Chapter 38 - Journey To The West

Neighhhh!

After setting off from the nameless town, Leo kept driving the carriage on, only stopping after six hours to have a meal for both himself and the horse.

Although his carriage driving was still crude, the path wasn’t bad enough to require carriage maneuvering skills. Thankfully, Leo’s destination wasn’t that hard to reach either, all he had to do was walk in a straight path towards the west.

Everything seemed to be proceeding smoothly, but Leo’s mind wasn’t idle, analyzing another aspect of his ‘ability’.

‘Does it need a specific book?’

Despite practicing carriage driving for so long, no sound came out nor did changes appear within the ‘Personal Book’. As per this experiment, Leo concluded one possible requirement for the activation of ‘Skill Reading’.

While he had read several horse riding books that had some side hints and tips for horse carriage drivers, but such books didn’t count. Other than the basic requirement of having read a book holding the skill, it seemed that a bare minimum amount of knowledge was required to exist in the book.

Having originally considered the possibility of his ‘Reading’ compensating for the lack of information, Leo sighed at his exaggerated delusion.

‘Nothing is really free.’

Advancing one more step in understanding himself, Leo took out a bucket and a leather water jug, pouring a drink for the horse before hanging a bag of sliced carrots on its neck.

“Here you go bud.”

After settling the horse’s meal, Leo wasn’t in a hurry to have his own. Instead, he grabbed a heavy bag out while reaching his hand inside another to pull out a long slim object.

Dropping the bag of dumbbells to the ground, Leo pulled his new sword out of its sheath, revealing a slightly longer blade to the one he was using, letting out a breath before starting his training!

Although he was currently on the road, Leo didn’t plan to slack off his training. Rather, having realized his inadequacy while facing the Fanged Wolves that night, he was even keener to train.

However, it wasn’t like he could keep his old routine either since he couldn’t stay still for long. As such, he improvised his routine to suit his current living style.

With no time to rest between each segment of his training, Leo switched the order to start with sword training so that muscle exhaustion wouldn’t cause it to be ineffective. On the other hand, he shrunk both training segments to 45 minutes to fit his packed schedule.

Gulp! Gulp!

After finishing one and a half hours of jam-packed training, Leo collapsed on the grass as he drank water in big gulps. While he didn’t bring much water with him, Leo didn’t restrain himself. The grass around appeared slightly dry, but small water bodies like lakes were spread around the area

If push came to shove, he could even take a little detour and drive to the river that flew along his path, so there was no need to worry about water. When it came to the food, however…

After filling his belly with water, Leo went back to the carriage and snatched two meat buns from his food bag before hurriedly biting one of them.

‘This is a celebratory lunch!’

Convincing himself that it was worth it to eat this expensive meal as a celebration for him setting off, Leo took consecutive big bites to satisfy his growling stomach.

In reality, he was simply trying to remember the taste of good food in preparation for his ‘dark’ future. After all, he couldn’t buy more than two days' worth of fresh food on a long journey.

Trying his best to forget the dried beef and rock bread that filled half of the carriage, Leo started biting into the other meat bun as if he had just come out of a famine…

`~~~`~~~`~~~`

As the days went by, Leo started getting used to his new traveling life despite the difficulty. With time, it was starting to become more of a fun new experience rather than a hassle.

Other than sleeping from nightfall to dawn, he spent 12 hours driving the horse carriage, only taking a break of two hours in between to train and let the horse rest.

Blurrllrrble…

After over two weeks on the road, the symmetric green patches that spread over the area made it easy for Leo to get lost even with how simple his route was. So, he opted to travel alongside the river in advance. Maintaining both the water supply and a clear path to follow. The soothing sounds of flowing water were undeniably a great traveling ‘companion’!

“Easy, easy…”

Nonetheless, Leo’s true traveling companion was none other than the nameless horse that he rented along the carriage. As they passed their days together, Leo managed to thoroughly familiarize himself with the horse using sugar cubes and the tricks he learned from his readings, finally earning the right to climb over its back!

‘It’s still rough, but I need to get used to it.’

Considering the lack of proper vehicles in this world, Leo knew that he would need to travel by horse in the future, especially with his identity that made it better for him to move alone. He had even brought a saddle with him for this specific purpose, waking up half an hour early in order to practice horse riding.

Neigh…

As rough as it was to even ride for a few minutes with his small body, Leo still managed to preserve, and his preservation completely paid back!

________________________

Personal Skills:

---------------

‘Basic Swordsmanship’ - Chapter 1 - page 4/10

‘Horsemanship’ - Prologue - page 6/10

________________________

Although it took a while for him to obtain it, Leo successfully managed to obtain his second skill in this new world!

Unlike ‘Swordsmanship’ which managed to activate ‘Skill Reading’ from the very first slash, ‘Horsemanship’ didn’t activate as soon as he got on horseback. It was only a few days later when he first managed to properly ride the horse without falling, that he heard the voice that he sorely ‘missed’.

Thankfully, the horse was rather tame as one that transported humans for a few years, otherwise, it would have taken even longer without its cooperation.

Through the disparity between the two skills, Leo understood the activation requirement of his ‘attribute’ even further, clearing the path for the skills that he planned to ‘activate’ later.

“Alright, that’s enough for today. Let’s get going.”

Climbing down from the horse, Leo attached it to the carriage once more, loading back his belongings before returning to his driver spot.

“Here we go!”

Neighh!

Starting another day of his journey to the west, Leo drew closer to his long-awaited destination as enjoyed the light breeze and the ‘music’ by his side. The only thing that stopped it from being a perfect morning was the rock-like breed that he had to munch on for breakfast.

Crunch.

“I should try cooking.”

For some reason, the endless horizon seemed to hold the mirages of mouth-watering food that day...