The Dry Graceful Land pt.1

"Well I guess it's a nice advantage for us, let's go inside and finish the task. The letter said 'facility' not 'abandoned facility', maybe we can find a save space there." I suggested amidst our conversation.

"Ah… you got a point."

Agreeing to continue, we all then move in uniform, entering Exhibit 4. Therefore, right after we passed the gate the Living Corpses open for us, none of us were able to take a second step.

We just stood there silently, like a statue.

*!?*

The air turned eerie and crawling with the feeling of unease. It's so unsettling, just being here makes me sick. Is this fear? No, that doesn't seem to be it, then why does the atmosphere keep bothering us?

"I've read about this before…" Hada's sudden voice instantly grabbed our attention, every one of us glanced towards him, desiring some answer.

"The whole Kaput Island used to be filled with Chaotic Influence, which disturbed the flow of other elements, and mostly unstabilized movement and navigation spell." He went on.

"Movement spell? Your Grace mean… like teleportation, acceleration, and so on?" Chiya dreadfully asked.

"Most likely," Hada replied.

"Wait wait! Navigation too? So does that also apply to…"

All of us immediately fixed our gaze towards both of the Dragons.

"I—It seem so Your Highness…"

Both of them look extremely frightened, I guess for them it felt just like being blindfolded real hard.

"Anna, do you brought a compass in your bag?" I asked my beloved.

If Hazana always brings her tote bag, the dearest Anna always wears a feminine-looking fanny pack on the back of her waist when traveling.

"Compass?"

She lifted her right hand to the level of her chest, and a fiery butterfly perch on it. Suddenly that pet of her changed into a compass, while it's probably exchanged place to inside her bag right now.

"Here." She handed me the tool I asked with an unfazed face.

"You still… can use exchange place skill?"

We all turned confused since Hada clearly states that movement spells are being disturbed right now.

"Oh, yea… I can… for a distance."

Right when she said this, I saw one of her butterflies fly quite far from where we stood. I guess she's currently trying her hardest to change place with it but to no avail.

"Let me try!"

After Chiya said that, she began to blink around from one spot to another, teleporting in a short distance yet quick and rapid.

Meanwhile, Hazana also tried to join in by casting [Callati Teleportia], a spell for teleporting from medium to extreme range.

"Uh… I can't…" The girl looked so sad when she said that.

"It's alright Hazana." Falisha then proceeded to pat her in the back to cheer her up.

"We better move on then, we don't know exactly where the place is, and we don't have much navigation," I affirmed.

"The rule of day and night probably applied in the zoo also, so we better do the objective fast and find a safe place to survive the night."

I'm talking about the rule where most strong and aggressive Taanji become active at night.

"Agreed." Hada nodded, and so did the rest of the team.

"Let's go!"

Using the usual formation, with Hada and Falisha in Althea's room, we started our journey throughout the Savannah.

Both dragons drown half of their body to the earth and move smoothly through the ground as if they're a ship coursing towards a calm undulating sea.

Althea travel right after Revian, almost attached, as if there's a hook that connects them. While the rest of the team got our weapon ready and stayed on guard watching the surrounding yellowish landscape.

"Yo Revian, I'm kinda curious, but does your terra sensing become limited, or are they completely gone?" I asked the big guy.

"I think… it's about 100 meters maximum, Your Highness."

He answered while moving following the east side of the compass at a constant, not so fast speed.

"Ah… it's enough for combat I guess."

That's a huge downgrade, a Draconus is supposed to be able to sense a moving object for a maximum of about 2000-3000 meters away. I can somewhat get why they suddenly become terrified with not being able to sense that far.

"On the bright sight, it'll be a good experience for you too since one day we're going to move through the sky, and you probably can't sense anything up there." I pointed that out.

"I have to agree Your Highness." He replied.

"Then why don't we travel by the sky instead, Your Highness?" Chiya asked, moving her gaze from the side she was supposed to be on the look.

*Crack!*

All of a sudden, an ice shield shaped itself right in front of her side of the window. But it immediately got struck by a red-coated cannonball, which left a huge crack on the defending shield.

"That's… coz we will be a nice, really big target with how little cover, and we don't have someone with extreme eyesight to help us spot our objective."

"Bro-Highness! There's a bunch of Uhndak manned cannon on our 3!"

Falisha reported through her communication device, thank the Sun this thing is at least still working properly.

"Let's clear them! If they somehow called for reinforcement or alert more dangerous Taanji, it could be the end for us!" I said to everyone through the device.

"Understood!" Each of them then answered in uniform.

"Anna!" I look towards my fully equipped spouse, and we both nodded in agreement.

Since we can't rely on Revian's and Althea's terra sensing, I decide to go back to the more conventional way of sighting me and she did back then at Papendangan (school for Waraney).

From her left hand, she transforms the ring on her index into a dagger, painted and sculptured with fire butterfly patterns. It was a replica of the [Butterfly Queen Dagger], which is currently owned by my mother. It was forged for Anna as a gift for our marriage.

[Butterfly Queen Dagger] works like a personal dimension but for fiery butterflies. It can easily host hundreds to thousands of them to nest inside.

The point difference between a normal Ina Waraney and a mainline Ina Waraney is the number of fiery butterflies they can use. A normal girl can only summon one, while the mainline can summon many. But coupled with [Butterfly Queen Dagger], their capability just become times more powerful.

"Be my eye…"

From that beauty of a blade, hundreds of fiery butterflies flew towards our surroundings, turning themselves into observers in the upcoming battle.

Just like a mage and their elementals, Anna is connected with her butterflies, even to the point of sharing sight and mind, so they can immediately report what they saw to her.

A butterfly might not see as sharp as humans do, but the extreme color vision can be used to perfection by someone with high expertise like Ina Waraney.

Though still… terra sensing is a lot more superior.

"Althea, go flank them! Revian… ramming speed!"