“Okay, everything is ready. This supply would last for several days for all three of us.”

Kiefy inspect the large bag once more.

Kiefy, Vassil, Katarinova, Rucrik and I were at a small hill clearing near the edge of the border at the earlier morning after our sparring yesterday. The rainforest areas at the edge of the border were the thickest as far as I had seen.

“Wow, from here, you can see those dark clouds looming. You weren’t kidding when you said it was heading this direction.”

I made a remark while staring at the clouds. It was like the herald of a coming storm but there were no thunders or rains. It was just a black, gloomy dark cloud. Underneath the cloud, there were an army of those slugs and not too far behind there were various silhouettes.

“Oh, by the way, I don’t think only the slugs are coming. It looks like various type of Mal’eurs are following behind them.”

Vassil who went beside me also, took a glance at the rabbles of monsters and said as such.

“Well, at least this way, we can confirm that Most Mal’eur is intelligent enough to take advantage.”

Kiefy after finished re-checking everything that he brought stood beside Vassil and said that.

I turned towards both of them. Rucrik was standing behind the two obediently.

“Okay, the main objective is to capture one specimen of the slug and teleport it back to Krolve via imprinting [Bond], after that, you three teleport back too. If that is also impossible, just immediately teleport back. The sub-objective is to gain some data. Rucrik, you got that?”

Rucrik from behind nodded as I briefed to the three.

“Alright, best of luck but knowing you two, you’ll do a good job and you too Rucrik, keep up with these two.”

Both of them smiled while Rucrik frowned lightly and then all three of them turned towards the direction of the Border and began walking followed by Rucrik.

Katarinova who had stood silently the entire time, walked to stand beside me.

“I’m still mad at you for not letting me go along with them but considering outside the Border is a danger zone, aren’t you risking their life?”

“I considered that but Kiefy and Vassil are both capable as both of their and your worlds had monsters roaming about. It’s no different from here based on my speculation. Reading from the reports from the scouts and old records, the Mal’eurs can only sense any living beings that have connection with the Planet-Spirit in a short range. Their nature is to hunt and kill those living beings but if they didn’t or fail to detect such living beings nearby then their behaviours was like that of a wild animal. As long as they proceed with care and caution, they’ll be fine.”

Katarinova, nodded and we turned back to the village and walked.

After one dot of Ethka, we had passed by a pen of domesticated animals. In this world, aside from the Mal’eurs, these animals are like the chickens and cows in our world, having the same purpose of being the source of food or a beast of burden.

As I stared at the animals inside the pen, for some reason, I was reminded of what would happen in four more years or so. It is said that after each summoning, the Leylines surrounding Athryshiayl would lose their power for a year and thus Mal’eur from both side of the Reach could get inside and wreaked havoc. During that period, the summoned will shoulder the responsibility of defence against such massive incursion or ‘Grand Incursion’ for a full year. It was a tradition ever since the Third Summoning.

I don’t mind since we were gifted with Special Abilities and Soul Weapon but i thought that after hundreds of year, the descendants of the previous summoned or in other word, The Natives would have been able to cultivate and developed ways to defence themselves without relying too much on the power of the summoned.

As I have that thought, we reached the village after passing the herding pen.

We checked with the Border Regiments one last time. After seeing that they were training for a defence formation, we then teleported back to the Watch tower. I pitied Krolve who had to stay in the Watchtower. Even a living, talking tree would feel loneliness for the entire day if none of his friends are around.

--

“Welcome back, Ruigne and Rino!!”

Krolve excitedly welcomed as we teleported back in front of him.

“Aye, Krolve we’re back.”

Katarinova, with a bright smile, greeted back.

I nodded to Krolve as he happily smiled. His smile still scare the creeps the hell out of me.

“No one is around anymore. Kiefy, my joking buddy isn’t here to amuse with me, Vassil, the ‘womanizing bastard’ is not around and August the most talkative friend I have is also not here.”

He ruefully lamented but his hollowed eyes… No seriously, I don’t know how a tree has a pair of eyes… anyway, his hollowed eyes lit with brightness as he stared at both of us.

Also, I regretted the fact that I accidentally blurted out ‘womanizing bastard’ in my conversation with the child-like innocent Krolve several days ago.

Katarinova looked at me with a chiding glare. Obviously it was because of the ‘womanizing bastard’.

One month ago, I actually learned that Krolve is actually just about seven years old or more precisely; his ‘sentience’ came to being seven years ago.

So yes, his mentality is that of a seven years old child. I just taught a swear word to a seven years old.

“Um, Krolve, don’t readily use those words… it’s inappropriate.”

“Which one was it? Was it the joking buddy or ‘Womanizing Bastard’?”

“Uhh, the latter…”

With Krolve seemingly innocent way of questioning, Katarinova was stammering in her speech.

She suddenly nudged at me violently from the side without looking at me, indicating that I should intervene at this point.

“You see, Krolve, back then, when I called Vassil that, it was something like a word that… Yes, a word that could make you loses a friend!”

I hurriedly fixed my words to convince Krolve not to use such language again.

Krolve’s tree-like body tilted to his left side.

“Does that mean Ruigne don’t want to be friends with Vassil? Why wouldn’t Ruigne want to lose his friendship with Vassil? Do you dislike Vassil now?”

Krolve inquisitive gaze was boring down on me, filling me with a sense of guilt like that of a father telling his son how his dog had died.

Katarinova with a strained smile stamped violently with her right foot on my left foot. It was gentle by her standard because I knew that if she were to apply full force, my foot would be a mess of bone fractures.

“No, no, you see, it’s not that I dislike Vassil or I don’t want to be his friend but it’s that… Ah, it’s because you have to be above eighteen year just to use those words!”

“… Above Eighteen?”

“Yes, you see, there are words you can only say after you reached that age. It’s a common sense in this time because they need to have the experience that only comes as they aged to properly understand the significant of those words. If said without the understanding, you can create many misunderstand!”

I myself don’t believe in the bullshit that I spewed as I believed words are merely superficial constructs and vehicles for contexts and meaning but sometimes, words had brought down empires and ruin many great men.

But in terms of swearing, it’s nothing that pervasive that it would destroy the society if left unchecked but in order to preserve the ephemeral innocence of Krolve and to stop the emanating threat of a violent woman, if believing that there is a gigantic man living in the sky would achieved the two former objectives, then I would lie through my teeths without shame.

“But the first thing you said is contradicting with the second… Are you lying to me?”

Guh! The piercing gaze of his hurtful expression further made me feel like I’m terrible father who had failed to reach the son’s expectation. From the side, the pressure emanating from her was wincing.

“Yes, I’m guilty of lying about the first one. I had thought of that I can simply deceive you but that was wrong of me. I apologized.”

I sincerely bowed deeply towards Krolve. At this point, further embellishment will only deteriorate the situation, so I decided to come clean.

Krolve was staring with an uneasy expression for a tree and he kindly sighed.

“It does not matter. Friends would lie for a lot of reasons but those are the struggles in all friendship. It’s whether you choose to overcome the struggles or abandon the friendship. I’m sure you had a good intention.”

What gem of wisdom from someone who only had lived for eight years, it had genuinely affected my outlook about Krolve.

The issue came to a resolve and on that night, all three of us had hearty dinner and a good night talk.

--

Right now, I am receiving punishment- No, I mean combat instruction from the lovely Katarinova.

Since there were only of three of us, the mobilized border regiment sent a unit to help patrol the area so we were not needed for the night-watch due to the shortage of summoned.

Just outside of the watchtower, we were sparring in this beautiful earlier morning.

“You really like fighting don’t you?”

“I find a lot of benefits about it and not to mention, it’s one of the thing I never get tired of enjoying. I am also quite thankful that I’m good at it.”

As I lie on the ground, Katarinova, armed with a wooden staff, stood in front of my fallen self.

Good old ground, you were always my faithful companion I can rely on. My affinity to floor had always been eternally pleasant.

“Still, don’t people ever tell you that you’re too much in the violent department?”

“Oh they do. When I’m beating them up, they always yell as such.”

She humoured herself while saying that with a bright tone.

“You go and beat up people randomly?”

“Of course not, that’s barbaric. Only in duels and combat practices.”

She answered my question with a bit of ridicule in her voice.

Well, I don’t mind getting beat up by Vefal but Katarinova is a different case. Since I clearly cannot measure up to her in terms of physicality then I’ll change the game we’re playing then.

“Katarinova, how about an Eomancy match?”

Upon hearing me, her face flickered.