Travelling - Out of Altoria

Souma and Selina were sitting in the back of a covered wagon. It was large enough for them to sit on opposite ends with their legs stretched out, and watch the open countryside rolling gently past. The wagon wasn't made especially for carrying people, and they were sharing the ride with more than a few wooden crates filled with things they'd been instructed not to look at, but it was still comfortable going. It had been two days.

After Reiny and the others brought them back out of the dungeon, clerics working at the entrance had done their best to heal any damage, and from there Souma and Selina were taken back to the guild and basically told to sleep.

He had mostly recovered, though not entirely. Souma brought his hand up to the small white eyepatch he was now wearing. If he had still been in junior high, he might have thought it was cool, but now he could barely look at himself in a mirror without blushing from embarrassment.

A day had passed.

Souma might have been content to keep slacking off in that little room forever, but he knew he wouldn't be able to rest while the other summoned were still out there.

And so, they were on their way to Nelahim.

The trip had been quiet for a while now, just the sound of the horse pulling the wagon, its giant wheels turning over the road. Right now, Souma was the only passenger in the wagon who was actually awake. Across from him, Selina had drifted off to sleep a little while ago, and was leaning against the side of a crate with her head lolling back and line of drool down her chin.

Souma reached into his shirt, and took the small envelope Reiny had thrust into his hands before they set off. On a whim, before he opened it, he held up his adventurer's tags, and peered at them until the now-familiar lilac screen appeared in front of him.

Name: Arita Souma
Profession: Support
Guild: Altoria
Skills: Language I, Restrain II, Mental Lock I
Level: 1
Registered Exp.: 15/100

As expected, they hadn't miraculously changed while he wasn't looking. Souma sighed, and let the tags fall.

Four experience points. At first, he'd thought there really must be some kind of problem with his tag, until it occurred to him that maybe monsters like the one they'd encountered in the dungeon didn't actually have any experience points. It made a kind of sense. It felt like that thing had been more like a system fail-safe device than a real monster encounter.

It didn't make it any less of a kick in the guts.

This game really is just too hard.

He might actually travel all the way around the world and go home before he hit level two. Assuming he didn't die first.

Deciding to put it aside for now, he pried open the envelope Reiny had given him. He was more than a little surprised when the first things that fell out were two gold coins. After that, a silver chain fastened to a small charm slid from the package. It was a plain silver ring encasing a disc shaped blue gem.

Reiny's pendant.

Souma was momentarily caught between the desire to read what Reiny had written, and immediately start messing around with the blue gem. Finally he decided to read the letter first. It seemed as though if he started playing with the pendant now he might never stop.

Dear Souma,

My apologies for not being there with you. Given all that happened in the dungeon, I have a number of people I must meet, and far too many wheels to start coaxing into motion. I expect that by the morning I shall already be pressed for time, so I shall write some words here, while my mind is still clear.

Firstly, the carriage Norrik arranged for you to travel in will take you all the way to Nelahim, but it will stop in the village of Prafin for a day before it arrives. I believe your Selina has business there, so feel free to make use of the time as you see fit. Take care of her, Souma.

Souma momentarily lowered the letter and cast a dubious eye over the snoring gremlin. Since when had she become his? Wasn't that a little unfair? He continued reading.

Secondly, once you are in Nelahim, be sure to register with the Adventurers Guild. If you don't, your tags won't properly record experience points. Beside, you will need to go there anyway if you want to earn more money than the few coins I have included (before you ask, these are you and Seina's share for the work we did turning off the nodes).

Thirdly, and finally, I will make every effort to join you as soon as possible. In the meantime, please make do with the senile old woman who wouldn't stop complaining until she was allowed to go with you.

With much love,

Reinheille Ulrich Brightsword

P.S. I have decided to include a toy for you to play with. I have another so you can keep that one, but they're quite hard to find so don't lose it.

Souma carefully folded the letter and placed it in his shirt pocket. Then he tucked the gold coins away into the small pouch tied to his waist, and looked out the front of the wagon, where Yurial was sitting on the driver's bench, mostly covered by a billowing white cloak to keep the sun off her face.

"Anything interesting written in that letter?" She asked without taking her eyes off the road.

"Reiny's advice I guess?"

"You can probably burn it then. Did she say anything about me?"

"She... Ah, no, Miss Yurial," Souma lied.

"Just as well," Yurial grumbled. "And I told you to stop using that Missall the time, didn't I? We're traveling as a party now. Shouldn't stand on formalities. And anyway, it makes me feel old."

"How old are you, Mi... Yurial?"

"In elf years I'm barely a teenager!" She grinned over her shoulder, and turned back to the road.

Souma decided to let it slide. If he had seen her without knowing, he certainly wouldn't have thought she was that much older than he was.

Letter reading taken care of, Souma finally allowed himself to pick up the pendant from his lap. It felt unmistakably cold to the touch, and as he ran his thumb over the gem, he felt a tingling somewhere just above the base of his neck.

Skill Path Unlocked: Debug

Souma blinked curiously at the notification. Had he received the skill from just touching that gem? Yet another question for the pile. Slowly, he brought it up to his eye, and looked through.

When he did, he couldn't help gasping.

Everywhere he looked, he could see small lilac screens.

On the crates, the wagon, even the trees outside. Most of the screens seemed entirely blank, and many were garbled and illegible. But, there was at least one object in the wagon for whom the information seemed to be displayed perfectly.

Name: Selina Lorelei Zellin Doombringer
Profession: Offence
Sub-Professions:
Guild: Altoria
Skills: Demon Lord I
Titles: Demon Lord
Bonuses: Demon Lord
Level: 1
Registered Exp.: 20/100

Had all this information always been there? Bonuses? Titles? None of this stuff had been visible when he used his guild tag. And... Wasn't there a little too much Demon Lord in Selina's stats?

He was so distracted by the additional data he failed to realize that Selina had stirred from her slumber.

"What are you looking at, human! Hey! That's Reiny's! When did you steal that?"

"I didn't steal anything you gremlin!" Souma scowled, putting down the pendant. "She gave it to me, as well as our cut for the power node quest."

"What! Why did she give you the money?"

"Probably because you lost your last wallet last time?"

Selina sneered at him, bearing just a few of her pointed teeth.

"Why do you alway have to call me that?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Gremlin! You're always calling me a gremlin! Gremlin this! Gremlin that!"

"Well you always call me human! I have a name you know."

"You are a human!"

And you're not a gremlin?

Souma sighed, and remembered Reiny's letter. Take care of her. Was that even possible? It was true he had been calling her that a lot though, and it did seem to get on her nerves.

"Fine. Point taken. I'm sorry. What should I call you?"

Selina's eyes went wide. "Wh-what?"

"What?"

"What?"

"What should I call you? You can't honestly expect me to call you Demon Lord in public."

"Oh... I mean... Umm..." Selina hunched over and twiddled her thumbs. "I guess you could... Umm... Maybe call me by my name?"

"Alright, fine."

"I-It is?"

"But you stop calling me human."

"F-fine!" She looked up at him with her huge red eyes, half hidden under a wave of her fluffy white hair, her cheeks starting to turn red. "T-then I'm... I'm glad to h-have you as my m-minion... S-Souma."

"I'm glad to be working for you, Selina," Souma smiled.

Slowly, Selina's face burned red, until she finally buried her face in her knees and shook her hands at him.

"Gyaaaah! I can't! I can't do it! Sorry! I take it back."

Souma sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Whatever you say, gremlin."

"I-I'm not a gremlin! Stupid human!"

"Ugh. Gag. Get a room already," A third voice from the back of the wagon groaned.

Not able to help himself, Souma brought the pendant to his eye once more and looked through it at the third passenger in the wagon.

Name: Akaishi Ruka
Profession: Offence
Guild: Altoria
Skills: Language I, Enthrall I
Titles: Summoned
Bonuses: Hard Boiled
Level: 1
Registered Exp.: 0/100

"What are you looking at through that thing anyway? Cut it out, it makes you look like a total creeper."

Souma grinned, and put the pendant around his neck. "A present from Reiny," he said. "Glad to see you're finally awake."

"Hard to sleep with all the racket."

After they had left the dungeons, Yurial had taken charge of Ruka. Souma wasn't totally sure of the details, but the way Reiny had described it, she'd been taken to some sort of elf-run tree-worshiping cult to perform some sort of heavy duty healing spell. He had no idea what that actually entailed, but whatever it was, it seemed to have worked.

They'd registered her with the guild this morning, which was why her experience points were still at zero, but Souma had no doubt she'd seen a lot more fighting than he or Selina had.

"So you're coming with us? Umm... Ruka?" Selina asked.

"I'm in the wagon, aren't I?"

"Even though I'm..."

"The Demon Lord?" Ruka leaned against the wooden panel she'd been sleeping against and looked back over her shoulder at the scenery. "Miss Yurial and Miss Reiny explained it to me. It makes sense. I get it. Look, you two are gross, but if going with you means I might see Lady Ami again, I'll put up with it."

"Stop calling me Miss Yurial, I'm telling you it makes me feel old," Yurial moaned from the driver's seat.

"Coming from an old woman who's over a hundred," Ruka muttered.

"I heard that, you ungrateful brat! These ears aren't just for show! If it weren't for my elven magic you'd be a pile of bones by now!"

Souma decided to stay out of their bickering, and slipped the pendant over his neck. Despite what Ruka was saying, she seemed to have taken quite a liking to the elf. After everything that had happened, the two had been fairly inseparable, and when Ruka had boarded the wagon, Souma had noticed she was now carrying a small short bow along with her two knives.

"Human," Selina said, shuffling over the wagon so she was sitting next to him.

"What is it now?"

She pressed her lips together, hiding her slightly-more-pointed-than-usual teeth, and looked sheepishly down at her hands. "You're really alright with... You know, with all this? I mean, you almost died... Your eye..."

Souma leaned back and looked out in the distance for a while. Far off mountain ranges colored deep blue and green. Was he alright with all this?

It wasn't like he'd had a choice in coming here. But if he had been given a choice, would he have said no? Would he have rather stayed in his little room forever?

When he'd first arrived, there had been a few minutes where he had thought that this might actually be a second chance. Another go at life, to make up for the one which had already been ruined beyond repair. That feeling hadn't lasted terribly long, but lately, just a little, he felt as though maybe he hadn't been entirely wrong, either.

He reached over and chopped Selina on the head.

"Guwa! What was that for, human!"

"Don't ask such stupid questions while I'm trying to relax, gremlin."

"F-fine. I'm not a gremlin," Selina pouted, but she sat back next to him anyway.

And then, for a long while after that, they were content to sit quietly. Enjoying the cool breeze, and watching the countryside roll by.