Chapter 38: Chapter 36 – The Trip Back

My new younger sister I never knew I had till now was really energetic. She talked a lot, and asked me all sorts of questions, all while walking at a brisk pace that I struggled to maintain.

 

A lot of the questions were about how accurate my family’s stories about me were, or questions about my life with the elves. In return, I asked her what our family has been up to the past few years. Over the course of the conversation, it turns out not using a language for a few years made me forget quite a bit of vocabulary, but luckily, I managed to guess the few I didn’t remember.

 

When the questions began to abate, Mirefa began to complain that we were going too slowly and asked me to pick up the pace.

 

“You know, this is probably as fast as I could go comfortably,” I told her.

 

“What? But in that case, it’ll take us around two days to get back home.”

 

“How fast were you walking anyways?”

 

“This fast!” she said as she began running.

 

“Okay, that’s enough. I can probably maintain that speed for like a minute before collapsing.”

 

“What? But you can’t even call that speed running!”

 

I knew it was a bad idea, but I still couldn’t help but ask, “So how fast can you run?”

 

Surely enough, she took off at a ridiculous speed. There’s no way I could catch up normally, so I cheated and used some magic for extra speed.

 

I managed to catch up to her while using up half my mana reserves. Mirefa clearly wasn’t expecting that and was impressed.

 

“So this magic thingy that you did also can speed you up that much?”

 

“Yes. But I can’t keep it up for long.”

 

“Teach me how to do it!”

 

“I thought I told you already that it’d make you stop growing.”

 

“Growing up seems boring though. You have to do all sorts of boring stuff like stand around keeping watch, and there isn’t time to play.”

 

“Sure, that’s part of growing up, but I’m pretty sure even if you physically stopped growing, others would eventually make you do grown up stuff anyways.”

 

“Aww. But at least promise to teach me after I grow up?”

 

“If I’m around and you have the ability to, sure.”

 

“What do you mean if you’re around? Aren’t you going to live with us?”

 

“I was just planning to drop by and let my parents and brother know I’m alive and well. I wasn’t planning to stay.”

 

“But at least I can pop over and have you teach me after I grow up, right?”

 

“I guess? I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying there though.”

 

“When and where are you going then?”

 

“A few years, depending, and as for where, the elf and I were planning on going somewhere far away.”

 

Mirefa pouted as she said, “So you aren’t going to teach me then.”

 

“It’s not like I don’t want to but —”

 

“Fine, then before you leave, you can teach me and I can just avoid using it until I grow up, right?”

 

“I sincerely doubt that you’d be able to do it without practice, but I can always try. Also, can you slow down a bit?”

 

“But this is already slow!”

Since our supposedly one day trip became two, it was a good thing I brought extra provisions, although they were intended to be a souvenir for my family. I also half forgot that the lupo is a nocturnal species and was really tired throughout the night. Mirefa made a few comments on how she understood why Cabg would be worried about me if I was normally like this, but I’m pretty sure she was the abnormal one here.

 

When the sun finally rose, I was exhausted both because of the strenuous exercise and sleep deprivation.

 

“Oh, that tree looks like a good place to sleep. It’s even thick enough for both of us!”

As soon as she said that, she climbed up the tree and laid down on the branch. The thing was, said branch was at least three meters high.

 

“Uh, how am I supposed to get up there?” I asked.

 

“By climbing?”

 

“Without any footholds or something of that sort, I can’t climb that high.”

 

Mirefa just looked at me in confusion.

 

“Actually, I guess I can cheat a bit and try jumping with a bit of magic.”

 

Using a bit of magic for greater jumping force and then wind magic to try to maintain my speed, I just narrowly missed the branch by a few centimeters. Unfortunately, that also meant that I was freefalling from at least three meters, so I had to slow my descent with more wind magic. That meant that I was spent in mana so I couldn’t attempt it again.

 

“Looks like I’ll just sleep on the floor,” I said.

 

My sister jumped off the branch and landed next to me. “Just hop onto my back, and I’ll climb up there.”

 

I did as she asked and she effortlessly climbed the tree. Her fur was nice and fluffy, and she was rather warm, which made for a perfect sleeping aid. It didn’t help that I had both physical and magical exhaustion and sleep deprivation as well.

 

“You’re lighter than I thought,” she remarked as I was already halfway into dreamland. I just grunted in reply and decided that her back wasn’t a bad place to fall asleep, so I did just that.

 

---

 

 

I woke up to a rhythmic rising and falling, as well as the wind blowing on my face. When I actually paid attention to what was going on, I was still attached to Mirefa’s back while she was running quite quickly. It was already night time too, which meant that I must have slept quite a while.

 

“You can put me down now,” I said.

 

“Oh, you’re awake?” she said as she continued running at the same pace. “I realized I should have just done this from the beginning. You’re light enough that I can run without problems, which makes it so much faster than walking at your speed.”

 

“Did I cling onto you the entire day?” I asked, worried that I was bothering her the entire time.

 

“Yup! And it was quite nice too. Who needs a blanket when you’re so soft and fluffy and warm? Reminds me of the time when I slept with mommy and daddy, but then they decided I was too old to sleep with them and kicked me out.”

 

I guess the feeling was mutual. That probably explains why Anortha loves sleeping with me, especially during winter.

 

I felt bad just going for the ride, so I asked, “Do you want to go even faster?”

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“You can do that magic thingy on me too? Do it!”

 

I casted a gentle wind magic, which sped up her already fast running speed. Unfortunately, it wasn’t fast enough, since my sister complained.

 

“Huh? That’s it? You used it on your ridiculously slow speed and caught up to me, so I expected more.”

 

“Two reasons. I can keep up the buff for hours at this small increase, and the formula for kinetic energy is one half times the mass times the velocity squared. Not only that, air resistance also increases proportionally with velocity squared.” I replied

 

“I understand the first part, but what was the second reason?”

 

“Uh, basically, the faster you go, the less increase in speed you get for the same amount of magic.”

 

“Oh. Actually, could you just make me go as fast as possible? I just want to see how fast I can go. We can get home in time without your small increase in speed anyways.”

 

“Hopefully you can actually cope with the increase. Also note that I’m only going to do it for half a minute,” I said, as I casted my magic.

 

Mirefa accelerated rapidly, although I’m pretty sure a lot of it was also because she wasn’t running as fast as possible before. Rather, at this speed, isn’t she running as fast as a car?

 

After the thirty seconds had passed, I canceled the magic, and my sister slowed back to the original pace.

 

“That was, fun!” she said through her labored breathing.

 

“You want to slow down and take it easy? Should I get off?” I asked.

 

“I’m fine, I can, recover, at this speed.”

 

Sure enough she did.

 

A few hours later, Mirefa announced, “We’re here at the river. Looks like we can get home today.”

 

“Oh we are?” I looked around and all I saw were trees.

 

“Don’t you hear the river? The air is also wetter here.”

 

“Nope. Also, the air smells the same to me. Then again, my senses were always on the weaker side.”

 

After a few minutes of running, we finally arrived at the river. I’m still amazed at how she could hear it from so far away.

 

“So how are we going to get across?” I asked.

 

“Weren’t you the one who taught Cabg how to move in the water?”

 

“Yes. Oh, so I assume you know too?”

 

“Yup!”

 

“So how are we getting our luggage safely across then?”

 

“What luggage?” Mirefa asked.

 

“Like my basket of food that I brought.” Wait, thinking about it, when I woke up on her back while she was running, she wasn’t carrying anything.

 

“Oh, uh, while I was waiting for you to wake up, the food smelled delicious and I ate the rest of it. So there wasn’t anything left anyways.”

 

“Okay. But what about the basket itself?”

 

“I, ah, may have forgotten about it.”

 

“Well, luckily, the basket is cheap, but still you should have at least remembered it.” I admonished her with a light cuff on the head.

 

“Sorry.”

 

Well at least we won’t have to worry about getting the food wet. We swam across the river. I did a relaxing breaststroke with my head above the water, while Mirefa swam quickly to the other side. She climbed out on the other bank, and shook herself vigorously, sending droplets of water flying out of her fur. She also did this weird hop to get the water out of her ears.

 

When I finally reached the other side of the river, although a bit more downstream than Mirefa since I was swimming a lot slower, she said, “You should teach me how to move in the water like that. Getting water out of my ears is a pain.”

 

“Now?”

 

“When else can you teach me? It shouldn’t take long.”

 

“Alright.”

 

She learned in a few minutes. I suppose that the concept wasn’t too hard, although that was still pretty fast. I’m starting to wonder how overpowered my sister really is.

 

Once we both got out of the water, Mirefa shook off all the water again. I’ve seen dogs do that in my previous life, but trying to imitate that didn’t do much besides giving myself a slight headache. At least drying myself with magic was rather easy, so I casted warm air to dry myself off. I also applied it on my sister.

 

“Magic is so nice! Usually, I can’t get myself completely dry, but with this I can. You sure you don’t want to live with me?”

 

“Sorry, but I’ve been living with the elves for years and they have taken care of me rather well.”

 

I got back onto Mirefa and she took off running. About an hour later, she suddenly stopped.

 

“What’s wrong?” I whispered.

 

“Oh nothing. It’s just that I think I smell Cabg nearby. I wonder if he’s mad at me.”

 

“To be fair, you really should get some punishment for disappearing for a few days. I’m sure Cabg is also really worried about you too.”

 

“I know, but my brother has been way too clingy. I’m certain that after this, he’ll even be more clingy than before. Maybe you could convince him to stop?” she pleaded.

 

“Doesn’t he think I’m dead?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Actually, maybe I can pretend I’m a ghost and tell I’d haunt him until he stops. You think that could work?”

 

“Maybe? Actually how are you going to pretend you are a ghost anyways?”

 

I activated a bit of light magic to make myself glow a bit, and then messed around with the air in front of me to make it seem my figure is hazy.

 

“Oh, that’s definitely convincing. He’s currently lying on the floor for some reason. I’ll be watching from here. Go for it.”