"You’re slow," Nia complained.

Panting, I responded, " Yes, but I’m not using enhancement, so you must understand that.

"The truth is that I would like to act normally, but that is easier said than done.

I was currently running on a rather upward slope, with Heon and Nia at my side, and hovering above us was, of course, Ezra.

Yesterday, Nia talked about showing something somewhere, I was never told what and where, only when: today.

So that’s it. Right now, we are heading for that place she talked about yesterday. Early this morning, we went full east from our home. It had been several kilometers already, and I still hadn't felt any signal from Nia that we were close to that location yet.

"Yes, I understand that but why don’t you use aina as you always do?"

As stated earlier, I wasn’t using aina for running, I just, like any normal person would, simply ran.

"To train, my physical shape, as you know, aina doesn’t magically give you muscles. If you want to be in shape or build musculature you have to build it up through aina-less training."

"Training again, you said… You know what, forget about it. At least after tomorrow, "just hurry up." If you don’t, we won’t reach that place.

"What? Is it really that far away? "

"Yes, it is. I really won’t like it if we miss it. It's almost noon already. "

"Miss what?"

"You’ll see when you get there. So hurry up or ride on already. "

Riding what exactly.

Well, the answer is the thing she was riding on right now, a spear, Kiady’s spear.

She was, the moment I spoke, standing atop a floating spear.

How was it flying?

The answer was simple, magic. It didn’t take us long, but her magic tended to easily overlook the laws of this world. That was especially true for gravity.

By enveloping the two opposite ends of the spear with two bubbles, she was capable of making it float, while controlling its heading direction and speed.

It was a very clever use, but …

"Isn’t this, like, a little bit too disrespectful?"

"What?"

"I know it's rich, especially coming for me, but, using someone else’s weapon like this?!"

She remained silent for an instant, before simply saying, a few moments later, "No, it’s fine."

I really wanted to know what exactly went on inside her during that short moment of silence.

Accelerating her speed, this time with no regard to whether or not I was fast, she announced, "I’m going ahead."

"Hey, wait!"

***

"Isn’t it anywhere close yet?"

I asked, despite already knowing that it was most likely just next door, given how our pace slowed down.

It wasn’t an exaggeration when she said that with the pace I was running, it would take at least three days, if not more, to reach this place.

This place was easily a couple of hundred kilometers away from home.

"We have arrived," she said as she descended from her flying spear.

During the brief yet distant trip, I couldn’t help but notice how ascending the road was.

Our road was paved with several rows of enormous mountains; we were currently atop one of those mountains.

"I found this place while exploring around a bit with Heon. Isn't it lovely, isn't it? "

"Han."

"I got you."

As said, we were currently on top of one of the countless mountains littering this place. The summit of this said mountain isn’t peaking like one would expect. Instead, it was a completely horizontal plate, and in the middle of this plate summit was a giant pit, easily 500 meters in diameter, roughly a couple of hundreds meters in depths, with on top of that, an incredibly steep edge.

Though the outside part of the mountain was plainly volcanic and barren, its inner part was, on the other hand, teeming with floral life.

Greenery plants were decorating the cliff face, while birds, if not bird-like monsters, were littering the sky within the pit, a sky that here and there was littered with small clouds.

Reflecting the blue clearance of the sky at the bottom of the abysmal pit was a breathtakingly beautiful lake.

The unique combination and the sky-blue lake gave the impression that we were starring at the sky, from an upside down point of view.

"So, how is it? Beautiful, isn’t it."

"Yes, I suppose it is. Was this lake and this place what you wanted to show me? "

"Yes, I thought maybe... you would like it."

"I think, I do."

Stepping forward, I approached the flange leading straight to the lake.

This kind of reminds me of the Frozen Lake.

The good old days.

Behind me, I heard a noise: the noise of Nia, putting down her spear, and changing herself, most likely for diving, yet I couldn’t help but ask.

"What are you doing?"

"Hum? I’m going to take a bath, obviously. "

Having changed herself, she approached me from behind. Since I was about to say something to her, I couldn’t help but glance in her direction, but I was instantly stopped by her finger on my cheek.

"Don’t look back, it’s embarrassing."

"Okay, But euh, Nia. You do realize that this place is most likely-"

I was about to say that this place, the lake, was most likely infected with water wyrm, but before I could even finish my sentence, a kick flew in my direction.

"Fool! You fell for it, I knew you would say this. "

She had the intention of kicking into the lake.

The kick aside, it was well anticipated that I wouldn’t be reticent to ever jump onto this lake. She already knew that I’m not particularly fond of dragonoids of any kind.

Her kick somehow hit my back, but wasn’t clear enough to make me flinch.

"What!"

She screamed in surprise as I didn’t flinch, but I also, the moment her foot reached my back, grabbed her foot by the ankle.

"Hahaha... Well done, but next time, be more discreet with how fast and loud your heart is beating. It’s betraying you. Now enjoy your bath. "

I announced as I casually threw her onto the pit leading to the lake.

"That’s cheating!!!"

She screamed as her voice faded in the distance.

"Hahaha... Serve you ri-huh, what!"

Still amused by what just happened, I forgot the existence of another, ,arguably, person who came along with us, Heon.

She was so silent, that I had completely forgotten about her existence. I only remembered it when she suddenly headbutted me into the empty space, leading me straight to the lake.

Just like Nia, I started free falling toward the lake.

To be honest, I had my fair share of ways to stop a fall of this kind.

Yes, under normal circumstances, if I wanted to stop this, I would definitely be able to, but for some reason, right now, I couldn’t.

Completely frozen, I was unable to do anything.

A painful headache suddenly assailed me out of the blue.

Strange and foreign images that I didn’t recognize were flashing into my head.

Before I could even notice, my body fell into the lake with a huge splash.

And even then, I couldn’t even move a single muscle.

It was as if I was both conscious and unconscious at the same time.

During the fall, I felt the sensation of the fall and the wind on my body, yet I couldn’t move a finger.

And now that I splashed into the lake, I felt the bother of trying to breathe underwater, yet once again, as earlier, I was still completely helpless. It felt as if my body and my mind had become two different entities.

I have never in my life been sick, yet those headaches didn’t particularly feel foreign.

What the hell is going wrong with me again?

I was drowning, no doubt about this.

Slowly but surely, I felt, train of thoughts getting more and more blurry. Up to this point, I wasn’t even able to think straight anymore.

***

My eyes snapped open

How much time went by, I couldn’t tell, but a drowned voice came to my ears.

What was I doing?

Ah, right, I remember I was still drowning.

I was still underwater. Someone’s arm was around me. It didn’t take me long to identify that person’s arm as Nia's, and she was bringing me from the bottom of the lake to the surface.

"Cough—blegh!" I blurted as I gasped desperately for air upon reaching the surface.

"Hôn!"

Coughing desperately, water comes out of every possible hole in my face.

That was a close call.

What the hell just happened?.

"You’re okay?!"

"Yeah, I’m okay."

"I saw you fall just after I fell, but then you didn’t resurface at all. I thought this was some sort of joke, but then-."

All of this came out in a torrent of words. Her voice was full of anxiety and sincere concern, which I must admit was painful to hear.

"-It’s okay. I’m fine now. "

"Really?"

"Yeah. Come on, don’t tell me, you really thought, I would die such a stupid death. I’m way tough-"

Still floating on the lake surface, she, out of the blue, hugged me.

Her face was pressed against my chest, and I felt droplets of tears running down the outer surface of my skin.

It felt like, how to put it, it was warm.

"Hey, that’s a-"

"idiot." She said in a teary voice.

I knew that wouldn’t help a bit with my recent situation, but I was somehow tempted to embrace her back.

Just as I was about to give in, I ultimately decided to go for a pat.

I heard the sound of something falling from above, along with a canine "woouu" sound. That something was Heon, who jumped off from the top of the mountain.

It didn’t take her long to reach the water, A loud "plop" sound reverberated upon her reaching the water, sending gigantic waves in our direction.

"Heon!" Nia complained as we were sent adrift by the giant wave.

Suddenly, once again, I heard the sound of something. This time, it was not from above, but from below us. Which means underwater.

That sound sounded fairly and painfully familiar.

Below us, deep within the water, an underwater slithering was clearly audible.

‘This sound? Water wyrms!."

Not just one or two, but clearly an entire colony-worth of wyrms.

Reacting the same way as I did, Heon let out a very overbearing growl.

"Eh, wait a minute, you two!"

Nia panicked. She knew this place before, but there was no way, she didn’t know about the presence of those wyrms.

***

"Han?"

"Huh?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, for earlier...I'm sorry."

As I thought it was from him.

"Don’t worry. It wasn’t intentional, was it? "

"No."

"There is nothing to apologize for then. We’ll talk about it thoroughly later. "

"Yeah, later."