Chapter 8
Early the next morning, I startled awake. Rolling out of bed before the first blush of dawn out the window, I found Kyouya already awake. He was collecting his armor on the bed on the other side of our room.
"Mornin,'" I grumbled to be polite, before splashing water from the basin on my face and giving it a quick scrub with the washcloth. Kyouya nodded back, occupied with brushing his teeth now that he had his gear positioned how he wanted.
We changed places after that, and once we both finished I grabbed my pack and made one last check before we pushed the door open. We found the girls waiting for us in the hallway.
"Morning everyone!" Kyouya greeted, with a bright smile. Fio and Clemea immediately fell in on either side of him with matching expressions in spite of the ungodly hour. Yunyun trailed behind, a shy little wave all she made before joining the group.
We headed downstairs, where the kitchen had put out some fresh rolls and butter to feed the very earliest risers. I could hear the more usual breakfast was still sizzling away in the kitchen as we filed through the common room and grabbed some for the road. More than one of us looked wistfully back, but we kept going. Our wagon was leaving with the dawn, and most likely wasn't going to wait for us.
"Oh, thank you," I muttered, glancing up at the heavens in relief at seeing the empty square outside. I'd been dreading all night that those maniacs might be waiting for me. Kyouya hadn't seemed to take my story seriously when I'd related it before we went to bed. But luckily it looked like either they hadn't searched this far or they took my line about finding them later seriously.
Either way, we boarded the wagon without any last minute incidents and rattled our way out of town north on the Ahrensbach road.
"Subaru! On your left! Goblin leader incoming!" Kyouya shouted from a few meters behind me. Warn had already let me know he was there, and it was definitely a he, but I didn't mind a reminder.
The flint studded club swished in front of my nose as I weaved back to let it pass, then swung into a grab as he took a step to regain his balance. He avoided me hooking my gloved hands through a truly filthy tanned leather vest with a neat bit of footwork that left him in position for another swing. That one I spoiled by stepping right in on him, catching the club before it could build up any momentum and gambling my gloves would keep me from getting cut. Which they did, but he was game for a grapple even if I wasn't. I swept my free elbow into his temple and let him fall away, stunned, and then delivered my very best uppercut with the other, a snap- crack of breaking vertebrae rewarding me. Letting the beastie fall, I took a quick look around to get a sense of things.
Kyouya was standing with his cheat sword drawn, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. Ready to shift to wherever he needed to be at a moment's notice. Behind him Yunyun had a spell primed to fry whatever he missed.
Meanwhile, Fio, Clemea, and I were spread out in a line a couple meters apart ahead of him, me in the middle so I could use Challenge to funnel them in. Putting Kyouya right up front would've made this even more of a walk in the park. But he'd decided and I reluctantly agreed that it made sense to get some training in as we traveled, especially since a lot of his skills weren't exactly stealthy. Not to mention they tended not to leave a lot for anyone else.
"Clemea, one more on your left!" Kyouya called again.
"On it~" she trilled, and her rapier flickered in a lunge as she neatly skewered the neck of the last goblin with a precise severing of both sets of carotid arteries, dropping it in its tracks. She had been the biggest surprise, if anything she fought a bit like Chris. All about speed and precision with that light blade of hers, in contrast to the sheer smashing power of a greatsword like her boyfriend. Not as good as Chris, but who is?
Which sort of excused her choice of outfits, I guess.
Speaking of, Kyouya was walking up to join us after Fio called the all clear. Casually, he patted Clemea on one bare shoulder before doing the same to Fio as she trotted up as well.
"Nice job, girls. Did you get enough for a level?" he asked, moving towards me with them in tow.
"No…" Clemea pouted, though Fio smiled brightly at him and reported "I did! I'm level 13 now! What skill do you think I should take?"
"Me either," I added, though somehow I doubted Kyouya was asking me. "Bind is usually a good pick for a Thief build, and I don't think you have that one yet," I suggested.
Fio hmmed, clearly not interested. To be fair, the skill worked better with the right kind of physical rope or wire to anchor itself on. Which we weren't going to get in the middle of nowhere, but it wasn't useless even without.
"We should probably set camp soon," Kyouya suggested. "We can talk it over then. Do you see any candidates?"
"I was thinking that too, but nothing's great even in Farsight distance. There's a hollow about 500 meters ahead that's probably as good as anything."
I didn't see it, but Yunyun did. "I-I see it too. I don't t-think it will block a fire being seen though…" she finished sadly. Seriously, I thought wizards didn't get that skill. I call hax.
"No, probably not." the thief agreed glumly. "Another cold camp tonight."
Meaning no fire, and no tents, or anything that might advertise we were there.
"Man doesn't live by jerky and biscuits alone," I grumbled. But my heart wasn't in it, there really wasn't a choice. It was just frustrating that in the past three days we hadn't been able to find somewhere concealed enough to light a fire and get a hot meal and shelter even once. Today would be number four without. "Right, let's see if they've got anything and roll them into cover."
The band of goblins had been small by most standards, and badly equipped even for them. No metal at all, just flint and skins. But, they'd known exactly what they were doing with them. Which stood to reason, anything that survived out here at all had to be pretty hardcore.
That grisly task handled, we collected our packs from where we'd dropped them before the fight. The little hollow we were going to call home tonight was about half the size of a typical bedroom, and maybe a quarter of the way up the side of a decent sized hill. The big boulder at the base had probably gouged it out on the way down.
I shrugged out of my pack and started sweeping pebbles and debris away from where our bedrolls would go, trying to level things out as best I could. You never got them all, but every bit helped.
Meanwhile, Yunyun had set down her own gear and was refilling canteens with Create Water. We wouldn't need Kindle for the fire of course, but a few shovelfuls worth of Create Earth in the right spots could finish what I'd started.
"Thanks," I said after getting my own back from her, "Oh! and thanks for the Freeze too," I said with a bit more enthusiasm at the nicely chilled water.
"N-no problem," she said quietly before handing off to the others and filling in the spots I couldn't before. She and I then went back down our path for a decent way with Wind breath and more Earth magic to scatter our scent and tracks.
If we were still in Belzerg that would be a bit paranoid, unless we were after something really nasty. But nobody had much idea what was past the old borders anymore, and none of us were in a mood to find out. What didn't know we were out here couldn't sneak up and eat us.
Speaking of. "Think they'll have dinner waiting for us when we get back?" I whispered as she worked, letting Warn do its thing while she concentrated on magic.
"If you call it that," the wizard muttered. "I like cornbread, we h-have it all the time in the Village. But there's no XP theirs a-t all."
"You get what you pay for," I shrugged philosophically. "We didn't buy it, not our fault at least." Though I might be having words with the jerks in Ahrensbach we resupplied from before starting this part of the march.
"Next time we should," she replied. Then jumped and looked sidelong at me. "If…we go on…"
"Well, the first quest we went on together nearly got us all killed, twice, and this one has chafed like a pebble in my boot." I admitted. "But hell, they say at home the third time's the charm. Our next one should be great." I continued with a soft chuckle.
"I hope s-so," she smiled softly, eyes glowing just a hint before she smothered them hastily.
"You've got a choice tonight. Toad jerky and corn biscuits, or Toad jerky sandwiches on cornbread?" Kyouya asked when we got back, nodding at our portions set out by the still stacked blanket rolls.
And with the sun beginning to set we all sat down for dinner.
"So, skills." Kyouya asked after chasing a bite with his water. He'd gone for the sandwich option. "Ambush is pretty common and you don't have it, Fio. Or bind," he added after a second, remembering my suggestion.
"Bind is just tying up something, right? We can do that with regular rope, why bother?" Clemea added. "And ambush is just hiding and being quiet, when have we needed that? Go with more points on Sense Foe, you use that one all the time."
"You'd be surprised," Yunyun muttered around a biscuit. Probably thinking about our last quest, though if we had Kyouya's firepower on tap we might not need to sneak around either.
"Ambush then," Fio decided. "We're going to be exploring an old ruin. It ought to go well with trap skills." She smiled sweetly at her partymate "Catch me if you can."
It was kind of weird. Yunyun and I always went out on trail clearing duty, which was whatever at this point. But neither of Kyouya's girls were willing to let the other be alone with him, like, at all. Either they were with him together, or neither was. Always there were two, you might say.
While it couldn't be a coincidence, I still hadn't figured out what it was. You can't fight, live, and sleep with a group of people for days on end without getting a pretty good idea of what they're like. And I didn't think they had some sort of threeway going. If anything the girls seemed to be trying to get him to pick just one of them. If that was the case though, then never taking any alone time was just shooting them in the feet. Even I knew that.
With the sun down we rolled out our bedrolls and set watches. I'd be with Kyouya on the first shift, then the girls, with Yunyun having tonight off.
With nothing better to do and another early morning ahead, the girls turned in and Kyouya and I settled back to try and keep each other awake.
Outside their breathing and the odd rustle as someone shifted, the night stayed quiet for a while. The badlands weren't completely barren, the goblins from earlier had to be eating something after all. But compared to even the deep wilderness of Belzerg it felt like a desert. To think that this place used to bloom like a garden in the old days; I just couldn't imagine it.
"Hell of an end, huh?" I asked softly.
"Fio said we should be close to the old capital, maybe hit the outskirts late tomorrow. We've been staying away from the old roads, but you'd never think it to look around," he agreed. "This is the price if we lose, not the wasteland, but the quiet. The demons kill, it's all they do. And they'll keep at it until there's nobody left." He looked over at the blankets, then turned back. "I can't let that happen, no matter the cost. Everything I care about is here, now."
"You could go back, to our home I mean," I replied. Nobody here seemed to have heard of anywhere called Japan. But if we came here one way it stood to reason it was still out there somewhere to go back to.
Kyouya shook his head. "Of course not…" he eyed me for a second. "You did get here the same way I did, right?" he asked cautiously.
"I guess so, just showed up on the side of the road one day. One second I was walking home, then boom. Here I am outside Axel." I shrugged. "Nothing in the middle. Weird start to my fantasy adventure, let me tell you."
He didn't say anything for a while, then shook his head. "Yeah, yeah it would be," he finally agreed. "But no, not me. I'll wait until afterwards to sort things out but I'm staying, whatever happens."
The rest of our watch passed quietly with the odd sentence here or there, and we woke Fio and Clemea on schedule as the moon peaked.
The next morning I awoke alongside the others, and we began to break camp. Clearing away or burying any signs of our presence didn't take long even in the barely dawn light. Armed with a trail ration of more corn flatbreads and freshly topped off canteens, we hit the trail as the sun fully cleared the horizon.
Our plans to make sure we weren't spotted seemed to be working. We didn't encounter anything besides stony hillsides and a washed out stone bridge as we marched, not that it seemed like much could even live out here even this close to what should've been a major city.
It was actually a shock when we crested a ridge and found a perfectly flat stretch of concrete ahead of us. Stretching as far as we could see, kilometers of it, and two more nearby linked by comparatively small roads and taxiways. Though even the taxiways were far wider than anything you'd see in the modern day. Cracked, hardy grass and even the odd scrub bush pushing through around the edges, but still undoubtedly the remains of an airport. And a major one, the facilities were mostly rusted heaps of steel plate and twisted rebar or I-beams, but they were everywhere along the old perimeter.
"If it's in any of that we've wasted a trip," Clemea opined glumly, looking at the wreckage.
"I'm not sure those were storage hangars. Or at least not for anything big," I disagreed. I doubted a plane would fit in even the bigger ones nearby, judging by the doors. "I'll bet that's them over there," I pointed further out to a line of dirty, really dirt covered, vaguely hemi-cylindrical lumps in the distance.
"What, the hills?" Fio asked.
"No, Subaru's right," Kyouya shook his head. "Those are airplane hangars, big ones. Haneda had some just like them. If there's anything left here that's where it'll be."
Our leader having spoken, we set out. Carefully. Even though there was absolutely no cover to hide behind away from the wreckage, that cut both ways. We stole along moving from one spot of concealment to another with Warn and Sense Foe both cranked to max, Fio leading the way with me right behind. A leisurely stroll across the old tarmac would've put us outside them in half an hour, we took twice that and I felt every minute of it.
Somehow, having semi familiar surroundings just made things even worse. I'd visited a few of the dungeons around Axel, like every other newbie adventurer. It was scary sometimes, especially if you didn't have Darkvision and had to rely on a light spell or gods forbid a torch. But I kind of expected to get creeped out in a dark, damp cave of a dungeon. Going to the airport was supposed to be exciting if you were a kid, or boring and/or stressful if you weren't. It wasn't supposed to be like walking through a real life zombie survival horror game waiting for something to eat your face.
We got to the hangar on the end first, and it was easily the least intact. Most of it was still there, but the roof had collapsed at some point and that hadn't been visible from our old angle. A bust, even looking in from outside we could tell nothing had survived being exposed to weather for so long.
"We'll come back to it, let's try the next one." Kyouya decided, and I had to agree. Next in line looked intact from the outside at least.
We quietly slipped across the road separating them, and immediately spotted the door set into the big folding plane doors in front.
"Sense foe isn't getting anything," Fio reported as we stopped outside.
"Fair enough, I'm willing to bet…" Kyouya mused, before giving the doorknob a good rattle. "Yeah, that's locked, and if the hinges aren't rusted shut it'll be a miracle. Right, I don't see any reason to be gentle about this. On three."
We took up positions behind on either side, and on 'three' Kyouya swung Gram in two quick arcs, forming an arch shape in the paint flaking metal panels of the double doors. Giving the middle a solid kick, he sent it skidding inside in a shower of sparks before following it, me right behind and the girls bringing up the rear.
The light from outside showed us a metal desk and what might have been an old phone by the wall as we crowded inside. Our footsteps echoed on the concrete in the vast space as we spread apart to look around.
"This place has to be the size of the palace inside. I thought it was going to be mostly just rock like a cave," Clemea marveled, looking up while pulling out a light scroll to gauge the height.
"Easily, the Palace's outside is probably bigger, but if you count by actual livable size in the rooms?" Fio agreed softly, not needing the help thanks to Darkvision as she swept the inside with faintly glowing eyes.
Speaking of, Yunyun had been worryingly quiet since we got here. Even for her. I turned to find her staring fixedly at, of all things, the desk by the door with a slight frown pursing her lips.
"Yunyun? Something there?" I asked. There wasn't any paper or anything on top, or at least nothing readable, but we should probably try the drawers just in case I supposed.
She started, apparently coming back to herself. "Oh! N-no, this just…nevermind," she stammered, and moved further in with us.
After moving around the head high partition that subdivided off a little cubicle from the main space we entered the hangar proper.
And came face to face with a relic of a bygone age.
It wasn't golden, but that was an easy mistake to make. If anything it was more tan, or sand colored, where the paint hadn't faded with time to a vague light yellowish brown.
It wasn't all that big, maybe the size of the little puddle jumpers that flew out of small airports all over the world.
It wasn't even alone, there was another, similar machine keeping it company further back in the hangar, though that one was missing at least an engine and who knows what else just at a glance.
It was standing on its landing gear, the tires flat. Nothing puddled underneath it, either from lack of leaks or nothing left to leak. It had a big, bubble glass windshield that glittered in the light from Clemea's scroll just like its namesake's eyes. The wings sat high on the body, standing straight out a few meters before ending in big, circular pods on the tips. Behind them the tail swept up into a narrow support for the control surfaces at the rear.
The door just behind the cockpit stood open, invitingly. Waiting for passengers who had never come.
