Excursion [3]

"Hupp!"

*Sching!, Krik!*

Slicing off the head of another goblin, I quickly jumped into the air and kept myself floating for a second with my wings. Looking down, I saw the group of goblins who was just about to gang up on me, swinging their clubs and daggers.

*Kriik!*

Coming out from the thicket of trees with sub-me, I quickly coordinated my attacks toward the green creatures. Lunging downward while spinning with my scythe in hand, while sub-me dashed forward as well, we started to quickly end the lives of the pitiful monsters.

*Sching! Sching! Sching!*

Unleashing two flurries of attacks, it didn't take long until I had wiped out the group completely.

"Huff...huff..."

Looking at my shoulder, I noticed a small gash that I had accidentally sustained during my fight, unable to completely dodge all of their attacks.

'Guess I still need a lot more practice...'

Having already spent most of the day killing a huge number of the seemingly never-ending inhabitants of the lands with [Detonate], it had begun to feel like a waste not to practice with my scythe.

As I was already a full rank above them, it wasn't like they were difficult opponents, but it was still hard to keep my spatial awareness up to the point of completely avoiding injuries.

"[Swap]."

Switching my bodies, I felt as good as new when my consciousness used the new body as its base. Having pretty recently resummoned sub-me, it was a body that was devoid of injuries.

As I dematerialized my wings and transformed sub-me into Bobby, I gazed up to the sky. Noticing the location of the sun, my mind quickly spun, 'Hmm... Yeah, I have no idea what time it is...'

So instead, I checked the watch on my arm.

[14.52]

It was already almost 3 pm, meaning that it wouldn't be too long until I would have to think about retreating to the cave, something that was inevitable no matter what as my mana pool was once again low.

Although the amount of mana my body could contain had increased significantly, my Skills were just too mana-consuming for me to use them in rapid succession.

The only thing that was just moderately taxing was manipulating mist, but in order to use [Dome of Mist], I had to use such a large volume and compress it that it still got pretty demanding.

'I'll hunt one more group before going back... Even if Bellatrix is going to be mad that I'm back early...'

****

[Sophie's Pov]

"Please! Let's take a break!"

Anna was a complete mess, her hair disheveled and completely out of breath.

"Huff! Huff! Please... I just need five... no... ten minutes..."

The day had taken a toll on all of us, but our backline was a lot worse off than me and Arthur. We had several underestimated how taxing it was to spend a whole day and night outside in the wilderness, unable to feel safe as we had to resort to camping without a safe location.

Every minute, we had to watch out for the goblins who seemed to be of endless quantity, showing up from everywhere and anywhere. As the unofficial leader of our group, I made a decision, "Okay. We will look for a good place to rest. Hopefully, it can serve as a place to spend our night as well."

I was not about to make the same mistake as yesterday. Today I would make sure that we found a good place to sleep before night fell. So after a very brief rest, just enough so that Anna could keep on going, we resumed our walk, now with another objective than hunting monsters.

*BOOM!*

Suddenly, a loud explosion rang out, not too far away from us, and, surprisingly, Sarah started running towards it.

"Sarah, what are you doing?!"

"It's James! He might be in trouble!"

Turning her pale face, she gave us a very shallow explanation before running ahead.

"Cmon!"

Having no choice, we ran after her, with Arthur picking up the petite girl on his shoulder. "Hey, be careful!"

It didn't take long until we caught up with her, now standing on the edge of a small glade, her eyes focused on the ridiculous sight in front of us.

"Who's a good boy! You are, yes, you are!"

In the middle of a sea of scattered, green body parts, James was currently petting his almost translucent white wolf.

Taking a step forward, I had to ask the silly man, "James, did you do this by yourself?"

Noticing us approaching him, he quickly stood up with a slightly blushing face, "Oh, hi, you guys. And yeah, I did? I guess you could say we did, Bobby was a great help, after all."

It was insanity, pure and utter insanity.

Looking around and counting the body parts, he must've somehow slaughtered more than ten goblins in one fight by himself, and yet, he didn't have a single scratch on his body. Even worse was that he seemed to be full of energy as if this was just some sort of holiday trip for him.

Before I could continue my questioning, the princess ran forward, for some reason still worried about the mass murderer.

"James! Are you okay? Do you need me to heal you? I heard that explosion again, did you kill another boss?"

Thinking that James would surely shrink back and frown because of her rapid-fire questions, I was surprised to see him just having a gentle smile on his face.

"I'm fine. See?" Flexing his thin arm, he tried to jokingly show her that he was just fine, and although she decided to let her go, the worry on her face stayed behind.

"You are amazing as always, huh? How did you do this, James?"

Arthur was the next one to step up, looking up to the man he looked down on as always. Even though his face didn't change, something inside of me could feel a very different aura exuding from him.

The more I got attuned to this thing inside of me, the more I could recognize the invisible changes that James did. It was as if he had an invisible face that I could see his different expressions on.

So, to me, it was pretty obvious that he thought Arthur was incredibly annoying.

'Tsk! He should appreciate the wonder that is the hero!'

Putting a finger in front of his mouth, the stupid man tried to act cool as he spoke, "It's a secret."

Unable to take any more of this, and knowing that Anna, who was left on the ground beside us, was on the verge of collapsing, I decided to conclude our little reunion.

"Anyway, we have to get going. We still haven't found a place to rest and sleep. Let's go, guys."

Even though both of them looked a bit disappointed to leave James, they still decided to follow me after saying some short goodbyes.

Just before we had exited the glade, James left us with some final words, "If you need a place to sleep, there is a part of the mountain wall that is hollowed out about one kilometer from here. It should be pretty safe from monsters."

Turning my head back, the man in question was already gone, forcing me to keep my thoughts of gratitude in my mind.

'Thank you, James.'

****

[James's Pov]

'They sure looked worn out...'

Having just walked away from my friends, I felt a bit guilty seeing them so exhausted and rugged.

It wasn't something completely unexpected, as most students probably had spent a lot more time discussing how they would conduct battles, rather than researching the topography of the forest.

Therefore, there were probably a lot of them who didn't understand the real challenge of the excursion.

Mr. Brown had tried to bait us by encouraging us to kill as many monsters as possible, trying to conceal the fact that just finding a place to make our base would be the hardest challenge.

Or, at least this should have been the case if one didn't do their research beforehand.

Walking back to my cave, I had already sent sub-me off as a raven to search for more goblin patrols.

However, instead of a group of goblins, I found something completely different.

Two weird individuals were walking around the forest, acting as if they were searching for something or someone.

Looking closer, it was a tall, muscly man, and a slender woman, both of them wearing some pretty weird clothes.

The man was clad in just a pair of white, martial pants, while the woman was wearing a purple kimono. As both of them had black hair, and their facial features were pretty similar, I quickly concluded that they were siblings.

"How can we not have found him yet? This forest isn't that big!"

The man seemed frustrated, now confirming my thoughts that they were looking for someone.

"Calm down. There is no need to fret, we know that they will be staying in the forest for one more night and until the sun sets tomorrow. We have plenty of time."

It didn't take long before I figured out what they were doing here and who they were looking for.

Luckily, they were currently walking in the opposite direction of both my cave and the place I had directed Sophie towards.

'I'll have to deal with them tomorrow if they try anything...'

As I wasn't in any condition to fight them right now, I decided to wait until tomorrow. Hopefully, my friends could take care of them by themselves, but if not, I wanted to be ready to save them.