Friend III

'Ugh, how persistent.'

As the sun descended below the horizon, Ruvian finally arrived at a point where the distance between Adelle's pretending-to-be-victim spot and his current location reached the limit of his Sensus range.

He expanded his vision in full Vis usage that reached about 30 miles away.

'What the? Are you kidding me?!'

Ruvian found that Adelle was still there, in the exact position from the morning.

'If this is a prank, she'll be so dead.'

He decided to prepare fire in this area and monitor her for the last time until the following morning. However, it was still too early for him to sleep and pass the night. So, Ruvian took a meditation posture and relaxed his breathing to kill the time.

Up until midnight, Ruvian then went on his Sensus again and reached the troublemaker last seen position before deciding whether to leave her for the final or–

'Damn it! She is still there! Now I'm taking back my spit. Fine, let me see what trick you did there.'

Her chest was still throbbing, but in slow rhythm. What concerned him the most was that her body shivered.

Ruvian propelled himself forward with his Praecantatio, soaring through the air with ease. Occasionally, as the Vis of that particular Aspect burndown, he was forced to continue on foot. Once it recovered, he wasted no time in using it once more to continue his journey.

The hurried trip cost him past half of his Venevisium reserve. Ruvian had way beyond average of Venevisium pool among people like him that has Vis level of six. It was a trait of being an Elementalist that had close affinity to the Crystals.

An average person with Vis level of six wouldn't be able to cover even half of that distance just in time as he did.

On his way running towards her just right after the last Praecantatio burndown. "Adelle!!!" Ruvian shouted in hope to at least get a response, which he did not.

"Hey! Hey! Adelle, wake up!" He tapped her cheeks gently a few times. Only to notice her breathing was shallow and she was also unconscious.

Her hands were cold, the same condition with her neck and her face. Along with the shivering body, it confirmed her situation.

'She even let her body catch hypothermia. Insane, ugh.'

Ruvian lifted her to his back to share the body warmth. He immediately looked out for tree branches to make fire.

But all the branches had already been wet due to the night dew. So he took a bigger branch that was almost the size of his arm, put it under telekinesis and spun it towards a tree trunk with a tremendous amount of Praecantatio.

He could not delay even a second. His study in the academy taught him that hypothermia could be dangerous and potentially fatal.

The big branch spun so fast that it looked like it was drilled in the trunk. Resulted a two inches hole deep into the tree. Once he caught the sight of smoke, things will get easier from here.

In front of the newly lit fire, Ruvian did not have much of an option beside keep sharing body warmth, blushily hugging her from behind.

Despite the advantage he had, Ruvian did not take things too far. He would not take things further down beyond their pants. As it is not his core value of how he sees women. Part of the influence of his teacher, Grandmagus Barthusa.

Undeniably the warm touch of physical contact got through his heart. As if it was penetrating their leather clothings.

It evoked the lasting moment in his mind with a special smile from someone and strangely soothed his loneliness feeling of being drifted in Nethereal for so long.

Behind her, his reddened face fixated on the fire. Soak up the heat radiated to his face. Slowly his lips moved to gently pronounce the person's name in his memories.

" ... Lika …." He hoping letting it out would reduce his longing. But, turns out it was the opposite.

In fact, it was not his first time hugging a girl like this. Well, not exactly under hypothermia circumstances.

"Who's Lika?"

" …. When did you awake?"

Adelle chuckled. "A while ago, I guess?"

"Mm-hmm." He then leaned his cheek to her back neck.

"A-alright. I gotta admit on a few occasions I was thinking of hugging you due to how adorable you are. B-but, I didn't expect that you would continue this even when I'm already conscious."

"Um … yea …." he sighed.

She grinned. "So, the all acting tough Ruvian was just a little tiger who wants cuddles, huh?"

Ruvian twitched lip. There she goes again with her mood breaking act. Then, he just raised up his hands and got up, letting her drop to the ground.

"Why are you just lying there?" he asked after a noticeable timeframe that Ruvian suspected her of doing it on purpose.

"Didn't you s–Oh wait, didn't your Sensus see?"

"See what?"

"Oh my goodness!! Seriously?!? It should be reaaaaally obvious!"

"Stop beating around the bush."

Adelle was dumbfounded. Ruvian seemed to have told the truth. He does not see the runes.

"It's the Rune of Obedience! Didn't you know how it works? The one you called for a sex slave."

"W-wait, so it was it?! Now it adds up that you lay paralyzed in this forest for almost the whole day! Why didn't you just tell me?"

"Hey …. I tried to. Guess who was not listening and decided to smash a rock into a tree to smithereens this morning and said to screw it?"

"Errr …. Me …."

"Exactly."

Now, when he looked at it, introspecting his behavior towards her. It was nothing sort of nice. Contrast to what she has done to him.

"Umm, sorry …."

"Well, since you hugged me sincerely. I accept your apology."

Ruvian sighed deeply. Then, he kneeled near her. "Do you still etched your mind to go with me?"

"Ooh~ What with that sudden change of heart? Did that hug finally melt your cold soul?"

"Haaah, seriously …." He could not help it but to twitch his lip. "Consider it … paying you back. Since you wanted to die so badly early on."

Adelle giggled, then left with a sweet smile.

"Sure!"

She exclaimed happily, her bright smile showing no hint of the cold that had taken hold of her.

"Sure to die, eh?"

"Hahaha, whatever!"

He then stood and brought his face up above. "But, remember. You are still on your own. If you burden me, I won't give it a second thought to choose abandonment."

"Aw, how cruel and cold is that. But, okay." Still in a lifting mood, she gave him a smile.

"So, how do I unwind these runes, and where is it anyway?"

"It's around my neck. All you have to do is just flow your Vis into it."

"Huh? It was that simple. Since it is a rune which means it was created using Vis, why don't you just burn it off using Ordo? It may seem obvious. Still, I wanted to know why?"

Despite the question, Ruvian did as she said. After his Vis flowed through, the runes around her neck started to dissipate and vanished eventually.

"This rune was put under fair condition. It used the Vis from the beneficiary and my Vis too. That's why I couldn't burn my own Venevisium."

Ruvian hummed in agreement. He never had known such detail about Rune of Obedience.

"Ugh, finally." As soon as Adelle regained feeling in her hand, she eagerly rummaged through her bag and pulled out a small wrapped bread.

Without hesitation, she devoured it with the fervor of a starving wolf.. "Whewll, whif whou whawn showm?"

She offered her bread, but he told her that he was not in the mood to eat. Ruvian's frowned expression on his tan face was too easy for Adelle to catch.

"So, what with the dejected look now? Nom …."

With him accepting her into his travel, his mind could not help it but thought the bad and the worst that could happen.

"That's … I've been meaning to go somewhere. But, I couldn't see it."

That question was just avertions from the real problems he had in his mind.

"And where could that be? Nom!"

"Mountains."

"Well, there are some of them, far away here. Wait, just how far can you see with Sensus?"

"Thirty miles I think."

"Whoa. Guess that I must be thankful to have healthy eyes."

"Uh, should that be sarcasm?"

She chuckled. "Anyway, you are in luck, Sir Errigan. I happened to bring a map with me." The girl reached for it in her bag and opened up the map.

When Ruvian saw the map through his Sensus, he felt thankful that he now has a partner with healthy eyes. To him, it was just a blank piece of paper.

"Allow me to be your tour leader—" Suddenly she bursted into laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"So that's why you turned west on the King's Road. Oh my. Sir, that would take you to Rumabel, which would bring you back to Lefazio's hand."

He blushed. "Ergh, yeah. Seems like I lacked a sense of direction, literally. Then, where would the east of it lead to?"

"According to this map, it would take us to a big town of Katalan."

"The one that has a famous harbor by the sea?"

"Precisely. Your knowledge is indeed a broad one."

Ruvian's earlier troubled mind was now getting a little shed of light. 'Katalan, I've been there before during the war. I could take a ship to go to Amenoa. That's it, the further away we are from Lefazio, the better!'

"Heh, enough with the role playing. Now I'm thinking about something else besides mountains …. Adelle, do you like boats?"

"Not really. Why ask though?"

"I'm thinking of going to Amenoa. Have you been there before?"

"Well, I have, during a research trip with Gramps. The biggest continent on earth has an arid climate, and I guess I prefer to be more in Trensia. Why would we go there?"

Ruvian smirked. "You can stay here by yourself if you want."

"Agh. At least tell me why."