Chapter 19: A Risky Path

"We have to go this way...really?" Alna stood with her hand on her chin. 

"The guild staff said this is the quickest way to the mountain..." I replied. I stood dumbfounded with my hands on my sides. 

"Hmmm" Thalia seemed unsurprised. Her expression, as per usual stoic. 

"Why does this place look haunted?" Mateo titled his head to the side. 

That was our reactions when we reached the so called, quickest way to the mountain. Dead man's Marsh. Allegedly  even a few heroes who passed through this fog filled marsh land met their end from the creatures that resided here. Our other option, the apparent safer route was yet another long forest path but with considerably less risk. However, taking that path would result in a month long trek to get through and with our supplies only good for a few weeks at best, this would mean us hunting or rationing for our food. Possible to do but tiring and even more time consuming. 

"Mateo can I ask you a question?" I turned to him. 

"What hero?"

"Can you make food with your spatial creation magic?" 

"Its not a stupid question but my answer is no. It takes too much energy to make food and I've tried already...its horrible and inedible . Maybe if I could master this ability more I could but right now, I wouldn't rely on it unless its an emergency." Mateo shrugged and sighed. Well so much for that plan I realized. 

We continued to stand motionless at the marsh's entrance, the fog here screamed  typical horror movie. The land was a mixture of mud, weeds and strange bubbling liquid. Why anyone in their right mind would cross this land is beyond me...yet here we are thinking about doing just that. 

"What could live here?"  I had to ask...almost comically timed, a strange skeleton-like figure suddenly appeared before us as is if willed into existence. 

"Way to go...you had to ask!" Mateo suddenly pulled out his club and we summoned our weapons. The one skeleton creature was now not alone. A good handful more appeared and their gaze turned directly towards us. 

"Don't let the mud grab your feet!" Alna screamed as she lunged forward at the first skeleton. It moved incredibly fast but with one slice of her sharp claws, the creature went to the ground. However, if you've seen or played any games and watched any generic horror movie, I bet you realized this wasn't the end of our skeleton friend. Despite being clawed in half at the hip by Alna's strike, the Skeleton put itself back together and arose to face her once more.

"What the..." Alna swiped again, mimicking her last move and the end result repeated again. One of the skeletons headed towards and me and unlike Alna's singular strike, I went for a quick two hit. My attacks made an almost V-like pattern and the skeleton was split into two parts like a wishbone. Unfortunately, once more, the skeleton re-bonded itself and stood towards me, it's face devoid of any features.

"Great..." I cursed as I tried again and again. 

"These monster's don't seem to be felled by your attacks my friends." Thalia said as she dodged a skeleton strike, her magic I presumed was useless here. 

"Stating the obvious isn't helpful short stuff." Mateo bashed his skeleton and then tried to summon a small fireball from his hand. I could see beads of sweat instantly appear on Mateo's forehead. The fire engulfed the skeleton but it stood up...and now was a flaming skeleton. 

"Yeah, I can see your move worked so much better." Thalia smirked as she once more dodged an incoming strike. Despite her frame, she seemed to almost dance when she dodged. 

"We can't fight these things all day...why does everything we fight have to be so tiring?" Alna continued attacking the skeletons but to no avail. Despite our best efforts, every attack that seemed to stop them only worked for a moment, they arose in a mere second and tried to attack once again...

"We need to run." I began walking backwards and pointed to the area devoid of the fog, the entrance we came in from. 

"Agree hero, I know I can be a coward but this is a good time for a coward's retreat." 

"Agree with you both." Thalia and Alna began moving back. The skeletons didn't let us leave without chase and followed us as we began running to the fog free area. When we finally burst back into the open air, the skeletons...stopped? 

"Curious..." Thalia observed the entities look at us and then in a flash, vanished as if never there.  

"They can't leave the area?" I looked at my party.

"Seems that way...they must be confined to the marsh." Thalia walked back into the fog, nothing happened right away but after a good several minutes, I saw in the distance the skeletons arise once more and looked around. 

"So the minute we enter, they appear." Alna pulled Thalia out and sure enough, the skeletons faded away promptly. 

"We can't just run through the marsh, the ground in some areas is pure mud, that will stop us dead in our tracks. Maybe we have to just push through and beat them as we move?" my party didn't seem to like my idea and honestly, nor did I. The thought of just attacking and moving seemed tiring and I'm sure if more appeared as we went further or if something else materialized, we'd be dead.

"I have an idea but it might take me some time." Mateo walked away from us without even talking it out. Yet, despite the little time I've known him, I trusted Mateo and his creativity. Maybe he was a coward but at the moment, him sticking with us showed a bravery I'm sure other's couldn't mirror. 

We sat on the cold ground for what felt like an hour when Mateo reappeared.

"Follow me you three." we looked at him and then followed his order. 

"What is...that?" Alna was thinking what we all were. Before us was a strange wagon-like vehicle. I'd say it was maybe similar to an old RV but smaller and not at all like the ones from my world.

"In my world we call these HVs, housing vehicles." Mateo explained.

"We have something similar, in my world they are called RVs!" Mateo looked at me with a perplexed look.

"Stupid name...anyways, this thing can't go super fast and I can't fuel it for long it runs on a chemical compound from my world. I think my creation made it a bit weaker, though, it should be able to go through the mud and make it to the other end giving us protection from the skeletons and ground." Mateo hit the side of the HV and smiled. 

"If you could create one of those all along, why did we have to walk here?" Thalia asked a bit annoyed. I couldn't deny, that thought popped up in my mind too.

"Sorry but honestly, creating this made me feel lightheaded. I only now thought of creating it." Mateo did look a bit paler than before. I had to wonder though if he was beginning to gain control over the....

Suddenly Mateo slammed face first into the ground alarming all of us. I guess my thought was wrong, it did exhaust him...

"Let's camp inside of the RV until Mateo wakes up. When he does, we can think about using it to cross the marsh." Alna said. We all agreed and I helped pick up Mateo, it took us three to lift him inside. 

Mateo didn't wake for hours leaving us eating food from our supplies and just talking about the skeletons.

"I've never encountered anything like those things..." Alna stated, taking a bite from some bread we had bought. 

"In my world, they are called skeletons, our inside frames but alive and sometimes un-killable." 

"You have these foul creatures in your world Mizuki?" Thalia asked with a look of horror.

"No, they are fictional in my world...well the part of them moving without skin or a body." I said, Thalia's face seemed puzzled so I elaborated a bit further. Unlike Alna, Thalia was a bit quicker on the uptake...not to sound mean to our cat-girl. 

"Hmmm interesting. In your fictional stories with them, is there a means to killing them?" she asked.

"Sometimes...they could be controlled by a person or using holy magic defeats them." I began to think of all the ways games and anime taught me how to beat skeletons. 

"We don't have holy magic nor am I aware of anyone who can control skeletons." Alna chimed in.

"It's not impossible a person is controlling them but unlikely. I feel these foul entities are linked to the marsh somehow. Maybe they only arise when someone enters and threats their land." 

Suddenly we heard a strange moan and looked to see Mateo was slowly stirring from his sleep.

"Evening Mateo." I smiled and patted our creation user on the back.

"How long was I out for?" he asked, still sounding groggy.

"Maybe a few hours?" 

"Great...well are we still outside the marsh?" 

"Yeah, we didn't enter. Figured wait till you woke up so we can control this machine." I stated.

"Good idea...for once." Mateo slowly got to his feet and then went to the front of the HV. I really didn't look around much when I entered but it was very similar to a RV, just less internally and more like a caravan or wagon. Still at the front was a wheel and some levers. If it was like a RV, I could probably have driven it but from Mateo's brief explanation, I had some worries it wasn't. 

"Just in case I can't control this, let me show you all how to use this thing." Mateo then began to pointing to various levers and switches. For the most part, it was like starting a car but with more functions. The lever booted up the chemical tanks, the light would then illuminate when the chemicals were ready. After which, you'd hit another lever and the HV would boot up and begin to make a strange sound.

"That sound means we can move. You just push that pedal there for movement and the other to stop it. This wheel turns the direction it faces." Essentially a gas/brake pedal and a steering wheel. I guess our worlds weren't that radically different.

"It's late now...we should sleep in here and then tomorrow at first light, push forward." Alna stated.

"Yeah I could use some more sleep. My head is still throbbing." Mateo summoned our supplies, albeit very slowly and then we all turned in for the night. Tomorrow we'd head back into the marsh...even though we had no idea if this vehicle would survive the creatures awaiting inside...