Chapter III.XXXVI (3.36) - A Camping Trip

  Mort led them about half the way back to the village before the sun set and Kizu decided they needed to make camp for the night. Earlier Ione had successfully managed to drag off the gorole and while everyone else set up camp, she poked and prodded at the tied up creature. Every few minutes, Sobota would glance over his shoulder at her, clearly believing her eccentricities to actually be a convoluted threat meant for him. Which was fine with Kizu, it kept the necromancer on his best behavior. Kizu could assign him to do chores while they set up camp and, unlike his other companions, the prisoner launched into the tasks with gusto.

  He spectated the necromancer as he attempted to make a lean-to. Sobota dragged over a poisonous palm leaf to lay over the top of it and started cursing profusely and scratching at his quickly reddening palms.

  “Kizu,” someone said beside him. Kizu turned to see Mitsuko. She kept her eyes pinned to the ground.

  “Mitsuko?” he said. “Are you good?”

  She shook her head slowly. “No. I’m…well, I don’t know. Can we talk somewhere more private?”

  The girl looked both miserable and a bit scared. But Kizu agreed and they walked a score of paces away from camp. Kizu sat on a massive tree stump and gestured for Mitsuko to sit as well. After a moment’s hesitation, she joined him.

  “What am I doing here?” she asked him.

  Kizu blinked at her.

  “You’re traveling and surviving? That’s what we’re all doing.”

  “You don’t understand.” Mitsuko grasped a handful of her hair and tugged on it. “I don’t belong with all of you. I should be helping my step-mother fill drinks at my family’s inn. Instead I’m with a group of people fighting the Emperor’s assassins. I’m not a hero.”

  “We already had this conversation back in the time dilation chamber,” Kizu said. “Nothing’s changed.”

  She bit her lip. He looked at her closely. Then he realized something. Mitsuko wasn’t looking down at the dirt like he’d assumed, instead her eyes were glued to her stomach. At her scar, hidden under a layer of cloth. She finally looked up, but not in his direction. Instead, she stared out at the jungle beyond him. After a minute, she continued voicing her thoughts.

  “Except. Well…it has changed. I’ve seen you actually fight. You released a hoard of zombies on the witches. I thought I was going to die. And then, earlier today you almost killed the necromancer because he didn’t give you information.”

  “I wasn’t going to kill him!” Kizu protested. “My leg is more than just cosmetic. It could easily keep a hold of twice his weight. And I think I could have made a force barrier in time if I messed up catching him.”

  “That doesn’t change anything though! I can’t do stuff like that. I’m just…normal.”

  Kizu shook his head.

  “No one is normal. The crone taught me that. If everything about her is abnormal and alien, then what am I supposed to think when I see pieces of her in everyone I meet? People are unique blends of strange. Some fit in a little more, some a little less. But the idea of something being normal is just sort of paradoxically bizarre.”

  “I…don’t really get that.”

  “What’s normal for me? Is it people with similar backgrounds to me? If that's the case, those witches I ran into earlier today are probably the most normal people I’ve met in half a year.”

  “You’re saying I think of the villagers as normal because they have the most in common with me?”

  “Yeah! But even then, the more you get to know someone, I think the less ‘normal’ they’ll become. And what’s wrong with spending time with people that aren’t like you? I like spending time with Ione, Basil, Shika, and Anata. And with you.”

  Mitsuko chewed on her lip.

  “Do you think I could become someone like you? Not magically, obviously, but able to attract friends not like myself?”

  Kizu laughed and then saw Mitsuko’s face fall.

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed. But can’t you see? You already have.”

  Mitsuko stayed perfectly still for a few seconds, then she looked over her shoulder at the camp. Then she smiled weakly.

  “When we reach Shika’s father, will you leave me there or take me where you go next?”

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “That’s not my decision. We’ll definitely dump Sobota off on Hone, but you decide where you go next. If you want to stay behind, then you can and if you want to join…well, I think I’ve finally learned my lesson on trying to leave my friends behind while I go off and do things.”

  “Thank you,” Mitsuko said quietly. She finally met his eyes and gave him a small smile. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Take your time. I’m sorry I got you dragged into this but it’s still your life and your choices to make,” Kizu said. “Now, I’m going to start a fire to heat up some of our leftover soup. Do you want to help me gather some sticks?”

  “You brought the soup with you? Where? You don’t have a pack?”

  Kizu grinned as they stood from the stump and started walking, looking for fallen branches.

  She hadn’t noticed his ring over the past week. Which made sense, he hadn’t used it except for when he altered a few of his potions. He took it off and passed it to her.

  Her brow furrowed as she took the ring, but when he dropped it in her hand her eyes widened in shock. Her other hand shot up to support the weight of the ring before she dropped it.

  “It’s heavy!”

  “Yep. It’s a dimensional storage. A friend gave it to me. It significantly reduces the weight of things stored inside, but doesn’t completely get rid of it.”

  “That’s amazing! How much stuff do you have in here?”

  Kizu shrugged. “It’s mostly just potions and ingredients. Individual objects can’t be larger than a handspan. But I have a lot in there.”

  She handed the ring back to him and Kizu slipped it back on his finger

  “I can’t believe you carry that on your hand all day.”

  “It’s a bit annoying, but I learned better than to leave it behind. I tried tying it to a string around my neck, but the twine kept breaking.”

  “What’s the other ring do?” she asked.

  Kizu hesitated, then flipped his wrist, activating the ice blade.

  She took a step back and gaped at the sword. Tendrils of cold smoke wisped up from the blade, visible in the hot, humid jungle.

  “It’s also magic?”

  “I don’t really wear unenchanted jewelry,” he admitted sheepishly. “It’s not as useful as you might think though. I’m not a swordsman. But I guess it can help cut firewood.”

  He tapped the ring, releasing the blade from it and passed it to Mitsuko, who took it hesitantly. Then he created another for himself.

  Hacking at fallen trees and large branches with swords was surprisingly fun. Whenever a sword dulled or broke, they just discarded it and created a new one. In half an hour, they had more firewood than they knew what to do with.

  “Okay,” Kizu said, eying the stacks of wood. “I’m going to try something new I’ve been wanting to experiment with for a while. It should let us get this all back to the camp in one load.”

  “You’re going to store it in your ring?”

  Kizu shook his head. “Most of this is too large to fit.”

  He crouched next to the wood pile and reached a hand out to it, almost touching the lowest log. It took over a minute before he finally got a barrier of force under it. Then, he slowly lifted it. The barrier flicked slightly, straining against the weight, but it still held. Anata had rejuvenated his blood supply earlier in the day he felt nearly completely back to full strength again.

  He beamed at his success and Mitsuko stepped back as he slowly started carrying the load of wood back to their camp.

  Their companions (namely, Sotoba and a kappa Ione had summoned) had finished setting everything up and even dug out a pit in the ground for them to dump some of the wood. Once the pit was full, Basil tossed in a small fireball and ignited the fire. They sat around in a circle on some of the larger spare logs and sipped soup while they chatted.

  While nervous at first, Anata got used to Shika and giggled as the zombie girl told her stories. Kizu tried not to listen after he realized Shika was telling extremely exaggerated and untrue stories about him. Like, he had not been given a cursed pair of pants by the crone that went see-through for everyone other than him when more than two people looked at him. That weirdly specific story was a bastardized version of what happened. The crone had given him cursed pants, but they actually just spent an entire day tripping him up. They’d tightened to his skin and refused to be removed. He had to use a knife to cut them off. He still had a scar on his thigh from the experience. Annoying, but not utterly humiliating like the version the zombie girl told. But he also knew better than to argue with Shika. She might technically be a couple years older than him, but she argued like a child.

  “Are there any nocturnal creatures attracted to light?” Ione asked Kizu. “Will our fire bring anything interesting?”

  “Just bugs. Big monsters and animals keep their distance from fire.”

  “Oh. Any magical bugs?”

  Kizu thought back to the attack on his picnic with Anata and Basil. The swarm of buzzing insects that blinded him like being caught in a plume of black smog.

  “Thankfully not. The smoke will keep away anything serious. Just normal bugs.”

  Ione pouted but the rest of their companions looked relieved. While he’d been out gathering wood, Ione’s gorole had fled, burrowing away as fast as possible. But not before biting Sotoba, who’d had the bad fortune of being nearby. Its sharp teeth had left rows of bite marks on his leg which looked incredibly painful. Ione now obviously wanted a new monster to play with but no one else was eager to be the next victim of said monster.

  Kizu kept the fire going as the others retired for the night. He closed his eyes and watched Mort as the monkey leaped and swung through the jungle nearby. It felt so freeing to be back. He wanted to climb a tree and break through the canopy above to look at the stars. But he held himself back.

  Anata moved her log to sit beside him. She said nothing, just joined him in his pondering. Eventually, she dozed-off, leaning against him with a slight smile on her face. For a while, Kizu was able to imagine he and his friends were all out in the woods on a camping trip. Not chasing assassins or running from witches. Just enjoying nature and living their lives. As their lives should be. But of course, when dawn came, so too did the responsibilities.

  Ten Blood Curse Academia chapters (5 weeks) ahead of Royal Road on Patreon.