In Search of the Ancient Ones (I)

"Gotcha!" I hear a voice quickly approaching from behind.

"You're still missing" I calmly reply and manage to evade her attack with ease.

"No fair! You activated your power again!"

"You were the one who said not to hold back, weren't you?"

"Yes, but-"

"No buts. Come on, again"

"Alright... ahhh!"

The girl raised her staff and stood on guard before attacking again. Time after time she failed to even try to touch me, finally exhausting all her strength we had a slight lunch break.

This is how we have spent the last few weeks. From the first day we set out on a trip to look for some clue as to what is going on in the world she has been eager to want to be of service. She kept telling me that I needed to teach her how to fight so she could take care of herself when I wasn't around to save her.

At first I thought that would be a bad idea, however knowing some self-defense never hurts. That and the fact that I could no longer put up with the fact that she kept claiming the same thing day after day. I guess you could say I lost the patience to convince her otherwise.

After agreeing to train her Maria picked up a wooden stick that was near one of the paths we walked and started moving it back and forth. She seems to have taken a liking to it, as she hasn't let go of her "weapon" and always uses it when we train. Well, I don't know how much training can be considered wanting to hit me with a staff while I constantly dodge without letting her touch me.

At least I can see that she has taken all of this seriously, which is good. She's practicing her moves on her own from time to time, as well as throwing her stick in the air and trying to catch it. She's even using a pair of twintails to keep her hair out of her eyes, or so I think is the reason. Anyway that doesn't take away from the fact that she looks beautiful and adorable.

She is already understanding the weight of her weapon, how much force she needs to execute a strike and the range of it. I can see this reflected in our training and how she is getting closer and closer to catching up with me.

I'm quite proud of her progress, although I'll save those words for the right moment, let's not encourage her too soon.

Back to our adventure, we have no idea where Lavos could have gone. I just trusted my intuition to guide us. I don't know if that was the best choice, however there is no way to corroborate it and she had no objection either.

Occasionally we encounter a creature, but nothing that I'm not easily able to deal with. Certainly their numbers seem to be dwindling, we still don't know the cause of it.

So far we have passed through a couple of cities without much news, upon entering we avoid staying for long and after gathering information we leave soon. I don't want to risk revealing that Maria is a Spiritist with the gift of healing nor that I'm a Seeker, so after confirming the typical that no one knows the true nature of the beasts, nor the events of the day of the Apocalypse, I feel satisfied and we leave the place.

The only exception was that one of these villages was in the middle of an attack by the creatures, to which I obviously went to help them. They gratefully let us stay in a luxurious room at an inn. As we went to eat in their restaurant we overheard a few people talking about a strange shadow flying towards the mountains in the east. Feeling a sort of deja vu and thinking it might be Lavos, we decided to follow it.

We were also lucky to find several rivers and lakes that have given us fresh water, and usually near them there are trees that give us fruit.

Since that fateful day when all started the local fauna has almost completely disappeared. I can't remember the last time I ate real meat instead of these tin cans.

We could try to eat some of those monsters before they disappeared... just considering it makes me nauseous. I'll put that aside until I'm really desperate.

It's been 3 days since that, the only thing we've found worth mentioning is a sign pointing towards a town a few miles to the southeast. We decided to go in that direction as we had no other clue.

The mountainous route was not to my liking, I preferred to stay close to forests and water sources where we would have much more natural resources at our disposal. Although keeping in mind that despite the fact that we had been searching for the last few days without any results in these sectors, maybe the risk of deviating from the main road is for the better.

I remember Lavos mentioned that his ancient village lay on top of a mountain to maintain a certain remoteness from civilization, maybe this is some sign that we are on the right track after all.