238 Survive the mana season, I beg you! part It took Ryu a lot of focus just to mold dirt, making it impossible for him to create a tall cover like a wall. Instead, he made sothing similar to a trench, splitting dirt to the sides was a lot easier than lifting a wall that needed support. It was also a lot safer, because instead of fighting the powerful winds, it was as if the whole landscape acted as a cover.
Ryu’s health points and mana pool were dangerously low, but at least he had enough food to restore his energy. Lea, who was tethered to Bardun, had also spent part of her mana healing goblins.
It was sothing incredibly rare for a priest to heal a demi human, especially because their beliefs didn’t allow it. One of their most important precepts was that a priest’s mana is considered sacred and couldn’t be wasted lightly. It was sothing so blasphemous that even if a priest healed a beastkin slave, he or she would be excommunicated imdiately. But on Lea’s case there was sothing playing in her favor, although she was already a priest, she had yet to be picked by a god to serve.
She had no patron god, which ant that on one hand she had no effective way of earning the favor of the gods, making it impossible for her to acquire a new class or ask for miracles, but on the other, she could do whatever she wanted and no god would be offended.
Earning a god’s favor could be achieved in different ways but most gods had their own set of rules and demanded certain rites to be perford, as long as the follower didn’t make any big mistakes they could still be awarded so points of favor. There were so gods that provided easy points of favor allowing their followers to easily stock up on points, but those were usually the weakest gods.
Strongest ones provided few points by performing rites and a lot more by either spreading the word about them or following their commands. It was more difficult to earn their favor, but they could perform all kinds of miracles, even transporting people from one side of the world to the other in a matter of seconds.
But Lea had given up on such hopes, leaving her no choice but to use her sacred mana to heal her captors. It didn’t matter if gods were almighty, they were nowhere to be seen while goblins had taken care of her. More than capturing her, it was a rescue.
They found her injured in the middle of the forest, took her in, fed her, got her back to health.
Between living as a slave to goblins or becoming Ryu’s wife, she would of course take the latter, but he showed no interest on her. Besides, she was still scared of what Ryu was capable of, she had been traumatized after being forced by him to heal soone on the verge of dying.
.....
The winds roared the whole night and when morning ca, although they had been able to rest, no one felt any better.
Their walking speed was so low that it would take them a week to get to the goblin village and because of the effects of the storm, communicating was a lot more difficult.
Ryu had to force himself to climb out of the trench, he was exhausted, tired and above all, disheartened.
After witnessing the sort of treatnt the poor beastkin girl received at the hands of the beast hunters from the sacred empire he was worried sick about his friends.
Anne and Sera were supposedly safe in the goblin village, but Bob, Luke and Mia remained up north trying to rescue Helena from that horrible place.
Ryu had not been to the sacred empire yet, but from the things he heard he wasn’t really interested in setting foot there ever in his life. All he wanted now was for his friends to be reunited again, go back to their old cottages and live a peaceful life there.
He didn’t want to see any more heinous acts perford by humans, killing, robbing, raping, all those things disgusted him.
After all this ti trying to find out what was the threat that naced humanity, he finally knew it was likely related to the obelisk, but why should he bother with it. He didn’t care about what happened to the human race, they could all go extinct for what he cared.
As long as he was able to live a long, peaceful life in the middle of nowhere, he didn’t care about anything else.
Those thoughts kept him up during the night. He couldn’t believe how stupid he was to allow their friends to get separated.
As days went by, Ryu’s determination to save humanity lessened giving way to a new objective, getting everyone back together.
As they closed in to the goblin village, the wind beca weaker giving way to a rainy weather. Goblins rejoiced because it ant they were on the right way, but their happiness was short lived.
Walking on mud was certainly a lot more difficult than on soft terrain and, although it wasn’t as hard as fighting the strong air current they had to endure for almost a week, it wasn’t an easy feat.
They were still deaf and exhausted, their provisions had beco scarce and they already lost a few goblin soldiers on the way.
One fell from exhaustion, thus healing was completely useless. The only way of saving him would have been giving him a tonic, but Ryu had none on him and even if he did, there was no way for Bardun to explain him the situation.
The others were dragged by the wind and carried away. It was a small group of five goblins, all tethered together. At first they had no issue because they were carrying a lot of provisions, but as days went by and provisions diminished, so did the weight that kept them earthbound.
Risa advanced through the muddy ground with difficulty, but for the beastkin girl it was almost like a stroll in the park. It took Risa a while to figure out that she, as an archer, had a skill called pathfinding that allowed her to walk in obstructed terrain. If they were able to communicate, Ryu would have told her beforehand, after all he too had the sa skill and she knew archers could acquire it because Anne too had developed it.
But at least the long trip served as a learning experience and they were about to reach their destination.
Or so they thought. A veiled threat no one was aware of lurked bellow the muddy terrain.
The first one to fall was a goblin that walked in the rear, he simply disappeared without people noticing. It took about twenty seconds for the goblin in front of him to be dragged along thanks to being tied to the one who fell first.
It was so fast he couldn’t even scream, but even if he did there was no certainty soone would have heard them. By the ti the last one from their group of five was dragged, Ryu noticed sothing was off.
His mana sense was turned off, but not his sense presence skill. They didn’t find any threat during their ti under the wind storm, but Ryu felt helpless with all his detection skills turned off so he left sense presence on.
Although he wasn’t able to sense the enemy, he did notice the disappearing of his own allies. He tugged on Risa the rope alerting Risa just in ti. A huge scaly snake, similar to an anaconda, wrapped around both her legs and just before it was able to constrict her, Risa waved her Katar with such surgical precision, beheading the snake in a single motion.
The entire group was able to witness the attack and they imdiately beca wary of their opponent’s presence. They were surrounded by snakes of all sizes, they were everywhere but most of them remained hidden thanks to the thick layer of mud.
Soon enough everyone was fighting, Ryu lacked a proper weapon except for his obsidian dagger, but he still managed to kill a few snakes. Risa was proficient in killing beasts because of her vast experience as an adventurer, and she had no trouble at all.
The beastkin girl, though, was completely helpless. She didn’t have any weapon and she appeared to be scared out of her wits. Her first reaction when a snake ca close to her was to run away and climb to a tree.
Her powerful legs allowed her to move swiftly across the muddy field and she climbed a tree with ease. Despite her slim appearance, she was actually really strong and had no trouble at all climbing the tall tree even with the rope still tied to her, leaving both Ryu and Risa hanging free in the air.
To say they were dumbfounded would be an understatent. They didn’t understand what was happening, Risa even thought the beastkin girl was eaten and they were being dragged by a snake. When she finally realized that they were dragged along with the beastkin girl, she understood how deeply they had underestimated her.
But no matter how strong the beastkin girl was, she was still crying and cowering in fear on top of a branch. She was covering her eyes with her palms, sniffling from ti to ti.
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