“This is kind of anti-climactic.” Azura lamented. He and Jackson had been walking in the wilds for a few hours, and absolutely nothing had happened. Although he did find out some interesting things. Like for example apparently among commoners it wasn’t that uncommon to run into someone with the same name. He had asked Jackson if there was any relation to the old analyst, but the man had laughed it off. Obviously in the world of nobles something like 2 people having the same name was a pretty major faux pas, and would normally lead to both children having their names changed. Of course sometimes a name could be passed down as with his brother, but that was a pretty rare occurrence.
“That’s because we’re doing it right. Trust me, out here boring is better. We’re still relatively close to town, but we’re still in the wilds if you think there aren’t dangerous monsters around you’re dreaming.” That was fair. He wasn’t quite sure what he had expected. He had been in wildlands before, but the lands that exist between the 5 kingdoms were still relatively safe since there were plenty of caravans and mages going to and fro. It was a little different out here. He was not in the area between the kingdoms, and he was still heading outward. Out here since it was rare for humans to venture this far out, monsters had plenty of time to grow stronger, and no time to develop the knowledge that attacking humans was usually more risk than it was worth. As such the beasts would be much more aggressive.
“Fair enough. On a mostly unrelated note, how long would you estimate the trip taking? I’m on a time limit, but it’s not so strict that I have to take unnecessary risks I don’t think." He had gotten to Lake Spire earlier than he had originally intended, so he had around 5 months left even in the worst case scenario. Still it was probably a good idea not to waste too much time. Whether it was just luck or some all powerful being, it couldn’t really be disputed that unfortunate things happened around him.
Jackson rubbed his chin in thought. “Well it all depends, but I’d say that if we prioritize safety over speed it’ll probably take about a month and a half there. Probably only half that coming back though.” That made sense. When walking towards danger you have to conserve energy, and make sure to be extra careful. When running away from it though you knew you would be safe if you could just get far enough away or in this case if they could get to town.
“2 months total then? Assuming things don’t go smoothly then probably closer to 3. That works for me, but out of curiosity what if we prioritized speed over safety?” There was no need to take the risk since he had left a couple copies at the academy anyway, but he was curious.
“If you kept up then we’d make it there in less than 2 weeks. Although the return trip would be about the same so you’d still end up taking about a month.” That made sense, taking twice as much time to make sure he made it there safely seemed like a fair trade to him. Well the others would no doubt rather him be safe than quick, so if they complain about how long he was gone he’d just say that.
“The safe route works for me. What kind of monsters should I expect to face? I’m guessing by the gear we got, fire type monsters are going to be in abundance.” Jackson had made very sure that they had lots of flame resistant equipment, he had enchanted a few things to be even more flame resistant, but of course hadn’t said anything about it. Magic equipment wasn’t cheap, and there was no reason to put a target on his back if these strangers realized he could make them.
“They are common enough, but it’s more just in case. Fire monsters are the worst to deal with in the wilds, because burned things are the hardest to repair.” That made sense actually. If something was cut or smashed putting it back together was simple enough, ashes however were pretty hard to reform into anything. His self repairing clothes were proof enough of that.
“Fair enough, what should I be expecting then?” People had a habit of only answering 1 part of questions asked of them, so he repeated his initial question without complaint. He didn’t really understand why, but it was so common he had become used to it.
Jackson rubbed his chin in thought. “It’s a mixed bag really, even at the best of times. In mating season it’s even worse. We’ll definitely run into a lot of fodder monsters, but stronger monsters may be in areas where they usually wouldn’t be, so even the safer route won’t guarantee that we don’t run into any if the really dangerous ones. Especially once we get to the bone graveyard.”
He winced. He had of course done plenty of research on the area before leaving the academy, so the bone graveyard was a familiar name to him. For whatever reason bones grew like trees there, so it was impossible to tell what was an actual skeleton of a creature and what was natural growth. Apparently a powerful dragon had been slain there, and its unwillingness to die had turned it into a skeletal monstrosity, but that too was eventually slain leaving only the growing bones as proof of its existence. “Kind of an odd place to go for mating season isn’t it?” Not that he knew much about monster psychology.
“From a human perspective maybe. As far as monsters are concerned it's got dense magic, and the miasma of long deceased powerful monsters. We think they go to places like that because it tends to result in stronger offspring, but of course that’s all purely theoretical.” Hmm so apparently he was out of line when he thought adventurers were just mages that were unwilling to devote themselves to research. He apologized in his thoughts for his hasty judgment.
“Well that has some disturbing implications, but not…” He froze. He fought hard to get his breathing under control. He knew that this fear wasn’t real, or rather there wasn’t any reason for it. The bendy black eyes he had met with his own stared at him without concern. It was just a bird, not even a monstrous one. It had no mana to speak of, and yet his blood ran cold. A memory flashed through his head. The sound of Ravens screeching that had erupted after his mom had died. The bird flew away completely uninterested in his terror.
“Hey, you ok?” Not really. To think he still hadn’t gotten over his phobia. His mind was linking the bird to her death. He knew why the fear was ingrained, but even still getting rid of it was another matter entirely. No matter how much he tried to rationalize the irrational fear just wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t normally bad enough for him to freeze out in the field though, he would guess that it was because the memory had recently resurfaced so perhaps knowing the reason actually made the fear worse in this case.
“I’m fine, just saw a specter of my past.” That was one thing he’d definitely need to get over, he lucked out that it happened while they were still close to the city, and had yet to run into anything, but freezing like that in the middle of a fight could get them both killed. “Anyway what I was about to say is that in a sense it’s not a bad thing that they gravitate to places like that. At least not for me, I’m at my best in areas with dense natural magic, so those being the places with the most monsters actually works out in my favor.”
Jackson hesitated for a second. Likely unsure if he should let it go or not. Understandable, he hadn’t exactly been subtle. Thankfully Ravens were pretty uncommon, so the likelihood of running into another one was pretty unlikely. Either way Jackson seemed to decide to let it go for the moment. “That may be true, but don’t forget that some of the stronger monsters are going to be the same. Especially the ones with stronger magical powers.”
He smiled. Jackson was simply referring to the fact mana recovered faster in mana dense areas, but he didn’t mean that at all, his enchantment magic drew on natural mana, so in areas like that it was way more powerful than usual. “I suppose we’ll see, but worse case I’m confident in my ability to escape.” So long as he didn’t have to deal with anything x-rank anyway. He was confident he could take on a single rank-6 monster, and could even escape from anything rank-9 or lower. Although in swarms, even rank-3s could be dangerous. It was fine in the spire, but then it was mostly rank-2s and there were only a couple of types. It would be different out here.
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“That’s good, because we’ll probably be doing a lot of escaping. It’s usually not worth it to expend energy to kill random monsters. Save it for the ones that matter.” It made sense. Wasting time and energy on random monsters was beyond wasteful, especially when the ones that actually mattered could appear at any moment.
“So what about from these guys? We going to escape?” He wasn’t really concerned 1 way or another. There were only 6 of them, and he was pretty sure they were only rank-2 cause he felt barely any magic from them at all. Honestly he could take them out without using any magic, and it wouldn’t be very physically taxing either.
“No, for small fries like that it takes more energy to escape than it would to just kill them.” He had figured as much, but he hired a guide for a reason, so he was intending to trust the judgment of the far more experienced man.
“Leave it to me then, I’ve been needing to stretch a little anyway.”
***
Katy was a bit annoyed with herself. She had been swept up in the mood of most of the others, and she was now dreading the trip almost as much as they were. Even though she doubted the princess would really interact with them much. Especially since she had apparently met so many of the young nobles. She couldn’t possibly interact with all of them, and even if she managed it, it would mean that her interactions were incredibly short.
“Do you think I’d get in trouble if I put the school in a time loop so tomorrow never came?” Her eyes snapped to Azura’s copy. He couldn’t really do that… could he? Apparently she wasn’t the only one concerned and unsure. Everyone else was giving him a wary look as well, even Roran. Gareth wasn’t with them for now since all the nobles were making last minute preparations in case the princess decided they were going to be her target during the trip.
“That’s not really possible is it?” Cythia ‘voiced’ their collective concern. Azura’s response did not ease their concerns, he merely smiled mysteriously. He had mentioned going through certain things over and over again, but surely he didn’t mean it like that. Not even he could pull off something on that scale right? Even if he used all of his stored magic surely there wouldn’t be enough.
“Even if you could, you wouldn't, right? After all we wouldn’t even know we were stuck, so either the outside world would still be moving normally, or eventually the spell would break, and we wouldn’t even know it had ever been done, well except you since you cast the spell, but you wouldn’t even remember the previous iterations so it would be pointless for you as well.” She wasn’t so sure, Azura didn’t do anything by halves, if he could really do something like that she had no doubt he’d also prepare a way to take advantage of it.
“Keep in mind my particular brand of magic. Assuming I am in fact capable of making a time loop it would require 2 enchantments. 1 at the beginning of the loop, and 1 at the end. Given that the 1 at the end can’t exist when the 1 at the beginning is made. I’d have to decide to create the loop in each iteration, however the enchantment for the beginning of the loop will always exist, so if I adjust the enchantment I could store some basic info in the enchantment that begins the loop before I end each loop.” This was theoretical right? She really hoped it was, messing with time was dangerous. Even she knew that.
“You haven’t actually done that before have you?” He looked away from her, and didn’t respond.
***
Azura’s copy was having a blast. The rest of his party was looking at him with shock, because they thought he had created a time loop in the past. He hadn’t of course, he’d looked into the theory, but it was a needlessly dangerous spell. If he ever didn’t have the mana to close the loop, then time and space could warp dangerously unless he undid the enchantment for the beginning of the loop, which would be very volatile if not closed in the timeframe set in its parameters. All that risk for the maybe 2 sentences of info he’d be able to store per loop.
“When? Why? You can’t just casually imply you’ve created a time loop and then give no details?” They really were a ton of fun to hang around. Katy was acting as the spokesperson for the group at the moment so they didn’t all wear out their voices trying to talk over each other.
“I didn’t imply anything. You guys have just jumped to a conclusion with very little data.” Had he purposefully goaded them into said conclusion jumping? Yes. Did he feel bad about it? Not even a little. “Besides assuming I could do something like that, it would only affect a small area. So everything outside would essentially be frozen as it was at the end of the first loop. Not to mention if someone left the area before the loop reset the ensuing paradox would very likely cause a cataclysm.” Regaining his memory had impacted a lot, but one of the most obvious things is that he remembered the months he’d spent studying and practicing time and space magic. He had been reckless then, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to make use of that knowledge now.
“Will you just give a real answer?! Have you created a time loop, yes or no!” Alright he had his fun, probably best to let the joke lie now. Then again again, they left for the capital tomorrow, and this was the least stressed he had been since the announcement. They could probably handle a little bit more teasing right?
***
Azura calmly swiped his sword through the air to clean off the blood. A dozen or so monsters littered about. They were about the size of large dogs, with stone skin and spines coming out. He was pretty sure they were called stone hounds, even though it was only their skin that resembled stone. Well they were only rank-2 for a reason. “What’s that put the count up to? 38?” This was not the first batch of low rank monsters he had slain, far from it. They weren’t even to the bone graveyard yet, and they were actively trying to avoid attracting monster attention.
“Yeah, there are surprisingly few, and the fact we haven’t had to avoid anything stronger actually worries me.” This was light? Not to say there had been any challenge, but it wasn’t because of lack of numbers, he may have underestimated the difference between normal times and mating season if this was considered surprisingly few to the point of being worrying. Still he was definitely inclined to agree that the lack of anything strong going anywhere near them was concerning.
“You think there’s something especially dangerous around here they are avoiding?” Both he and Jackson had pretty tight mana control, so it wasn’t like they were radiating enough magic to make things steer clear of them, and also avoided actively attracting monsters. So something else was definitely causing the strange behavior.
“I’m not sure. If it was just an exceptionally strong monster then there wouldn’t be any of them in this area, but the weak ones are still here, just in lesser numbers than I’d expect for this time of year.” It was possible there was an intelligent monster pulling the strings. He knew of several monsters that weren’t strong on their own, but made up for it by being able to direct other monsters. Still anything intelligent was considered at least rank 5 regardless of their combat skills, so it was best if he kept his guard up.
“You think they’re being controlled? If they are, isn't the commander being kind of wasteful just throwing monsters to the slaughter?” Then again, if the goal was to keep them on guard, then the weak monsters would suffice. No one could stay tensed up forever, if they didn’t relax from time to time they’d crack, but if they relaxed at the wrong time who knew what could happen.
“Unfortunately, I think you’re on the right track. Commander type monsters are tricky though. They are intelligent, but they don’t think like humans do, and that can make their traps especially effective.” It was hard to prepare against an opponent with an alien thought process. He had learned that from his interactions with his father. Their mindsets were so different that he often failed to accurately predict his father’s actions.
“Well that sounds like a good time, wonder how long it will be before the commander decides to put some real effort into killing us.” He half expected something to happen immediately after he said that, but instead he was met only with silence.