Chương 398: Chapter 371. A Reflective Morning

Jaime Wilkin's Point Of View / Rumble... /" Shoo... Woo.... Shoo...." Today was like any other day... It was the morning, shortly after breakfast. I had met up with Ashley, Lucy, Laura and Luke for breakfast today, we've been meeting up for our meals quite consistently recently. More or less, it's because we've all been having more specialized training for our Jobs for a while, but now, we're traveling together again. We're on our way to Phoenix Tail after receiving orders from King Roman.

Apparently, Demons have been spotted not too far West from Phoenix Tail. They've attacked and killed a group of Adventurers, with one returning to inform the Guild. From what was reported, she apparently ran back to Phoenix Tail with the blood of her companions still fresh on her clothes. Her name was Becca, she is a Monster Tamer. After her report, the Guild sent a few B-Rank Parties along with 1 A-Rank Party to verify the information.

After 3 days, only 3 members of the A-Rank Party and 4 B-Rank Adventurers made it back. With that, there were a few options for what to do next, the 3 most readily available were to summon the Royal Army of Promethia to attack the Demons, but seeing as they tried this before and the Demons were able to see the Army from a mile away and escape, they decided to try something different because of it. the 2nd option was to summon the Army of Light.

Which is the official militant force of the Teachings Of The Light Gods, or as most people in Promethia refer to it, The Church of Light. The reason they were turned down was mostly because of "optics" from what I can see. Which brings us to the 3rd option and the reason why we're here now. King Roman put so much faith into Luke during the assault on Diablos a year ago, that our failure caused somewhat of a bad taste in the people of Promethia's mouths.

Because of that, the 3rd option was to send us, the Hero Party into the fray. While we've gained individual strength since our failure to kill the Demon King last year, to be honest, as a team, we're still quite lacking. Mostly due to Luke, who still has no idea how to act as a Team Leader... Or hell, I'd take him as a Teammate instead of the hindrance he usually is. pat..." Jai, it's time."" Huh?" My Meditation was interrupted." It's been an hour, it's time to head out."" Oh... Really? It's been that long?

I feel like I just sat down, Ash?"" Can you really say that? Look around you." I did as Ashley asked of me and I guess she was right. Giant boulders and thick trees were still floating in the air all around me." I mean, you were concentrating so hard that they floated without you even noticing, they're still floating, that should tell you that you must've been a little too focused."" Right, I'll put them down gently..." / Rumble. Rumble...

/ The boulders and trees returned to their original positions, to apologize to the trees, I quickly used some Magic to water them and make sure the soil around them was easy for the roots to rest in. I spent my hour of free time after breakfast Tempering my Mana. as a consequence of my Mana Advancement reaching Expert Level, things tend to float as I go on Tempering my Mana. It's gotten worse as I've been closing in on Master Advancement. I'd imagine I'll reach it sometime in the next 3 months.

Which is both exciting and frightening, since even without me wanting to, I end up affecting the area around me. Ethel tells me that it's only because my Mana Control is lacking, because my Advancements have happened too fast for my body to keep up with it, but I have to be stronger in order to get back home... Even if it means I end up damaging my surroundings. That's just how badly I want to see him again... I have so much to apologize for." Jai, come on, everyone's waiting, we've already cleaned up the camp."

Ashley called for me after I finished fixing the area around me. Thankfully, we didn't need to walk to Phoenix Tail since we have a carriage, with that, I'm able to actually focus on my Mana Control during the journey. I walked with Ashley back to our campgrounds since I didn't want to wreak havoc as everyone did their own training. Ashley came for me today. Usually, one of my Friends do. Luke, thankfully, has not. He's been more obsessed about a different thing since this whole journey had begun.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement." Is it time to take off yet, Dave!?" Ashley and I could already hear him asking the carriage driver when we would take off. Honestly, he's the only one who seems excited to be facing off against the Demons. If memory serves me right, he's the only one of us not to fight a Demon. He lost to that man in the armor... The Demon King's Paladin.

And not only that, but I fought that Demon woman with strawberry-blonde hair and yellow eyes. I couldn't land any Spell on her no matter how much Magic I used. Everyone else had the same experience. It took weeks for Laura to even smile again after what happened there. She was so let down, even when we were finally able to get her to tell us about how she felt, she still couldn't get over what happened.

We all decided it was best to train our Skills to make sure nothing like what happened could ever happen to us again. Even Luke was repossessed after the incident, once we came back, Jessie trained him from the ground up like our Teachers did for us.

While I can't speak for him, us girls, from the year of training, as well as the Quests we've undertaken as a Party together, we've all grown as individuals, but our teamwork is still compromised when we've had to deal with the regular Monster or 2 that have appeared on this journey, mostly because Luke wants to land the finishing blow on anything we hunt, it's like he thinks that we can't do it, which made everyone, including Lucy, not want to take on Quests as the "Hero Party".

So, instead, we girls formed a Party for ourselves, the name we used was "Northern Air", since we all went to North High, we thought it fit. Sure, we're surrounded by other Parties like "Dancing Flames" or "Frozen Flowers", we thought something that honored our world would be nice." Like I said, Hero Luke, we're on schedule as is, we're going to arrive at Phoenix Tail tomorrow, we can't rush it. Think of the horses, Sir.""

He's right, Luke, relax, we'll get there, just because you finished training and are warmed up, that doesn't mean everyone else is. We'll get there when we get there."" Fine..." Jessie had come with us on this journey. From what I understand, it's because Jessie is Friends with the Guild Leader in Phoenix Tail and he had spent a good amount of time in Phoenix Tail. Because of that, he can help us negotiate anything we need before heading off to fight the Demons that are to the West of Phoenix Tail."

If we should be thankful for anything from that day, it should be that Jessie is someone he listens to now." Lucy commented on the scene we've just witnessed. Lucy may be Luke's sister, but that doesn't exactly mean he listens to her, if that was the case, the relationship between us and John wouldn't have gotten to the point it was at by the time we got transported here. Regardless of all of that, Ashley and I couldn't help but nod our heads.

Of course, there was one other person who he'd listen to, but she want's nothing to do with him. That's probably the clearest thing to come out of this whole debacle of being Summoned here." This again, huh? You'd think he'd realize that he's only causing problems for other people... Though, seeing how Nobles act... I guess he's just blending in." Speak of the devil, Laura had arrived from her own training in the woods. She had a bit of dirt on her cheek." Laura, you have a bit of dirt right there."" Hm? Ah.

I ran into a tiger-like Monster while I was warming up. I had to roll away from a tail swipe." She attempted to rub the dirt away to no avail. She then looked to me." Jai, can you use some of your Water Magic? Please?"" Sure thing!" Another good thing to come from that day we lost, was the fact that Laura was eventually able to come out of her funk. It took a few weeks, but as we went on more and more Quests as Northern Air, she's begun to rely on all 3 of us.

Before, she always seemed to be watching what she said around us, like she wanted to make sure she wouldn't get too close. But once she realized that we were all stuck here and we needed to help each other to survive and get back to our world, she's begun to open up, she's even begun to be physically affectionate with us. It finally feels like we're fully acting like a group of Friends instead of Ashley, Lucy and I trying to keep Laura from falling off the deep end.

I thought back on a few of these moments as I used Water Magic to clean Laura's face." Thank you, Jai. Now then, we'll be leaving now, right? I guess we should board the carriage?"" 1 more day and we'll be in Phoenix Tail, once we're there, we'll finally be able to have some revenge!"" Ash, the Demons we'll be fighting won't be those women from before, you know that right?"" Even still, Lucy, we can show that we can fight Demons! We haven't been running ourselves ragged for show! It's time to hit back!""

In time we will, but for now, guys, I think we should board the carriage like Laura suggested." With Ashley beginning to hype herself up... As well as everyone else in a strange way, I decided to snap everyone out of their little trances so we can focus on what we need to do. We may need fire in our chests to do this, but we need to remain calm of mind in order to make the best choices possible. That's something Ethel always tells me when she's teaching me. And I'm trying to do just that from this point on.

We can't afford to be as foolish as we were when we tried invading Diablos last year... No, I suppose we're nearing 2 years ago now? Either way, I'm not going to make the same mistakes and I'm not going to let my Friends make them either. That's all I really thought about as we boarded the carriage to take us closer to our new battle.