Chapter 3. The beginning of the journey through the winter forest.

Chapter 3. The beginning of the journey through the winter forest.

At the rest stop, which we decided to arrange halfway, I had to sleep on top of

a hamster, completely wrapped in its soft fur. The smell from him was pleasant, as if the color of the wool showed his smell, something forest and pleasant. Under this smell, I fell asleep.

The strange boy set up a tent for himself. It was very small in size, only he could fit into it. But the boy clearly did not want to sleep.

He walked or ran around our clearing and watched to see if someone else was coming. While he was walking like that, and I was falling asleep, slowly inhaling a pleasant smell, it may

have seemed to me that his hair had grown so much that it already reached the ground. Most likely it is connected with some kind of monster that he was killing.

And so, when I just fell asleep, someone started approaching us, and the boy signaled us about it.

- Get up! Someone is approaching us, like the royal army. So.... You don't have to come to combat readiness, they are not our enemies.

And then people in iron armor jumped up to us, all of them short, the tallest of them probably reached only as high as my shoulders.

- Greetings, Prince Rail, we are very glad that you are safe and sound, but tell us who they are and are they going to our kingdom with good intentions? - the same rider or rider spoke, I did not determine exactly, because the voice was almost feminine, but at the same time there were notes of pride in it.

Yes, and wait… Is the same boy who was with us and in torn clothes really a prince??? A really strange boy…

- These are my comrades. The young man Nid and the hamster Tap-tap, who saved the young man from the hands of people captured by monsters. Don't worry, they definitely won't harm us, and even more so our kingdom, sister.

So, after all, it was a woman and more than that: the sister of this boy. And if she's his sister and called him a prince, then she's a princess.

The princess dismounted from her horse, and, taking off her helmet, appeared before us: long blue-white hair, or rather, blue only in front, and snow-white behind, which dipped right into the snow that lay under her feet.

- Then I greet you, dear travelers, as well as my brother's comrades. I am Dinah, the first princess of the "snow kingdom". I will be glad to accompany you on the way to the capital–" she said, holding the helmet in her right hand, and holding her left hand in a fist against her chest.- Tell me, are there people in your kingdom who specialize in summoning people from other worlds? - I asked a sharp question, because I still wanted to leave this world full of monsters. But there was no such strong desire as on the first day, because I felt that I already had to help save this world, but I'm afraid.

- Yes , there are such… Why would you do that? Are you called up yourself? Or are you just interested? Dinah started asking questions.

- Yes, I was called into this world, I was living a quiet life in my own world, when suddenly holes appeared, and through them I got into this very world that I dreamed about the day before. A week has passed, and the hospital, as I understand it, has been taken over by these monsters that can control people's minds. That's when the hamster saved me from almost certain death. Only then did I meet your brother and he decided, without hesitation, to take me on a journey to your kingdom.

- Wait, the hospital for howling is located on the border, it turns out, my brother…

- Yes, sister, I was passing through the border that day when I saw that my friend

Tap-tap was running with a young man on his back.

—But how did you... get there so quickly?"

— There was one monster in our forest, more like a cross between a bear and a leopard… Yes, it's a strange description, but still ... he moved with extraordinary speed, but he clearly lacked strength, so it was not difficult for me to kill him, it was then that I got my ability to run fast, thereby I managed to quickly find myself on the border.

- Okay, I get it… It turns out that your ability is to take abilities from others… Or to be more precise, to steal powers from the monsters you killed. I didn't know about it.

It seemed strange that Dinah didn't know about her brother's abilities, but I already probably had all the information about his abilities and knew that they would be very useful in many things. And here are mine… My most useless… That's what I thought at first… But then, as it turned out, it wasn't like that at all.

When the whole army, or rather the patrol squad of the kingdom, was assembled and we, throwing our swords, climbed on the hamster ourselves, then the whole squad rode to the snow kingdom.

The road was still quite long, since we were only halfway there, then my old calculation was that we still had about five thousand kilometers left, but it was very

a long distance. We had further halts, but this was no longer due to the fact that Tap-tap was tired of racing, but of the royal patrol, because those, after all, they did not ride on a hamster with the size of a short tree, but on horses that rode much slower and tired faster.At one of the halts we had to light a small fire and, after waiting for silence, we plunged into our thoughts.

— Ah... I wish the war with the dark Kingdom was over... and the monsters, preferably as soon as possible to get rid of... It would be dangerous if they get to our Kingdom, said Dinah with a sigh and a face full of despair, because she probably couldn't even imagine what to do with these

monsters .

The silence was broken by a noise in the bushes. After a couple of seconds, a monster jumped out to us, with a lot of eyes and more like a brain than anything else. It clung to one of the patrolmen, and that, in turn, his eyes, like those of others infected by the monster, turned red. We were about to run away, but that patrolman did not intend to kill us and told us the following.

- Dear patrolmen of the snow kingdom, I welcome you. I've been following you, I don't deny it, but still I'm not going to kill you. My brothers went crazy and decided to take over the whole world, and I was their leader at that time, and since I refused their idea, I was thrown into this forest on a catapult, I flew at such a speed that I almost despaired on the way here. And here I am, asking you not to kill me and not to disconnect me from this patrolman, because without him I can't talk to you.

The boy, as if he wasn't listening to his story, was already swinging his sword at the parasite, but Dinah stopped his blow.

- Brother, calm down, if it wanted to kill us, it would have made it much quieter and more inconspicuous, but now it seems to me that it is telling the truth. Yes, and

we need to find out information about these creatures… So put your sword in the scabbard and don't attack him.

- Thank you, O kind princess of the snow kingdom. Now I will tell you about

all the weaknesses of our kind of monsters. I will do this in gratitude for the fact that I am still alive.

Tap-tap lay down next to this monster and began to stare at him.

- Come on, let's hear your story.

- P-wait, don't look at me so intently, it scares me very much…

Tap-tap moved back, closer to us.

"So, he kind of monsters have a weakness for healing magic. In fact, we are not even monsters, we are rather undead, and most of us had a burning desire to kill. That's why the uprising started.- I see, so we need healers ... - said the boy, looking at me with a thoughtful look. — We have only one of these... and this is Nid. But unfortunately, he has a limit on this, so after using a small amount

of a healing spell, he faints.

- What a horror! Dinah exclaimed, holding her hands on her cheeks.

— But I already know who will help us with this restriction, and this is one of our acquaintances. Sister, you've probably already figured out who I'm talking about.

- Yes, brother. I understood, this is one of the court magicians who specializes in taking curses and restrictions, but do you think ... he should be asked about it?

- And then what do we need him for? To just stand at meetings for show? No, since you got a job at the palace, be kind enough to do your job! - the boy shouted, in his strong, masculine voice. And I'm already used to the voice.

- Okay, I understand you. Shall we throw this monster here or shall we keep it for ourselves and put it in a cage?

— We will not throw it into a cage, but into a fully fixed cube so that it cannot crawl out of it.

He took this cube out of his bottomless pocket and, having disconnected the monster, threw it there, but after looking into this cube, I no longer saw it. Apparently, he used the bottomless pocket to imprison this monster there… Well, at least he left me alive, although in his place I would have killed this scoundrel who could not keep his brothers under control.

- Keep moving! Dinah shouted, after which the whole regiment gathered and we continued on our way through this huge snow-covered, but at the same time not cold the forest.