6. The journey to Vermell begins

During the evening Kiandra began teaching the basics of water magic to Waldina. The ninja herself would have been more than content learning to just create drinking and bathing water, but Kiandra wanted to teach her so much more. They had a diverging opinion on what the fairy was supposed to teach Waldina. Waldina wanted to free Kiandra immediately after learning the basics of the basics as she wasn’t a fan of keeping a slave around. Yet she didn’t want to fight with the adorable blue fairy who was as stubborn as they came. So finally they ended up agreeing that Kiandra would teach her everything she deemed necessary - for now.

That meant that Kiandra would have to leave with Waldina on her adventure. The purple haired ninja was hoping she’d learn everything necessary in time for Vermell. She didn’t want anyone to distract her during her fight and that included her new fairy companion. Facing Vermell alone would be enough of a challenge and she wasn’t comfortable protecting someone while engaged in combat.

“All right, I guess it’s time to leave”, Waldina stated as she had packed all her stuff and made sure nothing was left behind in the inn she’d stayed at for the past couple of days. She had told Kiandra the short version of her current situation and how she came to be in this world. After that she’d introduced her bracelet and its basic functions to the fairy so that using it would feel more natural. She really didn’t want to hide a function like that from her travel companion which forced her to come clean. The bracelet’s nearly unlimited inventory function was way too handy to hide from someone traveling with her. Thus, Kiandra would have found out sooner or later and usually it was better to explain that kind of stuff and not let others find out via other means. Besides, Kiandra didn’t seem to mind that much.

As Waldina and Kiandra head towards the edge of the town of Inizio, they grab some breakfast to eat on the way. They chose simple sandwiches which were easy to eat while walking. It was still early in the morning yet Waldina didn’t want to linger in the town any longer than necessary. The forest they were headed to was some time away from Inizio and she wasn’t a fan of camping in the middle of a meadow. It was better to hurry now and rest later. Besides, she was eager to do some more leveling up.

The morning sun shone beautifully from its rising point, far behind the faraway woods. The view was ethereal and reminded Waldina of the evenings spent with her friends where evenings ended early in the morning. It was nostalgic and her heart ached while beating a fraction faster. Slowly it turned into excitement which made her feet lighter, faster. With every step her speed shot up, eventually turning into faster. An excitement filled laughter escaped her lips and it felt as if everything else around her disappeared.

Kiandra looked at Waldina, puzzled. She didn’t really catch what was happening nor why her new companion was acting like this. Had she not been bound to Waldina and her grimoire via magic she wouldn’t have been able to keep up with the ninja. Flying around took a lot of stamina and Kiandra wasn’t strong on that.

Though, Waldina seemed to suffer from lack of stamina as well. Kiandra couldn’t help but laugh as she saw how the ninja’s speed slowed down so suddenly. Now the ninja was gasping for air.

“Sigh. I should really focus on leveling up my stamina,” Waldina managed to utter and Kiandra’s smile grew wider.

“Luckily that’s something you can work on without using your precious experience points,” Kiandra noted. She was starting to really enjoy Waldina’s company: the ninja seemed to be so kind-hearted and modest which created a sense of security. Although the ninja wasn’t that talkative nor sociable, Kiandra didn’t mind. Everyone had their faults and Waldina’s good points mattered more to her. She really hadn’t experienced such security for years - nor tens of years nor hundreds. Basically it was luxurious to her.

“What do you mean?” Waldina turned to look at the fairy, curiously.

“You just gotta work on running daily and I suppose you’ll get better in time,” Kiandra tilted her little head in response, “That’s how all the others work on it.”

Waldina nodded slowly, deep in her thoughts. It seemed experience points were special to her and perhaps to a select few others, if there happened to be other players of AO like her. That was assuming Kiandra knew how regular people here leveled up.

“I guess I just gotta exercise more then,” Waldina sighed displeased. She straightened her back and continued, this time with a slow paced jogging. She really hoped this would count as leveling up her stamina, even with just a little practice. As of now she didn’t want to focus her experience points on stamina as she really needed to work on her agility and power. Not to mention speed and mana. Using water magic spent far more mana than she could’ve imagined and thus she really needed to further level up her mana. Stamina was so important too yet… Agility and speed would help her escape faster, thus they became her priority. She wasn’t afraid of fleeing from battle. She was afraid of experiencing a deadly loss.

After a great while the duo finally reached the edge of the forest. Today’s first monsters they encountered while crossing the meadow. Though the monsters’ low level meant it really didn’t help Waldina much at this point. Well, at the very least those monsters had been a nice way to try out her new weapons.

As she entered the forest, the ninja faced the first monster after coming to this world that she deemed to be slightly difficult. She had just reached level eight as the green goblin, with level eight a top of its head, came to view.

Yet she knew that if she had trouble against a single green goblin, she wouldn’t stand a chance against Vermell. Thus she breathed deeply while signing Kiandra to move to safety.

Waldina grabbed her short sword and held it in front of her as if finding courage to fight. Then she locked eyes with the goblin charging towards her before she in turn charged towards the goblin. She held her sword in both protective and intimidating way.

The goblin was swinging its wooden stick clumsily. The confidence radiating from the goblin was a tad bit scary, even though the goblin itself didn’t pose a danger at this point. She checked her surroundings trying to find ways in which she could use this to practice her ninja skills.

First Waldina dodged to the goblin’s side. Then she turned sharply towards a nearby tree and speedjumped to it. As the speed dropped so suddenly her movement direction switched back to the goblin’s back. She jumped from the tree’s trunk directly to the goblin.

Kiandra was amazed by Waldina’s movement. The ninja was way more elegant and beautiful than she had ever believed a fighter to be. Fighting and killing monsters didn’t necessarily sound elegant nor pleasing to look at. Yet each and every one of Waldina’s moves seemed calculated as she flew across the air like the wind. Her purple hair tied to a ponytail danced with the wind mesmerizingly. Kiandra definitely wanted to see and learn more of Waldina.

“Yay, well done,” Kiandra cheered as Waldina gathered the drops, defeating the goblin left behind. The goblin’s actual body shattered into mana particles and disappeared into thin air. In AO there were two types of monsters: evil ones formed from pure manadust and evil ones that were originally good or neutral beings. The latter type didn’t disappear into thin air and were overall more powerful, often intellectual beings.

“Haha, thanks,” Waldina nodded awkwardly. She had reached the first step to Vermell quite easily yet she didn’t think it worthy of praise. After all there’d still be countless monsters and battles.

Waldina turned to look at the sky absentmindedly. The sun was now right above her, in the middle of the blue sky.

“Do you want some lunch now?” Waldina suggested to the blue fairy floating next to her. The fairy nodded excitedly and stayed put to look at Waldina’s actions.

The purple haired ninja looked through her bracelet and took out two salads she had bought at Inizio. The bracelet’s inventory didn’t preserve the temperature of things inside it which meant most of the stuff was cold. Food didn’t seem to go bad in the inventory but it also meant she couldn’t have preheated food in there.

“Cold food?” Kiandra turned up her nose with dissatisfaction.

“Yes. Perhaps we’ll set a campfire in the evening but as of right now I don’t want to do something so time-consuming,” Waldina explained as she began eating her salad. She did her best to ignore Kiandra’s complaints and occasional sighs. Those didn’t exactly make the food more enjoyable.

“You need fire magic. Soon,” Kiandra stated as she finished eating her salad.

“Certainly,” Waldina replied dryly, “And will you give me the money for it?”

“Money?” Kiandra asked as she played with a small water droplet. She moved it around her tiny blue body. The whole action ended up looking like a brilliant light show as the sunlight seeping through the leaves hit the droplet. The view was magical in more than one way.

“Yeah, those grimoires aren’t exactly cheap. Otherwise I’d have a whole lot of them by now,” Waldina explained and snapped her fingers. She didn’t want to learn any specific magic words for the spells so she had to use other strong images and physical actions. For now she had dedicated snapping her fingers to creating drinking water. She guided the water into a small cup and drank it with a satisfied smile on her face. The action took quite a bit of her mana, but Kiandra had assured her that with time and experience the mana needed would naturally lessen. And perhaps even her maximum mana could increase - at the very least with the help of her precious experience points.

“Hmm, is that so,” Kiandra wasn’t completely convinced but didn’t want to push it any more for now.

The duo continued their journey after lunch. They traveled deeper into the forest. On the way Waldina focused on leveling up against random monsters. Thanks to that she learned new ninja skills. Her new favorite skill was smoke screen - it blinded the enemy and helped her escape or close the distance between her and the enemy. As of now the smoke screen didn’t last that long but she was confident it would get better via practice. And level.

Waldina was quite excited about learning the skills familiar to her through her precious games. The basic skills enabled her to move in so many new and unfamiliar ways that it was nearly magical how she could finally feel all those movements. She could finally experience actually being a real ninja. It was both liberating and slightly scary. In just a couple of days she’d really taken to her role as a ninja and learnt to enjoy it. Her past everyday life felt so far away now.

The monsters in the forest close to Inizio - in which Waldina and Kiandra were currently - were mainly green goblins. Sometimes goblins would have Hiisi as their leader. Hiisi was a smarter type of goblin. Goblin plus. Hiisi were smart and creepy beings yet still beginner friendly in terms of ability. Waldina deemed Hiisi to be a good practice partner before she’d move deeper into the forest, to Vermell’s territory.

After traveling for a great while Waldina noticed a small camping-like area. The goblins camp. She watched from afar and checked the number of enemies and their levels. At the center of the camp she noticed a being different from regular green goblins. It was on level eleven and Waldina nodded to herself. It had to be the Hiisi.

With careful steps she sneaked away from the camp as Kiandra was flying close to her. It was already late and Waldina wasn’t too keen on fighting against monsters in the middle of the night. As a ninja, night would be her greatest ally yet… The night vision necessary for night fights was a skill that all ninjas earned much later on. It was one of the main reasons ninjas weren’t deemed to be great game characters in AO. Like why create a character type that works best during the night yet lock their night vision on such a high level.

In this version of the world of AO Waldina was more confident in her chances of fighting during the night, yet perhaps it was still better to wait for a little while.

Kiandra was too scared to utter a word. She just flew silently right next to Waldina even though the ninja had stopped sneaking around a while ago. Yet Waldina seemed to be deep in her thoughts and Kiandra wanted to avoid disturbing her at any cost. Aaaand she definitely didn’t want to accidentally catch the goblins’ attention. She didn’t enjoy unnecessary fighting.

Finally Waldina stopped in front of a small cave. She checked the locations of enemies through her bracelet and looked for the possible owner of the cave. As she didn’t find any signs of the cave currently having an owner, she decided to stay there for the night.

“Let’s stay here tonight,” Waldina explained to Kiandra who nodded in response. And so they began working on their camp for the night.