It took Hinata and Tamara about ten minutes to finish their food before Hinata went over to do the dishes. After cleaning up their camp, they began their ascent up the mountain.
The mountain range was located to the west of Falmouth, and since neither of them had been on this side before, they were moving based on their crude maps and the little information they had gathered from wandering adventurers.
As they reached the base of the large peak, both of them imdiately noticed a large hole carved into its side.
"Looks like we don’t have to scale the mountain," Tamara said, taking a drag from her tobacco pipe.
Hinata didn’t reply. Not that he didn’t want to, or was trying to ignore her, but he was completely engrossed in his internal aether control.
Tamara studied her companion, a very noticeable pout settling on her face. "Moving around with a lady and you can’t even give her attention," she muttered, taking an aggressive inhale of the tobacco, only to choke on it.
Hearing Tamara’s coughing, Hinata glanced towards her, brows knitting together. "What happened?"
The white-haired woman glared so intensely at him that he couldn’t help but take a step back. Seeing his adorable reaction, Tamara smiled, though she quickly shook her head. ’How can you go from mad to happy just because of that?’
Her eyes suddenly widened as she lowered her head. ’Wait, do I like him? No, no, I’m just being helpful and it’s totally normal to act like that.’
She raised her gaze towards Hinata, whose head was tilted curiously. ’No way, right?’
With hurried steps she strode towards him, stopping just inches away from his body. Her gaze lifted to stare into his eyes, only for the sun to shine brightly into them, making her squint.
Before she could complain about it, Hinata dipped his head down slightly to shield her from the rays of the sun. "You still haven’t answered what happened."
Only as his shadow fell over her did Tamara properly realize that Hinata was very much taller than her. Perhaps it was due to the fact that they had never had any downti together, or perhaps sothing was changing within her, but she was beginning to notice things in him that she never did before.
Tamara felt her cheeks burning red from both his gesture and their closeness. She took several shallow breaths before looking up at him shyly. "I never noticed before," she said, raising her hands to rest them on his chest. "But you’re really taller than ."
Hinata didn’t say a word, his eyes wide with shock. His lips parted to say sothing, but before he could, a loud boom rang out around them.
The both of them imdiately raised their guard and separated from each other.
A short distance from where they stood at the foot of the mountain was a wolf-type monster — the very first beast-class monster Hinata had seen in this world.
It had grey fur with a white mane bearing electric-blue stripes. The wolf’s neon eyes locked onto both Hinata and Tamara, and faint lightning began crackling around its body.
"I’ll take care of it, just wait here," Hinata said, already stepping forward while rolling his sleeves up.
"Wai—" Tamara raised her hand to stop him, only to pull it back and bite her lip. ’What am I even doing?’
She raised her gaze towards Hinata’s advancing back and felt sothing strain in her chest. Deep down she knew she had to hold onto that straining thing and never let it out, because if she did, it would cause sothing horrible.
Hinata, anwhile, was stressing over how to defeat the wolf.
Although he had his gauntlet with its two-tis attack boost and his swords with their 1.5x attack, aning his sword strikes combined with his gauntlet produced a three-tis attack multiplier, he still faced the significant limitation of aether control.
Aether itself was a very dangerous energy; capable of destroying, creating, or even rewriting history; but like every other dangerous energy, it was incredibly difficult and straining to control.
Even so, Hinata had developed a solid understanding of aether, enough to at the very least defeat a low-ranked Blight. As it happened, this particular Blight also seed to possess the exact affinity he had been seeking to study.
Another reason Hinata found himself so stressed was Tamara. At first he thought he could brush away most of her advances, but she seed to be growing bolder the more ti they spent together.
Plus...
Hinata held back his thoughts, though his heart was still racing as if he had just run a sprint.
’I have to hurry up and reach the Church of Light.’
With a sudden burst of speed, he lunged towards the wolf.
Boom!
The lightning wolf lunged at him in turn. The mont it drew close, the system chid in his ear.
[You have encountered Blight Grade (Low) Beast Monster: Dire Wolf]
Aether imdiately flared to life in Hinata’s hands like flas on the verge of consuming everything around it.
The wolf was equally ready, and with practiced ease, swiped its lightning-coated paws in Hinata’s direction.
A long slash resembling wolf nails tore through the air, its form crackling as it flew towards him.
With a fast sidestep, he dodged the attack and drove his fist forward in a straight jab.
Imdiately the wolf used its impressive speed to dart backward and Hinata simply... smirked.
From the start, his plan had never been to attack the wolf directly — but the air around it instead.
It was during his training that he had discovered sothing special about aether.
No matter how strong or pure one’s mana was, it could never go toe-to-toe with aether, even an unrefined one. And Hinata didn’t have just any aether, either — he had an aether that was being constantly refined.
That ant if he compressed the force just enough to strike the mana in the air, the mana would explode and send energy surging forward in a massive shockwave.
Just as expected, the mana in the air detonated, and the force launched the wolf backward, smashing it into the foot of the mountain.
Blood sprayed everywhere as the monster’s limbs went limp, and the system chid in his ear.
[You have slain Blight Grade (Low) Beast Monster: Dire Wolf.]
The aether flaring in Hinata’s hands imdiately fizzled out, leaving him panting softly.
Taking a deep breath, he turned back towards Tamara, who was watching him with a quiet smile.
"Hey," he began, slowly and carefully. "Can you tell what happened already?"
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