Alice panted heavily when she and Blanche fought their way out of the river. The instant Blanche deemed it safe to do so, Alice had dog-paddled as hard as possible to solid land. She’d dragged her soaked body and clothes several meters away from the water before collapsing to the ground, too exhausted to do anything else.
Blanche moved onto the ground, his shoes squelching and water gushing out with every step. “Come on, we need to go.”
Alice groaned, flopping onto her stomach like a fish. She stared at Blanche’s shoes, her line of sight not going any higher. “What? We just escaped a giant snake monster, can’t we rest?”
Alice could feel Blanche’s heated gaze on her. “Exactly. ‘We just escaped a giant snake monster.’ We have to rethink our entire strategy.”
Alice furrowed her forehead. “What do you mean? I know we lost our supplies, but all we have to do is go to the next village.” Her voice started to lose its confidence. “Unless, we need to go back to the dwarf village!?”
Blanche sighed and shook his head. “I doubt we’d even be able to get into the valley anymore. Besides, you’re right, our supplies aren’t the problem. The serpent monster is.”
Alice bit her lips. Why would the serpent monster be the hindrance in their journey? Her eyes shot wide open as she realized what that could mean. “Is the monster going to chase us!?” Alice scrambled to her feet, the former fatigue plaguing her forgotten. “Come on, come on! We need to leave!”
Blanche batted aside her attempts to get him to move. “Nothing like that. The serpent doesn’t care about us anymore. We’re too small to provide a meal anyway.”
Alice calmed down at Blanche’s reassurances, ceasing her pulling on Blanche. “Then. . .why? We can just go around the serpent, right? Or if that fails, let’s just wait until it leaves!”
“The former is a stupid plan.” Blanche snapped and Alice bristled at his instant shot-down of her idea. “The serpent has marked an entire section of the forest as its territory. It’ll know everything that goes on within the boundaries. Unless you have a Skill to avoid detection, there’s no chance of lurking unbeknownst.”
Alice gaped. That. . .was such an insanely overpowered power! Was that something only monsters had? Could it be a Skill? What was the maximum range? Alice opened her mouth to ask but Blanche raised a hand, stalling her questions.
“I don’t know, okay? And that’s not important anyway.” Blanche insisted. While Alice sulked, he continued. “So waiting until the serpent leaves its territory to find another is the only option. Unfortunately, that can take up to months, weeks at the very latest.”
Alice blinked and all the color drowned from her face. What!? No way. . .
The strength in her legs left her and Alice stumbled over to a tree, resting against the bark. She buried her head in her hands, breathing in and out to regulate her pounding heartbeat. Blanche followed her, leaning on the same tree and watching her pitiful struggles to come to terms with the truth.
When Alice was finally able to regain some modicum of control over her raging emotions, she lifted her teary eyes. To his credit, Blanche didn’t make a snide comment on how red her eyes must be or the occasional sniffles. Instead, he waited for her to compose herself.
“So, we have to wait it out?” Alice confirmed. Hoping that Blanche wasn’t hundred percent confident, that maybe there was a second option.
Her hopes were dashed when Blanche sullenly shook his head, a stormy expression on his face. “I don’t like this any more than you do, but there’s nothing we can do. Right now, survival is our number one priority; we need supplies. I’ll get our food, you gather logs and build us a shelter.”
The familiar instructions helped ease Alice’s nerves and she took a deep breath. “Right. Start a fire first, right?”
“Yeah. We should move further into the forest first though. We’re too exposed out right here; the serpent might scare away most monsters, but there are still bandits and rogue adventurers to look out for.” Blanche explained, pushing off from the tree and heading into the forest.
Alice hesitated only for a second, looking yearningly towards the clear brook. She may have nearly drowned a second ago but the water was the only sanctuary they had against the serpent. Leaving it seemed shortsighted, but Alice trusted Blanche’s experience would pay off in the long run.
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Tearing her gaze from the rolling water, Alice followed Blanche back into the cover of the trees, brushing aside leaves. The pair of them walked for some time, the silence lingering in the air only penetrated by the sound of water dripping onto the ground and wet clothes squishing. Even the birds and ever-present chatters of insects were absent. Alice shivered; it was like the entire forest was holding its breath with the serpent nearby.
They stumbled across a small clearing and Blanche immediately went to work, taking out his knife and digging notches into the tree nearby. As he marked the place, Alice got to work tidying the clearing. Having something to occupy her hands and mind helped ease her worry even more, and before she knew it, Alice had created a relatively clean space.
Blanche grunted in approval. “Good.” He covered his eyes as he directed his gaze upward, checking the sun. “The sun’s close to setting. Start a fire first, and when I’m back, we’ll cook some meat.”
Alice nodded sullenly but Blanche was already gone, slipping into the shadows the way he usually did. Alice scowled; the tension from the serpentine attack lingered in the air, and Blanche disappearing didn't help in the slightest.
Sighing, Alice got to work on building a fire. Heading back to the riverbank, she gathered a pile of smooth rocks into her arms and took them back to the clearing, dumping them onto the ground. After rearranging the rocks so they were in an oval-like shape, being incapable of creating a perfect circle, Alice retrieved sticks.
Plenty of branches that had fallen from trees were scattered across the forest terrain; it was nigh impossible to wander without inevitably stepping on some. Breaking the larger branches into smaller ones that would better start the fire was a bit of a challenge, but eventually, Alice tossed them inside the stone circle.
Alice reached absentmindedly behind her for the backpack and flinched when her fingers met air. That was right; the backpacks, and the flint stone contained within, were gone. Alice examined the rocks with a skeptic eye. Was she forced to scrape them against one another in hopes of creating a spark?
Hold on. . .maybe I can use a Skill?
Alice doubted Skills were meant to create campfires, especially the particular Skill she had in mind but if it worked. . .
[Abyssal Black Arrow].
A single tar-black arrow formed behind her and shot into the pile of twigs, engulfing it in black flames. Alice waited, ready to douse the flames at the first sign it was going to overflow. When after 2 minutes, the fire remained contained within the confines of the stone circle, Alice relaxed.
Well, now I can start a fire whenever I want. Alice eyed the writhing black fire warily. Though I wonder if there are any side effects of kicking over a black fire?
It turns out, there were consequences of using a Skill clearly designed for fighting for such mundane tasks, and after berating her, Blanche forced her to reconstruct the fire using the rocks. Thus, the first day of their impromptu break ended on a sour note.
----------------------------------------
The second day wasn’t any better, nor was the third day. By the fourth, Alice was considering the chances of going undetected in the snake’s territory and during the fifth, Alice was getting ready to fight the snake one-on-one.
It was on the sixth day that something out of the norm occurred.
The day started like any other in the increasingly boring ‘vacation.’ Alice woke at the crack of dawn, noticed Blanche was missing, went down to the creek to get fish, and by the time she was done cooking it, Blanche conveniently returned. Afterwards, Blanche had her work on her stamina by gathering water from the creek and running around the clearing while carrying it.
Alice guessed that Blanche was feeling cautious and maybe even a little guilty about how badly their previous teaching session went, so he was holding off on making her learn more magic.
Alice sighed, letting the bark-woven basket she was carrying hit the ground. Alice sat down on the creek side, enjoying the sounds of the water rolling and fishes splashing around. It was a welcome peace from the hectic events that plagued Alice recently.
Alice checked the basket, poking it half-heartedly and watching it rock back and forth. “Can’t believe Blanche made this in two hours,” she said. Who knew Blanche was so skilled at craftsmanship? Alice giggled, envisioning Blanche working as a basket-weaver. She pitied anybody who became his apprentice; he’d probably teach them by throwing baskets at their head!
The bush on the opposite side of the river rustled and Alice was on her feet in an instant, hands out and [Abyssal Black Arrows] ready to be summoned.
Alice examined every inch of the bush, daring it to move. It resembled a normal bush in every sense of the world, but you could never be too sure. Maybe this was a monster bush who lured victims into going complacent.
Alice snickered, lowering her hands. That was just stupid, why would something like that exist? Alice rubbed her face, trying to get a hold of herself. This hiatus was definitely taking a toll on her mental state. She needed some action to feel like herself agai–
The bush burst apart and a teenage boy fumbled from behind, dropping onto the ground. Alice’s mouth fell open while the boy picked himself back up, mumbling to himself.
“Damn it, that hurt!” he groaned, flicking away pieces of leaves and rocks that got stuck to his armor.
“Y-yo. . .” Alice stuttered, her hands shaking in jittery excitement. The boy startled and stared at her with wide eyes, like he was just realizing she was present.
“Your hair is awful!”