Chương 25: The More, the Merrier
/"Horses are creeeepy."/
"Okay this, this is entirely unexpected from you, Monika. I thought all gi… okay, most girls liked ponies."
/"Ponies, cute and snuggly, not whatever long-faced drooling abominations these are. Their mottled fur even makes them look like cows."/
"These are good draft horses, don't insult them!" Elze replied fervently.
/"They are forest camels. Rude spitting beasts."/
We had been on the road for about three days, and the experience exposed how much of both Monika and I were still spoiled city children. My hiking days were spent in mostly sterile efforts fending only for myself.
Horses ate from buckets of oat provided with the cart. Horses that could walk for hours and hours also needed to poop. Sometimes while walking. Onto buckets.
Monika hearing the 'flooorp' of a horse pooping while on the move quickly robbed her of the romance of the stagecoach age. Meanwhile, I had no idea how to handle horses at all and they would not follow my directions. Elze and Linze, being old farmhands, took over driving. With Water and Earth magic at least we could quickly remove the waste and the smell.
The carriage we hired was actually more of a cart, lacking a roof. That was fine, it didn't usually rain in summer, though it was hot. Easily resolved with some poles and a thick linen sheet. With water magic, it was not like we'd ever have a shortage of cool drinks. Our own needs for privacy and sanitation at night were just as easily met.
Monika applied [Amplify: Endurance] to them so they could walk a little faster for longer. While they might not get tired so quickly, that still consumed energy and they needed to eat and drink more when we stopped. We figured we were making about 25% better speed than the usual.
Even so with the girls taking the reins that left me with nothing to do but to sit on the wagon feeling like so much useless baggage. I'd long finished reading through the magic books, and Monika was able to keep herself (mentally) busy trying to compile new ways of transforming her digital powers into real-world ones.
My magic practice would simply freak out the horses. Elze and Linze, being born of a society not designed around instant gratification, were fine with the usual plodding state of affairs.
"Monika, I'm boooored!" I whined, kicking my legs out. "It's been so long. Write me some poooems!"
"Mister Zah!" Linze looked disapproving at my rare expression of immaturity. I've been childish and silly at times, but never before had I shown taking Monika for granted.
/"It's another stupid reference,"/ Monika said out loud. /"Now hold on there, Ming the Merciless. You know how this works. I'll show you mine if you show me yours."/
"Is this really the proper time and place for this sort of thing?" Elze asked, looking faintly disgusted.
"I wrote a poem about you too, Elze!"
"Ooh? Now I'm somewhat envious. Let's hear it."
"I call this, the Death of Vanity.
-- After some heavy rains, a great boulder fell from the mountains
-- It tumbled down the slopes, crushing all with its stony wrath
-- Then it came to a stop, blocking the winding road into the plains
-- No one could budge it from their paramountly important footpath.
-- A thousand men tried, and none could shift its mass
-- A hundred magicians tried, but even their power availed them not
-- Until there one day forced to a stop was one young lass,
-- Unstoppable force met immovable object in one fateful spot.
-- And so SHE PUNCHED THE HECK OUT OF THAT SMUG BOULDER.
-- Once more through the road good people could pass through.
-- And that is the true tale of the Elze the Rocksmasher,
-- One day she hoped to become Elze the Castlecrusher too."
"…"
"…"
"… let's not have any more poems," Linze said after a while.
"Fair enough. This isn't the Literature Club after all."
Elze turned back to peacefully driving the horses onward. "… Castlecrusher, eh? That doesn't sound so bad, actually," she mused with a nice little smile.
Monika stared at me for a few more moments, then stepped back and sighed again while rubbing her forehead. /"I really have no reason to be confused about why you and Elze are such besties all of a sudden. You're both such memelords this is why I unfairly favor Linze, you know?"/
Elze had already named her metal greaves, left and right, [Shinsplitter] and [Necksnapper]. Honestly, she terrified me sometimes.
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Beyond Reflet there was another small farming town named Nolan. Then past that heading north was a larger walled township named Amanesque. We only slowed down once we saw other carriages approaching on the road.
We entered Amanesque before the sun had gone down completely. After leaving our horse and cart to care of stables near the entrance, we sought a slightly more upper-class inn than Silver Moon. I mean, no offense meant to Micah, but her service was only slightly above perfunctory.
Following the recommended path, we found our way blocked by a bunch of onlookers crowded around the road. The magic track finder refused to change the route though.
/"You know, I quite forgot that we had this thing,"/ said Monika. /"For all how reasonable everyone else's behavior, I forgot that we can still be guided by destiny."/
"There is no fate but what we make."
/"Unless you're talking about a self-fulfilling prophecy. Well, I accept that you'll probably choose not to depart from this route either. Last time we followed the plot we got Elze and Linze, and I don't regret that."/
So we pushed through the crowd to the clearing on the other side. There was a group of large, rough-looking men surrounding a girl with odd foreign-looking clothes.
"What's happening here?" I asked the random citizen near me.
"I don't know, " he replied. "Some sort of street performance, maybe?"
"That girl… is wearing some pretty strange clothes…" Linze murmured.
I nodded. She looked like a samurai girl, with a bright pink kimono, a dark blue hakama, white socks over wooden sandals, and a pair of swords by her belt. Her hair was tied up into a straight ponytail and the fringes cut to just above her eyebrow.
Around ten men surrounded her, and they had dangerous expressions. Some of them had already drawn swords and knives, while others carried long hitting sticks.
"Why do you block my path?" the girl asked them.
One of them sneered and pointed with his naked dagger. "We're here to show our 'thanks' for that little incident earlier, girlie! Didn't you hear?"
"I have no recollection of what you might might, this I do not," she replied neutrally.
"Don't play dumb with me, ya little whore! Don't think you can get off safe after doin' a number on our buddies like that! We're going to teach ya good yer place on yer knees."
"Aa. Then you must be the companions of those ruffians I had handed over to the town guard earlier this day. That incident was entirely their fault, it is so. They should not have been going around drunkenly flaunting their violence and harassing young women in the middle of the day, yes, this is true."
"Enough of this! Grab her!"
They charged as one, but nimbly she dodged every single one of their attacks. She grabbed one of them by the arm and swiveling on one foot threw him over her shoulder. He was flung into another man, and both collapsed to the ground, groaning.
Aikido? Interesting!
She moved back and slapped away grabs by pushing at their wrists, kicked at the back of someone's knee and tossed another man down. This one didn't get up anymore, knocked unconscious by the slam. But then she staggered a bit, and narrowly avoided being hit by a wooden pole.
She slid back, out of their encirclement and rubbed at the side of her mouth to disguise her heavy breathing. Her movements had grown sluggish.
"This… doesn't look like a street performance," I mumbled.
/"Player?"/
"Playa?" Elze looked at me from the side and asked liltingly. "Should we?"
"Why did you even have to ask?" I grinned back. "Of course!"
One of the men had managed to get around to her back and swung with his sword. I took a step out from the crowd and shouted "Come forth, Water!"
"Blargh!"
He was tossed aside by a strong water jet coming out of nowhere.
And so the three of us stepped out to join the strange samurai girl. I raised my hands and tugged at each of my white gloves. With a small smile I addressed the men "Ten on one… is not very sporting, is it? What big tough men you are that you need to crowd around just to handle one girl.
"Oh wait, actually I should call you cowardly weaklings instead. Not only are your strategies pathetic, but you fight like amateurs."
"Don't stick your nose in where it doesn't belong if ya know what's good for ya…!" their leader snarled back. "Don't think you'll get away after sayin' those things too! The girl's we're keepin', but I'm just gonna gut ya!"
What the hell is even up with this town and its police force if goons like this could goon around this openly?
"Heh. Tough guys who can't take having the violence they use to terrify others being competently inflicted on them in return. Treat others as you would like yourself to be treated, the crushing wheel of karma meets all in the end! None of you are even worthy of seeing me draw my blade."
I clenched my fists and charged forth. "Come on then, show me what you've got!"
I planted my right foot down and kicked off the ground, the stones shattering under my boots. "Air, Burst, [Leap!]"
This world's magic spells worked as such:
Force magic through magic stone amplifier -> Call out the Element ("Come Forth, Water") -> Specify the effect that you required ("Become a shining blade") -> Speak the spell name (["Aqua Cutter!]). This meant that certain spells required a longer chant.
I wanted to do as much with basic spells that made the most use of my obscene magic capacity with as short a casting time as possible.
"Air, Hammer, [Kick!]"
I kicked one of the thugs in the gut and blasted him all the way across the road.
"A magician! Get him!" the thugs cried out and rushed me.
"Earth, Pillar, [Stomp]!" My next step drove my heel into the ground, and a rock pillar rose up from the ground and smacked into my attacker's chin. He was lifted up into the air, and pinwheeling around, and crashed back into the ground all knocked the fugg out.
"Water, Whip, [Lash!]" I said next, making a slashing motion with my open hand. The stream of Water emerging from the magic stone became a more viscous, fast moving water whip that slapped away whole groups of people and sent them flying.
The difference between the wand-waving magicians of this world and me was that I watched Avatar (The Last Airbender) and its martial-arts bending styles. A melee magician was not a thing they were prepared to face!
"[Boost!]" And then Elze zoomed past me and began wrecking faces. Whump. Shortly half of them were planted face down in the ground.
"[Come forth, Water! Rain of frozen stones, [Hard Hail!]" Linze shouted out.
"[Multi-Track!]"
With Monika's assistance, hailstones were precisely applied to people's heads to knock them out. Along with the samurai girl's own efforts, the rest of the thugs were down and out.
I breathed in and out. The battle didn't even get my pulse up as far as usual. Odd as it felt, I had no fear or regret fighting normal humans compared to monsters. They just weren't a threat compared to the things we've been fighting. It almost felt like bullying.
Except that they had this coming. As I said before, the Golden Rule. Don't whine to me if you end up being treated the same way you were abusing others.
"Woops." It was only then we could realize the devastation we had caused.
Rock pillars poking out of the flagstone road, plaster walls cracked by thugs and water whips crashing against them. Footprints were punched into the city street. Cracked pieces of ice littered all over the place.
"I'm not paying for this," I mentioned. "Let's skedaddle!"
And so we fled the crime scene, fast and forthwith. The samurai girl followed us.
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