As the narrow bands of sunlight that slipped past the leaves began to thin into nothing, Ronny and Enzi worried about what problems the night would bring to them. When the rays started shifting into the warm tones of sunset, Ronny and Enzi felt that their reach Ignar without taking the time to sleep was foolish.
As he lit their lantern, Enzi voiced his concerns, “If just so happen to come across somewhere good to do it, we should consider camping out for the night. If we let ourselves get too tired, even the weaker monsters will be a threat.”
“Maybe but finding any shelter big enough for the two of us will be a challenge. Could we light a fire and hope that it scares the monsters away?”
“That’d only tell them where we are.”
“I guess. Things didn’t work like that on Earth. You could scare off even the biggest apex predators with a little flame…”
“Well this isn’t your world. Didn’t you say that the biggest land animals over there were Black Bears?”
“There are bigger ones, like elephants and giraffes. Those were just the biggest ones you could find in my area. Outside of zoos, that is.”
“Elephants?” Enzi had never heard the term.
“I don’t think they exist on this world. Our worlds only share some animals. It’s bizarre.”
“I guess so. Say, you don’t talk about ‘Earth’ very much… Do you miss it?”
Ronny took a moment to think, “Yeah, I think so. If I could take you and Alice with me, I’d go back without hesitation. It’d be a much kinder world than this… at least, it was to me.” He paused, “But no point in worrying about that at this point. Let’s talk about the matter at hand. We could try taking shelter in the trees.”
“You could do that,” Sensing that Ronny wasn’t keen on talking about his past, Enzi sighed, “But I’m too heavy. The branches would snap. There’s always the option of finding a cave somewhere along the river.”
“We haven’t passed any since we started walking this morning. I don’t think the chances of stumbling across one are good.”
“I guess not. And I’m guessing you’re also going to veto the campfire idea?”
“Correct. Even if the bigger monsters were scared of fire, which they’re not, bugs are bugs. Fire attracts them. A few Rockjaw Beetles is one thing, but there are much bigger creatures to deal with—like Bone Spiders and Blackshell Decipedes.”
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Enzi squirmed at the thought of encountering either of those. Too many eyes, too many legs, and far too large, “Point taken. I doubt the heat from a simple campfire would be enough to attract one of them, it’s hard to think logically when imagining what an encounter would entail. Let’s not do the campfire.”
“Good call. In that case, how about we give up on trying to find shelter out here and instead focus on getting to our destination faster?”
“How so? All we’ve got are legs.”
“We could build a raft. There’s some rope in the knapsack.”
“It’s a possibility,” Enzi looked at the stream rushing loudly beside them. Rocks jutted out from the water, leaving the surface mostly white, “But we’d crash on the rocks.”
“We could make a canoe.”
Enzi frowned, “It’d be faster just to walk the rest of the way. We’re already almost halfway there.”
“Then we can just take our chances on walking.”
After another hour of quiet travelling along the stream, Enzi spotted a soft light from in the distance. It had the same orangey glow as a torch, “Tread carefully. There’s something down the stream.” Ronny didn’t see what his partner was talking about, but trusted him enough to adopt cautious, light-footed steps.
“What do you think it is?”
“Fire. Controlled burning. I’d reckon there are people down there. Fire-based monsters tend not to live in forests.”
“Friend or foe?” Ronny put his hand on his holster.
“No clue,” Enzi turned off the lantern, “Let’s get a little closer.”
As they approached, more details came in. The encampment looked fresh. There were two humans sitting around a small campfire, and two small tents behind them—with one additional person sleeping in each. All of them had minor-looking injuries across their bodies. By Ronny’s guess, they couldn’t have been there for more than hour. It took some effort at the distance, but Ronny was able to make out what they were saying.
“Well that didn’t go as planned! I knew she was a necromancer and all, but I didn’t expect her to strengthen the Chimera by killing thousands of her own citizens.” The speaker was a woman.
“Nobody could have planned for that, Canta. There’s nothing we can do except go back to the VP and tell her that she underestimated what we were doing with. When she hears about the circumstances, there’s a very real chance that she’ll move to get the queen and her monster escalated to Adamantite.”
“Maybe. The chairman is a stubborn bastard though. He’ll probably veto the request and put together a Mythrill death squad to take care of it. We’ll probably get dragged into it too, knowing him… but are you sure we should be talking about all this when we have company?”
“You mean those two hiding in the bushes back there?” He turned around and made eye contact with Ronny, who jumped back in response. “You two can come out if you’d like. We’ve got no business with you two.” Feeling that there wasn’t much of an option, he came out from hiding with trailing behind, “H-hello?”
“I’m Nvili, and this is Canta, “Ronny went wide-eyed at hearing Nvili’s name. He was one of the Mythrills Madison had mentioned when talking about the invasion. Nvili noticed the reaction, but didn’t continued without missing a beat, “Who are you two?”
Ronny gulped, “We’re… refugees. My companion and I are fleeing Queen Madison’s tyrannical rule.”
“Whatever you say. I must ask though, what business do a well-versed magic user and a member of the Demonic Royalty have taking a route like this? If you two were simply trying to escape, I image you two could have followed the river that splits the island in two, as opposed to this little stream. It’d be a lot safer and faster. Were you two, by chance, looking for us?”