RMGCFW — Chapter 103

[Combat Skill: Skywalk.]

This was the reward Banxia had pulled from that merchant caravan, a peculiar technique-type combat skill.

By channeling Battle Aura into the lower limbs, you could kick off invisible "gaps" hanging in the air and execute a second jump mid-flight.

Used unexpectedly in a fight, it would catch most opponents completely flat-footed.

"Not bad." Banxia logged the skill into his system and decided to give it a proper run.

The description was clear that Battle Aura was required to activate it. But he had faith in the system.

Sword Qi Slash had carried the same requirement, hadn't it?

And he'd mastered that anyway. After fusion, it had become one of his go-to offensive tools.

He was curious what tricks Skywalk would show him once it was in his hands.

[Held Monster Time: 5,000 Years (Fusible)]

[Year One. You begin studying this combat skill. The Battle Aura requirement gives you a serious headache.]

[Year Eighty. You finally capture certain "gaps" in the air with your naked eye. You kick off one, and pull off a double jump.]

[Skywalk lv.0 → Skywalk lv.1.]

"Not enough. Keep going." Banxia didn't stop. Monster time kept burning.

[Year One Hundred and Fifty. You discover more and more "gaps." Stepping across them in sequence, you find you can actually walk on air for brief stretches.]

[Year Three Hundred. Your eyes evolve again. The "gaps" multiply until they're everywhere. You have pushed this combat skill further than anyone before you. With nothing but flesh and blood, you can walk on water, walk on air, walk on fire...]

[Skywalk lv.1 → Skywalk lv.3.]

[Held Monster Time: 4,700 Years (Fusible)]

Banxia felt the new ability settle into his body. He gave a satisfied nod.

"Not bad."

Three hundred years to patch a glaring weak spot. Not a bad trade.

Combat skills and spellbooks, you could never have too many. Push any skill far enough, and it paid off in ways you never expected.

"Skywalk."

He'd spent his whole youth staring up at the sky. Now that the skill was his, he couldn't help trying it on the spot.

All he had to do was step onto those floating "gaps" his eyes could see, and he could push off them through the air.

After a short time, he came back down.

The stamina cost was manageable. The problem was that the "gaps" barely pushed back at all. His aerial speed was painfully slow, a sitting duck in any real fight.

It also made a racket. Any monsters nearby would probably bolt at the first sound.

Traveling with this thing was more trouble than it was worth. Walking was faster.

Even so, Banxia found himself staring up at the sky.

Maybe this was the first step toward actual flight. Everything had to start somewhere.

And for someone who'd spent his younger years craning his neck at the clouds and imagining, a few extra seconds in the air was already something.

He exhaled and started north.

...

He hadn't gone far when a faint pull tugged at something inside him, drawing his attention toward a specific direction like a thread under the skin.

He thought about it for a moment, then decided to follow it.

"Lia." Banxia spotted the antlered girl through the trees of the primeval forest ahead.

Sacred Spirit Affinity must have picked up on the presence.

"Eh? Master~~~" Lia had been trudging along with the tribal migration, bored half to death. The moment those eyes landed on Banxia, they lit up. Lia launched forward without a second thought.

"...Easy." Banxia leaned back to dodge, expression flat.

Those antlers had nearly gone straight up his nose.

Lia didn't care. Both arms wrapped around him, slender legs hooking around his waist, face buried deep into his chest, like a young animal that had finally found its way back to its owner.

That soft, warm body pressed against him. Banxia, who'd already been running a bit hot lately, quietly crouched down before anyone around them noticed something was off.

Lia felt the shift and lifted a face from his chest, wearing a strange little smile.

Banxia looked away.

"...Lord Hero?" The rest of the deerfolk were catching up now, staring at him with wide, baffled expressions.

Hadn't this lord already headed north? What was he doing in the south, and how had he walked right into them?

"Long story." Banxia swept out a casual slash that cleared a patch of open ground, then carried Lia over and sat down on a tree stump.

He walked them through the past weeks while taking a closer look at his mount.

Must have been the Sacred Spirit bloodline. Despite going barefoot year-round through the wild, not a single speck of dirt touched those delicate little toes.

Long white hair fell in loose cascades. A pair of clean, elegant antlers swept back from atop the head, and fluffy beast ears peeked out through the strands.

The kind of face that made your hands want to do something. One glance and you were already reaching.

The forest-green robe didn't help. It draped over a pale underlayer like a veil of shadow, the hemline fluttering just enough to hint at the curve of a waist beneath.

Right now, even the mushroom girls he'd rated four and a half stars couldn't hold a candle to this.

And Lia was making it worse on purpose, leaning in just slightly, letting that warmth press against the tension already building.

"Lord Hero... are you alright?" One of the deerfolk had noticed Banxia go quiet at what should have been the climax of his labyrinth story and spoke up.

"..."

Banxia came back to himself. He cleared his throat and picked up where he'd left off.

Night came on slowly. A bonfire caught in the clearing, and its light turned Lia's white hair a soft, warm red.

The deerfolk had thrown together a simple camp by the time the story ended. Pots were going, food was starting.

Banxia, still very much in a certain state, wrestled the urge back down and turned to the tribe's leader with a sensible question:

"Actually — how are you lot only here now? It's been a while. Did something happen on the road?"

He'd spent a full month in the south before going north and hadn't managed to find Lia. He'd figured the tribe had gone deep into some isolated mountain range. He hadn't expected them to still be on their way south.

"Thanks to Lady Lia's blessing, we haven't run into trouble." The deerfolk warrior shook their head and gave a brief account of the journey.

Most towns didn't welcome beastfolk. Supplies had been nearly impossible to come by. They'd hunted and foraged their way south, moving slowly. On top of that, the tribe had been cut off from the outside world long enough that they had nothing worth trading, even the merchants willing to deal with them had nothing to offer in return.

"I hadn't thought of that." Banxia sat with it for a moment, then lifted Lia off his lap and set them aside.

Under Lia's confused look and the tribe's collective stare, he pressed a hand to his abdomen and opened his spatial pocket. Out came a pile of food and a heavy bag of gold coins.

Spatial storage didn't preserve things indefinitely, not like the novels back home suggested. At best, it slowed spoilage. He'd only packed a few months of his own provisions.

What he was pulling out now should be enough to carry a small tribe like this to the next town.

The gold was from when he'd set out, three full bags' worth, enough for one person to spend freely for a long time.

"Lord Hero... we couldn't possibly..." The deerfolk warrior hesitated.

"Don't worry about it." Banxia waved a hand. "To me, this is nothing. And besides..."

He glanced at Lia, who was looking a little forlorn about being moved off his lap.

Lia's people. Near enough to his own.

Helping them out was the obvious thing to do.

"I understand. Lord Hero, you are truly a generous and magnanimous soul."

"When you reach the south, go to the Xiaye Chamber of Commerce in Alterna." Banxia thought for a moment, then unclipped his adventurer's badge and handed it to Lia. "This has my personal mark on it. They'll know you're telling the truth."

"Master~" Lia leaned in and gave him a small, sweet kiss. "You're so good to me~~"

In the deerfolk warriors' polite confusion, Banxia leaned down to Lia's ear and murmured, "Nothing's free."

"Hm?" Lia tilted the head, looking perfectly innocent.

"You'll find out tonight."

"Oh."

A slow blink. Then, as memory surfaced, something expectant crept into those eyes.

...

The next morning, Banxia said his goodbyes to Lia and the deerfolk in excellent spirits.

His experiment had confirmed it: Sacred Spirit Affinity could gain proficiency through activities Lia genuinely enjoyed.

The gains from a single night weren't much, though. Reaching lv.3 that way was going to take an extraordinary amount of effort.

He shook his head, cleared his mind, and got moving.

The next destination came up quickly.

The village was known for having once housed the sealed Xiaoyan. Right now, its residents were looking at Banxia like they'd seen a ghost.

He strolled down the main street. Every person he passed froze, eyes wide, not daring to breathe.

Word reached the village elder fast. The elder came hurrying over, stared at him, and blurted out:

"You — you're not dead?"

"Has news from the south still not reached you? It's been a while." Banxia had given up bothering to comment. He just shook his head at how slowly information traveled in this world. "Do I look like I came back from the dead?"

"...Lord Hero, I didn't realize even the labyrinth of the mythological era couldn't finish you off." The elder wiped a quick sweat from the brow and managed a dry laugh.

"I came to ask about something. Those small dogs that can sense Xiaoyan — do you still have any?"

"Ah, the Manu?"

"Right. Those." That was actually why Banxia had gone out of his way here.

Last time, he'd been focused on bringing down Xiaoyan and had nearly forgotten that the fire dragon's kin were powerful monsters in their own right, each one worth a solid hundred years of lifespan. The question was whether, now that Xiaoyan had fallen back into slumber, those small creatures could revert to their monster form.

"We still have a few..." The elder had settled down by now, less frightened. "I'll take you to them."

"Good."

They didn't have far to walk. The spot was a large tree stump.

Beside it sat a rough little doghouse, the wood still showing fresh-cut marks. Clearly built not long ago.

Banxia stopped.

Unless his memory was off, this was where Mabel — descendant of the Ice Clan, had been living. The great tree had been hollow inside, practically its own private space. Now there was nothing left but a flat stump.

The elder seemed to read the question on his face.

"Lord Hero, once you dealt with Xiaoyan, we no longer had any reason to provide for the Ice Clan's descendant. So we found her a lighter sort of work instead."

"Sounds reasonable."

"At first it seemed fine. But then she was late every shift, or leaving early. We tried her in a few different roles — same story every time. She even claimed you told her that if she didn't feel like working, she didn't have to, and that she shouldn't worry about what other people think..."

Banxia went quiet.

...Had he said that?

He supposed he had said something like it. He hadn't meant it quite like that.

"Eventually, because she was so thoroughly lazy, we tried to let her go. She turned around and gave us a proper dressing-down." The elder's face went slightly red at the memory.

An entire village, scolded by one girl who'd barely trained a day in her life.

"So you cut down the tree."

"...Yes."

"Shame." Banxia shook his head.

That tree had to have been growing for centuries, it had taken a dozen people linking arms just to reach around it.

"You're not angry with us, Lord Hero?"

"Why would I be?"

"Because Mabel claimed it was on your orders..."

"Don't misread that. I never told her to do any of this."

"I knew it!" The elder's indignation was immediate and total. "Not a single word that girl says can be trusted!"

Banxia let that go and looked at the doghouse. "All the Manu are in there?"

"Yes, all of them."

"Step back a bit. I want to run a test."

"Of course." The elder asked no questions and trotted off to a respectful distance.

When the area was quiet, Banxia reached into his spatial storage and drew out a glass vial.

Inside it, a fire-red fragment pulsed in slow, steady beats, like a small heart. A remnant shard left behind by Xiaoyan.

The Manu inside the doghouse didn't react at all.

"No good." He studied them, expression falling.

One small fragment wasn't enough to trigger a monster transformation in the Manu. Without reverting, they were just ordinary little pets. The plan to harvest large amounts of lifespan through Rejuvenation would have to wait.

He put the vial away and crouched down. One of the Manu had wandered over and was nosing at his trouser leg. He scratched it behind the ear without thinking about it.

The small creature wagged its tail and let out a soft, contented whimper. Nothing about it suggested the savage thrall of a monster's kin.

"Lord Hero, this is..."

The elder stared at the bag of gold coins now sitting in both hands, eyes going round.

This was more gold than the elder had seen in a lifetime.

"You must have some method for breeding Manu."

"You mean..."

"Breed me more of them. I may have use for them later."

"But Xiaoyan has been defeated. They're just pets now. Are you certain?"

"Absolutely." Banxia nodded.

The elder hadn't seen what Banxia had just done with the vial, which was probably for the best. Anyone watching would have concluded the hero had lost his mind: hoarding a fragment of Xiaoyan and commissioning a breeding program for the fire dragon's kin.

"Alright. I'll head north again."

The elder's expression shifted to open reverence. Word of Banxia's march through the Human Forbidden Area had spread across most of the south by now, carried by traveling bards. For the vast majority of people who had never laid eyes on him, the answer to who was the greatest person of this age required no thought at all.

The hero, naturally.

"Ah — Lord Hero." The elder paused, as if remembering something. "When Mabel left, she mentioned something about going to find you. No idea where she's gotten to by now."

"Noted."

Banxia gave a small nod and took one last look at the Manu peering up at him with bright, curious eyes.

"..."

➤ Next: City of Commerce