Chương 189: 13. I Like This

Hiking through the mountains with Talla isn't exactly what I'd call pleasant, per se. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy camping, and Talla is good company, but the weather is awful. As the nights get noticeably darker, the contrast of the hot and muggy days with the cold wet nights grows more stark and uncomfortable. Overall, the temperature is definitely decreasing, but Talla tells us that it likely won't get truly cold until much closer to winter.

Hiking is a lot of work, since we're climbing uphill, and a significant portion of our day is taken up by breaking down and reassembling our camp—though we get much quicker as we establish a routine. The trek is uneventful, but not boring. Eva's guidance is helpful for pathfinding, but we still have to make our own trails, and the wildlife doesn't always take kindly to our intrusion—something that Evelyn's skill isn't good at accounting for. Animals exist in her projections, but they can't be interacted with.

More than once, what seems like a perfectly good path leads us into the territory of some local fauna, such as the one currently making its displeasure known. The waist-high furry creature that Allie has lovingly dubbed a "mini-mammoth" has a snout more like a tapir's than an elephant, flanked by a pair of tusks that jut straight out of its mouth. According to Evelyn, she's seen the things using their tusks to mark trees and dig through the understory for food.

At the moment, though, I'm more concerned with the fact that they use them to charge predators like a boar when threatened. It paws at the ground and calls out an odd warbling groan when we cross its path. I know from experience that if we back away slowly it will leave us alone, but unfortunately it's blocking the only path up to the next ridge. That leaves only one option.

I already have my spear in hand—it pains me to use it as a walking stick, but it's better than not having it ready in case of an emergency—and level it at the beast. Without the need for further signal, the floating orb of light at Talla's side grows in intensity, prompting the mini-mammoth to charge. It's quicker than it looks, with three-toed hooves that let it either dig into the mud for traction or spread out for better balance.

At the end of its charge, those powerful back hooves will launch it at whichever unfortunate target happens to be in its way—in this case, me.

"Now!" I call out, stepping to the side just as a concentrated beam of light hits the thing in the eyes. The mini-mammoth lets out a pained squeal, too blinded and confused to correct its charge before I stick it in the side of the neck with a well-timed thrust of my spear. It thrashes and cries, but I have it pinned to the forest floor and with a small adjustment and a grunt of effort, I drive the spear clean through its spine to end its suffering.

Once it's dead, I take a step back to catch my breath and wipe the sweat from my brow—for all the good that does me. Getting winded from a small struggle like that tells me that we still have a long way to go, but it's still a clear step up from nearly dying to a single laser gecko.

"Nice work!" Talla praises me.

"Hardly," I sigh in resignation.

"I know for a fact that you could have burned a hole clean through its head with that light."

"It takes a lot more out of me to do that than it would for you to stab it, though," she reminds me.

"On long expeditions like this, it's important to assess threats carefully and avoid wasting energy." I nod along, absorbing the information like a sponge. Talla has been tutoring me on ranger policies and techniques while we travel. My [Ranger's Legacy] class is still an apprenticeship, at its core, and aside from being broadly useful, her lessons directly contribute towards my levels.

"I suppose that's our dinner for tonight," I muse, already dreading the thought of cleaning the mini-mammoth's carcass. It's not that the meat is bad or anything—it tastes like slightly gamey pork—but their fur is always disgustingly filthy. Mud, bugs, mold, and a distinctly unpleasant musk that's made all the worse by the fact that their fur is soaking wet more often than not. The Degala tribe told us that the creatures make good hunting, but warned us not to bother with the hides.

Also to dispose of the furs as far away as possible, not only because of the stench but because of what it would attract. I can't imagine that anything would be willing to bite directly into that wretched fur, but it does have natural predators. Thankfully, disposing of the fur won't be an issue. Nipper will happily eat anything, and we've yet to encounter anything that makes him sick.

"We'd better make camp, then," Talla replies.

"Somewhere nearby, but not too close." It's a bit of a gamble either way. The mini-mammoths aren't pack or herd animals, but they aren't territorial against their own kind, so where there's one there are often a few more ambling around in the area. They'll flee the smell of their own dead, but it won't stop them from coming back later if we try to make camp here. Not a fun way to wake up.

On the other hand, dragging the smelly corpse too far would be a waste of energy and runs the risk of attracting more unpleasant things. There are sloth-like bear things that live in the trees, only unlike the infamously slow herbivores I know, these are nasty ambush predators that drop out of the canopy in a flurry of sword-like claws. We've only encountered one of them, from a distance, and we gave it a wide berth. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

This is far from the first time we've done this, though, so before long Talla finds us a suitable location and begins preparing our camp while I butcher our dinner. I never thought it would be something I enjoyed, but despite the smelly carcass, I find the whole process pretty relaxing. Nipper helps by snapping up any bugs taking an interest, though I have to throw him the occasional scrap of hide to keep him from going for the meat. It still takes me quite a while.

I'm getting better at cleaning carcasses, but it takes practice, and by the time I get the thing skinned, gutted, and hanging, it's nearly dark. I help Talla finish setting up camp while Nipper feasts on the mini-mammoth's entrails, making light conversation as we go.

"We'll be getting close to the convergence point soon," Talla comments.

"I don't expect a break, but standard procedure is to assume anomalous creatures are a potential threat until we can visually confirm that the seals are intact." I nod, digging out a fire pit as I respond.

"That makes sense. Especially with the rainforest restricting visibility. Any reason you ignored that policy when you found us?" She winces, and I immediately regret asking. It was a genuine question, but that was technically the decision that sent us spiraling down the path that eventually led to the death of her entire team and her voluntary exile.

"We didn't," she explains.

"I warned my cousin about the dangers, but she was confident in her own escort. In hindsight, Reyna was pretty eager to undermine confidence in Saban and Draga during that entire trip. Once we came looking for them, we were more careful than usual." Which is where they found us, stupidly sleeping in the very place we'd killed their charges. In our defense, we were borderline delirious from magical strain, physical exhaustion, and starvation at the time. Still, not our finest moment.

"There's only two of us," I note.

"Is that going to be an issue?"

"Official ranger doctrine is to have a minimum team size of three," she says.

"But we're not an official ranger team, and there have been exceptions before. Come to think of it, if Mira is the acting grandmistress, I might not even be a ranger anymore. She's been going after my commission for years." That sort of petty cruelty does fit the image we have of the new Shaa matriarch. It wouldn't even be all that difficult to justify it, since Talla has arguably been derelict in her duty by helping a fugitive flee the country. I'm not sure how we'll ever make it up to her, really.

We've been in debt to Talla from nearly the moment we met, and that obligation has only gotten deeper since.

"Should we discuss roles, then?" I ask.

"As we've been doing, I think," Talla answers with a shrug.

"Stay close while exploring. You take point if there's a threat while I provide magical support. Retreat from anything we don't recognize to assess the threat." I finish digging out the pit and wipe my brow.

"And save major skills and spells for emergencies, right?"

"Right. Though I'll tell you right away that if we run into an unknown monster or—Goddess forbid—a demon that we can't outrun, throw everything you have at them." I nod in agreement. That was pretty much our policy when we were trapped in the caves—though we couldn't really run away from anything, so it ended up being that we had to throw everything we had at everything we encountered.

It was sheer dumb luck that laser geckos are fairly docile, rock snails are slow, and most of the caves had already been emptied by the predations of the demon. Change any one of those factors, and we'd have never made it far enough to meet the rangers.

"Are you sure you're going to be alright with this?" Talla asks quietly.

"I'm sure," I reply with more certainty than I expected.

"Being trapped in the dungeon was awful, and fighting the demon was an absolute nightmare, but this? Exploring, watching each other's backs, and living one day at a time? I like this." Talla giggles softly.

"I'm not sure Allie does, given that I've barely seen her all week."

"She's only here for the stargazing," I admit.

"But I don't think she minds it, either. She wouldn't want to live like this on a permanent basis, but the occasional camping trip isn't bad."

"Investigating a convergence point, even sealed, is quite a bit more dangerous than just camping," she points out.

"Well, yes, and it would probably take some convincing to get her on board with actually entering or exploring further if the seal is broken, but we're used to some danger by now," I muse.

"This isn't bad by our standards. Safer than the city was."

"Ouch," Talla jokes lightheartedly. Oh, right, that's her own home under her guarantee of safety that I'm talking about.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to insult you," I apologize.

"The estate was fine—it's everywhere else that was the problem."

"I know what you mean," she assures me.

"Though, it's interesting that you'd talk about convincing Allie. Does that mean you would try to talk her into it, if things are more dangerous than we expect?" I pause at that, and have to actually give it some deeper consideration. While I do that, I get the fire started and fetch the mini-mammoth carcass. There's no chance we'll be able to eat the entire thing, and meat spoils fast in the rainforest, so I just focus on carving out the best parts and let Nipper take care of the rest.

"I think I would," I finally decide while the food is cooking.

"Not alone, mind you. But if the convergence point starts spilling monsters out into the mountainside, it's the Degala tribe that would suffer. If we're capable of dealing with that problem, then I think we owe it to them to try."

"I'm not sure we are," Talla replies honestly.

"Maybe if we return to recruit volunteers from the village, but there aren't a lot of high level combat classes in a tribe like that. Convergence breaks are national threats, not single-team assignments." I shrug.

"It was just a hypothetical anyway, right? What are the chances that the seals would break from a single year of slightly late maintenance?" A piercing shriek cuts through the night before Talla can reply, startling birds into flight all over the forest and shaking the air. It's unnaturally loud, despite being so far away, and my ears are ringing slightly when I meet Talla's disbelieving eyes.

"Any chance that it was a natural creature?" I ask. The furrow of her brow is all the answer I need. I suppose that's what I get for tempting fate.