Chapter 11: Sometimes Bullet Points Give Clear and Concise Information. Other times they’re for Lazy Writers.
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In the morning, Old Man Harulf, together with Lor, Louie, and the other militia guaard Kristaf, showed us the Dwarven ingenuity that’s famous even in the OTHER world.
He cobbled together a fully functional wagon out of the bits and scraps of the three other wagons.
While they were doing that, I helped Kali, Lyla, and Feron sort out the demolished supplies, the salvageable supplies, and the good supplies. Well, Lyla and I were sorting them into good and bad piles while Kali made the decisions which were too bad to be sold.
Feron was in charge of the inventory and calculating the losses.
Niera, meanwhile, tended to the very badly injured Miinalya and ... put the animals who were too far gone out of their misery.
They had done it last night for a horse who was just about dead, but the ones Niera led off this morning were ones they hoped would rally in the night.
I can hear the death shrieks from here. It’s an uncomfortable sound.
The ones we have left are two donkeys, one who has miraculously escaped with just scratches and the other who miraculously just has scratches and an injured rump, and a horse who has gouges on its shoulders.
Naturally, the horse can’t pull a wagon like that, so he will be led along.
For Miinalya’s sake, the merchants want to hurry to Nyl Labyrinth City, but they’re reluctant to leave behind any supplies that could still be sold. After all, fitting 10+ people, one who needs to be lying down, in the wagon PLUS the commercial goods ... impossible.
Impossible ... until Jericho mentioned I had the (Storage) skill. Which I don’t, but that’s ok.
It seems there’s a magic item, Magic Bag, that’s similar, but you can only fit a certain amount of things in that would normally fit in the bag. I don’t mean that you can only put in the amount of items that would normally fit in the bag; each item cannot exceed the volume of the bag, but you can put 5-20 of such items into the Magic Bag.
Well, Magic Bags are expensive. A little less than Mana Pots, but not by too much.
The (Storage) skill can encompass about a wagon’s sized volume of stuff, total. It’s a very difficult skill to learn, as most Space Magics are, according to Lor.
I wonder if anything that breaks the natural laws of physics is considered “Space Magic”.
So what is my (Inventory) skill, then?
A cheat. Even after they gave me stuff that would normally fill (Storage), I don’t feel that it’s at all full. Also, everything’s easy to find in tiny icons. Seems like in the Magic Bag or (Storage), everything’s just thrown in a pile in a sub-space.
Am I sure I’m not a player character in a game?
So we soon set off towards Nyl Labyrinth City. Though Jericho and Kali were still worried about possible attacks, the journey went without too much more trouble. Some of the more notable things that happened:
Day 1
* We made good progress, though we stopped to rest the animals several times.
* Lor has me training my MP in the wagon. Though Old Man Harulf’s training helped me get started, after all there’s still quite a ways to go.
* Of course neither Old Man Harulf nor I tell Lor about that late night training.
* At evening we stopped and, before dinner, Kristaf decided he wanted to spar with me since I said swords were more my style. It’s regretful that I’m not experienced with foreign swords.
* He says that even without magic, I’m pretty strong for a girl.
* I feel a little insulted, because my strength hasn’t changed from before this world and I had thought that I was pretty strong in general.
[*]Day 2
* I’m caught in the last minutes of my night watch practicing suburi sword swings with a long sword, and the militant guys are curious about such a strange way of practicing using the sword, which repeats up and down monotonously.
* I asked about one-sided swords, but it seems there are only sabers and scimitar types from another country. I am displeased there are no katanas.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
* While in the wagon I manage to duplicate the circuit pattern from the sling in the palm of my hand and can charge the bolt by holding it by its end. I’d like to understand more about how the patterns control magic...
* It’s difficult to maintain the circuit in my hand, though. I can’t hold it more than 30 seconds.
* Lor grumpily told me to stop breaking magic.
[*]Day 3
* Miinalya’s condition isn’t good. We thought she was stable, but last night her condition suddenly dropped. We plan to continue traveling through part of each night until we reach Nyl.
* I find out Miinalya belongs to a race called Featherkin, and supposedly has small wings where ears normally are. It’s hard to tell since she is completely swathed in bandages and cloths.
* Kristaf and Louie are teaching me to drive the wagon, since I seem to do the best at night. They’re hoping I can keep the wagon going with one of them by my side. They don’t trust themselves not to fall asleep, it seems.
* I feel sorry for the animals, but I understand the hurry. But ... my abilities aren’t really that good so we go at a much slower pace until about the start of the 3rd night-watch shift. Then, Kristaf and I stop and unhitch the donkeys to let them rest a few hours.
[*]Day 4
* Everyone’s on edge because of Miinalya, and also because we’re coming to a spot well known for its ambushing capabilities. I had slept a while after everyone woke up, but Niera apologetically woke me up as we went through this pass.
* I am relieved that nothing happens. Though Niera and I confirmed with our (Farsight) skills that there were, in fact, people in the surroundings, they are either travelers or uninterested in us. Either way we make it through safely.
* Lor talked some more about his dream to make cheap medicines. It’s a bit discouraging, though, because as an Unaffiliated it seems he will only ever have dreams about working in a state-of-the-art facility, not to mention the lack of funding.
* He laughed dryly and said, “Well, if some country would just let me use their alchemy labs for a week, I’d make 5 times more progress.”
* I do better driving the second night, though Louie scolds me for making a mistake. My mistake made the animals stumble, shaking everyone in the wagon awake, and Louie seems to have grown fond of the donkeys, making him extra angry. I apologized endlessly, since I feel ashamed as well.
* Well, Louie’s a good-natured sort of guy, so he let it go after I apologized the first time. I, however, was deeply embarrassed and continued to apologize for another 5 minutes.
* Day 5
* Towards dusk, with Kristaf driving the wagon, we finally caught a glimpse of the gates of Nyl Labyrinth City.
* —
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NAME: JUN
MP:【▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▍】2,300,000/2,500,000
TRAITS:
[OTHERWORLDER]:
[PASSIVE: (Secret Trait) (Resilient Body) (Magic Enrichment) (Otherworldly Knowledge) (Accelerated Learning) (Keen Instincts) (Translate)]
[SKILLS: (Inventory) (Friend Chat) (Status) (AnalyzeIV)]
[MAGIC BORN]:
[PASSIVE: (Secret Trait) (Boundless Magic) (Chantless Cast) (Well of Magic) (Magic Sense)]
[WANDERER]:
[PASSIVE: (Steady Balance) (Perceptive Sense) (Light Foot)]
[SKILLS: (Augment Body) (Augment Mind) (Farsight) (Ground Shrink)]
[MANA MANIPULATOR]:
[PASSIVE: (Magic Sensitive) (Magic Intuition) (Magic Control)]
[SKILLS: (Magic Sensory) (Magic Channeling) (Magic Dispersion)]
[COMBAT MAGICIAN]:
[SKILLS: (Barrier)]
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