Chapter 219: Ride and Walk
———Karra———
<2: 23 pm>
“...What do you mean you’re going to Italy?” I said, completely baffled at her sudden declaration.
“I mean exactly as I said. There’s a new product coming out and I want it fresh. Something sweet.” Emmie said as she flipped the scythe so the head was at the bottom. “Do you want anything?”
“...One of whatever you got, I guess?” I was just gonna greet her since we ran into each other on the outskirts here, only for her to say that random shit.
“Alright then.” She said as she placed one of her feet down on the scythe’s blade. How in the world does that not just cut her foot in half?
*Sizz* *Vroom* *Launch*
The trusters on the back of the scythe revved up and launched her into the sky very suddenly before I could even remark upon it. No seriously though, where did she get that scythe from? One hell of a convenient weapon, something that doubles as a vehicle.
“An enigma as always. I suppose that’s just how she is. She’s like a different flavor of the word wildcard in comparison to Kenni.” Wiina suddenly appeared behind me and said those words while I was still pondering on what just happened.
“Jeez! You scared me!” I complained as I turned around. She’s in her Navi persona this time around. She’d probably be in public in this form pretty often. Her usual self is supposed to be all mysterious and ‘Jass’ is basically a school thing only. “Why are you here now?”
“Why shouldn’t I? In the first place, considering yesterday’s incident, it’s probably not a good idea to stay on the outskirts of town for too long.” She said while scratching one of her fox ears. “Admittedly I don't think Rico is willing to let the whole thing slide. Both her and Wana already rack up quite a bodycount before the Eclipse. She’s probably real pissed off and probably already slaughtered the whole branch.”
She casually said those things. I know that for both sides such rampant bouts of violence is expected, but for me that still sounds really unnerving.
“You’re probably safe to roam around. I doubt anyone is monitoring you and the others anyway.” She added.
“Well, you do monitor me.” I said while pointing at the earring on my left ear. “But I guess that’s just me being nitpicky. Any other reason you’re here?”
“Just getting some fresh air, I supposed.” She answered with disinterest. “You’ve put in quite the effort into today’s stream. I thought you’d be slumping over in your bed or something.”
“I mean. I am a bit tired right now, but I’ll manage. I won’t slump over anytime soon.” I was thinking about maybe strolling across town for one of its famous dessert shops, but Emmie promised to get me something, so maybe I don’t need to? “Say, do you know anything about a dessert shop in Italy?”
“Nothing in particular comes to mind. Perhaps she’s thinking about some random shop we don’t know about.” She replied, not sounding interested in the topic. “Hmm… Everything about you seems fine aside from some fatigue, now that I get a better look.”
As always, she can easily gauge anyone’s condition with just a glance. She has a plethora of abilities, some of which are no doubt ridiculous.
“Since we’re here now, how about we go walk out of town and on the road? I’m sure you can easily spot a cafe or other shop to post stuff about along the way.” She proposed.
“...I guess that’ll do. I don’t really have a lot to do right now.” A bit of an unplanned date, I suppose.
Both of us then start walking with her leading the way. Slowly making our way out of town and going on a short journey to kill some time.
“So about those Mage Remnants, aside from that one particular faction is there any more that we need to know about?” I asked as we kept moving and ignored the few people also walking around and taking notice of us. How long will it take for there to be some issue due to my clout? It sounds egotistic but my influence is a bit beyond just streaming with everything going on.
“Not really. The current climate of that society means that they are more focused on local matters, on the lookout for any potentially dangerous people with high potential in the nearby vicinity. Like I said, there’s none of them around these parts, so this isn’t something for us to worry about right now. That blonde friend of yours ran into trouble with one, correct?” She said and asked.
“Yeah. In a roundabout way, but she does imply it.” Seems like they weren’t really a big deal considering that she talked about them more like a nuisance. We also still don’t know what she was doing out at sea. It’s very likely that it’s something quite important, but she wouldn’t answer it and just seem annoyed. “By the way, can you go check out if there was something in the area she was talking about? I know it’s kind of a big area, but I just wanna know.”
“Sure. I can do that later at night once we get home.” She said as we kept moving. We’re starting to move away from areas with a lot of buildings and going somewhere with a lot more open area and forking roads.
…Despite the ability for her to go anywhere she wants on the planet, and how we can easily traverse through states, sometimes we just sorta forget that even going from one town to another is actually quite a trip when done on foot. Even without all of the magic and simply with modern vehicles you can just forget the distance you need to cover. Since we simply walk around and do it at a leisurely pace, we have more time to bask in the little details on the trip. Like that crack in the road that looks like it has been unattended for a while, or the broken down sign that no one bothered to remove.
It’s not exactly everyday that someone gets to just walk around and appreciate the little details on the roads that you usually only see in a blur from a car.
“All things considered the gap between this town and the next isn’t even that big.” Wiina remarked as we moved along. “By the way, we’re going east, so we’re not going to go to that town that was wrecked and taken over not too long ago.”
“I don’t think I want to go there anyway.” I believe it still hasn’t fully recovered from that incident yet. I doubt the place is all that accommodating to visitors at this time.
We keep moving and aside from some bushes and abandoned buildings far from the road there isn’t a lot to look at.
“Oh. Would you look at that?” Wiina suddenly said as she looked out into the empty fields.
It looks like a giant wolf about the size of a bus, but the weird ears and two horns makes it clear it’s actually a monster, a surprisingly strong one at that.
“I know some monsters can randomly spawn outside the dungeons and habitats, but something this strong?” That thing can easily hunt down a few low-tier fighters for breakfast without breaking a sweat. As in it’s almost comparable to one of those apex predators inside a Fantarban Realm.
“As long as it’s somewhere far from a place full of humans, one can just spawn. It’s far enough from the road to not really be a problem for anyone as long as they ignore it.” She said before we continued moving and ignoring it entirely. I guess if someone rides on the road they probably won’t even notice it.
“Hope there isn’t anyone crazy enough to go after it.” I remarked. That thing will maul almost everyone.
“They probably won’t have enough time to even process getting killed if they were ordinary people, and even fledgling fighters won’t even comprehend how they sign themselves to their own doom.” Wiina said, clearly not really feeling like it’s something to worry about.
One thing for sure is that this kind of sight certainly validates people trying to not go out into the wilderness if something like that can be roaming just right outside your familiar town or city. Not that I think there were that many reports of such sightings in the first place.
“Hmm… A lot more greenery around.” I said as we kept moving. We already talked about this even not too long after the Eclipse.
“They were certainly being generous with the blessing to the land. Considering how badly nature itself was ruined by humans, this is basically charity that seems unwarranted.” Wiina said, not sounding emotionally charged despite berating humanity as a whole. “Hopefully things will be a lot better. As it is, even the overall climate is a lot less severe than it was before. Most places aren’t like a burning furnace right now.”
We walked around for a long time without saying anything as the cool breeze brushed past us. We can see the next town not too far from us, and as it is I still have plenty of energy to move around.
“...Do you think there’s a secret base or something in between towns and cities out here in the somewhat wild area?” I asked to break through the long period of silence.
“Possibly, but compared to hiding inside a town or city you do have the danger of looking insanely suspicious if even one person saw you out and about in the plain grassfield.” She answered. That’s true enough, there are its own tradeoffs. “I wouldn’t even put one here if I had to. For someone like me it’s probably a better idea to put it on a remote island somewhere.”
“Yeah. I guess that is probably a lot better.” I said without thinking too much about it. Flying around and teleporting around, no need for any base of hers to be out in the open like this.
There are a few more monsters roaming about the area, but they all seem to pale in comparison to that giant monster wolf. I guess each area just gets one really strong monster to roam around like it’s one of those open-world or online games.
“Karra. Are you planning on being a selfie fiend once we get to the next town?” Wiina asked as we got close to the town.
“Of course I am. Gotta at least show where I’m traveling to. Unlike most people I actually have security locked down. Influencers nowadays can’t really afford to post any pictures unless they’ve already taken in a day or two in advance.” Heck, IRL streaming takes a nosedive with how many bouts of violence showed up. Most of them still wouldn’t dare to leave their house, especially the more controversial figures. Same with political figures, but they are controversial in nature in the first place, and they tend to have guards around them anyway.
“By the way, you’re kinda lagging behind those two more and more. Is that really fine with you?” Wiina asked after another brief period of silence.
“Is that even really possible?” Those two have more drive and talent than me when it comes to combat. We all know that at this point, no one is gonna outpace those two aside from maybe Lrem, but she’s a bit older and has less room to grow. Not that she’s a hag. I think she’s in her mid-twenties or something. That’s still a few years gap.
“As always. It’s based on who wants it more than anything, but I supposed those two have the kind of drive that’s rather inhuman.” She remarked. “It’s certainly rather quite humorous. Fate itself seems to put all the people who would easily excel and oppress others all in the same classroom. Coach Wana deliberately put us all in the same classroom, but the fact that we are all even in the same town in the first place is the main reason we even meet each other.”
It’s quite a coincidence, if we weren’t all in the same class maybe all of us would have quite the ego. I don’t know, it’s certainly a what-if.
“We’re close.” Wiina remarked as the next town is only a few minutes of walk away.
Actually, let me look up a few places we should go to in this town next door. Let me see here… Not a lot of places, but I guess I could pick some local places as well to support them a bit.