Chapter 172: Entering A Storm

"Mom, I'm bored." Said Chloe lightly as she sat on Michelle's lap while mindlessly kicking her feet, her words causing Alexander to wryly smile as he pulled the carriage.

"C-C'mon, Chloe, I know you don't have Canzer to play with anymore, but you can't be bored already; we've only departed from Mosen a few hours ago." Said Alexander softly as he glanced at Chloe, flashing her a smile, though unlike normally, it only caused her to pout further.

'Haa, well, I can already tell this is going to be a long trip.' Thought Alexander with a sigh as he shook his head before focusing back on the road.

It's only been about three hours since we left Mosen City and separated from Jackal, Kurina, and Cath; speaking of them, Jackal and Kurina had decided to stay within Mosen City for some time while he takes a few jobs for the Adventurer guild since they need some more money to buy a carriage. Cath, on the other hand, actually plans to go to the Roswald Kingdoms as well, though she refused to travel with us simply because she didn't want to be a nuisance to us, which I would disagree with; having her around was quite fun in my opinion, gave Michelle and I a friend to talk too, but I respected her decision. Of course, since she's a friend, I had stuffed some coins in her pocket when we had hugged; not a crazy amount, considering I only have about one silver to my name now, but I did give her about fifty or so copper coins, which was roughly a third of my wealth at the time.

That amount should be enough for her to survive for a month, and hopefully, by then, she'll have found a way to make it to The Roswald Kingdom.

'Though I feel like it'll take her a long time to make enough money to get to the Roswald Kingdom.' Mused Alexander lightly as he glanced up at the sunny, cloudy sky, noticing a thick layer of dark clouds in the distance.

"Huh, looks like it's going to rain." Muttered Alexander with a raised eyebrow as he gazed at the incoming wave of dark clouds, only for a brownish blur to suddenly swoop into the carriage.

"Slow down, Talis. You could've hit someone, which would've ended bad for both you and the person you hit; unless it were Yuki, then it would've been just bad for you." Remarked Alexander as he eyed Talis, who stood atop a few boxes inside the carriage while promptly ignoring his words.

"There's an incoming thunderstorm. It's going to be quite heavy, you've been warned, Alex." Said Talis solemnly as she glanced at Alexander, only to shake her body, spraying her drenched body onto the boxes and floor.

Rolling my eyes at how overly dramatic Talis sounded, I shook my head and continued down the dirt path, though I hadn't ignored her words, and started looking for places we may need to rest until the storm passes.

"Yuki, Michelle, a storm is coming, so you may want to hide within the carriage." Said Alexander, his words causing Michelle to nod as she and Chloe gazed at the dark clouds, only to see lightning and the sound of thunder followed soon after.

"C'mon, Chloe, let's head inside; I don't need you getting drenched." Said Michelle lightly as she and Chloe entered the carriage's interior while lowering the curtain, separating them from the outside, leaving just Yuki and Alexander.

"You're not going, Yuki?" Asked Alexander with a raised eyebrow as he glanced at Yuki, who shook her head while playing with her shield.

"No, it's just water; it won't hurt me." Replied Yuki with a shake of her head as she glanced at Alexander, who nodded before eyeing her shield.

"Speaking of hurting you, why did you only get one shield?" Asked Alexander curiously as he eyed Yuki's shield, which was much smaller than the ones she had previously used, yet it was still rather big.

"Eh, no reason, really, just to save some money in case of emergencies." Replied Yuki lightly as she played around her shield, only to gently set it down beside her.

Nodding at Yuki, we promptly descended into silence while walking down the dirt path, heading closer to the incoming storm; as the minutes passed, thunder became louder, and lightning bolts became all the more common as we watched them strike the ground before disappearing. Eventually, we finally entered the storm, and at first, it started off with a drizzle, which progressively got worse until we were getting battered with aggressive winds and rain from what felt like every angle.

I had already infused the cart with mana using [Mana Enhancement], so the carriage should be safe from harm, but I'm sure Michelle, Chloe, and Talis can feel how intense the storm was from inside, and the crazy part is, we're not even in the center of the storm.

"This is freaking crazy; I've never been in such a terrible storm, not even in my past life." Muttered Alexander with a deep frown, his voice lost within the loud winds, violent rain, and constant thunder.

'This isn't some kind of hurricane, is it?' Thought Alexander with a raised eyebrow as he looked up at the dark sky, only to be battered with droplets hitting his face.

At this point, the intense thunderstorm was greatly hampering my vision, and I probably couldn't see anything further than ten meters away from me, which prompted me to use [Heroes Gaze], allowing me to clearly see everything as if it were a sunny day and it was, the storm is just blocking it.

While the storm was powerful, even managing to uproot some of the smaller trees, at the end of the day, it was only a storm, and I wasn't a normal human from my past life; so all in all, it really wasn't that dangerous to any of us, well, maybe Michelle and Chloe, but they're inside and safe.

While checking for possible tornadoes, I continued to pull the carriage through the storm, which only continued to slowly get stronger, eventually reaching a level of strength where I was required to ask Yuki for some slight assistance.

"Just one second, and you can return to sitting on your lovely butt." Said Alexander as he glanced at Yuki, who couldn't hear him thanks to the storm, while searching through his space pouch.

'Aaha! Found you.' Thought Alexander with a smirk as he grabbed his gravity belt and wrapped it around the reigns of the carriage before injecting his mana into it, causing the carriage's wheels to sink into the dirt trail.

With the carriage now several times heavier, I didn't need to worry about it flying off into the sky, though while it would make pushing it slightly harder, it should be fine.

"Thanks for the help, Yuki." Said Alexander as he jumped into the air and kissed Yuki's cheek, causing her to nod while she sat back down in the carriage.

Pulling, or dragging, the carriage across the dirt path, we continued deeper into the storm; however, along the way, to my surprise, I happened to spot two silhouettes walking along the dirt path far into the distance. One seemed to be a woman, given her more petite figure, and the other was a hunched-back older man wearing a cloak. At first, I was shocked, but then I quickly shook my head and started running after them while pulling the carriage with me, causing it to bump a little along the way.

After a minute, I finally caught up to the two people and quickly stopped in front of them as I raised my hand and created a large flame, giving us light that illuminated the surroundings and allowed us to see each other. The first person I looked at was a woman who seemed very young, probably the same age as me; she had neck-length light pink hair, bright blue eyes, and a small, dainty nose that I found to be specifically beautiful for some reason.

She had a petite body, one that I couldn't help but take two looks at, partially because she reminded me of Master; unlike Master, the woman before me had a thinner waist, which made her curves all the more prominent even though they were roughly the same size as Master's. She had pale white skin without a single blemish on her entire body, as if the skin of a newborn, and funnily enough, just like me, she wasn't wearing any shoes, allowing me to view her small feet; I had no fetish for feet, but I could now somewhat understand why men do.

Once I got my fill of the woman, I turned to look at the man, and if I'm being honest, I didn't really care what he looked like, but he was an old man with a somewhat sickly appearance that could simply be from old age or something more; his eyes contained wisdom and a great deal of sadness, yet whenever he looked at the woman to his left, all of that seemed to vanish and was replaced by love.

Although I had stared at them for several seconds, I had slowed down my perception of time, so it hadn't even amounted to a full second; after all, that would've been the best first impression.

"Excuse me, but would you like some assistance!?" Yelled Alexander loudly as he glanced between the old man and the young woman, who tilted her head while the former furrowed his brows.

"Huh, what did you say, young man!?" Asked the old man loudly with a deep, raspy voice as he looked at Alexander.