It's midnight right now. I had Reis fixed my dislocated shoulder by the old way. But, it will take several days for the pain to disappear completely. At least I can move it. Erfia fell asleep after I dictated her how to make herbs that will treat the bruises. Of course, I have the herbs ingredients in the Keeper. Now, we’re staying in a small tent with a flame crystal for its warmth and light.
“Don’t you have any elixir with you?” Reis asks me while she gently strokes Erfia’s head which is asleep in her lap.
“Elixir works by increasing the life force, mana circulatory, or restore it to the previous state. Elixir won’t work on people with no affection towards mana like me.” I explain to Reis with a plain tone.
I take a piece of paper from the Keeper and open it. It’s a map of the area around Avareel. I got it a long time ago.
“I need you to flow a bit of your mana in this map.”
Reis does as I told and reach the paper with her hand. By doing it, the paper shows up a small red dot.
“Right now, we’re about forty or fifty kilometers away from the mountain range. Normally, it would take four or five days with normal carriage. If the gas on the hover motorcycle hold to that distance, it will only take us another two days.”
I put the map back to the Keeper. Now we know how long it will take us.
“Say, is this friend of yours really capable of restoring Erfia’s mana point?”
“Of course. You’ll know it once you see her. I also need her to create the new mana storage ring.”
“Mana storage ring?” Reis tilts her head as this is the first time I speak of it in front of her.
“Yeah, I’ve got all the ingredients needed. But to make it, I need an enormous amount of mana. At first, I thought I could use Erfia’s help to make it as she’s a half elf. But, after knowing her mana point is disrupted, I can’t count on it.”
“Hmm, so that’s how it’s going.”
“I’ll take a rest, you keep your eyes open for a few more hours. Wake me when it’s my time to guard or when you feel something is not right.”
I lay my body on the left side of the tent while Reis and Erfia took the right side. I hope some of this pain would subside after enough rest.
~~~
“Dad, wake up! It’s morning already.”
I slowly open my eyes to let the light reach my eyes. I saw a petite figure in top of me. Finally when I completely awake, I see Erfia’s face right above my face.
“Good morning.” I scratch my hair.
Wait, what? Morning? I look around and see the world already has already bathed in sunlight. I look into the other side of the tent and see no one. Where is she? She should wake me up a few hours ago to change guards.
“Where’s Reis?” I ask Erfia.
“She’s outside having a breakfast. She said she didn’t want to wake you so she took the guard job all night.” Erfia explains with a rather cheerful tone.
I palm my face hearing Erfia explanation. Damn, that girl. I hope she’s not exhausted to ride the hover motorcycle. I walk outside without any clothes covering my upper body. Right when I got out, I see a little girl is cleaning her eating utensils. But, I remember nothing of bringing another little child with me.
A moment of silent emerges.
“Who?”
“It’s me, Reis. You can’t even recognize your own slave?” She’s upset and yell at me.
Wait what? I take a little more time to observe her. I recognize the clothes and the short black hair. But, how come?
“This is my recovery form.” Reis is starting to explain her form. “It’s a magic that devised by us, the six desert masters, to recover from fatigue and illness faster. In this form I only need 30 minutes sleep a day instead of 5 hours sleep.”
Wow, that’s a very convenient magic. But, something is tingling inside my head. Shit, my cute little girl radar is beeping at its most. No. No. I need to remember that she’s at her twenties inside that little body. I sit at the rock close to the cooking. I need to calm my head down.
“Hey, are you feeling any better?”
Suddenly, she’s closing her face towards me and touch my bruises gently. That’s it, I can’t take it any longer. I quickly grab and hug her to all my heart content.
“Hey, hey, what’s wrong with you?”
Reis yells as loud as she can. But I couldn’t care less. Oh, what a cute little girl. I hug her and throw her in the air few times. She’s really is cute when she’s just a little child.
“Would you stop it already?”
Reis hits my head when I suppose to catch her. I drop my face to the ground while she makes a perfect landing. I fix my posture and sit back on the rock near the cooking.
“Have some food first! Seriously? What’s wrong with you?” Reis is ranting as she gives me my food.
“Hahaha, he also did the same thing the first time he saw me.”
Erfia says it with a cheerful tone as she passes us towards some direction. I can hear the sound of a river at the direction she’s heading.
Could it be Erfia knows that I’m going to act that way? Is that the reason she’s been cheerful all this morning? Well, could be.
“Uahh, pedophile.” Reis glares at me with a disgusted look.
“I’m sorry for being pedophile.” I defend myself for being myself. “If you agree to stay in that form, I might reconsider about breaking the slave bind magic.”
“No thanks, I don’t really like this form because I can’t fight in my full power at this form.”
Now that you say it, I never actually saw you fight. If, the government has increased your title into three words fugitive, it means your threat is bad enough for them. Maybe, I’ll let her take the fight for a few days when I’m still on recovering process. Then, I see something that piques my interest.
I look around and see Erfia is nowhere in sight.
“Say, your body is becoming that of a little child and smaller. But I see no difference in your breast and your butt.”
Suddenly, I see a pot is flying towards my head. I have no time to avoid it as I’m still having my meal. The pot hit my head and break. I can feel a little amount of blood is flowing from my head. What a slave.
“I’m aware of that, you pervert! Hearing you say it made me more depressed even more!”
I guess that’s another reason why she doesn’t like that form.
Not so long after the pot break, Erfia back with a worry expression on her face.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s nothing.” Reis and I say it in sync.
Reis says nothing anymore and she’s starting to repair the pot. She puts all the pot parts together and then flow some mana into it. It’s a simple repairing magic, but it needs all the broken parts. If, some parts are missing it can’t be fixed anymore. In less than a minute, it back to the way it was.
Not long after that, she’s back into her normal twenties years old girl. Just as I thought, there’s no difference in her breast and her butt. She realizes I take a look at her body and is pissed. I just smile and point at my right hand. She becomes more pissed as I remind her that she’s my slave.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
We continue the journey with the hover motorcycle. I don’t want to take any risks of being followed. For the whole two days, I make Reis drives while the sun is up and we’re taking a turn to guard in the night. Erfia fills my mana storage ring every night in case we need to do a serious fight. Fortunately, that moment never come. Apparently, Reis’s fighting capability is not so bad. She can easily beat down a mountain beast or five bandits at once.
Finally, after two days of travelling north, we arrive at the designated place. We’re in one of the mountains in the mountain range. We’re not so high, so the snow is not yet to appear in this place. On the contrary, this place should feel warm enough in the day. But in the night, I can’t count on it. There’s a lot of big trees in this place.
“Are you sure this is the right place? I see no house or something like that.” Reis asks me in her usual sarcastic tone.
“Yes it is. All we have to do is defeat those golems and she will appear by herself.”
As I say it, a pair of golems emerge from the ground. They have a body made of dirt that covered in mud. The blue eyes in it shows that they made of a water element magic. But, what shows the most is their size. I can say their height is at least half the height of the trees in this place. Maybe around twenty meters.
I walk ahead and take the shield of nothingness from the Keeper. The shield that removes anything it touches into weightless.
“You just stay back and rest. We can’t have you fight yet.” Reis suddenly stands in front of me with her back on me.
“I admit it you could defeat a few bandits at ease, but golems of their size is impossible for you.”
“Really? I haven’t showed you the real fighting capability of Reis the Six Desert Master yet.” She answers me confidently.
She really is fond of that title, eh. Well, if she says so, then I’ll just back to Erfia’s side in the hover motorcycle and stay alert. I recall she never brings any weapon with her since first I saw her. At first, I thought her weapon is destroyed along with the desert bandits. But, as I saw her fight this two days made me rethink about that. Against human and beast, she used iron skin as her defense and defeated her opponent with a martial arts technique. But, iron skin and martial arts won’t work on giant opponents like these golems.
~The Earth is my ally. The tremendous sources it has is my ally. Lend me some of your source for this ally of yours. Iron Skin.~
Just as I thought, she’s using iron skin. Then, what?
~The Earth is my ally. Oh, the compassionate mother nature of the earth. This ally of yours is in a need of help to overwhelm the hardness he’s facing. Let this ally or yours becomes one with you. The Earth Connection.~
Now that’s a rare magic. The last time I saw it was a very long time ago that I nearly forgot it ever existed. The Earth Connection is a magic that makes the body of the caster became one with the earth. So, the caster is like the earth’s part that’s sticking out.
The golem sends its first punch and Reis also sends a punch into it. They stand on the same ground. By the earth connection, the force that is resulted from the golem’s punch is distributed toward the earth directly. So, hitting her at this point is like hitting the ground. It’s meaningless. She’s using the iron skin so there’s no additional damage she might have. She’s able to hold all the attack from both golems. But, against a golem that is created from the ground or earth, it means they’re the same. It won’t bring you the victory.
They’re keep on hitting their fists until Reis deflects one of the golem’s punch and it stuck to the ground. At that moment, she jumps into its hand and runs on it.
“Hey, your earth connection is worthless if you’re not standing on the ground directly!” I yell at her.
She keeps on running. I look into her face carefully and see a grin appear on her face.
~The fire is my ally. Fire keeps one’s life, and it also takes one’s life. Fire takes one’s life to remind that he is an ally and yet an enemy. Let this ally of yours lend it to take one’s life. The Pinpoint Explosion. ~
She’s moving fast and touch the golem at several places with her palm. Every place that she touches with her palm is shining red and showing a circle mark with a pattern inside of it. She moves so fast in a brief moment she has already put a lot of marks in one golem. She jumps and flicks her fingers. When she flicks her fingers, all the shining red marks on the golem are shining even brighter and let out explosions. All the explosions occur in the joints of the golem. Because of it, all of its body part is separated. She does the exact same thing to another golem, and the fight has ended.
“Yeay, Reis you’re so great!” Erfia cheers for her.
I imagine if she’s using that magic against human. One mark is enough to incapacitate or even kill one person. Maybe that’s the reason they increased her title into three words fugitive.
“You saw it? That’s the fighting capability of Reis Waltz the Six Desert Master.” She says it in a rather arrogant tone.
Unlike my magic that needs to be dispelled, all the magic that is used by Reis is a time based magic. It will dispel automatically when the time runs out.
I show a smile to appreciate her effort. But not so long, I saw the second golem is still able to stand up. No, it’s not the second golem. Both golems combine their body parts that’s close to each other and create a new golem. The golem launches a punch into Reis.
Oh no, iron skin and earth connection’s effect should have been worn off.
I spell a silent incantation.
By the will of wind and the earth, let these touches the greatness of your might. As I say, speed of wind
I jump quickly and stop between Reis and the golem. By using shield of nothingness, I stop the golem’s punch. No matter how big or how strong an attack is, if it has no weight, it’s the same as a feather tries to hit you.
Normal people would think this shield is a perfect shield. Well, it is a perfect shield against direct attack, but it’s meaningless against magic attack because it has no weight to start with.
“Don’t you think that’s already enough? Ariana the Great Wizard?”
I look into my hover motorcycle. At the side of Erfia, a woman is sitting on it. It’s like she just appeared out of nowhere. She’s wearing green clothes and a long skirt with frills on it which is a bit see through. Inside of it she wears a single clothes that cover her chest to her thigh. But the feature that sticks out the most is her yellow very long hair and her pointy ear.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. That’s enough fun for me.”