Chương 63: Practice (1)

Rowan grimaced as Cynthia squeezed the wound on his side, but he did his best to ignore it. After a few more seconds of pain, the girl let him out of her hug and ran to her father, who had just returned from waking the rest of the party up. She smiled at him and wrapped her arms around his leg, impeding his movement as he walked back towards the still cooking oats. Then, conjuring the same bowls from the day before, Henry scooped the porridge into them.

The wooden bowls still had some residue from the last meal, as if someone had started to clean them before giving up. Noticing him watching the bowls, a bleary-eyed Eren spoke.

"We did our best to scrub the bowls out, but we haven't found any streams around here, and our water supply is limited." Before he could respond, Henry cut in.

"Everyone will get the same bowl as they used last night, so there's no need to worry about germs or anything." He frowned.

"Can they even affect us anymore?" Rowan nodded and thanked the man as he got his bowl. It made sense that they were trying to conserve water. He'd seen that they had an entire barrel full of it beneath the tarp, but with so many people, it wouldn't last for too long. Looking down at his still steaming bowl of porridge, he noticed a few dried fruits placed here and there. He'd nearly forgotten about volunteering his rations for breakfast, but as he took his first bite, he had no regrets.

It was just oatmeal, but like the soup from the night before, it was heavenly compared to the jerky he'd been surviving on for weeks. As he ate, still thinking about limited water, he realized something. No one could bathe. While no one in the party seemed to have gotten too sweaty yet, it was only a matter of time before the camp would stink. Or, perhaps, something about having superhuman stats saved people from body odor.

As he grimaced at the thought of everyone being covered in days or even weeks of sweat, he realized something else: when the party had first found him, he must've smelled terrible. Even if he hadn't sweated at all, he had still been covered in a layer of blood, meaning he must've smelled like death. But compared to the bloodspawn, who were made of mangled flesh and fungi, he supposed he probably hadn't been too bad. Still, he was grateful that he'd gotten that impromptu bath after defeating the broodmother.

Cynthia had said that he was 'cooler' back when he was covered in dried blood, but he didn't give her opinion on that too much weight. She was a strange, strange child, after all. As he finished his bowl of porridge, he set it down beside him. Unlike the night before, Rowan had enough self-control to stop himself at one bowl so that he wouldn't end up eating through the party's rations. It was hard, but he could—"You want seconds?" — After finishing his third bowl of oatmeal, Rowan stood up and stretched.

Some of the others were still eating, but most had already finished and were wandering around or just chatting. At that moment, Henry walked up to him and handed the bag of rations back.

"Here. Thanks for letting me use the fruits." Rowan smiled as he grabbed the bag.

"It's no big deal. They were a good addition." As the bearded man walked away from him, he continued holding the bag for a few moments. It didn't feel noticeably lighter than before, but when he looked into it, a decent portion of the dried fruits was gone. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Shrugging, he hooked it onto his waist and stretched, enjoying the feeling of a full stomach.

Henry had told him that they would probably stay at the camp for a few more hours before packing up and leaving, so he had time to practice. Wandering back to the clearing that he'd slept in, he pushed off the ground, launching himself into the air and getting himself ready to keep practicing running with strength ratheer than dexterity. As he soared upward, Rowan looked up at the crowns of the trees.

The trunks around him seemed tall, with the tallest of them reaching nearly eighty feet into the air, but in the distance, over all of the other trees, he could see the true giants of the forest. Massive trees that slowly got taller and taller the deeper in the forest they were. The tallest of them were around three times the height of the trees around him, often even higher.

Despite leaping high into the air, he didn't have quite enough strength to get his head above the trees around him, meaning his angle wasn't the best, allowing him to see only the tips of the trees in the distance. They were behemoths that wouldn't look out of place in a forest of giant redwoods. And yet, Rowan got the feeling that they weren't the tallest. If anything, he thought they were far shorter than whatever giants might lurk far deeper than he could see.

Speaking of redwoods, he didn't actually know what kind of trees they were. As he landed with a thump, he walked over to the nearest trunk, inspecting it. They looked familiar, reminding him of trees he might find on Earth, only much taller than most. But still, he couldn't name a specific tree that they looked like, almost as if they were a merge of dozens of different species, forming something that resembled all of them and none of them at the same time.

Shrugging, he walked for a minute, moving deeper into the forest before taking a deep breath and preparing. Then, he imagined jumping forward once more. This time, though, he didn't use anywhere near as much force, which would hopefully allow him to maintain his ballance. Rowan burst forward, flying through the air. Then, as his feet touched the ground, he stumbled. But he didn't fall, maintaining his balance by a thread before decelerating and transitioning into a normal run. Despite his success, he still frowned.

He hadn't even tried to decelerate after he landed. In fact, he'd been trying to maintain the same speed with the sprint that he'd ended up transitioning to. And yet, while his momentum had let him run far faster than before, even after he'd landed, it had mostly drained away after a few seconds, each step bringing him back towards the maximum speed he was limited to by his dexterity. The fact that he couldn't maintain his speed afterward was disappointing but unsurprising.

Still, it was good to know that, if only for a few steps, the momentum from his initial rush would stay with him. Taking a moment longer to think, he gritted his teeth and launched forward once more. This time, he landed far better, barely losing his balance. And, for half a dozen steps, the forest was a blur around him. But then, the momentum drained out of him, albeit more slowly than the last time. He tilted his head. Had his momentum stayed with him better because he hadn't lost his balance? Rowan nodded.

That was it. When he stumbled, that was speed that had been lost. That meant that he would have to practice staying perfectly steady on the first step after using his strength. So, again and again, Rowan kept pushing off, leaving crater after crater around the woods. And slowly, he was getting better. He would still occasionally stumble after hitting the ground, but he managed to correct himself quickly enough to preserve most of the momentum he'd gotten from pushing off.

He kept going until his momentum carried for almost twice as long as the first time he'd done it, allowing him to move through the forest at speeds he'd never imagined. But he wasn't satisfied. Taking a deep breath, Rowan prepared himself to take the next step. Literally. Pushing off the Earth, he exploded into motion, soaring straight forward through the air. Then, as his foot touched the ground, he maintained his balance perfectly. His body continued moving forward, the momentum carrying into step after step.

Still, though, it was fading, so he pushed off again. It was strange compared to before, mostly because he'd never used his strength to push off of the ground mid-run; every time before this, he'd started from standing. Rowan shot through the air, the momentum from his two steps stacking and causing him to move faster than he'd intended. He shot through the air like an arrow, the world around him just a blur.

But, with a moment of concentration, he focused his eyes enough to, even at such a speed, just barely make out the world around him. Then, finally able to somewhat see again, Rowan looked up just in time to crash into a tree.