Mt. Kriff
[What's up? *Smile sticker*]
On the other side, she eagerly typed in her response with a smile.
[Busy]
His messages were pretty straightforward without anything interesting showing in those messages.
They chatted for a bit. She asked him how he was doing and where he was, trying to keep the conversation alive as she didn't have anything specific to talk about. She just wanted to talk to him without a particular topic, simply to converse for a while.
[Busy rn, later.]
Lloyd certainly wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone right now since he had a purpose: reaching Mt. Kriff by the afternoon, and it was a pretty long run when he was on his feet.
[Wait! I need to tell you something. My dad...]
Well, her message was simply left on "sent" since he had closed his phone.
-----
"Did she fall in love with me in first sight or something? She didn't look like that in person..." His head tilted to the right, and he wondered if that was the case.
He was moving through the forest hastily, appearing unstoppable in his pace.
Although he was interested in her guild since it might help him provide support, he wasn't truly interested in her, as she didn't seem to be any useful to him, he was only replying due to notifications that were popping up.
*Trir* *Trir*
His phone rang again, another notification, quite repetitive. As he ran, he was left petrified seeing there were hundreds of calls from yesterday afternoon up to right now. His phone still ringing.
"Fuuk," sweat broke out from his head as these were missed calls from none other than her again.
[HEY! WHERE ARE YOU? WHY DIDN'T YOU PICK UP MY CALL? ARE YOU HURT? - Hey, calm down. Rie is with him; he's fine.]
He picked up and quickly distanced it, expecting the voice on the other side to be loud and piercing.
Well, the voice on the other side was filled with a mixture of emotions like worry, panic, and frenzy. The moment he picked up the call, he was flooded with questions as he could faintly hear Naya in the background trying to calm the chaos.
"Bhahwaha- *Couggh Ough*" He broke into laughter after imagining a cartoonish chaos behind the screen.
[...]
The voices went silent, a peaceful calm settling over the chaos as Alaya heard his voice. Not because they felt awkward due to his laughter, but because she felt relieved after hearing his joy-filled voice and not one of pain. She could tell he was alright.
[I'm alright, and doing great. I'm heading somewhere, so I will catch up with you guys by the night. See ya.]
After he stopped laughing, he went straight to the point, updating them on how he was doing, and hung up, mentioning he would have free time at night. He didn't give her time to talk again after that sentence, ending the call that lasted about a minute.
"This forest will only get more wicked the more I delay myself. I should go now if I don't want to deal with a horde of low-class monsters on my way back to the hotel."
He finally began to move his feet and entered the woods.
-----
"That was pretty rude of him to hang up like that," Naya puffed up, perched on Alaya's head sitting cross-legged and puffed up in her instead.
"It's okay, I'm glad to know that he's alright," a subtle, mother-like smile appeared on her face as the edges of her lips slightly curved up.
"Also, he said he will call tonight, so it's okay," she added.
-----
Around noon, when it wasn't cloudy unlike yesterday, the sun hung over him, spreading light throughout the jungle as rays pierced through the branches of thick trees, making their way onto the ground.
"Surprisingly, I reached quite early. I underestimated myself a lot, didn't I?"
He could see the entire Kriff mountain range clearly, extending throughout the whole region. They weren't as tall as he expected, but they were pretty tall.
It was a mountain standing at 1500 meters with its peak coated in snow, the peak he had to reach to obtain the nurture core.
"Well, if things go as smoothly as I hope, I will be done with this pretty quickly," he thought as he continued making his way to the mountain.
After a short time, he finally stood at the bottom of the mountain where he had to start climbing. At this point, the true size of the mountain was revealed to his eyes as he looked up at a right angle to see the peak from here.
"It's huge. I was truly underestimating its size from afar!" he said with a shaky smile.
For someone who had never climbed a mountain, this one looked threatening, even with the equipment he had bought and learned the basic uses of.
"I'm not worried about climbing it without any equipment, but getting down will be pretty difficult since it's so steep," he assumed.
Finding a place to set his foot, he finally started climbing, although he was slightly scared of heights.
The first few hundred meters were relatively easy for him, as the surface below him was stable, where he could easily make a foothold before taking a step. It was like taking a walk for him in this section.
"Now I am experiencing the things they talked about on TV."
As he climbed further, the air grew thin, ascending the steep mountain, its towering peak hidden in swirling mist.
*Scrape* *grind* *shush*
The loose rocks under him slipped, causing him to almost lose his balance and fall. He quickly gripped the jagged rocks, pulling himself closer to them.
"Fuck... My heart might have skipped a beat," his heart raced after saving himself from a near 400-meter fall.
"What the fuck was that? I almost had a heart attack," he added, mouth wide open, breathing rapidly as he tried to drop his heart rate to a normal amount.
After regaining his composure, he began to climb to the top again, having regrets about not buying enough equipment for this climb too.
"Boy, I should have bought equipment for this climb too."
The wind whispered through the rugged cliffs, carrying the scent of pine and adventure, with each handhold on the jagged rocks.
*****
Yea, i didn't sacrifice my sleep yesterday so here we go.
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