Chapter 169: Chapter 168 – Camping

A thorough sweep of the perimeter netted almost nothing for Yuki. He located a few places that he thought looked to be homes for animals and monsters. He found a couple of small monsters that weren’t noteworthy in any way. He didn’t find any person nearby other than Yuna who was hunting down prey.

‘We should be safe for the day then,’ he thought. ‘I’ll set up a few detectors closer to our camp. Then a rotation later for the watch.’

He did one last scan, using his mana to watch the area around him, before racing back to the cave. He dropped his concealing spell as he ran. There was no need to hide if there was no one around.

When he arrived back at the cave, Yuna was still in the forest hunting. To busy himself while she was gone, Yuki tidied up the cave to make it more comfortable to rest in and created a small pit with some rocks in front of the mouth of the cave for their fire. He gathered the wood Yuna had collected and put it together into a pile with the wood he scavenged during his scouting. 

Once he finished with that, he selected a few pieces of wood from the pile and began to carve it with a knife he fashioned out of a few rocks and mana. After a bit, he put the knife down and looked at his handiwork. He stabbed down the two forked stakes into the ground, one on each side of the firepit and placed a spit on them

‘Perfect.’

He glanced up and noted the time. A few hours had passed since Yuna had left to hunt down their food.

‘If she’s not back in another hour, I’ll go find her. Nothing should have happened to her, but you could never be too safe.’

He went up to a tree near the stream and considered it carefully. With a nod, he scaled it and stopped halfway. Taking out his knife, he cut a thick branch from the tree before injecting the tree with a little mana to help it partially heal the slice. Then he dropped down from his perch, landing in a crouch

‘I’ll make myself a staff later. I should probably go and start setting up the sensors and such. Should take about an hour if I take my time.’

With that, he walked a few hundred yards away from their camp and began the process of laying down detector spells. He placed a set of three circles that he embedded in various places: one on the ground, one on the base of the trees, and another higher up on the trees. Taking note of his position from the center point of their camp, the cave, he walked in a circle, placing a set of spell circles at regular intervals.

When he was finished, he went back to the camp and sat down in the center of the circle of had created. Letting out a small breath, he focused his mind and reached out to grasp the thin tendrils of mana that connected him and the magic circles he had created. He pushed out a pulse of mana through the tendrils, each circle receiving an even amount. With in his mind, he felt them activate and reach out to their neighboring circles, forming a curved perimeter around Yuki’s camp.

‘There we go.’

The perimeter wasn’t quite a sphere around their entire camp. A person could drop directly on top of them and they wouldn’t be detected. However, for the skill levels of Yuki’s competition is was more than enough.

‘I’m glad that I asked Sophie for help with this.’

During his training period for the tournament, Yuki had been experimented with various spells and thought up various ideas for techniques. He recalled how Sophie had erected an entire barrier around her base of operations that was almost undetectable unless one was very sensitive to mana. He asked her how she did such a technique and it proved to be much too difficult for him to do at his current level. So together, they created an easier albeit much more time consuming and complicated way to replicate the same effects. Rather than one gigantic circle that had to be engraved beneath the surface of the ground using earth magic, multiple circles were used. Then each circle was powered individually to form the barrier.

‘It’s not the same strength though. I can’t block all magic and technology is almost impossible for me to do right now without the necessary research.’

There were some benefits that the two of them found while creating the spell. Since it was broken into individual parts and each was powered individually, one part being destroyed wouldn’t cause the entire barrier to collapse. Additionally, because the strength of the barriers could be increased with more mana, Yuki could select the necessary areas to buff. 

‘If I could find a way to create more intricate spell circles, then this might be a viable option if you're preparing for a siege.’

He tilted his head as one of the sensors was tripped. Sending his mana through the ground, he located the area of the intrusion and did a quick scan of the person before returning to himself.

‘It’s just Yuna. And she seems to be dragging a carcass with her.’

Pushing himself up, he brushed off the dust from his pants before jogging to meet up with Yuna. He found her pulling along a stag by its horns and had a line of rabbits draped around herself.

“Need some help?” he asked her as he walked up to her. 

“A little. I’m leaving such a large trail behind me,” Yuna replied. “Mind lifting up the back end of this deer?”

“I don’t,” he said. He lifted the deer with its hind legs and let Yuna take the lead as she made her way back to the camp.

“Did you set up the perimeter?” she asked as she rested the stag’s head on her shoulder. Her hair swayed as she walked. “I felt something just a few yards behind us.”

“I did. I should be able to detect anyone unless they drop directly on top of our camp or if they somehow have a way to conceal their presence,” he said. 

“I see. Then what are we doing next?”

“Bring these things to our camp and cut them up. Then prepare for the next day. We don’t have weapons or supplies.”

“Understood. I have some experience with butchering if you want me to help with that.”

“You can do that rabbits. I’ll take care of the stag. Do you know how to cook using a spit?”

“A little. Nothing good, but it’s edible.”

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 “That should be good enough then. I’ll leave that to you and help you here and there. I need to make us some weapons before we can do anything. What do you want?”

“For a weapon?” Yuna asked.

“Mhm.”

“I would prefer a sword, but that would be hard to come by out here in the woods.”

“It would be. Though I could probably come up with something. You wouldn’t mind a wooden one, right? I’ll make it as sharp as I can but it’ll probably come out more as a glorified club.”

“If I can use it like a sword it should be fine.”

“Alright then.”

They arrived at their camp and placed the stag down. Yuki handed Yuna the knife he had made so that she could start deskinning and slicing the rabbits. He quickly fashioned another one, this time one that was large, and began on the stag.

‘I don’t think it was necessary to kill an entire stag but oh well.’

He started on the time consuming task of disassembling the dead deer. After a while, Yuna helped him after she had finished with the rabbits. When they were finished, Yuki lit a fire and Yuna began to roast the meat. 

While she did that, Yuki finished carving out his own weapon from the tree branch that he had sliced off. What he wanted was a simple staff. It was easy to make out of wood, only requiring him to shape a simple stick. When he finished, their lunch was almost done being cooked. He went over to the fire pit and watched Yuna as she carefully roasted a rabbit over the fire. He helped her here and there but for the most part left her to her own devices.

Once she was done, they split up the rabbit into smaller pieces and started to eat. Yuki was a bit hungry due to his mana usage when he set up the border around their camp.

“I’ll get started on your weapon once I make sure my staff if ready. I’m finished but I want to be sure that there isn’t anything that could compromise its strength,” Yuki said as they ate. 

“I see. Is there anything we need to prepare besides weapons and supplies?” Yuna asked.

“I’m not certain. That should be all that we need to worry about for now. There’s no one near us currently so we shouldn’t expect any fights anytime soon.”

“How about monsters?”

“We need to set up a watch of course. What time do you want?”

“I can take the first half,” she said. “Four hours?”

“Five,” Yuki said. “I don’t think four hours of sleep would be enough. I would prefer six but I don’t think we have time for that.”

“Understood. What time are we planning to sleep?”

“Around eight or so. The sun sets at about six right now so two hours after.”

“Sunrise is at five I think.”

“Yes. I’ll wake you up an hour after sunrise. If there’s any problems before my watch, be free to wake me up. I don’t mind.”

“Okay. Seems like we have a plan for the rest of the day then.”

“Today’s our only day to rest,” Yuki warned. “After today, we begin the actual round. And we’re going to be the prime targets for everyone.”

“We’re the front runners, aren’t we. Caitlyn is number two. She’s going to be going after us.”

“Don’t worry about her,” Yuki replied. “Focus on everyone else. She’ll be my responsibility.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t worry about her,” Yuki repeated. “She won’t be the first to attack us. I know it.”

 

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