C32. Traversing The Terrains

Eleven massive carriages were being pulled by five equally large bull like creatures as they galloped through the plains in a particular direction. In one of such carriages, Tyler sat with some of the other ogres. They had been traveling for over three hours now, yet the ogres had been staring at him the entire time. It was getting uncomfortable and he couldn't take it anymore. "Is there something on my face?" He asked with a faint smile.

"Ah... Err... no, my apologies, it's just, we usually don't interact with many demons especially one as strong as you, well, apart from the captain i mean."

"Mmm, I see." He said awkwardly, he was glad they thought of him as a demon, this meant he hadn't been fooling himself and they knew all along, he then picked up on a word the ogre had said and muttered. "Captain?"

"Oh right, yeah, Lord Cronoff is the captain of the guards." One of the ogres spoke to him, he was obviously a member of the guard to call Albert captain, then again, perhaps everyone in town called him that. "Lord?" Tyler questioned. "I guess you wouldn't know, captain Albert was ones a demon noble, an Earl no less, it was only about 5 years ago his region was conquered by the combined force of three noble families."

"I see..."

"Oh, um Lord, may I ask for your name?" It was the first time Tyler had been so bluntly asked his name, for some reason no one ever bother to ask the obvious question, they always found clever ways to address him without making it obvious, this was actually quite strange to begin with. It was common courtesy when meeting someone for the first time to exchange names, or was this just for humans, the reason they didn't ask him his name hadn't really bothered him much as he hadn't thought he would spend so much time with these people.

Since no one asked for his name he wouldn't foolishly offer it to them. The ogre asking his name had been very blunt about it, he had no idea if people where just scared about asking for his name or it was just their culture, so was this guy the bravest ogre alive or was he just an idiot.

Looking at his simple looking face Tyler concluded he was an idiot, a big one at that. He didn't panic though, he had already thought about this for a long time and had decided to come up with a fake demon like name, especially after hearing the normal names of the demons and ogres he had seen, he had masterfully crafted a name for himself. "You can just call me Ty"(pronounced tai). Tyler said confidently, very proud of his naming prowess. The ogre broke into a big smile that confirmed to Ty, he really was an idiot.

He was tall and well built, unlike most ogres he had seen so far his pale red skin was a little darker than others and his grey eyes projected the image of a child. He had short spiky red hair and two dark horns on his head. He carried a battle axe by his side and an abnormally large shield on his back.

He pounded his chest and proudly pronounced. "Ah, Lord Ty, please call me Hart, I am Hart Balford, think of me as your shield for now, i promise no monster will get near you untill we get to our destination. Mwahahaha..." The others around him just shook their heads. Tyler could notice now that the people on the carriage sat in groups, they all wanted to be around people they were closer with, as they chatted away during their long journey.

Hart sat next to three other people, they sat directly opposite him, there were two males and one female, although the girl seemed a little bit depressed. He remembered seeing her crying a lot last night, even during their feast. He figured she must have lost someone very close to her, the other two guys were also a little down and only Hart looked cheerful, Tyler could tell he carried the same heavy heart as the rest of them, he must've been trying his best to lighten their moods. 'I guess he wasn't a complete idiot after all.' They all introduced themselves to him, the big guy was named Talen, with Jarret sitting next to him and then Kela.

Tyler had seen Jarret before, he was supposed to be driving one of the carriages but had given up his post to someone else when the beast girl Nadine had annoyed him. Talen carried the exact same shield as Hart, he had long back hair tied up in a ponytail and black pupils. His frame was wider than Hart and he was a bit taller too, he had a single horn on his head and a scar the shape of a two parallel lines across his left checks. He had a quiet disposition and Tyler couldn't remember if he had seen him speak the entire night.

Jarret on the other hand was vastly different than the two. He was tall, a little thin but not skinny, his body beneath his clothes was a solid steel. His black hair was sloppily cut and thus looked uneven. It looked quite messy. His black eyes stared keenly at Ty, though there was no intensity only reverence, which also made Ty uncomfortable.

He carried a sword on his waist that defer from others, it was similar to a katana but the hilt was completely different. The girl was quite pretty but she didn't seem to pay Ty any attention, she looked like a skilled warrior and also had a sword by her side.

.

During the next few hours they encountered multiple monsters on the road, there were a few strong ones here and there, but nothing the others couldn't handle. It had taken Tyler and Liz a little over 3 hours to get to the settlement but apparently it would take them a full day to get to the castle. If the carriages had been pulled by ordinary horses, it would take almost 3 full days to get there.

They had forgo any sorts of breaks in other to make it in time. Tyler had thought about running ahead with Erin and Liz in other to make in time but had heard that Erin didn't have the physiques of Tier 5 or 6 and wouldn't be able to handle such speeds, although if she really wanted to she could match such speeds with water movement, but such a long distance would leave her with little to no Mana left to heal Rain.

He found this piece of information intriguing, he had seen her using a spell before. Although she almost died and he had to save her, the spell was no joke so he could guess she wasn't weak, at the very least she should be at the same level as Liz maybe even higher, so why didn't she have superior physiques.

Using higher Tier magic required higher tiered Mana bodies, which in turn strengthens the physical body. The higher your magic potential was the stronger your Mana body would become and the more easier it would be to improve, it didn't matter if you could actually use a spell or not, this was one of the reasons why warriors and magic Swordsmen could go toe to toe with mages, they tend to spend more time training their mana bodies in various aspects, including speed and strength.

Still, there was a limit to all this. A higher tiered Mana body would naturally improve ones physiques just like how in MMORPG games higher level players would get a permanent stat increase as they leveled up even without assigning any free stats or equipment boost. This would be the same for everyone at the same tier and normally couldn't be increased.

It was only a few millennials ago a summoned hero had introduced the concept of secret techniques. By training in various footwork and enhancement technique one could increase their speed and strengths without needing to be of higher tiers.

This was the final step that made the warriors finally able to keep up with magic users. There were thousands of secret techniques that had been developed over the years. Most of this techniques favour melee fighters and were almost impossible to be learnt by pure magic casters.

Learning just one technique would be an accomplishment for even warriors, who had trained their bodies vigorously since birth. Because all technique didn't apply to magic, it gave warriors and Swordsmen a huge advantage, they could improve their Mana bodies even without actually learning the technique.

Truth be told, this would've only improve the gap between magic casters and warriors a little, as the Techniques were almost impossible to learn, it didn't appeal to magic casters who would rather focus on improving their control and learning more spells.

So then, why was her body not at the same level as her magic, she had to have had a Mana body, right? He had tried asking Albert but he said it wasn't his secret to tell and Tyler had to respect that. He had secrets of his own, although right now he had more questions than secrets but that wasn't the point. It was pretty obvious she wasn't a demon, he had no clue what she could be, although it really didn't matter to him, he only wondered because he was curious.

••••••

Over the next five hours, the group spent their time chatting away in the carriage and fighting the monsters they couldn't avoid, they were finally getting closer to the red River which would mean they had only about 40% of the journey left, this was music to Tyler's ears, he was starting to get tired of the trip, he didn't really have much to chat about with the group and they tend to be overly respectful when addressing him, moreover Liz was in a different carriage and he couldn't use the chance to get closer to her so he could get some useful information.

Although he had gotten some common knowledge out of the groups random chatters and when he managed to direct their conversations, as ogres that had spent the last 5 years isolated from the rest of the continent, they didn't know much. However he now knew the basic structure of the areas around here now, to the west was the massive forest of Darknar, the Darknar forest, to the North was the Greyad plains and to the east was the Darkin mountain range, an area overrunning with mountain golems, it was like a forbidden zone to them.

Although there was valuable ores in the mountains, because of the level of difficulty in obtaining them no one ever bothered going in. Even the five families would only send their best teams in when they were in need of something specific. They already had claims to all the mines there and didn't even have to protect it themselves as the golems would do their job for them.

Ty wanted to know about the regions surrounding Darknar and if there was any signs of civilization around, and how the town's and cities are structured in the demon continent. He thought of a way to ask his question but as he was about to, he heard a loud bagging sound and the sound that seemed like an explosion with the carriage he was on forcefully coming to a halt sending several ogres tumbling to the ground.

Having maintained his balance, Ty alighted the carriage to see what had happened, alongside Jarret, Kela and Talen who had also maintained their balance unlike Hart whose face was planted on the floorboards of the carriage. Looking ahead they saw something strange.

There was a massive boulder that had dug a small crater on the ground mostly from the force that had been applied to it. Tyler knew that wasn't there before evident by what his eyes caught next. Something had slammed into the first carriage as well, leaving behind a splatter of flesh and gore. It was undoubtedly a body(what was left of it.) and Tyler hurriedly turned his head around.

They had gotten close to the Darknar forest at some point in time and were now moving quite close to it's perimeters as they approached the castle so everyone could clearly see several figures moving in the outer parts of the forest, when suddenly another figure was sent flying in the air like a bag of bones as it headed in their direction about to slam in almost the same spot as before.