The oncoming sheet of water was right on the incoming paladin’s tails, both would hit the village soon. Sending Ronnie along after one last spell, it would be better he be inside.

I still felt a bit of unease at the approach of the contingent, but the evaluation of my abilities had risen, and I was much more at ease knowing what the church stood for. Not in the sense that their goals and methods aligned with mine, but I had learned about them, and knowing is half the battle.

Peeking back inside, I made sure the cover wrapped around Ria to at least cover the bulk of her eye-catching skin. With alchemy whipping up an ointment to cover the glossy red was within my means, but as such a concoction would be quite temporary I had not done so. I should have thought to make some for emergency measures, but no use crying over spilt milk; file away such backups for the future, focus on the now.

“Keep it down, paladins are passing through. Stay bundled up and try not to expose yourself.” Master of messy manes, I lifted her up and arranged Ria’s hair over her face in an effort to filter the skin’s color. It worked alright, but for good measure I pulled up her tunic a bit to help cover her neck. “Ah, quit your bellyaching. Your *midriff* is under the covers still, isn’t it? Now try not to shift about.”

Ria understandably seemed a bit miffed at my sudden controlling nature, but since she couldn’t justify a reason to put herself in more danger, calmed down—not before muttering a few complaints of course.

Outside, the wind began picking up, trees waving their branches off in the distance. However as most of the surroundings were open plains with only tall grasses and the occasional shrub, it felt unusually quiet. Softly rustling with a slight hiss, rain could be heard faintly hitting the ground in the background.

Pan and some others stood around, watching. Walking over to join them, I wanted Pan’s appraisal of the situation.

“How are things looking? Do you think they’re just passing through?”

“I thought more Paladins would pass before their arrival, but it’s not impossible. Most come to the village, then follow the river to their destination. Though with the rains, they may have intentionally avoided doing so.”

“Wouldn’t they have had to know long in advance?”

“They do, sometimes.” Pan paused for a moment, thinking. “My father told me that the temple would occasionally alert the guilds if they happened to get word of a storm from the north. It didn’t occur often, but they do have some way to tell.”

“They do, huh?” The church could sometimes forecast the weather—an interesting piece of information. With their technological and ideological stagnation, an actual forecast seemed unlikely, especially considering that they only infrequently gave out predictions. Perhaps it was some sort of warning incantation, or magic item; though the irregularity made me think they were only warned ahead of time by coincidence, maybe the church possessed a long distance communication that was rarely used.

New things to watch out for, spontaneous spreading of rumors between settlements, and inclement weather. Nothing I couldn’t handle, but stealth jumped in priority. We wouldn’t be able to just outrun the tide of information if the church had their eye on us. Though since half the reason we were traveling was due to Ria, it wasn’t like that changed much.

“Right, so are we just going to stand out here and get drenched?” Scratching my head, the forerunner clouds were beginning to pass overhead, the light drizzle beginning to dampen us.

“It’s your own choice. Someone needs to greet them so that they can be directed into the houses. If we are proactive, things are much more likely to go smoothly. Besides, greeting the Paladins and Clerics is proper, we need to do our best to pay our respects.”

“Well, if it is them, I’ll probably be needing to make myself scarce soon.” Speaking slowly, I looked back over my shoulder to the center of the village. “It's a pity that I can't stay, these past few weeks have been rather enjoyable.”

“Many of us will miss you as well. You’ve integrated well in the few months you were here; I never would have expected a foreign magician to become so familiar. It certainly undermined some preconceptions.” Pan acted more wistful than usual, not one prone to reminiscing. “There may still be a few days before you must go. Don’t be in too much of a rush to leave, at least be sure to say your goodbyes.”

“I’ll stay until it’s certain. Now, if you’ll excuse me, they are getting a bit close. Better if my face isn’t too ingrained if I have to disappear.”

The rain was coming down harder and began to obscure the figures approaching, however they were around hundred yards away at the moment. Even so, it became more and more difficult to see through the downpour, which is why I could comfortably talk to Pan for some time.

Deciding they were getting a bit too close, I headed towards the river’s edge while I waited for Pan to discern whether or not the paladins were here to collect or just get out of the rain. Sitting on the edge of the banks, I took my shoes off and dangled my legs over, my feet skimming across the top of the turbulent surface.

Just hanging out, practicing magic, channeling negative energy, I kept my extra senses up. Trying to observe the fish and occasional eel to train, the freshwater fauna was too low energy for to see with . Despite this, the marginal difference that existed between them and the water was enough to detect the discrepancy.

At least, in theory it was enough to detect them. In practice, for every one I could see in this manner, three passed by that were only caught by my eyesight, and given the rough and clouded water, there were probably twice as many slipping by unnoticed.

“*Juicy fish so fresh and sweet…*” Rolling my sleeves up, since I’d already gotten wet from the rain, I decided to try catching some with my bare hands. Half a test of agility and coordination, and half just for fun, it was as good a way as any to pass a bit of time. The fish were innumerable in the rain, swimming both up and downstream.

“*Ai!*” A splash large enough to make itself prominent even under the downpour erupted from the surface of the waves. Snatching my hand back, a sleek grey streak disguising itself among the currents whipped towards me. If not for the unusually strong mana field, pale white teeth would be clamped around my arm.

The serpent eel, a rare specimen whose young moved upstream in the spring, and returned downstream during the fall after aging. From the waters, an older serpent eel, four or five feet in length coiled about, seemingly watching me with contempt. A slate-green dorsal fin, segmented into spiny frills rose up and down in anger. Realizing it could no longer catch me, it turned tail and disappeared downstream.

Watching it go, Pan should be informed.

Serpent eels were quite the catch, even when they were younger. It was not just goblins who found meals with high mana fields tasty. Mana fields seemed to correlate with the nutritional value that could be extracted from a food as well. Not only were they larger than many fish, but the same amount of a serpent eel’s meat kept one satiated for a longer period of time.

Of course, as I discovered, they were not a simple creature as I thought them to be. Ralph informed me of the danger larger ones presented in the winter, but I hadn’t made much of it; what’s an eel in comparison to a carp? I vastly underestimated the skill and effort put into catching the serpent eel Pan had given to me, which was of far greater value than previously thought. They really were like wolves of the rivers, though they did not travel in packs, which was a blessing.

The stream was too large and moved too quickly to freeze over during the winter, and the number of fish swimming about stayed high—only the danger of the serpent eels kept the villagers from working as long during the winter. It had not occurred in a long time, but it was not unheard of for someone to be snatched away by a larger eel.

I decided I was done splashing about in the water for the day. Besides, the height of the river rose at an appreciable rate. There was no history of flash flooding, but the fact that the bank which previously sat around half a meter above the water level was now less than a foot above it encouraged me to withdraw as well.

Letting in the echoing chaos from my multitude of sense to survey the village, the clerics and paladins had commandeered several building. Pan had planned for that when he saw them approaching, and they were divided into four houses, seemingly set up even with their relative standing in mind. The two clerics were together, two houses for three paladins each, and the two teamsters for the carts together, but slightly farther away, naturally ending up in one of the worse huts. Not to terrible though, they were still disciples, however I recognized the position of the house to be Melissa’s. While she may have been rather fanatical and ready to provide lodgings for members of the church, her ability to care for her home was not top notch.

Honing in on Pan, he currently stood in the house with the clerics. Close enough to get a good look at them with , my caution was most definitely not unfounded.

The disciples showed a minor improvement over the general villages, although they would probably lose out to a goblin chief. This fell into my predictions; I hadn’t lowered my eyes to worry about the combat capabilities of the lowest tier since encountering Door Knob. They were more worrisome as a way to alert higher ups.

Paladins, whom I worried over, surprisingly left me a bit more relaxed. This may have only been in reaction to how much they had been built up in my mind, as they clearly surpassed the power of a goblin chief. Both the number of connections and the strength of power within the mana field surpassed all others—their definition was lacking on the other hand. However not knowing what that even meant, I couldn’t exactly work to exploit it.

Impressive mana fields outclassing a goblin chief two or three fold, given the ease which the highest goblins could be taken out if putting my mind to it, only their numbers really worried me. On the other hand, they were only the most impressive until I turned my attention to the clerics.

They might as well have been candles and torches; the clerics burned like blazing suns in comparison to their compatriots. Sensing what exactly flowed within the mana field normally was something I could only accomplish when observing myself, and even then it was limited. Clerics contrasted this, clearly displaying a bright and fiery glow within themselves—it can only be referred to as a magical Yang energy.

Luckily upon detecting it, the Negative Energy that settled within me didn’t suddenly begin to wither away. The elements of the world didn’t interact like that, the variety within me remained unperturbed.

Only the massive quantities of magical Yang that coursed through the two clerics were visible; unlike the menagerie I could sense within myself. Upon inspection, the energy the clerics possessed didn’t appear a great deal stronger or purer than my own, it was mere quantity.

Then again, quantity has a quality all its own. I wouldn’t be trying anything out.

Again the clerics’ mana fields looked slightly rough, though they still surpassed their paladin cohorts. From the sheer intensity of the field magnifying everything about it, a connection could be made out. Not to themselves, but to somewhere else that couldn’t be seen, somewhere else far, far away.

That seemed nonsensical at first, but I recalled the constant strangeness of the mana field. To my own eyes it may have seemed like they were connected to nothing; that made the fact the opposite of impossible if it was interpreted correctly. If it wasn’t, then they were connected to something beyond themselves.

felt far more natural than it had upon first acquiring it, despite the odd displacement of my regular vision. Growing more comfortable with it didn’t mean it had been mastered, I still only had a limited range of experience. As I traveled and encountered more phenomena with it, strange matters such as the one about the nature of the clerics’ mana fields would naturally make more sense.

Practice and experience. They would help me understand in the future.

For the moment, I steered clear of the clerics, and waited for Pan to finish talking.