Chapter 30: Chapter 29: a muddy road

As we start to walk, I realize just how muddy the road is. The solution turns out to be walking in the grass next to the road. Other than that, our walk proceeds smoothly. We would have walked faster, but Hans would slow us down. We did try for a bit, but the result was that Jo became muddy. It was easily fixed with magic. I decided to experiment with magic as we walked, in hopes of making progress with flight. I did have a breakthrough, though only after a couple meetings with the ground.

As we walk past the forest line, it becomes more difficult to walk next to the road. Everyone except me seems to accept that becoming muddy is a consequence of traveling, but I walk in between the trees. It was fine yesterday since the rain washed it away quickly, but being covered, even just partially, by sun dried mud doesn’t appeal to me. 

Soon enough we encounter two ponds in the road, and it only takes a moment to recognize them as the craters I made yesterday. I ponder for a moment if I should fix it, but decide to ignore it as the others ponder on what happened here. I’m kinda surprised that Hans doesn’t realize it, but then again, he might have panicked a little back then.

It’s around this time that we start to get hungry, so we look for a clearing in the forest to rest. We don’t find any good places, so James breaks a tree so that we have something to sit on. It’s kinda weird to think about, but James’ strength is kinda difficult to comprehend. Both Hans and Jo are stunned to silence by him literally grabbing the tree and breaking it with his hands. Whilst they sit on the felled tree, I use mana barrier to make a chair. I have thought about it before, but this is the first time I have tried it. The first attempt fails since I didn’t use enough mana, causing me to fall, but the second one turns out fine. With a bit of practice, I can probably make it look like a throne as opposed to the simple chair that it currently is.

The meal goes by quickly with Hans and Jo theorizing about who of us is the strongest. Joining their conversation, I state that James wins in a one vs one fight, adding on that he did in fact win against me. James confirms it, though he adds that it was a long time ago and things might have changed since then. Well, we know things have changed, with magic getting better, though I still don’t know the exact changes his build went through. He seemed more than capable when we fought the abomination. This whole discussion causes Hans to ask “why do you insist that Jo is the one to escort me, when the two of you are so much stronger?”

I answer “because Jo needs the practice, and a lone wolf, like the one we encountered yesterday, would be a suitable opponent. Me and James are here to ensure that she doesn’t die, and well, we will probably not let you get killed either.”

That last bit was probably a bit too insensitive, but it came out before I could properly think about it. James picked up on it and confirmed that he would not let Hans die.

After the break, it did not take long until we encountered a wolf. It appeared in the woods next to the road a bit further ahead and stared at Hans with visible animosity. It occasionally spared a glance at me, but ignored the other two. I tell Jo that she is up, but before she can properly react, the wolf charges at Hans. I put up a barrier before it hit him, which causes it to slam head first into the barrier. I was expecting it to attack the barrier, so I put a bit more mana into it than normal, but since it just ran into it, it held, leaving the wolf to stagger a bit backwards.

Afterwards, James stood next to Hans and Jo got her bearings and cast a fireball at the wolf. The spell hit, but the wolf just ignored it and tried to bite the barrier. It’s started to smell like burnt hair and the wolf failed to bite the flat surface of the barrier. Seeing the wolf ignoring everything, I just kept up the barrier and cast a mana regen buff on Jo, as well as a focus up. Her next spell, a lightning bolt, hit the wolf dead center and caused it to collapse onto the floor. It tried to get back up, but she put it out of it’s misery with another lightning bolt to the head. I let my barrier shatter and congratulated Jo on defeating the wolf. It’s kinda odd, when the wolf was up against me, I would feel bad for attacking it, but now it didn’t feel bad, since Jo was the one to fight it. It wasn’t even a proper fight, it just kept going straight for Hans and failed to get through the barrier.

Leaving Jo and Hans to deal with the wolf carcass, I asked James “Did wolves behave like that before? I remember them changing their target opportunistically.”

“Nah, it’s been too long since you had to deal with them. They got nerfed so the new player could deal with them easier. The changing of targets was relegated to wolves that work in groups.”

I guess that they changed since last I had to deal with them. Either way, Jo defeated it. I wonder if her mana increased from it, like it would have in the game. I guess I will find out one the buffs run out and she has regained the mana she expended. 

Hans wanted to keep the body, so Jo put it in her inventory, at the cost of most of her remaining mana. I guess she didn’t account for the fact that bigger things take more mana to store away.

The rest of the day’s travel was uneventful and when the sun nearly set, we decided to set up camp. Jo was carrying the supplies they bought in the city, so she and I set up camp, while James and Hans gathered some firewood and started a campfire. Where they found dry wood, I don’t know, but I guess it got drier during the day. We didn’t make any fancy meals over the campfire, but James heated some meat. 

We should probably do a guard rotation since there are wolves in the forest, but no one really cared enough.

With that, I fell asleep in my tent of restitution.