said Felix. I could almost hear him projecting laughter through the bracelets. Felix disconnected.

I turned towards Anise.

Anise nodded.