Episode 30: It's time to leave

A week had passed since the festival and the landscape was already changing. The grass was shedding the long dry leaves and growing new ones, standing up reinvigorated by the gentle rains. The people tended to new activities, such as preparing the land and planting seeds.

Taro had been working on becoming stronger, exercising his body by doing calisthenics, running, and climbing trees, and his mana by meditating, alongside practicing his rock throw technique. In addition, he would swing the dry root vine he took from the tree monster in the forest. It was a long, extremely hardened stick that would remind him of a baseball bat

Taro: (I may never become a swordsman, but who needs a sword anyway?, this stick can do the job)

Nagye: T-Taro, good afte— good morning

Taro: oh!, Nagye goomornin, I no see you, long time

Nagye: y-yeah, my parents had returned for the festival and they stayed a bit more in the town. wh-what are you doing today?

his sweat drenched shirt stuck to his now more defined body. She had not noticed how much he was changing, he looked more confident and stronger, enough to make her feel like she must look away

Taro: I, become more tough, mana enha, and, uhhh, stick atak, oh and rocks

Nagye: o-oh you’re training, t-that’s good, you’re like a guard, they train every day, even if nothing is happening. ah, speaking of rocks, m-my parents taught me and Shizuka a new technique, I think y-you will like it too

Taro: (oh? Is it time to acquire a new skill?, I’m interested) teach, please

Nagye: I showed them what I can do with the birds, and told them about the rock problem, that when the birds run out of rocks, they need to collect more, and-and they taught me and Shizuka how to create rocks! you need to focus your mana and make it attract dirt, and then you compress it and—uh, I think it's easier if I show you

she extended her palm and focused her mana on it, it became visible quickly how dust gathered like a vortex, condensing into a growing sphere, that pulsated, growing and shrinking, until a perfect ball was formed

Taro: ooh! very tough!

Nagye: I-I still need practice to make it faster. My parents taught us this when I said I couldn't simply shoot mana projectiles, I g-guess they were disappointed, b-but at least I know something new. I wanted to sh-show it to you, and t-teach you, if you want

Taro: (with that, I wouldn’t even need to search for rocks on the ground, I would have an endless supply!, and if I become fast enough, I’ll be like a machine gun!) yez, please teach!

They sat on the usual rock and started the lesson immediately. She had brought all the necessary props and notes, as if she had prepared beforehand, but she had something else in store besides that, something she was gauging on when to ask during the whole practice. Taro was making quick strides; he didn’t take long to start seeing the little dirt sphere in his hand

Taro: (just being capable of enhancing myself with mana was incredible for me, and now I am performing real magic!, I can make literal rock balls with my hands like a wizard now!, I never thought I’d get this far) Nagye, tank you, very much, I never forget in my chest

Nagye: I-I’m glad you like it, you learned so fast too, f-faster than me

Taro tried his brand-new rock on the stick he had been using to practice rock throws, he stood at a rather extreme distance from it, made the shot, and hit it perfectly in the center

Taro: very very tough, “ha-ha!”

Nagye: wow, l-let me try, it’s my turn

Taro and Nagye engaged in a friendly match of rock throwing, Taro throwing from increasingly harder positions, and Nagye using her birds to deliver the aerial strike with increasingly difficult maneuvers, both using the new rock “creation” technique

Nagye: umm, Taro, I h-have a question, it-it’s nothing serious, just a little curiosity

Taro: oh? what is?

Nagye: umm, h-have you ever um, f-fallen in l-love?

Taro: (I wouldn’t say so, yeah I had crushes all throughout my student life, but I don’t think I have really fallen in love, I never talked to them, I’ve never had a girlfriend to know how that feels, hmmm, I thought I had a crush on Sidra because she was the only girl that would spend time with me at the church when I just got transported, but I quickly snapped out of it when I realized she just didn’t see me as a man)

Taro was taking long to answer, he seemed to ponder long and hard

Taro: (wait a minute, I have fallen in love, not with 3D girls, but with 2D ones!. They are beautiful, nice, perfect. I had many waifus that I wish I could marry, I even imagined entire lives together, having kids and everything. my answer is clear now) yez

Nagye: y-yes?!, w-who?

Taro: (I can’t really explain what a waifu is, perhaps that answer complicated things, well, they are girls from my world so) uhh, girls from, other world

Nagye: o-oh, yeah, of c-course, you knew many girls back in your world. d-did you m-marry them?

Taro: (I wish I could) no, that, not possible, they no see me, I just love, but never marry, never talk

Nagye experienced a guilty relaxation upon hearing that

Nagye: o-oh, that’s quite tragic… um, I’m just asking all this beca-because I umm, I read a new book my parents brought me, it was a romance story, but it was complicated, and I wanted to talk about it with so-someone

Taro: I see

Nagye: the story was about someone wh-who fell in love, b-but it was complicated, because they didn’t know if it was real love or just umm attachment or close friendship, and-and there was another character that was also in love with the same person, and it was getting complicated, because th-the protagonist didn’t wanna fight because the other person was friends with them,

Taro: (I’m getting lost, that’s some complicated plot, but it sounds kinda like a love triangle) I, see, complicated

Nagye: y-yeah, I-it’s very confusing, I-I haven’t read more, so I was wondering w-what the protagonist would do, that’s why I was wondering what do you think

Taro: I brute, not know, many things, but, friends no good fight, friends uhh, maybe, love other person, same time?, or, love each other, hehehehe

Nagye: l-love each other?, hehehe, that is indeed a solution they could take

Taro: (I have a feeling she would be a fujoshi if she was from my world, she reads so much, I wonder if yaoi and yuri exists in this world) yez, love each other, love other person, nobody fight, all good

Nagye: th-that’s a good perspective, I just hope it works

Shizuka: Nagyeee! Tarooo!

Shizuka, Ari, and Sidra were walking towards the rock, carrying dried fruit bags

Taro: oh!, goomornin!

Shizuka: goo’evenin’ hehehe

Sidra: So this is where you hang out?, most charming place

Ari: oh, you guys were playing hit the stick?, I’d join but I’m so tired, it was a busy day

Shizuka: there’s been so many monsters recently, every day it’s at least 1 haaaaa

Ari: it’s a lot more than before, even with the bruo still around, just today we fought 3

Shizuka: That's the most we’ve seen in a day!, even geniuses get tired

Nagye: th-that sounds rough

Taro: very rough

Sidra: oh, this is…

Sidra picked up Taro’s root stick and inspected it

Sidra: oh, I thought it was my stick, but it's not. I see I wasn’t the only one that brought one of these home

Taro: yez, very good stick, very tough, it, my sword

Ari: Is that the vines of the tree monster?

Sidra: correct, how ironic that we would bring with us the same vines that once tried to slam us to the ground, but it’s just such a hard wood, I also thought it could serve me as a weapon

Ari: a hard stick alone won’t work as a weapon, you either have to buy an actual weapon, or mana enhance your stick.

Taro: mana enha, stick?

Sidra: I did not know about that technique

Ari: lucky for you guys, you have an expert right here, alright, pay attention, I’ll teach you how to enhance your weapons

she jumped off the rock like she wasn’t tired from her hard day

Taro: (uh-oh, here comes a bad explanation of how-to mana enhance, hopefully Nagye or Shizuka can help us out)

Ari: It's very simple really, just like enhancing your own body, just focus your mana and make it cover your weapon, but not just from outside, make it go inside the weapon, like if it was water soaking cloth, like this!

Taro: (oh? that was a better explanation than I thought, it is pretty easy, I already did it!) it, work!, Ari, good teecher, finally

Ari: What do you mean “finally”? you brute

Sidra: most wonderful, that was easy to learn, blessed be the sight

Taro and the girls chatted, relaxed, ate dried fruit, and practiced their skills, a pleasant reunion they wished would have lasted longer, because something ominous would interrupt them.

The emergency bells started ringing, announcing fears they had forgotten. the team returned to the town, everyone had already gathered, the guild master, guild secretary, and the bald priest stood in the middle, with somber expressions

guild master: please lend me your ears, for I must deliver dreadful news. One of the heroic parties has fallen, the Horde is rapidly approaching, a sign of this is the abrupt increase in monster encounters.

The murmurs and whispers of the crowd expressed bewilderment and fear. the mighty heroes had fallen, the peace they enjoyed, the aftertaste of the festival, the sowing season, everything was to be ripped away from then in an instant

Taro: (the heroes?, the guys with cheat skills, they have fallen?... what will be of us?)

guild master: the Horde will be here soon, what I’m about to say brings sadness to my heart, but… we must prepare to evacuate the town and flee to the capital, as soon as possible