The results of training

From the moment we hit the road the wasn’t a moment of silence. First, we would talk about the mission, possible combat scenarios and the formations we should take if they were to happen.

But that was just in the first couple of hours. We were we were over ten hours away from the town we would sleep at and the boredom had already started to set in. While Mimi was happy just taking in the view, Lafanda and Juni were starting to get really restless.

They would compete to see who would go in front of the carriage, hop off and run alongside it and even spare a little bit. But even then, just a single hour had passed by and we weren’t even at the halfway point.

That’s when I decided to bring out my special weapons and tell them all about with travel games.

(One of the perks of a civilized world. We were really good at fifing ways to pass the time.)

I introduce them to all sorts of games to pass the time, Rock, Paper, Scissors, Thumb Wars; 20 Questions; I Spy; Would You Rather and plenty of others.

Time starts to flow again as we lose ourselves playing, and conversation topics also start to come up again.

“Aki, how do you even come up with these things? It was the same with blessing training, you could just do so many different things. Some of which I couldn’t even find on the books in the library.” Lafanda sounds impressed.

“Well, they are simply interesting to me. The different ways of using blessings is just fascinating! I mean you could alter the shape of dawn flame to shoot it at more than one target, or protections to enhanced your senses instead of only straightening so you could hear better or see farther and…” I start to get a little too excited once again.

“Ok ok, no need to start your rambling again, geez.” Juni says in an annoyed tone. “The last time you went on and on until we went to sleep.”

“Sorry for that! But I just couldn’t stop thinking about it.” I say remembering my past life.

Playing video games and unlocking new skills and thinking of all the synergies I could do with them, reading manga or watching anime and imagining what my power and abilities would be if I lived in that world too.

Right now, I’m actually living the daydreams I would constantly have back then. I just can’t contain my smile.

“See, there he goes again.” Lafanda says. “Remember when we first started leaning blessings? Just learning a simple light made him smile the entire day.”

“Well, sorry for finding these things interesting. Not only that but now they have meaning on this life.”

“What do you mean with meaning on this life?.” Juni asks

(Shoot.)

“Well, uh remember how I said I really wanted to join to guild but never thought it was possible. Is like that my interest in blessings and protections wouldn’t have much meaning of I became a baker or something else, heh heh.” I try to play it off.

“I guess you are right. Not much use for a baker to know how to use them. But personally it would just be better if no one had to learn them to defend themselves.” Juni says.

“I get what you mean.” Lafanda adds.

(Peacefull times are always yearned, huh?)

“Let’s continue with the games.” Juni says. “It was my turn, right? I spy with my little eye…”

“Something up ahead!” Lafanda interrupts us.

We poke our heads outside so we can see what’s in front of the carriage. From the forest to our side we can hear light steps, the flapping of large wings and heavy steps coming from the bushes.

From them emerges two giant spiders followed by two harpies and finally a massive dire bear. If I had to say, the harpies were hunting the spiders when the commotion attracted the dire bear.

After they reach the road we are in, they all stop, one in front of the other. It is beyond eerie to see all of these creatures just stop what they were doing and slowly turn their gazes towards us, before letting their roars and shrieks in unison as they rush towards us.

The coachman stops the carriage out of fear, and we all jump outside.

“Dire bear” says Lafanda.

“Harpies” says Juni.

“Guess I’m dealing with the spiders than” I say.

We all run towards our targets and split ourselves into a pitchfork formation.

Lafanda rushes into the dire bear who goes for a wide swing, but she slides down, dodging the attack.

“Holy Dream Blessing: Sunrise Vigor”

Mimi starts shining with an orange aura, and her teeth started glowing with a purple light.

While Lafanda is still on the ground, Mimi lunged upwards, hitting the dire bear with a headbutt right in its snout. It gets dazed with the impact and Mimi takes the opportunity to launch many bites on it. The bear goes on a rampage, but Lafanda is prepared.

“Holy nightmare protection: Monster strength.” Her body is also glowing purple.

She speeds up and easily evades all the attacks, that are increasingly slowing down after every bite that Mimi lands on him. His body starts twitching and his moves become sluggish as the poison from her protection paralyses it.

With one final direct attack from the dire bear, Lafanda summons a shield.

“Holy Dream Blessing: Darkness Ward”. She protects herself but also keeps him in place.

As the dire bear tries to go thought the shield, Mimi slithers around it and wraps herself around its neck. Her skin once again glows purple as her snake body begins to grow and the muscles tighten. With her growth and the tight grasp, she had on him the dire bear starts suffocating, but he can’t even raise his arms to free himself due to the poison.

His neck is thick but as Mimi grows, she doesn’t stop tightening and eventually we can all hear the loud crack as his neck snaps, falling onto the ground dead.

While all of this happens, Juni goes against the two harpies by himself.