Infinite Paths: The Raging Phoenix

"That won\'t be necessary; we can sleep easily; if something or someone approaches while we sleep, I will wake up," Rain declared.

Rain wasn\'t completely sure of that, but it was better to pass some confidence to his employer. He was going to learn and improve that technique along the trip… in any case, he expected that he would do all kinds of jobs while working for the organization. Still, he didn\'t think that such a thing would actually happen.

Guarding a single person toward the other side of the realm… Rain felt like sighing, he didn\'t want to get too close to nobility, but they were the ones with deep pockets.

In any case, after cooking some stew, they filled their bellies and began to relax. Rain had already looked after the horses, so he felt really sleepy… still, he soon woke up completely when he heard a scream in the distance.

"It seems that the monsters are here…" Rain said and then touched the ground before using his tracking spell. "They are seven hundred meters away from the village, and there is no one else around outside the houses."

"How many monsters?" Lorene asked.

"Only three, still. It seems that it is enough to cause problems for the villagers," Rain replied.

"Can you help them without revealing yourself?" Lorene asked.

".. I guess so," Rain replied.

Rain left the area using Impulse and quickly found the villagers trying to fight some weird plant monsters. They looked like walking bushes that had vines that could be used as whips… the vines were probably paralyzing, considering what the villagers said before…

Either way, Rain fired some Wind Bullets from a distance, and that pierced the bodies of the masters. While the creatures were trembling in pain, the villagers stepped in and stabbed the monsters over and over again. Their durability wasn\'t high, but the whips were troublesome to deal with.

An Unknown skill leveled up.

The Sage\'s path obtained 50 experience points.

An Unknown skill leveled up.

The Sage\'s path obtained 50 experience points.

…

"I suppose it can\'t be helped since I didn\'t kill them," Rain thought.

Rain returned to the wagon in no time, and he saw Lorene with a knife in hand. It seemed that she wouldn\'t go down without a fight in case something happened to Rain. She had some courage, but that kind of action probably would only make the enemies more pissed if she didn\'t have the skills to kill them.

"The enemies are just checking the terrain with the new monsters… I thought that they could only control beasts with only a certain level of intelligence, but it seems that I was wrong," Rain said while rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

Rain explained about the plant monsters that he saw. Lorene also seemed curious about that kind of situation… for someone like her and in her position, having a lot of intel was almost her lifeline.

"I don\'t think that they can control monsters like those… they should have brought them to this area instead," Lorene said after thinking for a while. "This is the first time they used this kind of monster, and they don\'t have the leisure to only send a small number of them."

That made sense… Still, it was hard to understand the enemy\'s actions. Perhaps if Branden and Lorene had some access to the information of spies, Rain would learn something. Still, he didn\'t want to ask and get entangled in their business further.

In any case, those two managed to fall asleep eventually. Rain had a hard time adjusting himself to staying awake and resting his mind without turning off his brain, but he got the trick behind it after a while. He just had to stay still while sitting in the same position with his eyes open but with his mind empty.

When morning came, his body felt a bit sluggish, but not that much that would hinder his work during the day.

Rain and Lorene left even before sunrise, so few people managed to see them do that. Some people would wonder why they came to the village and didn\'t sell anything when they looked like merchants. Still, it would make most think that they were just delivering a cargo somewhere else.

"Should we move away from the central path when the monsters can attack?" Rain asked.

"That slows down our pace; the main road is filled with villages that we can use," Lorene explained. "If you don\'t have any problems handling the monsters, then we shouldn\'t skip them. That will also help the kingdom."

Rain was fine with that; he was just considering efficiency since they would waste some time dealing with monsters. In any case, the next few days passed rather fast, even though the nights had been longer… not all villages up to the North were being attacked by monsters, but half were.

Rain assumes that the enemies still want to make the humans split their forces and keep their focus on many areas… even though the magic people couldn\'t attack those areas so far away.

Lorene sighed in relief when they began to feel the smell of the sea, and then soon, they could see the port city that was their destination. Rain imagined that she was relieved that she would be able to see her future husband, but she was from safety; if anything, the chances of her being attacked now were greater.

"At least I will be able to sleep a little there…" Rain thought while massaging his neck.

The port city didn\'t have many tall or fancy buildings, but it was quite large, and it didn\'t have any walls either since most of the problems would come from the sea… the place really gave Rain a sense of freedom and freshness.