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1326 Words
The five of them walked into the clear area around the city, which was located in a woodland area. It was a young forest from what Matt’s AI was picking up. A forest fire had caused telltale signs of damage. It was just a question of whether it was natural, or if some rift had spat out a legion of fire-type monsters.
Camilla looked at Matt, and then Malcolm. “Is there a reason we aren’t flying?”
Matt looked at Malcolm, who then rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “I don’t have one. I suppose that means you do. Can it fit four?”
The fact that he was ignoring Aster in his question irked Matt, but he didn’t say anything, as she was totally ignoring the man’s presence. But it still left a bad taste in his mouth.
He looked at Camilla and shrugged. His flying sword was already cramped with the three of them.
“Our flying device is already full of us four.”
Malcolm either didn’t catch Matt’s slight rebuke, or he ignored it.
They walked along the untouched forest for nearly half an hour, before Liz stopped them by calling out, “Oh! Hold on. I need to harvest this.”
She squatted down by an oddly colored bush that was bursting with essence according to his spiritual sense. While Liz carefully cut off two of the blooming flowers, Matt ran the image through his AI, and checked to see if it had any matches of common plants in the Tier 6 range.
He found that it was strikingly similar to a hopping aspen bush, usually seen on Tier 5 worlds. They were useful in various attack potions. The flowers had an incredibly sticky property that could be distilled and transferred to other potions.
His AI had the brilliant idea that extracting the juices of the stem could be useful in regeneration potions. He even looked into it for a moment, but the AI’s idea was to grind it up, mix it with water, and carbonate it.
He wasn’t going to try that, even if he had the ability to carbonate a liquid in the middle of a forest. The burns from the AIs enchantment debacle were still fresh in his mind, even if a few days of [Endurance] had taken care of them without a problem.
The first monster they encountered almost ended their expedition early, when a large cat dropped down on Malcolm, who was located at the center of the party. [Cracked Phantom Armor] and [Mage’s Retreat] sprung to life immediately, and Matt quickly turned around, shoving his hand down the monster’s throat.
The large cat had tried to bite down, but with Matt’s fist in its throat, it started to panic as it struggled to breathe.
With its attention on Matt, Malcolm scrambled away to safety. His armor was covered in scratches, but he looked otherwise unharmed.
The beast was only Tier 5, and unable to damage Matt at all, so he just punched it a few times with a spiked fist. With the beast dispatched, the group gave the panicked Malcolm nonplussed looks.
Liz was the one to ask, “You, okay?”
The wannabe explorer was looking at the corpse of the beast that tried to snack on him, and it took several attempts of the question to get through to the man.
Finally, he shook himself out of his trance and patted himself off.
“I’m fine.” Malcolm swallowed and finished, “Though I need to use the bathroom now.”
Matt walked over and gave Malcolm a hard pat on the back. “Good thing you wore your brown pants today.”
After a short break they got back to their hike. Matt, taking the point position, kept checking the treetops thanks to a few pointed reminders from his AI.
Malcolm’s Talent seemed to be more like radar, as they had only needed to change directions slightly as the day progressed. The forest had hidden it for a while, but the once flat ground that they were trekking through transitioned into small hills, he was able to get a better mark on the location of the first ruin.
Various beasts tested their group, but even the Tier 6 lizard that had attacked wasn’t much of a challenge for them. They simply surrounded it while Matt kept its attention. After that, it didn’t take long for Camilla’s whip to shred the beast’s side, or for Liz to take its blood and use it to cut through its own body.
Aster, who had simply watched, took the heart that was her due.
Malcolm looked like he was going to vomit when Aster used [Heart Of Power]. A part of Matt was hoping she would get a second permanent boost with the heart of a higher Tier beast, but they had no such luck.
As the day turned into night, they found an exposed cliff, and set up camp with their backs protected by the craggy wall.
They spent the night in shifts, with Liz and Camilla taking the first watch. Through their AIs, they had decided to have Matt stay with Malcolm, as he was much harder to kill. If the man did ambush his watch partner, Matt had the best chance to survive the encounter.
When he was shaken awake by Liz, he quickly slipped back into his under armor. It was a new experience for him. He understood why Liz always bitched about it.
His skill was weightless and didn’t chafe. In contrast, his under armor was well fitted, but it trapped a lot of heat with its skin-tight nature. It still wasn’t as bad as Liz’s much heavier plate armor, but it was uncomfortable nonetheless, so he had removed it while he slept. Their new surroundings were uncomfortably hot; it seemed like they were near the tropics of the planet.
Matt channeled [Endurance] for a moment to banish the lingering tiredness from his bones and was ready to stand watch while his friends were sleeping.
Malcolm only stumbled around when woken to take his watch, and Matt was tempted to send the man back to sleep. Still, he wanted to see if the man could do something more than just getting chewed on.
As they watched out for monsters, Malcolm asked, “Hey, Matt. Uhh…how do you do it?”
Matt just c****d an eyebrow at the man.
Malcolm clarified his question. “The fighting and the killing. You just stand there and take hits. Sure, you have an armor skill, but aren’t you afraid of getting hurt?”
While checking the surroundings, Matt said, “Not really. It’s the only way to get strong. I don’t know your history, but I’ve made my way through life by fighting, and you get used to the idea of putting your life on the line. My ability with a blade and my skills helps with that as well. I’ll pull out of a situation if it is too risky, but otherwise, I power through.”
Matt shrugged, and when he didn’t get a reply, assumed that Malcolm was finished, and that he was free to go back to running simulations with his AI.
“I just don’t want to get hurt; you know.”
Matt wanted to roll his eyes. So long as you didn’t die, healers could fix anything. He didn’t know what he did to get to Tier 5, but the man seemed to have almost no backbone.
At first, Matt had assumed that the lack of combat experience was a ruse to lure them into a trap, but now he was pretty sure that Malcolm really was what he seemed. He was just an inexperienced young man with a Talent that let him find things. Matt figured that people had shepherded him through rifts for his services, or that he was from somewhere with abundant ambient essence.
- Writer
