Chapter 181 Who is Alice?
Half a day later, in the evening, our group gathered again in an open space.
The former [Dragon Graveyard] had been completely wiped off the ground half a day ago. Apart from a large area filled with various depressions and debris such as broken bones, almost nothing else remained.
The forest that once had serrated leaves has been mostly destroyed by several impacts, leaving only a few bare roots exposed far from the epicenter, forced to tremble in the wind.
The enormous bone dragon left not even a trace of ash; a huge pit even appeared where the bones had piled up, its edges covered with a glassy, brittle shell that shimmered with a faint golden light.
I tried searching for a long time.
After the turbulent flow of magical energy that I had deliberately created dissipated, everything was quiet in my senses, and I did not hear any abnormal fluctuations.
The gray wolf shadow, turning back, appeared in the distance. After circling around, it looked up at the sky, glanced at the snow-white spirit beasts that were flapping their wings and flying towards it, then glanced back at us, dragging its tail, and slowly walked away into the distance.
Following the gray wolves, we easily found Annie and Ian, a pair of people who were gathering branches to build a campfire and campsite.
It's so good that they're both alright.
I had intended to say that, but after opening my mouth, I tried to utter a sound several times but failed. In the end, I could only close my mouth in disappointment. After settling the limp Hikari into a comfortable position, I walked into the nearby forest with Miyuki, who had regained some strength.
"Let us do it."
Noticing what was happening, Annie quickly walked over, first taking the firewood we had just picked up and putting it back in the camp, then pulling us down to sit on a rock of suitable size near the camp, saying: "You guys rest here for now."
She brushed aside her disheveled hair and looked away: "We just encountered such a big guy, and neither I, that other person, nor I were able to do much... So, let's do it this time."
"...Is everything alright?" I thought back to the stew we had eaten earlier. "At least we can take care of cooking and stuff..."
“I’ve seen you guys do this many times before, so I know the general process.” Annie answered instinctively, then immediately realized her mistake and jumped back two steps. “Ah! I already said that last time was an accident! At least I’m still very confident in my grilling skills!”
After tilting my head and thinking for a moment, I finally agreed with what she said at the end.
"Then I'll leave it to you."
I nodded to Annie and then to Aian, who happened to be looking this way from a distance, and leaned against a nearby tree trunk, completely relaxing my body.
Of course, to avoid the two of them going to track prey only to end up with nothing and getting injured, I took out some leftover ingredients and meat chops from my pocket and handed them over, and then stopped saying anything more.
Having held on until now, the effects of physical exhaustion have become fully apparent, but of course, that's not the most important thing.
Even though I repeatedly used magic stone fragments to replenish the massive leaks of magic power, the conversion and transfer still required a significant amount of time and meticulous operation in practice. And no matter how careful I was, the externally supplied magic power was not entirely equivalent to what I possessed, and considerable losses still occurred during the transmission process.
It's like repeatedly pouring water into a container; no matter how careful you are, a thin layer will still remain on the container wall, let alone with an intermediate filter. With several transfers, this loss accumulates.
The best way to deal with this loss is to quickly ingest more magic stones full of magic power.
However, the essence of a magic stone is, after all, an aggregate of magic power. This time, the excessively rough intake, although it did not cause the accumulation of magic power lumps as before, still made my magic circuits extremely painful. This was a consequence of being instantly flushed by a large amount of magic power. In fact, I should say that I was already quite lucky.
The outward manifestation of this situation is that after I completely relaxed my control over my body, my hands were constantly trembling, and there were many small black and red marks left by burst capillaries on the inside of my forearms and the sides of my ten fingers, which looked somewhat frightening.
“Your body is still too weak.” Miyuki frowned, noticing this. “If you could exercise more, you probably wouldn’t be in such a sorry state now.”
I twitched the corner of my mouth: "Magic circuits can only be nurtured little by little by circulating magic power; they cannot be easily or instantaneously created."
"Don't even mention me. Even seasoned swordsmen are in a sorry state right now, aren't they?"
Look at Shen Xue sitting not far from me! This former ice-cold swordswoman, her signature icy-black hair is now covered in dust and mud, almost obscuring its original color and texture. Her equipment is mostly damaged, her exposed skin is red from the cold wind, and there's even a wound hastily tied with a strip of cloth, from which oozes dried, dark red blood.
And the pair of swords in her hands—if I hadn't remembered what they originally looked like, I would have almost mistaken them for firewood sticks picked up from somewhere by the roadside.
Of course, mine isn't much better.
Faced with my sarcasm, Miyuki nodded in deep agreement: "You're right. After my injury has almost healed, I still need to continue to practice more."
"...Rest is also very important."
"But your expression tells me that's not what you're thinking right now."
I silently turned my face away, repeatedly clenching and unclenching my fists.
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