The skies were blue, and Rino was purple. In all honesty, he didn't care about roasting in soul fire under the harmful sun. He was simply glad to have a vacation away from the busy village.

As of late, Rino found it increasingly hard to have some alone time, and this was a good opportunity for him to pretend that Mutt wasn't here and enjoy the breeze hellbent on blowing his hood off so that the sun could burn him while they travelled.

Mutt wasn't on purple flames despite the sun, and Rino quickly learned that the sabre tooth wolf was exempted from the deadly sun rays when he was sitting under Rino's shadow protection.

From afar, it would look as if a lich in weird garb with his head on flames was gliding through the prairie at an incredible speed. In reality, Rino's feet were dug into the side of Mutt, who was hiding in his shadows and only peeking a little out of the ground so that his master could sit on his large head under that cape that Rino held shut as they travelled.

Rino tried his best not to think about how his pelvic was resting on the top of the wolf's head with his legs tucked right behind those ears. Mutt was massive when he wanted to be, and the magician had no idea when Mutt became this powerful because the sabre tooth monster always appeared in a compact size below Rino's waist when he was summoned.

There was no real destination in mind. Rino simply looked at the overview of his map to decide where he wanted to go. Noir Province was on the very edge of his kingdom in the southeast.

There was a mountainous region past the swamps that Rino wanted to visit in the west because he thought about mines when he thought about mountains. When he thought about mines, Rino imagined there to be dwarves. In his previous world, Rino was a close friend of dwarves, even if those money-grubbing stout fellows hated humans in general. Rino was considered a human oddball they welcomed because he had a curious mind for innovation. One of Rino's closest researchers was a half-dwarf. He had a dwarven father but an elven mother.

Thinking about the different species from his old world and this, Rino started to miss certain things. The fact that paper was a luxury there and utterly unheard of here made the magician sad. He could do without his favourite beverages like coffee and tea because he did not have a digestive system. However, the absence of books really drove him insane. 

Thankfully, Rino's new daily quest gave him a glimmer of hope to remedy it. If the books he wanted to read, hold and protect did not exist, he would just have to create them. It wouldn't be the first time Rino wrote and published a book. It certainly wouldn't be the last time he authored something either. After all, there can never be too many books in the world. Books and knowledge were synonymous with joy for the magician in his previous world, and he swore that hard leather-bound books were the best things to happen after roasted coffee and cats.

According to the elemental sylphs, there was a river further up from Spudville that Rino could follow upwards to get to the mountain ranges. There were fields and small patches of forests between Noir Province and the mines that Rino wanted to check out. It was quite an obstacle course to navigate on land, so Rino listened to their advice and tried to find that river they mentioned.

Rino had no idea how far the river was from Spudville, but after travelling for half a day and seeing no signs of the river except for empty fields and forests in the distance, he decided they were lost.

"Stop," he told Mutt, who listened. "We're lost. Hide in my shadows for a little while until I find the right direction."

The wolf obeyed, and Rino pulled his hood back up. It was nearing noon, and he felt sluggish. He might take a nap in that dense wood later once he located a river to follow.

Without a compass or markers to determine where Noir Province was, Rino could only pick a direction using the sun as a reference. He really hoped that the burning ball of fire in the sky followed the same sense in his previous world and rose from the east. Honestly, he should have asked the fairies before leaving in such haste. Noir would roll his eyes if he learned what Rino did to appear cool and tease him for it. Thankfully, the black cat left before he did.

Rino's empire territory was huge. He did not know much about what lay beyond the seas, but there was a lot of undeveloped land waiting for him to work with. The fields were good for farming, and Rino didn't really care if the land was fertile. Everything could be solved using magic. The forests were brimming with resources Rino had no idea how to use yet, but he had an eternity to figure out.

The clouds got into his eyes, and Rino lowered his flying altitude as he travelled in the opposite direction of the rising sun. If he missed the river, the sylphs told him he would meet the sea. Rino hoped it would not come to that because tracing his way back to Spudville would be a massive pain without bearings.

Thankfully, Rino found the river he missed. However, there was something strange about the river's appearance as he recognised the rocky ridges of the mountain range. There should be only one mountain range on this land with mines, right? The sylphs did not report a second mountain range even if there were hills.

Also, these mountain ranges were not topped with snowy caps. The rocky terrain devoid of green and life matched the description he was given, and Rino felt his heart race even if the mountains looked as tiny as his last finger joint bone now.

"Mutt!" he summoned the lone wolf when he saw his destination in the distance.

The wolf obeyed and materialised beneath his master's feet as Rino climbed on, making himself comfortable.

There were many fields and forests between him and those mountains, but Rino now had more confidence after finding the river.

Together, master and summon followed the water at a more leisurely pace, enjoying the first vacation Rino had ever since he was dropped into his new life.