"Ohh. I’m so hungry. I thought we would
make it to Radat for breakfast. What’s taking so long?" Sasuke ended with
a slap to his oar. The current was going in their direction, so the boys didn’t
need to row, which was a good thing. But it was already noontime and they still
hadn’t reached the port town.
"How about those "shortcuts" we
kept taking?" Luc had emphasized the word to show his mistrust towards the
branching streams Sasuke had insisted on going.
"I’m pretty sure those were shortcuts. If
we didn’t take those other ways, it would’ve taken even longer."
"A trip from Banner to Radat only takes 3
hours," snapped Luc.
"Well, maybe 3 people and one dragon made
the boat heavier."
"It took Lord Riou and 5 other people 3
hours"
"…"
Luc paused and thought of something.
"Don’t you ever do things the common way?"
Now that the ninja was being asked about it,
he realized that he doesn’t.
"Well, it’s hard, I mean, I was taught to
do everything the fast way as a ninja."
Luc gave a sigh. It was apparent the wind mage
hated traveling with the other two. Before the journey, he was used to warping
to everywhere, but in the journey, Lady Leknaat had insisted that he used as
little magic as possible.
"…"
Sasuke finally noticed Futch’s silence. The
young spear holder had been complaining about Bright’s hunger a while ago.
Sasuke was baffled by his sudden silence.
Futch was huddling by the edge of the boat. He
was holding Bright with one hand and doing something with the other. Sasuke
squinted to see what it was and saw Futch up something into Bright’s mouth.
"You traitor!"
Sasuke burst out, causing Futch to drop the
chocolate bar he was holding.
"You had food and you didn’t tell
us?"
Sasuke grabbed the front of Futch’s shirt.
"But Bright is really hungry. I didn’t
even eat any myself. Besides, you don’t even like chocolate and I had gotten
this all the way from Matilda."
"I don’t even know what chocolate is and
I don’t care as long as I can eat it," Sasuke pulled harder.
The argument was about to get violent when Luc
called out.
"Stop it, you two. There’s no time for
this."
The current had suddenly gotten very rough and
Luc was standing while trying to hold on to the side of the boat. Luc pointed
towards the front of the boat.
A giant sea monster had emerged from the river
and was glaring down at them with bloodthirsty eyes.
"If we want to get to Radat, we’ll need
to defea—Ah!"
Luc had lost balance on the last rock of the
boat. But before he fell into the river, Sasuke was already by his side,
holding him up.
Futch quickly grabbed his spear and threw
Sasuke his shuriken. He ran towards the front and motioned for Sasuke to
follow.
"We’ll go in the front to fight. You stay
back and cast us some magic."
Luc nodded and began charging up the rune on
his hand.
Futch and Sasuke fought, with occasional
blasts of wind from Luc, but they were at a disadvantage, fighting from the
tiny area of the boat. The two fighters were quickly weakened. Futch gritted
his teeth while he clutched on to the spear that was holding him up.
"I don’t know if I could take another
blow."
Sasuke didn’t say anything. He was in a just
as worst condition. He was breathing heavily and concentrated on resting enough
to jump and make another blow.
Bright howled from beside Luc as if asking for
the magician to hurry up. Luc quickly raised his staff and a burst of light
appeared.
"Shining Wind!"
Luc called out the spell’s name. A tornado
ruthlessly drilled through the sea monster as a warm light surrounded the three
and healed their wounds. When the spell disappeared, the monster went along
with it.