I roll around a few times and reluctantly get up.

No good, no good, he's right, i need to stop acting spoiled like some child on weekend. I'm in debt of their kindness to help me find a way back. I have to act with more dignity... Or at least more of whatever can look like it.

I painfully walk - my muscles ashes all over now, for fuck sake - to the camp where two of the J-escort guys are putting up the tents. In the meantime, Boobs elf is looking for the horse, while J-warrior number 2 and beastcat are out looking for wood, i think. Carl is helping Book girl to search for whatever is in her bottomless handybag. They're all busy on their own things.

Well, i would like to help, but last time, i was pretty much repelled by Carl and Book girl, saying i wasn't allowed to touch anything and it's not my job, and they're professionnals paid for that, etcaetera... So i guess this princess will have to pass time while looking around the shelter, since it's still daytime.

Aaaand this place is... empty. Except us, there is no one. Just the grey walls, with bare earth and some grass patchs here and here. And the open sky, since there is no roof. Like last time.

Yeah, it seem there is a shield magic or whatever in place of a roof in case of a bad weather, and in a case of flying animal attack, the wall is imbued with something like an animal repellant, making them avoiding it if they are not properly guided inside, like cattles or horses. Or whatever weird animal they have.

Carl explained that to me. I was thinking he was a real estate seller trying to sell it.

Well, i ca-

Hmm ?

While still strolling around, i spot something on a corner of the wall. A big stone ? No.

Something dropped by a previous traveller ? I decide to check and nonchalently walk to it.

It's a pudding.

No kidding, it's a fucking slime, but it look like a living pudding try to move. he has a semi-opaque yellowish color, and i can perfectly picture caramel rolling over on top. I'm only 5 meter away from him. It seems it's trying to find a way out of the shelter by climbing on the wall, but to no avail.

Slime !

In all rpg or novels, it's a basic ennemy ! Killing a slime, it's the first step to success ! Wealth ! Power ! Everything !

" - CAAAAAAARL, THERE IS A WOBBLING THING HERE !!!"

But again, we're not in a friggin' RPG !!

Carl rushed over with J-warrior in chief. I point to the quavery jelly on the ground, while retreating slowly.

" - It dont seem really threatening, but better safe than sorry right ?"

In fact, it's one of the few monsters i was able to read about in the little translated bit of the library of the academy, back then. It's a sort of unicellular goo with acidic property most of the time, but who have many variant, with some intelligence or not. It's not classified at offensive when it's little, more like a pest, since it dont "view" thing more than two or three meters away.

In fact, J-warrior seem to sigh has he see the slime, and start to take a big peeble on the ground.

" - Ha yeah, theSe litTle one someTimes travel undeRground and find themselVes trapped inside houses or batiments. We will taKe care of it."

Carl walk back while waving at the rest of the group, who stopped doing whatever they were doing to look at what's happened. It seems it was a "Nothing special" signal since they immediately resume their activity.

Meanwhile, J-Warrior in chief mumble something while kneading the pebble.

I'm not stupid, i know it's a spell, thank you.

The peeble start glowing a metalic shine, and he shoot it on the slime like a pro baseball player would do.

The slime explode on the spot ! Poor thing. His inside splatter everywhere inside a one meter rad-

HOLY SHIT, THE EARTH IS INSTANTLY MELTING !

No, what is this ! I was thinking it was just some sulfuric acid-like thing inside, who slowly corroded a prey like a stomach acid, but it's the fucking alien's blood acid who melt everything instantly ! What ! This is a "minor pest", this ? And you, why do you walk away like you just chased away some damn mouse from your kitchen ? There is a fucking twenty centimeter depth hole on the ground, for flying fuck sake !

...

Haaa, this world is NUTS !

...

After ten minutes silently writhing in anguish, I start going back to the camp, before hesitating and returning to the slime-explosion-ground-zero.

I've spotted it.

Inside the hole is a tiny green marble. the slime core. I touch it with a grass leaf to be sure the acid was totally inactive and put it in my pocket. Perhaps it will have a use after ? Or something like that. A core is just a little mana container of a magic beast, Carl said. The way J-warrior treated that with a total lack of interest make me think it dont worth shit, but i dont lose anything by taking it, right ?

After that, i go back to the camp.

It smell like food, after all. And after walking all day like some french legionnaire, let's say i would gulp an entire calf and have room for the dessert !

I sit down before the closed pot. It smell good.

And tonight we have... We have...

Is it another slime ? A soup ? Why is a soup PURPLE ? And what's with this consistance ? It look like chemical glue...

Ho, i dont care, gimme that, i'm too hungry to bicker about it.

Well, it tasted good in the end. But i can swear something was still writhing in my mount, and it was the not the spices.

No. I dont care. I dont want to know. It was spice. I just want to sleep now.

" - Well, we will sleeP early, this way we will be aBle to depart earlier. TomoRrow we will be able to finiSh this discussion about the Basis of magic together !"

" - Ha, yes, thanks Carl ! Well, have a good night so !"

Well, i hope to understand a fifth of this one, this time.

And like that, i fall asleep like a log. You really dont know how much a dreamless night can be sooo good.

Except for my stomach, who was fighting hard.

...

" - So eSsentially the formula for utiliZing magic in normal conDitions, to a close target can be simpLified to [ PowerEfficiency = ((LenghtFormula x IntricateElements ) x MagicUnitsUsed ) where eacH element can be graded from 0.1 to 1 for the sTandard measurement to any other numBer depending of the output or the Counterbalance desired."

" - Huuuuh, yeah, you know, explained like this, it's a littl- "

" - For examPle someone who want to use light magiC to illuminate a 20 m² squaRe zone with a almost instant castinG, so a sinGle element simple spell with a minimum facTor speed will need Ten time the magical ower neeDed for this single spell. For sure, this foRmula dont take into accounT the precision factor or any distance blahblahblah- "

My god, it's worse than yesterday !

Since approximately... Very early in the morning, we departed after a rushed breakfast. And since then, Carl speaked. Alone.

I think i started to emerge from the drowsiness one hour after the start of his speech, but even then, the little bit i was able to understood the meaning were mathematics formula to estimate the purity of magic element in whatever spell, and technicals things like this.

No, really, i deserved it. It's totally my fault to ask a magic-Nerd for informations on his favorite subject, a topic whose complexity i honestly didnt know, and not expecting the babbling-tsunami who followed.

But really, he need to work on the understanding part if he want to be a teacher later. This guy is a teacher-in-training right ? I'm worried for his future students.

And like that, another four hours passed.

Please, dont ask about what he was speaking after that, i think i heard something about radiowave and electric waves colliding with magic power in a mathematic formula i'm better not remembering, for my personnal sanity. For now i was essentially looking at the scenery, while saying "yes, yes, incredible" sometimes. He was chatting happily in his own little world, and i'm no man to break the happy fantasy of a nice guy.

The forest is still on a light purple tone, with some normal-looking green trees who started to sporadically appear here and here. Perhaps we slowly start to get out of the more "magical part" of this forest ? Because yes, analyzing from all i was able to understand, i concluded this purple area is the heart of the forest, with an higher magic concentration.

And it explain perfectly why we have encountered all these damn fucking monsters only after entering this part !

I will not ask why this road was safer than the other, because i too think it can be better to face "honest" monsters who want to drink your brains fluids with a straw, than perhaps a more "human" threat who have the advantage of having a brain on their own, and who will perhaps need your brain fluids too.

Well, for now, except my feet who have quadrupled in volume, everything is alright. I would like to take the horse a little to let them deflate, but Book girl is sleeping on it again, since she apparently has taken the night shift to guard us all, back at the safe area.

" - And we Can narrow Down the required amount of magic asKed for countering the jaMMing effect by noticeable margin by uSing the Jgackhz Theorem i used earlier."

" - Really ? Incredible."

" - Yeah, But this theorem dont taKe into account the variable of- "

I discovered too that Boobs elf was regularly using a spell that shooed away all the little pest around us. I dont know why i didnt see this before, it is just a slight move of hand with a pale green glow, and she was doing this every two or so hours. Perhaps i did not look down past the chest all this time... Hmmm, i stared again. Bad me, bad !

And another hour passed.

Aaaand, we encountered something on the way. The bad kind of encounter.

Beastcat is in front of us, with his dog, near a overturned cart on the road. We pick up the pace until we arrive near them. Book girl was waked up and is now gripping her stick. And when we arrived on the spot, it was a massacre.

Carl and J-priest immediately start examining the corpses near the cart while the other look out for an eventual threat coming from the forest.

The semi-destroyed wood cart is upside down on his side, with ten or so barrels who seem to still contain wine, for the ones who were not totally crushed when the accident happened.

The corpse of a horse was midly devoured near it, with his head and a lot of his breast missing. And for the corpse of the man who was discovered under a crushed barrel, only his head was missing. It was cut clean, like the horse. Totally unnatural. Like poof, a laser attack cutted it clean, in one swoop. No resistance at all.

Hmmm, but, say, i dont mind seeing a corpse, but if J-priest start to manipulate it like that, i swear i will vomit whatever i still have on my stomach of the purple soup on you.

The corpses of the two are still relatively freshs. No fly maggots on the corpses - in this case i would have puked immediately on the spot -, and still some blood not totally coagulated. And the stomach is not inflated with gaz yet. I can say this because i deal with dead animals sometimes in the farm, i can reasonnably say its 12 to 24 hours since the death.

J-priest discuss a moment with the others, and then, they all take their weapon on hands, and surround us as we resume walking, this time with beastcat near us too.

The grimace on their faces dont spell anything good.

" - John said iT happened 12 hours ago at leasT. And it's not a sword atTack, it's too clean. We think it's a raRe magic creature called a Lghz-hyjk. It's a really Dangerous one, so please dont Wander outside of Nina's shielD."

12 hours ? Yeah, i was right. In your ass, magic ! And yeah, another thing who can flatten me with a finger. I'm starting to get jaded. Can we not encounter some wild Care bears ? I can use a hug for a change... Well i mea-

CRUCK !

My thinking was disrupted by a deafening crunching sound and a shockwave coming from the magic shield, who made us stumble.

Looking at the origin, i see two nightmarish huge black-blue pincers starting to penetrate inside the shield, on Nina face-level.

Pincers connected to the maw with writhing tentacles of that seemed a huge worm.

With an elongated neck of at least twenty meters, relied to a hellish body i would have prefered not seeing in my life.

And the missing heads were here, with many others.