Travel

We met up at breakfast that day as sort of like a meeting spot. Every single one of us tried to fill their stomach up to the brink, nobody knew when we would be able to enjoy such a great breakfast in near future after all. Most likely we would have to wait until coming back.

Of course, it also took way longer than usual; the first students already went on their way to the school and we were still at breakfast. As you might have guessed it, the one everyone waited for was me; I probably ate twice as much as the others by now. What should I say, I'm just that hungry all the time…

Noelle had gotten quite annoyed by now, even though she usually tended to help us out. By the look on her face she had already began planning how to throw us out. I had never seen her this angry before.

Eventually however, the others decided it should be enough and forcefully dragged me away from the table. They had to listen to me complaining for a bit but we soon went on to get the luggage from our rooms. Those included just the most essential things for our daily life and we then headed straight for the shack behind the school where all the carriages were parked. For towing the carriage not any normal animal was used however, instead the school went for weak lizard like beast. Once those were tamed, they would listen to basically anyone. Compared to horses, they were only a little faster but their main advantage was their nearly endless stamina.

The one in front of our designated carriage had green skin and appeared to be bigger by a solid margin compared to the other beasts around the shack. I could sense the involvement of a certain someone again. Not that I really minded it that much, so I disregarded it.

Lisa also stood next to the lizard, she came to see us off. She gave every single one of us a hug, even the boys. Those two got noticeable flustered by it. Once Lisa had her fill, we all climbed onto the carriage, us girls in the back and the boys at the front. Julian and Lander chose to be our coachmen for the journey. Iris and I would be the ones defending the carriage, while Emilia and Althaia were responsible for cooking and the gathering of food.

We decided to work in shifts to guarantee a safe travel. On the carriage one of the boys and either Iris or I had to always be on guard, once we got to camp everyone took turns with the guard job.

And so, with everything planned we started our journey. Lisa waved to us till we couldn't see her anymore. I had a hard time telling how long she stood there. Somehow I already missed her. Mr. Black on the other hand was nowhere to be seen, according to him he should be hiding near us though. I tried to concentrate on different shadows around the area but I couldn't figure out either how his ability worked or which shadow he used.

After five more minutes of trying, I gave up however and got myself ready to sleep. Iris chose the first shift together with Lander. Unexpectedly, I managed to sleep in easily despite the carriage shaking by a lot.

I dreamt about eating a nice dinner made by Noelle, when suddenly the carriage came to a stop. It took me a moment but I opened my eyes and saw Iris jumping out. There were also voices outside which I never heard before.

"Give us your most valuable belongings and we will let you off easily!"

"It seems like we are getting attacked by thieves, oh those guys will be in for a treat…", I thought to myself as I tried to find a nice spot to enjoy the show.

Iris walked towards them without any hesitation, her claymore leisurely held in her right hand. As she approached the thieves, the leader shouted: "Stop right there or you will pay with your life!"

"Oh, will I?" Iris asked and sped up. She jumped right at the nearest thief and yoinked him away. The poor guy flew back for a solid five meters.

"Attack her", the leader shouted. He truly had to be naive to think they could beat Iris, she even gave them a showcase of her brute strength.

They learned their lesson on the hard way soon afterwards however. Everyone else got a short flying lesson by Iris just like the first guy did. Once she was satisfied with what she had done, she came back to the carriage and we continued our travel. Looking out of the carriage, I saw the thieves getting up and running as fast as they could. Nobody wanted a round 2. These poor guys probably haven't recovered from the shock till today.

That was also the only eventful day of the whole journey. We carefully guarded against other thieves but no other group dared to show up. Most days we would travel till shortly before sun set and built up our camp to stay overnight. On our way to the demon nation, there were only some smaller villages here and there, no bigger city or anything. Camping outside was the smartest decision in this case as finding a village at the right time was unreliable. The closer we came to the border, the more stray beast we saw running around. Those were only weaker ones but their instincts were sharp, they all avoided us like the pest.

And so, we were only a couple hours left from our destination.