CHAPTER 42 MOUNTAIN LODGE

After beating the roc bird, Lydia hit her palm with her fist as if she'd just thought of something.

「Nn~ This feeling...could this be the feeling of leveling up?」

「Congrats Lydia!」

「Congratulations」

I secretly used Scout Scope and saw that Lydia's level was still around 13, it didn't appear to have gone up by very much. That should be pretty obvious as Lydia usually acts as a salesperson, minds her shop, and draws up designs instead of hunting usually. The roc bird is worth quite a lot of experience points so this time she was able to level up quite a bit.

「Hehe no~ you guys are all pretty strong. Big sis was surprised.」

「No, Lydia-san is also really…..strong…..」

「Yeah! *whistle* The enemy went BOOM and CRASH and you dodged....anyway it's amazing!!」

Claude's confidence in being the vanguard seems to be tattered a bit, while Milly was waving her arms around to demonstrate how Lydia moved during the fight. Lydia's face immediately became pervy and love-struck (deredere).

Everything else aside, the roc bird was a pretty strong enemy. It not only has a pretty high level, but it's tough and moves quickly, it is a well-rounded monster.

「If two roc birds come I'd like Claude and Lydia to take them on, this should be the method of dealing with them. If three come, then I'll take Claude and Milly will take Lydia and run away using teleportation. For now let's go with this kind of plan.」

They all nod.

So in order to familiarize ourselves with the roc birds, we aimed to walk to the mountain lodge. We continued to walk leisurely up the mountain path.

「There are two over there」

Lydia pointed at two roc birds lying around in the bushes comfortably. I can't see very well because of the bushes blocking my view, so if we weren't moving this way I probably wouldn't have seen them.

「Blue Gale!」

Milly cast her magic and at the same time Claude and Lydia rushed out. According to plan, they each take one of them as their opponent. Claude should reach her opponent first…probably.

I cast Pyro Shot at the roc bird and hurt it while making it recoil. As expected combo magic with good range is much easier to use. Pyro Shot is a little lacking in power though, I should try a little more to develop some magic with both power and range. Recently we've been fighting a lot more tough enemies. Well if I spend some time then I should be able to come up with something.

「Blue Gale!」

By the time the second tornado hit the roc birds Claude and Lydia had already started fighting. In this way we continued to climb the mountain, a couple times we encountered some roc birds but we made pretty good progress.

As the sun started to set and the sky turned red, Milly's face was also pretty red, and she seemed to be pretty tired and sweaty. She was kind of stumbling and her eyes weren't focused on anything in particular.

The mountain path must be pretty hard on a child. Even more so because of the need to fight as we progressed.

Even so she has her pride, Do you want Lydia to carry you?, this suggestion was offered many times but it was always rejected.

I can walk fine on my own, so she says.

Claude has quite a bit of travelling experience, so even though she is carrying heavy equipment she doesn't seem extremely tired.

「Ooh I see the Mountain Cabin Milly-chan」

「Really!?」

Suddenly Milly got excited and started to run.

Hey come on, it's dangerous if you start to run all of a sudden.

As I think that, the next second *Smack* she falls flat on her face. She immediately sits up, stops moving, and her shoulders start to shake.

Ah ah...didn't I tell you...…

Lydia runs over to Milly's side, the Claude and I quickly follow.

–Mountain Lodge–

Inside the lodge there is a plain table and stool, a fire pit in the center, and a futon folded up in the corner.

「Let's stay here for the night」

「Ahhh I'm tired~」

「I'm also kind of covered in sweat. I want to wipe down my body, but....」

She says and shoots a glance in my direction.

Get out, that seems to be the message.

Though I intended to do that from the beginning.

「When you're done call me」

I say so and leave the lodge.

Outside it's getting dark, but the roc birds don't move around at night so it should be safe.

As soon as I left, a great commotion started inside the lodge. It seems like the source of the disturbance was…Milly was about to change her clothes and Lydia wanted to help but she refused, then Lydia started chasing her.

What a ridiculous game.

Ah, Lydia sunk her poisonous fangs into Claude who tried to stop them...

If I stick around here my heart and morals will be in danger….

I move away from the lodge and sit down upon an overhanging cliff. It's very close to dusk and the mountain wind blows and it feels like today's fatigue is being washed away.

Well, I wasn't really that tired anyways. While we were climbing, I used body reinforcement magic. It wrapped my feet in wind and raised my physical abilities, I used the Sky attribute magic, Black Boots. Also I used recovery magic Healing at the same time, so while my abilities were boosted, my body's burden was also reduced. When I combine two different support magics together, a new and improved effect is created.

「It's a magic that makes you feel like you're walking on air….I think I'll call it Wind Walk」

The magic usage and effect aren't very suitable for battle, and it doesn't have too many uses. By the way, I didn't use it on Milly because if you have it too easy while you're young your body will end up being badly affected. Mages, even at the best of times, don't move their bodies very much, in essence this kind of magic shouldn't really be used outside of battle.

Also, it's not that I'm wanting to take things especially easy by using this, I myself am working hard to experiment. When I think about how Claude and Lydia have joined, a magic that can boost physical abilities will definitely be useful. For this reason, I need to think of a couple different kinds of magic that I can use. For example...

「Zeph!」

....and Milly's voice has broken my train of thought. It looks like they've finished cleaning themselves up. Milly has a refreshed look about her as she puts her messy hair into order.

But really, it feels like all my alone time is disappearing. I feel like I've been spending quite a lot of time with Milly, I'll be training by myself and thinking, and suddenly Milly will just appear.

Come to think of it, I'm thinking about Milly and the others an awful lot. Only a little while ago I was thinking about how to use my magic to help out Claude and Lydia.

Hmmm...recently, my goal to practice magic efficiently to the limit seems to be getting further away…..

Well, making the guild stronger and leveling up faster is in line with my goals but…I feel like I might be caring and thinking about these girls a little too much...

「What's wrong?」

Milly interrupts my thoughts and stares into my face. Her face is way too close, and I freeze up. If we move our necks a little, we'd touch, god there's got to be a limit to how defenseless you can be.

I seem to have changed since I met Milly, and know that I think about it I think I've continued to change ever since. And the cause of this, Milly, is standing here staring right at me looking confused.

「It's nothing, I was just thinking about how I'd changed and gotten a little strange. That's all.」

「What are you saying Zeph? You've always been kinda weird. You know a lot about difficult stuff, you use special unique magic, and you say stuff like washi 」(washi=which is a form of saying "I" used by elderly men)

Milly says this and giggles.

So that's how it is...she might be right, but she really said quite a bit huh.

I give a wry smile and scratch my head while remembering Milly's carefree smile.