Chapter 277: The Fire Dragon part 4
A week had gone by, since they'd jumped into the river to escape the ambush from the fire dragon and Patrick was getting ready to drop. He wasn't sure if it was from Patricia's libido or if it was the fact that they'd been pushing hard to find that dragon so they could stop worrying about it coming after them when they were getting ready to go to sleep.
He used to be able to continue on with almost any physical activity without any trouble. Yet now, he was feeling the fatigue almost every day when he woke up. While he hadn't kept going with continuous physical activity as long as he had since he'd been shanghaied into this contest, he worried that his increased fatigue wasn't just from what he'd been doing.
As they climbed another hill with the sun high in the sky, Patrick wondered if Patricia might leave him behind if she felt like he was slowing her down too much. While he didn't want that, he couldn't deny that he really was slowing her down. He knew that Patricia wasn't in a good mood either way.
When Patricia reached the top of the rise, Patrick was only around halfway up, doing his best to accomplish something that he knew he wasn't going to manage. Which was to keep up with her.
Since coming here, he knew that he wouldn't be able to keep up with her, but he still had felt rather intrigued by her and didn't want to be without her while they were on this world. He just never imagined how difficult such a task was. Though, if he was left behind by her, he couldn't see how he'd be upset with her if that happened. She was capable of making her own decisions and Patrick wasn't going to stand in her way just because he might not like the results of what that choice might be.
"You're not going to believe what I found!" Patricia called down to him, startling Patrick.
He looked up the slope towards Patricia, not sure what she was getting at, though he didn't change his pace. "I'll take your word for it!" he called back, not wanting to rush up the hill unless there was a threat either up there already or just approaching her.
"Take your time," she called down, sounding rather amused. "It's not a problem, just something that you're not going to believe."
"As I said, I'll take your word for it!" Patrick repeated. He didn't see a reason to say anything more. While he was happy that Patricia was amused, he would like to just not have to worry about if she'd want him to hurry up rather than continuing at the pace he knew he could manage.
One thing Patrick wouldn't mind would be some cloud coverage, but he couldn't say if they might be able to expect any at all. It wasn't like he could watch a weather report to learn if there would be any clouds expected or even some rain. All he could do was hope for it.
Even though his system made him immune to heat and flames, he still would like to give his eyes a rest from the brightness of the sun. Maybe he should have tried to get a hat when he and Patricia were last by a town or city, but when they were near one of those, thoughts like that were typically pushed to the back of his mind from other matters that they often would be dealing with.