Chương 93: Book 2 Chapter 45 - Faster Than A Horse

A few days later, Dustin delivered some bad news. He rushed in while Kiara was eating breakfast, hurrying over with a grave look on his face.

"One of our storefronts in Portish was attacked! I just received the news. I'm leaving in just a few minutes to go assess the situation and help things stabilize." Kiara's heart rate spiked. Who would attack one of their storefronts? And why?

"Is everyone okay?" she asked in alarm, feeding off of Dustin's energy.

"The letter didn't say," Dustin replied, pulling his riding gloves tighter on his hands.

"An express courier just arrived with the news, the attack occurred last night sometime. The details in the letter were sparse." Regular couriers traveled via horseback, and a letter from Portish to Easton would take around three days to arrive, the same time it would take Dustin to ride to Portish. Express couriers cost a hefty premium, as the courier service employed mages for those types of deliveries. A tier 2 could make that same journey in a few hours.

"I'm off, then," he said, turning to leave.

"Wait!" Kiara called after him. He turned back with a raised eyebrow.

"You're going by horseback?" she asked. He nodded.

"If I push hard, I can arrive by tomorrow night. I'll take a few of the tier 2 guards with me for safety." She stood and walked over to where he was standing.

"Let me and Zoey come with you. We can get you there by this afternoon." He hesitated.

"How?" She shrugged.

"We'll take a carriage. Zoey and I can pull it. We'll need to strip one of them down to make it lighter. Remove anything that isn't essential, make it as light as possible." He stared at her.

"You're serious." She nodded.

"Let me finish eating, then we'll find Zoey and tell her the plan. Jaden can stay here to keep an eye on things while we're gone." Dustin bit his lip.

"Okay, if you're sure."

"I am," she said, nodding sharply.

"Okay," he replied.

"I'll go help the servants start stripping one of them down to the bare minimum." Kiara finished eating as quickly as she could, then made her way outside to find Zoey. She was by herself out on the estate grounds, practicing her water magic. Kiara couldn't help but notice that the water magic seemed different than it had previously.

Razor sharp shards of ice circled Zoey in a large, circular pattern, while closer up, large ice walls hovered around her like mobile walls, probably to practice blocking incoming attacks. Portions of the ice shards would periodically dissolve suddenly into a misty fog, obscuring visibility in the area. In other areas, the ice would coalesce into a bubble of water, then re-harden suddenly, like a mobile ice prison she could form instantly around any target.

Her characteristic water whips extended from each hand, but the water was a deeper, richer blue than it had been. The whips extended much further than Kiara had ever seen them, and Zoey whipped them around her much faster than she had previously. The ends of the water whips were hardened into a sharp ice point as well for maximum piercing damage. The sight was awe inspiring and somewhat intimidating at first glance.

Kaira slowed for a moment as she approached, taking in the sight, then plunged headfirst into it all. Everything that hit her dissolved, dissipating back into raw mana and escaping into the air. Zoey noticed quite quickly as some of the mana she was controlling was ripped from her control. She spun around to face Kiara with an excited look on her face.

"I did it!" She squealed as Kiara ran up.

"I got my water concept last night. I've been practicing with it all morning." Kiara knew that Dustin wouldn't have the carriage ready quite yet, so she took a minute to be excited with Zoey.

"Congrats Zoey! All of your hard work paid off." Zoey nodded enthusiastically.

"I realized I was too focused on the same strict understanding I had achieved with my fire mana, and broadened my horizons a bit. Water can take many forms, like ice and mist, and isn't meant to be restricted to one single form." Kiara wondered if fire could maybe take different forms as well, but she hadn't really ever thought about it too much. Either way, now wasn't the time to go down that particular theoretical rabbit hole.

Zoey continued, "Once I began thinking about all of the ways that I've employed water mana in the past, things began clicking into place. I spent a few hours meditating on it, and working on solidifying my understanding. Then I experimented with different spells and mana constructs until everything finally came together!" Kiara pulled Zoey into a hug. She had been working on this for weeks now, and was clearly ecstatic. Zoey was surprised at first, but then melted into the hug, returning it fully.

When they pulled away, Zoey's eyes were moist.

"Thanks," she said.

"For what?" She shrugged.

"For being so great. For letting me work so hard on developing myself. For listening and being excited for me." You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Of course!" Kiara hugged her one more time, then pulled back and looked at her.

"How much sleep did you get last night?" Zoey laughed, wiping the moisture from her eyes with the back of her hand.

"I got a solid three hours." Kiara's heart fell. She didn't want to make Zoey pull a carriage all the way to Portish with her if she was sleep deprived.

"Oh," she said, her disappointment showing through in the tone of her voice.

"I was going to see if you wanted to come with me to Portish, but it sounds like you probably need to rest. Although maybe I could pull you along too…" she trailed off, considering how much that would slow them down. Zoey's eyes lit up.

"I'd love to come! I haven't seen my family in weeks. How long will you be staying there?"

"I'm not sure," Kiara replied.

"I might come back tonight, or possibly tomorrow. One of our stores in Portish was attacked, and Dustin needs to go coordinate the response. He was going to take a few of the guards and go by horseback, but I think that's too slow. I offered to pull him in a carriage myself, and was hoping you would help, but I don't want to put you through that if you're only operating on three hours of sleep." Zoey laughed then looked at her in surprise.

"Wait, you're serious?" Kiara nodded.

"I think I could pull the carriage myself. The servants are stripping it down to the bare essentials right now…"

"No," Zoey cut her off.

"Not that. I was talking about… Um… How many hours of sleep do you get each night, Shian?" Kiara shrugged.

"Probably around six, why?" Zoey stared at her for a moment, then shook her head slowly.

"Okay, I have questions, but now is clearly not the time. We need to get to Portish. For what it's worth though, I only need about three hours of sleep each night, the same as any other tier 3. I'm fully rested." Ah, Kiara thought to herself. She's surprised by how low my Sleep Fatigue Resistance stat is, although she wouldn't know it by that name. It was Kiara's turn to be surprised when she fully processed what Zoey had told her.

"Wait, you only need three hours of sleep each night?" Zoey nodded, still looking at her strangely. Kiara was immediately bombarded by thoughts of all the extra things she could do each day if she only needed to sleep for three hours. She tried thinking back to how many points the World Engine had recommended she put into that stat at each level, but couldn't remember. She was pretty sure it wasn't very much, though.

She was sorely tempted to put a few points in there next time she leveled up to see how much it would affect her sleep requirements.

"That's very convenient," she replied to Zoey with a calculating look.

"You're right though, we should get to Portish. You're sure you're okay to help pull?" Zoey nodded with a smirk on her face, "I've never done it before, but I'm sure we'll manage. I never thought I'd be asked to do something like this as a tier 3 house retainer, but I also never imagined my employer would be jumping in to do it herself either." Kiara smiled at the thought as they both hurried to the courtyard. Dustin and the servants were hard at work stripping down one of the carriages.

They had already pulled off the curtains that normally covered the windows, and discarded the cushions from the seats inside. Now, they were attempting to pry off any decorative metal pieces. Kiara pulled out the sword that Victor had given her from her soul storage and stepped up to the carriage. She was once again surprised by how easily it cut through whatever she pushed it against. She began easily removing any unnecessary metal parts she could find.

Zoey quickly caught the vision and jumped in to help as well, shaping her mana into razor sharp blades that she used to chip away at unneeded parts of the carriage. Normally, the horses were tethered to the large guide bar that extended out in front of the carriage. Kiara was certain this carriage was past the point of no return here, and had become a permanent fast-travel mechanism for House Yountal, something she could use to pull Dustin around quickly if need be.

Since they weren't planning on fixing the carriage later on, she simply cut the guide bar off the carriage altogether. She and Zoey would simply hold the straps with their hands as they pulled. Pretty soon, they had the carriage stripped down to the essentials. A horse could put up a decent speed over short distances, but couldn't sustain the pace for too long, which is why the journey to Portish took so long by horseback.

A carriage was typically even slower, as the horses had to pull not only the riders, but the heavy carriage as well. Kiara knew from personal experience that she could sustain an incredibly fast pace almost indefinitely, at least until she needed to eat or sleep. Her full sprint speed wouldn't last very long, but even a jogging pace that she could maintain over long distances was likely faster than a horse's full sprint, although she had never tested that.

She knew that she was faster than Zoey, but she also knew that Zoey's Endurance was much higher than her own. Kiara had always tired out more quickly than her opponents in the past. She wasn't sure how that would balance out over such a long distance, but either way they would pick a pace they were both comfortable with and see how it went. She imagined that pulling a carriage would probably slow them down by about half, which meant the trip would likely take four or five hours. Only time would tell.

Dustin had already been planning a two or three day trip by horse, so he had food and water packed and ready to go in some saddlebags. Kiara tossed those bags into the carriage, and Dustin climbed in alongside them. Dustin had also already filled in Jaden on where they were going, so that he knew to keep a close eye on things here at the estate while they were gone. Zoey took up her position alongside Kiara, each holding onto the pull straps, and they set off.

They moved slowly at first, picking up speed as they became accustomed to the unfamiliar movements. As strong as they both were, neither of them were very heavy, which meant to get the carriage rolling they had to really lean into it as first. Once they were moving, Kiara realized they would have a hard time stopping the carriage if they needed to. They would have to fall back and push against it manually, using their legs to soak up the momentum.

Their first obstacle came at the end of the estate driveway, where they needed to slow down and make a ninety-degree turn. Kiara immediately put her plan into motion, falling back to the carriage to help slow it down. Zoey quickly caught on and fell back to help out as well. Once they had the carriage slowed down, they pulled it gently around the corner onto the main road outside the estate.

They worked their way through Easton a bit more slowly than Kiara had originally planned, mostly to maintain control of the carriage and avoid unnecessary collisions. They earned quite a few odd looks as they passed. The dirt road from Easton to Portish was travelled often enough that it was packed hard, and didn't have too many ruts or bumps. This turned out to be a stroke of luck, since the carriage was designed to be pulled by horses at a much slower pace, and didn't have anything in the way of shock absorption.

Dustin let out quite a few shouts of alarm anytime they did actually hit a bump, which resulted in him being thrown around a bit. It wasn't long until they found their rhythm though, settling into a pace that Kiara estimated would take them around four hours to reach Portish. They stopped every thirty minutes or so to drink water and grab some food, and Kiara found herself quite hungry each time. Pulling a carriage was exhausting work.

They got to Portish a little before noon, and headed straight for the store that had been attacked. The sight they found wasn't what Kiara was expecting.