Lethal Itinerary

I was carrying a lot of things with me on this trip, which was to be expected of a nearly half a year-long journey.

If it wasn’t for my physical conditioning in Aireven, I would be taking frequent breaks every couple of minutes. But because I didn’t hold back during that training, I knew I could now go on for hours.

Having left Bowaria, I made my way farther west and started circling around the Azure Lake. I have passed all of the villages that were visible on the map and entered wildlife territory.

First up, was a big rainforest.

The trail I was taking, if you could even call it that, was not fit for humans. When my feet weren’t sinking in some muddy substance from my increased weight, my body was getting scarred by innumerable razor-sharp thorns paving the way.

Lest I forget the abundance of cliffs. I already fell down a small one, nearly breaking my neck, so if I were to fall off one of the common, tall, sharp-angled ones, it would be certain death.

The more time passed the less gear and luggage I had remaining. Some of it disappeared, some fell down a crevasse, some I accidentally broke.

This made me realize that traveling was better done with a partner or in a group… that way a lot of small incidents could be avoided, work could be shared, and so on.

But I wasn’t raised to complain, so I focused my vision and continued carefully walking through the biome by myself.

The most impractical thing about my travel was that I had to use magic repeatedly, which left noticeable traces of my presence wherever I trod. Grandpa taught me not to do this, because if someone was skilled enough, they would be able to understand the direction I was going in and map out my whereabouts.

One such example of magical necessity was this big land gap in front of me which I had to cross. The forest was not willing to compromise, so to go forward, I had the following choices:

A) take the old, dubious suspension bridge on the verge of falling apart.

B) climb down, cross the gap on foot, then climb the other side.

C) use a lot of energy on summoning a long bridge with my earth element magic.

Out of all of these options, the soundest plan of all seemed to be building my own personal bridge.

Question was – do I disintegrate the bridge later to remove the traces?

There could still be traces even after I removed it…

I was lost in my spontaneous, insignificant dilemma.

To prevent pointless loss of time, I ended up constructing the thing and keeping it intact. I already used a lot of my energy to create this architectural marvel, so it would be a big waste to ruin it.

Maybe it helps some people in the future too…

…

Despite my relatively short experience in getting my own food and building shelters, I wasn’t having any problems. Where I couldn’t catch some small animals, I ate berries or other foods grandpa taught me were safe. The climate was pretty much the same as on our way to Neveria, so everything that grew in Acolatum grew here too.

Upon my regular checks of the map, I didn’t see any labeled dangerous regions near my approximate location, but apparently things were going to start being problematic soon. The thought made me raise my guard a little as I continued submerging myself deeper into thick greenery.

The giant lake disappeared behind walls of trees and muddy hills, but its unusual, captivating shade of blue made me recall my conversations with grandpa.

Among the various things he told me, was a clear Zetre warning he mentioned but never elaborated upon. I have forgotten all about it until thoroughly observing the map; the country I knew nothing about, was apparently sharing a gigantic border with Ors Juna. I don’t know what my future plans would turn out like, but I will certainly avoid travelling in that direction.

Regardless, once again, I was amazed with the map quality. It was so easy to read and understand, that, honestly, even a child could find their way around the continent.

Validae is a continent where three titans dominated the entire landmass. In the southwest corner of the Azure lake stood Acolatum, north of it was Ors Juna, and northeast lay Zetre.

The three nearly completed an entire circle around the lake just by themselves, but there were other smaller countries rounding up the giant body of water, too.

Although I had this asset at my disposal, my planning could still use some work. As things stood, I was just travelling in Ors Juna’s direction, whereas the smartest thing to do would be to decide on a specific city as my destination. I felt tired, so I postponed this activity for the next time I took a break.

I walked, and walked… and walked…

The scorching heat was accompanying me, even in the shade, making me think about what I was doing.

Am I running away? …fleeing? …protecting? …which one is it?

…or are they all technically the same?

What is fleeing? Flee-ing…

…to escape… escape from… what?

Why am I fleeing the country?

…I want to protect the people close to me.

…is that the only reason?

…

…do I need anything else?

…well am I sure that I am not just scared of dying and using that convenient excuse as a pretext to run away?

…what?

Am I scar—?

“AAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH”

I head bumped a nearby tree.

What the hell am I even doing…

Thinking about some utter nonsense…

It seems that my isolation from society was making me resort to internal monologues.

No matter how I tried to spin it, I was getting more and more lonely with every passing day…

I stopped to drink a little bit of water so I could relieve my thirst and alleviate some of the heat-induced mental instability I was having.

It was refreshing and cool – just what I needed in this situation.

I felt like I could drink all of it at once, but I had to conserve my supplies. I went in for one last sip…

Until I heard a snap behind me.

Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t a wild animal. I haven’t seen one in a long time after all.

It was a perfectly regular human being, just like me, who just happened to be on the same trail, in the same rainforest, miles away from Acolatum and Ors Juna, in the middle of nowhere.

Must have gotten lost…

He looked a bit on edge, shaking from side to side.

The biggest indicator of the bind he was in, was all the white foam coming out of his mouth…

Certainly not doing the best…

Whatever his struggle was, he started steadily approaching me, carrying a sickle in hand.

Only one problem – the closest field of crops was days away from this place.

He leaped towards me and swung the weapon at my chest.

I calmly dodged to the side, but he was more persistent than that. Not done yet, he immediately went in for a reverse sweep, aiming for my head this time.

But I was reading his every move. I kept on dodging his attacks.

It was abnormally easy…

Coming at me in slow motion, I felt like I had all the time in the world to respond.

He bent down and threw some mud he picked up from the ground in my face. With the element of surprise now on his side, his ardent efforts… remained fruitless.

As excited as he was to see the mud catch me off guard, I quickly swiped it off and regained vision, cutting off his fingers with my wind element, causing his grip to falter and the sickle to fly past my head.

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH… YOU FOREIGN SCUM”

Next, I used a wind element attack I came up with while fooling around during the trip – by compressing the air as much as I currently could, I shot out a fast, hard projectile at his shoulder, severing the nerves operating this stranger’s right arm.

“ARRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

Working like a charm, he quickly lost control of his entire dominant arm and couldn’t even move it a single inch anymore.

His only concern became the excruciating pain of this injury. I wouldn’t be surprised if he forgot I was there entirely.

I didn’t want to resort to lethal force if I could help it, so I made him unable to pursue me instead.

As I removed myself from the area, I left him to his own devices and continued onwards with my journey.

Although this was the first interesting thing that happened during this boring trip, it was a serious oversight on my part. I shouldn’t have let that assassin get so close to me.

From this point onwards, I decided to use rex every couple of hours to get a read on my situation.

With that under control and my map in hand, I could take preventative measures for anything and everything that appeared in my path. All that was left was to endure another couple months of travel.

At least that was my thinking when I was still optimistic, but in a month, I had another incident, much more serious than any killer out to get me.

I was out of food.

Weren’t supplies abundant in the rainforest, you might ask?

There was no rainforest.

What do I mean no rainforest? Where was I now, then?

In the middle of an empty desert, with no food or water in sight.

I was starving and becoming a desiccated walking corpse. Lethargy was overwhelming my brain’s capacity to come up with any plan to battle this predicament.

Am I stupid? Why don’t I just use my magic to summon water?

Water was my weakest element. Pairing the pathetic state I was in right now with that unfortunate fact, the best I could manage under these conditions was procuring a small droplet...

…which was obviously nowhere near enough…

As if punishing me for calling the rainforest boring, there was something wrong with this cursed desert, too.

I have already spent a week in it, but I couldn’t get used to it.

Cold in the day.

Boiling hot at night.

Seriously, what is wrong with this biome…

No matter how someone plans for surprises, this situation transcended the boundary of logic.

With barely any willpower to my aid, I checked what the map said about this place.

Desert of Despair – Extreme Danger.

Well… I already knew that, because I checked the map ahead of time…

Still… nobody decided to mention that this place was a shitty anomaly?

“Heheh… hheheheeheh…”

Laughing to myself, I observed the length of this desert…

…all the way to Ors Juna?

I felt like crying myself to sleep, but the sun was already rising. Soon it would be colder than Acolatum’s gelid winters and I would freeze to death if I accidentally fell asleep.

I tried to battle my sleep deprivation for a few more hours, but I couldn’t. I knew my brain would soon clock out by itself, and I wouldn’t even have a say in it.

Sun lifting above the horizon and piercing-cold winds cutting my skin, my survival instincts kicked in, and I started desperately digging a hole in the sand.

As improvised and unstable of a solution this was, I jumped into the pit of sand and covered my face that was sticking out with my bag and spare clothes.

I could sleep at last…