Cars, boats, planes, and even a motorcycle that one time; I’ve ridden on each and everyone one without any issue.

However, not long after Sentra’s living tree-chariot took off at high speeds, I immediately felt dizzy, and my stomach was about ready to barf up its contents. I had motion sickness.

In my past life, I remember experiencing some nausea when trapped inside a car for hours at a time, but this was much more intense than that feeling. Fuck, I had to vomit out the side of the chariot! Me! Vomit! I don’t remember the last time I had vomited, and here I was painting the forest brown and green!

Yenna had worriedly asked if they should stop, but my pride wouldn’t let me fall to this.

Curse you, fate!

To think that I would have motion sickness in this world. I’m sure I would have enjoyed this sort of ride, but my head keeps bouncing around, and my stomach won’t settle down.

This probably relates to my enhanced senses, actually. My sense of balance and hearing should be much greater than a human’s. However, Sentra seems to be quite use to this, so I wonder if I’ll grow out of this too.

After several long, agonizing hours, Sentra had begun to run low on Magic. With that, she had slowed the monstrosity one might call a vehicle, until it finally stopped. In exaggerated excitement, I threw myself out the back of the chariot, hugging the dirt as I exclaimed!

“Land! Dirt! Solid, unmoving earth!” I said, as my fingers dug into the soil.

“Is he ok?” I heard Sentra ask nervously behind me.

Until now, Yenna seemed worried about me, however… “He’s back to normal. He’s fine,” She said, as she picked up the luggage, and carried it off the chariot. “When will you be able to use your magic again?” Yenna asked Sentra.

“I’ll need a full day to recover most of my power,” Sentra said, seemingly disappointed in herself. “But even then, I won’t be in my best form,” She admitted.

I groaned as I pulled myself to my feet, and took a glance around. Without any landmarks, I wasn’t sure about where we could be, so I stepped towards Yenna, and reached into the bag she held. From within, I pulled out a rough map of the region, copied over from maps and descriptions in Jenn’s library.

“We headed straight north, right?” I muttered to myself in a tired and dreary tone. We had crossed a road on two occasions, so I tried to guesstimate where we had to be. Even though I was sick the entire ride, I still tried to pay attention. Frowning a bit, I found the two roads we could have possibly crossed, but if that was the case, we were much further north than I suspected.

—How much fucking energy does Magic convert into? I would say it’s extremely impressive, if we could cross this far, merely on the Magic power contained within a single woman. The units? Hard to say, but it’s surely within range of a hundred miles or so. Shit, we’re practically almost there!

However, there should be a river further ahead, and on foot it would take a few days to reach. It’s a shame we can’t cross the rest of the way by Sentra’s power.

“Come on, let’s keep going,” I said grumpily, taking a few steps forward but immediately coming to a stop. First, I needed to rehydrate, after ejecting so many fluids. I reached into my robe, and pulled out a small container of water. Gulping down as much as I can, I ignore Yenna’s advice to rest, and continue my trek forward.

Honestly, I just wanted to put the embarrassment behind me, and that damned chariot won’t let me forget. Still, I’m amazed that in this day and age, there are ways to cross a hundred miles in a few hours. Just need a way for Sentra to refuel, and we’ll be in business.

However, in the end, I was too exhausted to make it much further. So, I turned to Yenna, arms stretched out, and commanded simply, “Carry me.”

I was unfortunately rejected with a swift hit to the head.

Because I couldn’t go on with my built-up fatigue, we decided to set up camp here, and continue moving in the morning. As I watched Yenna prepare our meal, I leaned back on my makeshift bed, and asked Sentra, “Hey, is it normal to have so much Magic Power?”

It was a simple question; I had never used up all of my own magic thanks to my pretty cozy life, but watching her have so much was kind of amazing.

As Sentra held up her knees to her chest, she slowly nodded her head. “All Fox Spirits have extraordinary Magic. You should have noticed it when your second tail sprouted; the more tails, the more power,” She explained as if it were obvious. But that sort of connection seemed pretty boring. So what? Fox Spirits just gain more power and energy to use that power as they gain more tails? It feels like a level-up system.

What’s up with that?

Couldn’t a Fox Spirit just be born with all their tails, and infinite power? Why the need to bond with people? So bizarre. So… arbitrary.

“Sounds boring,” I finally said. “At least with the Spirit Force we all have, mastery over it is a matter of skill, not an artificial rewards system” I complained.

“That’s just the way the world works,” Sentra said, as if my way of thinking about it was just weird.

I honestly didn’t have anything to say against that. She was right; that’s just how the world is. In the same vain, humans must die of old age, even though it should be possible for their bodies to reconstruct their telomeres without developing cancer.

The only reason things aren’t like that is simple—chance.

The world is a chaotic and uncaring place. As Yenna hands me and Sentra our meal—strips of smoked goat meat—I wonder about how the chances that I was born a human and now reborn a Fox Spirit, must have been incredible. If we presume that all living creatures have a soul, and that people have no choice in where their soul ends up, what would I have done were I to be reborn a goat? Would it be some other Fox Spirit chewing down on me, or maybe the farmer who tended to me?

Well, chance is such a scary topic when you start delving into hypotheticals and other conjectures. Luckily for me, I am here now in the physical world, where chance is nothing more than a mathematical abstraction—the world is clockwork; being born, dying, being reborn, meeting Yenna—none of it is truly random. Even meeting Sentra.

As I eat, I take a glance towards the girls, both of whom were eating in silence, and posed a question. “If Fox Spirits tend to avoid people, how many tails do they usual have?” I have two tails, and Sentra four, but it should be rare for Fox spirits to interact with people if their Divine Heart will randomly create unnecessary bonds.

Sentra shrugged at my question. “I’ve seen others of our Race, but the number of tails vary,” She said. “Older ones have more tails, normally,” He said, “Not that it’s easy to tell a Fox’s age, but unless they’re a complete isolationist, they would have had to interact with plenty of people. Build that up over hundreds of years, and it’s only inevitable that more tails would grow,” She said.

—She has a point. Maybe an isolationist Fox would never grow more than her first tail, but then Sentra probably has never met such a Fox. And I doubt there are many like that anyways, because no one truly wishes to be alone, haunted only by memories of the dead and old acquaintances.

So unless one plans to go crazy, they must interact with other people.

If a Kitsune merely had the Divine Heart and nothing else, this wouldn’t be a problem. It’s not often that someone you just met would feel so awed by you, that it would trigger the Divine Heart. But Kitsune are also regarded as divine beings.

Quite paradoxical, that the reverence they receive is the very reason Foxes choose to seclude themselves.

“Think there are others that try to create bonds with animals?” I asked curiously.

“Beasts aren’t normally so willing to submit to your will,” She pointed out. “A pet is a big investment, so I imagine it would be quite slow to create bonds in this way,” She said, her voice suddenly becoming lower.

“Then, I suppose it’s great that you had help, huh,” I remarked, as I bit into the last of my food. However, at my comment, Sentra seemed to shiver and shrink, her shoulders coming together, and tails coiling closer to her.

I concluded that she didn’t want to keep talking about this subject, and I could understand. Maybe I should stop setting off mines like that? Especially considering where we’ll be headed.

—”I did have help, yes,” She eventually said, despite my assumption. “It was the easiest way to grow in power, so Lein allowed me to bond with his beasts,” she said, retelling a story she had already told me before. “It was a simple matter of just meeting them, and him commanding them to yield to me. In some cases I had to defeat them in a battle for them to truly yield, and thus bond.”

Strangely, her voice seemed much calmer than I thought it would be. She’s not as scared as the last time she spoke this story.

“However, it wasn’t all beasts,” She suddenly said. “I did have a friend too,” She said. She had a friend?

—I expected her to go on, but her voice merely stopped there.

A friend, huh? My impression until now was that Sentra was only tied to Lein by a lord-and-servant type of relationship. However, if there’s a friend she remembers—one she remembers fondly even—wouldn’t that threaten my hold on her?

After mulling over my thoughts, I pulled myself to my feet, and stretched out my arms and legs.

“Going to sleep?” Yenna asked.

“Yenna, I have a question,” I stated, disregarding her question, as I went to her side, and sat down. “If I told you to swear off love, would you do it?”

Yenna took a moment to process what I had said, giving me a strange look before answer with a befuddled, “I… why?”

I shrugged, “Maybe I’m paranoid about you turning on me?” I said. Not that I was. But thinking about Sentra’s allegiances got me thinking about Yenna’s. “Maybe I don’t think they are the right person for you?”

Although she thought for a moment longer, her eyes seemed to wander, at one point even sticking to Sentra for a moment. I knew about their hidden relationship—and actually, I think Yenna knows that I know. If anything, I think it’s Sentra who hasn’t realized I know, if only because she’s too traumatized to use her mind-reading ability on me.

“I wouldn’t endanger you,” Yenna eventually said. “Everything I do, it’s…” She paused, before letting out a breath. “With everything I do, I make sure you won’t be harmed or disgraced,” She said, suddenly turning serious for a moment.

“Good!” I said, patting her back with a grin, as I pulled myself up. “Just watch my back, and don’t run away with some hooligan. I need you to give me a few good hits when I misbehave,” I said, as I walked over to my mattress. I let myself drop down onto my back, arms stretched out as I let out a yawn.

“Tomorrow, we’ll be walking all day,” I said.

—Although I’ve been walking for the last week, I can’t complain. It’s better than riding that tree-like monstrosity on legs.