35. Practice makes perfect

The next day went by without any notable problems. The group travelled through forests and past the town of Drittio. After Drittio the landscape began transforming into less countryside-like. Small villages filled the meadows in between towns. The towns came more often. During the day the group even managed to somewhat get past two other towns on top of Drittio.

Though their route went past the towns, avoiding them as much as possible. Thus they stayed hidden in the forests. Besides, it worked as a semi-shortcut to Xunte Sintra. Yet the reason Waldina chose this route was mainly to avoid large groups of people and curious gazes.

As the evening came they once again camped in the forest. Kris aided in cooking the dinner and Waldina looked for softer ground where to put her cape, for Claudia’s bed. Although Claudia was getting more used to camping, Waldina still wanted to ensure she’d have a slightly cozier place to sleep at.

As Kiandra had stayed up most of last night, for night guard duty, Waldina was well-rested and chose to guard this night. Her condition had gotten way better in the past few days. Even her arm was nearly back to normal, with no signs of bruises. She suspected her recovery speed was due to the fact she was summoned in this world, as a hero. So, to save this world. In fiction heroes always had all sorts of miraculous abilities so perhaps fast recovery was one of hers. At least it kept her a bit safer. Though Waldina wasn’t exactly eager to try out her luck in combat and instead stayed careful at all times. The third stage-exam had given her a much needed wake-up call for her actions and also her values. Even though she was living her dream life as a ninja, she needed to remember that now she was faraway from her peaceful and somewhat safe lifestyle. Dangers lurked everywhere. Perhaps this was her lesson as to how it was to live her dreams: not everything would come served on a silver platter.

And she’d decided to protect life. Both hers, and her companions. That meant she’d need to have patience with this annoying malemage and his presence. For now it was best to just keep an eye out for him and his tactics.

She’d stopped to think a couple of times how to act around Kris. She wasn’t yet able to leave him behind and she most likely wouldn’t be able to defeat him one-on-one. Thus she’d arrived at the conclusion that it was simply better to work the man to the bone. If he knew who Diaz was, or had suspicions about it, he wouldn’t want Diaz to get injured. Cliffertown wouldn’t appreciate that, after all. So Waldina chose to treat him as a free body guard and cook.

She still didn’t want to leave him alone on night-guard duty. The ninja didn’t want to try and see how far Kris would get with Claudia before she noticed. Especially because he’d most likely use his teleportation skill. As it worked even on longer distances, Waldina would have a hard time pursuing them.

“Kris, Kiandra, would you prepare the dinner?” Waldina asked after she’d sneakily taken out food from her inventory. In Kris’ presence she pretended to take the food from her ‘magic back’ which worked similarly to her inventory. According to Claudia those were the most common ways to preserve food and other stuff while traveling in this world. As Waldina didn’t want to attract attention to herself, she kept pretending she had a magical back and she kept her bracelet hidden behind the scarf-like cloth. As for their travel route, each day she sneaked away from the group and checked the map and possible landmarks along their route so she’d be able to recognize their route whilst traveling.

“Sure, what were you planning on?” Kiandra smiled adorably and flew to Waldina.

“I was thinking of looking at the surroundings with Diaz and who knows, might even try to improve my skills,” the ninja laughed while pointing around their surroundings. It wasn’t exactly a lie though her first priority was to give Claudia a breather, as Kris was constantly gazing at her, as he was trying to gather information. Plus this way she could teach Claudia some swordskills.

Claudia looked up, excited, after hearing Waldina’s words. A while ago she had sat down on the ground, leaning against a tree, acting like she wasn’t bothered by sitting on the ground at all. It actually bothered her a lot less now than it had in the beginning but it was still in conflict with her past manner lessons and etiquette. After all she’d been studying to act like a proper lady all her life. Yet besides the botherment she was feeling excited as she experienced a new sort of freedom. When she acted the opposite to how a proper lady should, she felt she could better reach her ideal self. The one who wasn’t pitiable and weak.

“You could explore the area with me,” Kris winked at Waldina, hinting, but the ninja just rolled her eyes showing her nonexistent interest. Kris hadn’t really changed his habits even though Waldina had already pointed out his engagement ring and the status that came with it. Perhaps bad habits were too deeply engraved within him.

“As the sole person who’s able to use fire magic, you’re in charge of the campfire,” Waldina stated in a way that left no space for negotiations.

“You think we should have a campfire?” Kris raised his eyebrow, confused.

“Hmm yes. It seems the night might get colder,” Waldina explained before turning her back to Kris and Kiandra. She headed away from the camp, in search of suitable enemies. Claudia followed her with a new kind of excitement coursing in her veins.

There weren’t many monsters around the camp - that had partly been the reason Waldina had chosen this place for their camp. Yet it meant they’d have to walk for a while before meeting monsters. The ninja decided to use this opportunity to improve her stamina and jogged towards a direction she sensed enemies in. At the same time it improved Claudia’s stamina, who was desperately trying to keep up with the ninja.

Yet Claudia didn’t complain even once. During the past few days Waldina had noticed Claudia taking every piece of advice and practice tip seriously. Claudia really wanted to change. The lady had admitted having begun her training way back when she was still at home. It had given her a great base where to go on improving her skills. Though she lacked actual combat experience still.

After they’d gotten a great way from the camp, Waldina began checking for monsters. At their right there were a couple of blue-green goblins, otherwise similar to green goblins. The goblins were at the same level as Waldina right now yet she didn’t see a need for worrying.

She charged towards the goblins signaling Claudia to follow her. Claudia glanced at the monsters, uncertain, before grabbing her sword. She took it from its sheath and directed it at the monsters. Waldina quickly glanced at Claudia’s actions and took out her own sword. She held it in her hand, pointing it diagonally forward. Claudia imitated her motions and the ninja nodded in approval.

The goblins finally noticed them turning to face the danger in front of them. A couple of them held a sharp stone as a weapon, the rest had a thick stick. Other than that the goblins had slightly sharper and longer nails and teeth compared to the green goblins back in Inizio’s forests. Thus they had more weapons yet Waldina still wasn’t worried. Goblins were dumb beings which were usually easy to outplay.

“I’ll try to rely on just my sword so keep your eyes on my movements to try and catch any knowledge, to see if that could help,” Waldina suggested, grabbing her sword with both hands now. It felt wrong in so many ways - perhaps due to her nature as a ninja - yet she fought against the feeling anyway. Ninjas normally didn’t wield a sword with both of their hands, as they needed to leave the other hand free for other tricks - or other sword. Yet as far as Waldina knew Claudia wasn’t aiming to become a ninja so wielding a sword with just one hand could become a disadvantage to her.

Waldina pointed her blade at the goblin closest to them. The goblin was charging towards them, holding a sharp stone in its hands. She guarded herself from impact with her blade simultaneously pushing the goblin back. It dropped the stone at her feet. Waldina took a better hold of her sword making sure it was pointing at a perfect angle at the goblin. Then she pierced the goblin by slashing diagonally across its midbody. The goblin whined for a moment, something that sounded ever so distantly like human language before disappearing into the air as manadust.

The next goblin was holding onto a wooden stick. Waldina turned her sword around, pointing its sharp blade at herself. She parried the goblin’s blows with the blunt edge of her sword, aiming to demonstrate her swordsmanship to Claudia. After a couple of minutes she turned her sword around, pointing the sharp edge at the goblin. As its stick clashed with her blade, it snapped in two and the blade slashed through the goblin’s body, now without any protection.

This time the rest of the goblins didn’t stay on the sidelines and instead the four remaining goblins charged at her all at once. She smiled grimly letting the goblins surround her. With swift strike she slashed through a goblin holding a stick. Afterwards she turned to look at another goblin holding a stone.

When there were only two goblins left, she turned to Claudia: “Do you want some combat practice?”

Claudia’s - as in her Diaz form - eyes opened fully in shock, yet beyond all that there was a tiny glint of enthusiasm. She went through her options while Waldina kept the goblins busy by evading their strikes and hits.

Finally Claudia agreed and went to Waldina and the remaining goblins. The ninja gave her a few pointers while making sure the goblins wouldn’t be able to surprise nor harm the inexperienced Claudia. After a couple of misses Claudia managed to strike through one of the goblins. It disappeared into thin air as manadust around her sword.

“Try to defeat the next one by slashing it rather than hitting through it,” Waldina advised whilst evading the remaining goblin’s sharp nails as it kept swinging around like a madman as it had lost both its weapons and companions.

Claudia took a better hold of her sword. With her heart beating fast she imitated Waldina’s earlier movements to complete her slash. She held onto her sword with all her powers and slashed across its body. The goblin disappeared in front of her eyes.

“Huoh, that was scary,” Claudia sighed, inhaling deeply. Her heart was still racing like crazy. It had been her first contact with real enemies, if the unlucky attempt against the graybears didn’t count, and now she was unsure what to think nor feel.

“Great job,” Waldina smiled and patted her friend’s shoulder. Or more like she tried to do it but ended up only reaching her back. As Diaz Claudia was so tall that Waldina faced some real trouble in reaching her shoulder. Even as her usual self Claudia was taller than Waldina and the difference only grew as her Diaz disguise.

Once Claudia calmed down, both physically and mentally, Waldina led them towards the next group of monsters. On the way she told her friend all sorts of tips for fighting and how to best use the sword, in her opinion. At times they confronted monsters which Waldina defeated most of them and Claudia got a bit of experience from defeating the remaining ones.

Waldina found it amusing how experienced she seemed compared to Claudia, although she hadn’t been doing these things for long either. She figured it might be due to the fact she was simply made to be a ninja and Claudia a normal human being. Waldina’s job was to save the world - in the odd chance Oziel would fail - and Claudia’s part was to simply live her life grateful for what she had. Claudia had potential to become anything she wanted, but no extraordinary natural instincts nor level up rate. Waldina mostly had potential in becoming a ninja and extreme level up rate as well as natural instincts and skills, she never knew she could have, and most people didn’t have. At least usually they were acquired, not something to be born with.

They were so similar yet so different.

After defeating a decent amount of monsters and after managing to teach Claudia more than enough for one day, Waldina headed towards the camp. They ran all the way, increasing their stamina yet again and reaching the destination quickly.

Kiandra and Kris were cooking the food by the fire as the duo came back there. Waldina was content with the timing.

“So how did the surroundings seem?” Kris managed to ask before Kiandra could. The blue colored fairy looked at him with a sour expression, yet still ended up casting a smile on her face as she turned to her friends.

“Good. Not many problematic enemies and even got some practice with my skills,” Waldina smiled a bit too brightly, forcedly. “How did it go for you here?”

“Good. Besides the fact he’s a moron,” Kiandra glanced at Kris in disgust yet the mage just laughed.

“Just teased her a bit,” Kris defended, not sounding apologetic nor remorseful at all.

“Mhmm sure,” Waldina chuckled as she sat down close to the campfire.

The group ate the vegetable skewers and meat bites grilled on the fire whilst chattering. Kris was mainly the one keeping the conversation going which didn’t surprise Waldina at all. After all, the man was trying to get solid proof of Diaz’s real identity and information out of them. No better way than chatting friendly.

Had Kris not been their enemy, chatting with him could’ve been enjoyable. Yet as long as he was after Claudia, Waldina couldn’t relax. She couldn’t make up her mind on whether Kris already knew the true identity of Diaz or not. Claudia had done her best to avoid being alone with Kris yet it didn’t ensure keeping the secret hidden. If it even was a secret at this point.

And thus Waldina stayed up observing the night life in the forest and gazing at the starry sky. Her gaze traveled between Claudia and Kris, and anxiety didn’t leave her alone that night.