Chapter 17 - A Flight Over Devil's Land

"Something I'll eventually do?" Tiberius mumbled, unable to understand what he meant. But he did not push further, because he thought that he might understand it tomorrow. And yes, even though he did not agree verbally, after his words, Tiberius was sure that following Rael could be his only option; at least he could learn something.

The rest of the party went without a problem. Jack, one of the mages in the group, used his illusions to entertain people, and after that, under loud music, they danced for an hour or so.

Before the party ended, Rael ordered that they, he and Tiberius, would have a long journey tomorrow, so they need to rest. He also asked them to make sure everything was ready for the trip. Of course, he was talking about food and a small tent they could sleep in.

Before Tiberius and Rael could enter their tents, they heard a loud growl. It was followed by a pair of red eyes that slowly approached the camp. Its bright red eyes diverted their attention away from its saliva-dripping mouth for a brief moment.

"Harald!" Tiberius exclaimed when he saw the monster that could eat him in one bite. However, he was unable to move or speak due to his fear. He glanced around slowly, trying to find out if anyone was going to take action.

"Another one?" Rael let out a sigh. "Do we have leftover meat?" he asked Maria, who had already created a sword with her magic.

"Yes, in the kitchen," she responded.

"Make sure it doesn't attack," Rael said, slowly walking into the kitchen. He returned a few seconds later and walked toward the monster, showing no signs of fear. Before closing the distance, lifted the massive chunk of meat, ensuring that the monster could see and smell it, and threw it far into the forest, where the monster pursued it to catch it.

Rael turned back and approached Maria, patting her on the shoulder. "Good job," he said as he entered his tent.

…

“Ty, are you awake?” Rael asked, but even before he could get an answer, he barged into the tent. Tiberius was making the bed half-naked and was surprised by Rael’s entry.

“Privacy?” Tiberius frowned.

“Not my thing,” Rael said hurriedly. “Let’s go; everything is ready.”

“Give me five minutes, then we can leave,” he said. “We won't be going by foot, right?” He inquired.

“Of course not. The winged horse carriage is ready.”

“You guys have it?” Tiberius got a little excited. Only once has he had the chance to ride it since the day he arrived.

“Yeah, Jack had stolen one as a kid, and we use it.”

“Stole? Isn't that—”

“Illegal? Who cares? We are outlaws; we are called terrorists by the whole world. You think its being illegal matters?”

“But it's wrong.”

“Wrong? I will show you what is wrong. But you have to wait until we reach our destination.”

“Okay,” replied Tiberius, and after making his bed, he put on a shirt and left the tent.

Everyone was waiting for him. Rael was already in the carriage, waiting for Tiberius to come. With the reins in his hands, Jack was at the front and prepared to lead them to their destination. Among the crew, he was one of the nicest. Tiberius had heard that he possessed so much mana that some people thought he was a chosen one while he was in the city. He could also control air, making him the ideal candidate for riding a winged horse carriage.

After saying goodbye to everyone, he got on the carriage and sat next to Rael.

“Ready?” asked Jack.

Rael looked at Tiberius to see if he was ready and then gave the command, “Let’s go.”

Jack hit the horse slightly, and it started running. After a few seconds, the horse started flapping its wings. With the dust rising from the ground, the horse performed a final strong flap on the ground, lifting the carriage off the ground and flying toward their destination.

Throughout their flight, no one said anything. Rael was reading newspapers from every country. He usually ignores the unnecessary news and checks the important ones first thing in the morning. The first two pages contained the main news, and if they did not interest him (he would only read the headlines), he would throw the newspaper away and return to the group.

Tiberius was also quiet, though not for the same reasons. He was watching the sky and the ground through the carriage's window. Unlike the previous time, when he was astounded by the view, this time he was a little scared. Under their feet lay vast jungles with dangerous animals, some of which he had seen. They did look nothing like he had seen before. Two-headed dogs, red lions, and big creatures like Yeti were walking around, and some of them were even hunting each other. The scariest thing he saw was mosquitoes. But not because they were annoying, but because they were as big as a human head at least. One group of them even hunted down a deer just before his eyes.

Though Jack, who was the coachman of the carriage, was bored out of his mind. He was a coachman for anyone’s travel and found it more uninteresting than sleep itself. And considering that they were going to a place where he was not supposed to be (this is a rule made by Rael), he will need to wait next to the winged horse until they finish their conversations, which could take hours.

It took them about four hours to reach their destination. Everyone was already bored, and Rael was asleep. Seeing that nothing was going to entertain him, Jack began talking with Tiberius, which worked well because, as expected, he was curious about everything in Tanshy. He bombarded Jack with questions and explained that there are no animals like this on Earth, so he finds them either funny, interesting, or terrifying, particularly the mosquitoes.

Jack could tell by his words that he was still afraid of being attacked. So he tried to reassure him that there was less chance of any monsters or animals attacking them, but Tiberius was concerned.

“How can you be this sure? The camp is away from nations; inside of the Tanshy, there is always an attack chance,” Tiberius tried to explain his worry.

“It is simple, really. They can’t attack us because they are scared.”

“How? You are just a huma—” He stopped for a second, remembering that they were different, “a daha. What if they attack you during sleep? Like yesterday.”

“They can, but they won’t. We always have someone guarding at night.”

“I don’t think one or two people are strong enough to fight against those,” he said, looking down to the dead body of a brown fox eaten by a giant rabbit that had claws big enough to be seen from the carriage.

“You are right on that. Rael said that in some deep parts of the Tanshy, there are animals so large that we could break our necks if we wanted to look at their heads. Obviously we can’t defeat it with one or two mages. However, they never visit where we are, so we are mostly safe.”

“Your confidence will kill me before anything else does,” Tiberius said, seemingly giving up on understanding him.

“You just don’t know how nature works,” said Jack. “I don’t know how nature works in your world, but here, animals hunt in groups if they are weak. And if they are weak, they will stay away from the center as much as possible, since stronger ones tend to be in the center of Tanshy,” he explained.

“And because camp is far away from the center, strong ones won’t attack,” he continued, echoing Jack’s words. “But it does not explain why the weak ones do not attack the camp,” he still disagreed.

“Don’t you have basic magic education?” Jack said with an annoyed tone. Tiberius shook his head, with an empty look in his eyes. “I don’t understand what Rael hopes from you. How can you fight alongside if you don’t even have a basic understanding of mana or magic?”

“Would you explain without making fun of me?” Said Tiberius with a serious tone. He was already getting frustrated with being behind everyone else in this world. He had no mana and couldn't learn any magic. And, since his arrival, he has been protected on numerous occasions, leaving him feeling indebted to them.

“Sorry, I got carried away. Usually everyone here knows—”

“No need to explain that,” Tiberius interrupted him.

“Okay, then, mana,” he said, then lifted his finger for a moment and asked, “Can you see a stick figure in front of you?”

Tiberius started to see a stick figure, as Jack mentioned. It was probably his doing since he can cast illusions. He nodded to him, waiting for his explanation.

“Imagine that is a daha, an animal, or anything that is a living creature in this world. All of them have mana. And it is an energy that radiates constantly. As long as that living creature is alive, this radiation will continue, even in sleep. It is really hard to hide your mana or detect someone else’s. But animals, especially ones in Tanshy, are great at this because of how much they need it in their lives. To protect themselves, to hunt, and for other needs, they take everything into account. And when there are over a hundred trained daha, no animal would dare to come closer.”

While Jack was explaining, the stick figure in front of Tiberius’s eyes started to radiate an energy, then increased the number of stick figures and showed how an animal would react to that and one daha’s mana.

“But yesterday—”

“That’s an exception. You see, we did not kill the mirax and feed it. Why? Because it was just hungry. Remember, here, hunger rules everything for animals. They would go against the dragon if they needed food. But it rarely happens; don’t worry about it.”

This actually brought him relief. As long as what Jack said was true, he could now sleep soundly. However, there was a minor issue. They did not have over a hundred people now.

“What about now then? We are just three people, and as you might guess, I don’t have even one drop of mana.” He started to get worried again.

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Jack with a confident tone. “We have him,” he added, showing the man behind, who was sleeping in an awkward position without any worry in the world.