The next morning Hayata didn’t wake up. He was turned pale and a fever had taken him. Genzo came by and cradled his teammate and poured some water in his mouth. After a few moments he looked up to Yuma, almost pleading, but he knew she couldn’t do any more.

“Mr. Inoue, Mr. Murphy could you put together a stretcher? I don’t think Hayata is going to be walking today. The rest of you should get ready; we need to find help as soon as possible.”

While Randal and Ikko built a stretcher out of a blanket and branches Emi divvied up the loot. In Tim’s pile was a small mound of little copper coins, some bigger ones, a few silver and a single gold piece. Each coin was stamped with the image of a Byakko and he had no idea the value of any of it. Randal and Ikko carried Hayata as the nine followed the road westward. The morning sun had just started to warm their backs when a building rose into view. A two story wooden hotel was stationed like a sentinel at the meeting of three large earthen streets. A stable and small market was attached beside and a few people puttered around in the farmland behind it. The signboard mounted on the wall showed a pig roasting on a spit. Tim felt this was in bad taste.

“Ok banana brain, let me take over” Genzo said to Randal, but without the usual hostility. Randal gave him a look, but acquiesced.

“Mr. Inoue and I are going to circle around and approach from the south. You’ve done a great job looking after him Yuma, but he needs medicine. Or maybe can find a professional healer. The rest of you swing wide though the forest, and try to stay out of view. Wait for us two hours up the road. If one of us isn’t there by noon, keep heading west without us.

“How do you know that’s the right way?” queried Emi.

“I don’t,” Genzo shrugged, “but that road looks bigger.”

After Genzo and Ikko left with the unconscious Hayata the rest of them walked into the forest. Tim walked in the middle with Katsuki. Emi and Randal were in front and seemed to be having a good chat. Randal shared his usual jokes and Emi giggled. McKenzie had disappeared from view, which was becoming increasingly common. Had he looked up, Tim might have noticed her flittering along the tree branches. Yuma was glued to her phone and would occasionally hit her head on a low-lying limb.

Not knowing what else to do Tim tried to start a conversation.

“So, Katsuki, how did you know how to do magic?” Asked Tim.

“Not really sure my man,” Katsuki ran a hand through his thick black hair. “I just, you know, do. It’s like this feeling, and it was there. You feel the fire and it is calling you, you just need to answer. It’s like you pull it out of where it is. You open the wall, grab it and tell it where to go. Its fire it does the rest.

“What about water and stone?”

“The same, it’s there always there my man. It’s all around us, waiting to exist. You just take it from where it is and move it to where you want it to be.”

“Wait, isn’t your skill ‘Create Fire’? Are all your skills create?”

“Yeah, I mean that’s like how I’m doing it, it’s there I just need to create the opening and boom there it is.” Katsuki ignited a little flame on top of his finger and flashed a lopsided grin.

“And you can Create Earth? What about metal? Does that count as earth?”

“That is a damn good question bro. Let me try”

Katsuki concentrated; his face strained and the vein under his pompadour twitched. In his hand a small silver-gray lump appeared.

“Woah man, that was like, way hard.” He handed the lump to Tim.

“Pure iron. I wonder where it came from?”

“It didn’t come from nowhere; it was always like here my man. I just pulled it out.”

“Doesn’t that violate the law of thermodynamics? You can’t just create something from nothing.”

“Don’t know,” replied Katsuki, “but there it is.”

Tim turned over the lump of iron in his hand and pondered.

“But this is just a hunk of iron, you created things in specific shapes before. Like the wash basins.”

“Yeah? I just kind of think about it as I’m pulling it. Like squeezing something though a mold. But it was different with metal, that stuff is tough.”

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“But, wouldn’t it be easier to work with the materials already here than to create something new?”

“I don’t know if I can. But what the hell, let’s give it a shot.”

Katsuki pointed his finger at a patch of dirt off to the side. Tim could feel the sigils being drawn on the ground spread out and form a network. Mana flowed back and forth along the node switches. The network filled completely and a fist raising a middle finger sprung from the ground.

“My man!” shouted Katsuki.

The group stopped at sudden exclamation.

“Be quiet, were not far from the road!” snapped Emi. “Plus, Katsuki, that’s just so mature.”

Randal, who was grinning at the obscene statue quickly sobered up.

“That’s a hellava thing. But, how about setting it right back where it was?” Asked Randal with a little disappointment in his voice.

McKenzie sprung up from behind the impromptu statue and circled around it. Her yellow hair bopped with her head as she gave it an apprising critique. Finally she stopped and placed a very dead bird on top of the upturned finger.

“There, the masterpiece is now complete!”

Randal snickered and Emi gave a cold stare.

“I don’t get it,” said Katsuki.

“That gesture is also called ‘giving the bird’”, replied Tim.

“Oh, damn, that’s balls funny then!”

McKenzie gave a little bow and pranced off into the woods.

“So dude, what she like?”

“Batshit crazy.” Replied Tim

“Just my type.”

The company of six continued to chat as until the alarm Yuma had set on her phone quietly beeped, marking the end of two hours. They crept back towards the road and settled down under the shade of silver leaf trees. On the opposite side of the road the lush forest had given way to open fields and farmlands. Thatched huts speckled the landscape.

Randal and Emi were seated off to the side and continued whatever conversation they started earlier. Emi covered her mouth as she giggled bashfully. A moment later a pebble flew from the shadows and zinged her back. Emi issued threats and Randal calmed her down. Tim watched this play out three times before Randal asked the mischievous McKenzie to kindly knock it off.

The group talked and watched travelers pass by. People went by on foot or carriage. Some lead horned cattle down the dirt road and some had wagons full of strange vegetables. But Tim noticed one thing; they all had dark black hair and looked distinctly Asian. Not that he was particularly bothered by it, but it felt like he was still in Japan.

Noon was starting to approach and the group was starting to worry. Randle suggested that they wait an extra few hours, in case something happened. Emi, who agreed with Genzo on leaving easily, talked him down to only staying an extra half hour. Katsuki and Tim speculated on why they might be late. Most of their thoughts were rather negative.

Genzo and Ikko showed up with Hayata a few minutes before noon. They laid Hayata down softly in the shade. Everyone crowded around their unconscious comrade. Hayata still looked deathly ill; his dark hair stuck to his scalp with sweat.

“What did you find out?” Asked Emi.

“Really good news,” announced Genzo boldly “there is a demon king.”

“Hunh? Six voices called out in unison.

“Don’t mind him” Interrupted Ikko “he’s been on that all morning. I think the guy working there was getting tired of it…”

Ikko trailed off and then pulled out three little glass bottles filled with vibrant green fluid.

“They didn’t have a healer, but we were able to buy some minor recovery potions. At two silver a bottle.”

“Can I see one?” asked Tim.

“Sure, it will be nightfall before he is due for the next dose. But according to the innkeeper have to get him to a temple soon. All this medicine can do is stabilize him. There’s supposta be a city two day’s walk further west, the biggest in the region. They should have everything we need to take care of Hayata. If it’s big enough we could settle down for a bit while we figure out what to do next.

While Ikko was talking Tim examined the small jar of medicine. He could feel something strange emanating from the bottle before, and now that he held it he could feel the traces of mana inside. But, instead of a current or river of mana, this felt more like a cloud that danced in the solution. It also didn’t feel like there was a sigil network imbued inside. In its place the ingredients of the potion gave instruction to the mana.

Tim followed his instincts and carefully poured his mana into the jar. It tried to escape. It tried to erode the ingredients. But Tim wound it gently and soon the cloud was a swirling storm of mana. The jar started to glow bright green.

“Recovery Potion – Moderate” Analysis announced smugly.

“’Mana Manipulation’ has reached level 2.”

The radiant glow attracted the attention of the party who stared dumbfounded.

“Um, try this at his next dosing. I think I improved it.”

“Wow”, said Emi, “you really did!”

Genzo looked down at his teammate Hayata and then rested a hand on Tim’s shoulder.

“Thank you Mr. Nelson.”

“Call me Tim.”

Eight people from another world spent the remainder of the day walking down the dirt road. Farming villages littered the scenery and the smell of livestock drifted in the air. They passed and were passed by many others heading about. Each any every person who saw them gave long curious gazes. An old woman who was tending a field near the road looked up and watched them pass. A moment later her eyes grew wide and she yelled out “Yurei” and ran off as fast as her old bones could take her.

Genzo looked back at Randal and snickered.

The next morning Hayata had recovered enough to walk, although not without assistance. He managed to drink some soup and talk a little before falling back asleep. Hayata slept on the stretcher as they continued westward. The villages grew bigger the farther they went. Smaller roads met up and joined into the one they were on. The dirt road became paved and many people crowded the street with them. Children followed the group and poked at Tim, Randal and McKenzie.

In the distance the road lead to a jagged wall of rocks that stretched across the horizon. A behemoth gate was set into the wall, big enough to need a team of mules to move. Above it all was a massive Torii carved into the cliff face. The early morning sun glittered off the golden adornments. Below a line of people and wagons were waiting to enter. While the others were awestruck, Tim felt a growing sense of unease. Gates can be used to keep people inside as well as out, after all.