[TWS] Chapter 12 - Infinite Storage (Patreon)

While people at the academy had most likely already heard about the huge black panther, those in the city shouldn’t yet have received any rumours about it, but Miria jumped back to her realm nevertheless. They wanted to keep the attention on them to the minimum for as long as it was possible. Ast knew it wouldn’t be that long considering how fast they showed Miria’s form at the academy, but some more peaceful time was always appreciated.

Finally done with his obligations, Asterios headed towards the guild. He might not have been showing it, but deep down he was really excited about going on his first quest. He was aware that it wouldn’t be anything epic by any means due to his rank, but that fact wasn’t able to overcome his curious nature.

It would take some time before they started earning enough to cover anything more than just some basic materials required for summoning and the arts connected to it, so the earlier they began the better.

Miria was also quite thrilled to see more of his world and to spend more time by Ast’s side. She already was having lots of fun and going on a proper adventure seemed like a step higher.

After arriving at the guild, Ast had to wait a moment for Ellie to finish talking with another member. He went closer to the board and examined some commissions. As usual, most of the valuable ones were always picked and completed quickly.

Although, the guild introduced a system to prevent people from just taking the quest notice and then struggling with the task for a long time, not wanting to give it to others while it only unnecessarily prolonged the completion process.

When an adventurer picked a quest, they had to bring it to the counter and register his take on it. Then, depending on the character of the quest, the employee would give the member a copy of the notice and return the original to the board if it was deemed fine for many others to join or try to complete it at the same time. And when another person came to register for it, they were informed about others already undertaking it and the risk that they might just waste their time. They still could go with it but they had to have in mind the possibility of returning after it was already handed back.

It was a decent system that got rid of a lot of potential issues. The employees were often the ones to decide if it was okay to let more people attend the request and gave the concurrent adventurers advice to pick another or go with that one.

Seeing his friend finished with her business, Ast walked to Ellie, who naturally noticed his approach and smiled at him.

“Welcome back! Already done with the things you mentioned?” she asked.

“Yeah. We can do some work now.”

“Great! I’ve noted down a few nice tasks when you were gone. Don’t get your hopes too high up though, no dragon slaying for you yet.”

He chuckled. “Why would I want to hurt a Dragon? Unless it was wreaking havoc somewhere. Still, I’d rather try to talk to it first.”

Ellie let out a giggle. “True, that sounds more like you. Just don’t put yourself in too much risk if you ever have a chance to try it, okay? Well then, here are the requests, take a look.”

She handed him four pieces of paper with some neatly written notes. Ast could tell that she made them herself and just from a quick glance he could easily figure out what was the core issue that needed solving. He looked at the creator of those documents and she was just smiling charmingly.

He shook his head at the amount of effort Ellie put into those and returned to checking the contents of the quests. One was a mass commission for hunting wild wolves for a tannery. The task asked for 10, so many adventurers could pick it up.

The second one was a typical gathering commission for Moontail Grass, an ingredient commonly used in alchemy. He considered picking that quest, it was a nice opportunity to get some for himself since it had some uses in summoning too and Ellie would provide him with some information on where he could possibly find the plant.

Third and fourth were some minor tasks about helping someone with construction and assisting in the forge. He didn’t mind those little jobs, but naturally, the first two were much more beneficial and interesting.

~Which one of these should we pick, Miria?~ he asked his partner.

~Can’t we do both? They seem easy, right?~

Ast nodded and turned back to Ellie. “Are wolves and Moontail Grass areas any close to each other?”

“Hmmmm…” She glanced down at something behind the counter. “There should be around a few hours on foot between the closest spots marked on our map. Mind that they might not be 100% accurate or were already visited. You want to go for both?”

“Yes, and I don’t think the distance will be a problem.” Miria agreed with him mentally. “I already know the details about the Grass, anything important you can tell me about the first task?”

“One second… There were some reports about an alpha in those regions… besides that… it should be just your usual wild wolves. Don’t drop your guard nevertheless,” she reminded Ast.

“Don’t worry, you should always expect the unexpected, summoning has already taught me this tens of times. Anyway, we’ll register for those two then.”

“Got it. I’ll give you a map and the infographic on the Moontail Grass just in case. Better have it rather than not.”

They filled the forms together and Ast bid farewell to Ellie.

~What now Master? Are we going to depart instantly?~ Miria couldn’t hold back her eagerness to leave the town.

~Pretty much, yeah. It looks like we need around twelve hours on foot to reach the plants so even with your speed, we should pick up some gear for the trip, like bedrolls, tents, flint and such since we might camp in the wilds before returning. I need to buy a big backpack to store all that. I hope it won’t inconvenience you too much while I ride on your back.~

He could feel Miria pondering over something while he walked towards a general store. She soon spoke to Ast.

~Ummm… I have a question.~

~Yes?~

~Couldn’t I just take the equipment back with me to my home and bring it out when needed? You wouldn’t have to carry it that way, no?~

Asterios stopped and his eyes went wide. He never considered transferring items along with the summon back to their world, because neither Mii nor Roy was able to do something like that with how small they were. But with Miria being practically like a member of any humanoid race, living in a developed realm and having an actual house, they could use it as their personal storage. She already was bringing things from there, like her swords and such, so it obviously should work the other way too.

~Miria, that’s an amazing idea! You are a genius!~

Ast started joyfully patting her head through their link and she began giggling to herself. She felt happy to hear that her suggestion was somehow helpful.

To fully confirm that this strategy worked, he stepped into an empty alley and summoned Miria in her humanoid form. She took his spatial pouch with her back home without any issue and then returned it to Ast soon after.

Miria jumped at Ast to hug him after seeing how delighted he was with her discovery. Only after she felt his hand gently grazing through her hair she realized what she was doing and got embarrassed quickly. Unfortunately, Ast started scratching his fingers behind her ears and she literally melted in his embrace, losing all her strength to run away. He smiled at the catgirl squirming under his hands and she blushed heavily.

Ending their little fun, Ast let Miria return after giving her a few more scratches. He was starting to like petting the adorable panther. Then, he proceeded to get the things they needed without having to worry about how much space they took. In half an hour he got pretty much everything he could think of.

Since it was barely around noon, Asterios went back to inform his mother about their little trip. She stopped them for a moment and prepared a quick, boxed lunch. He gave her a kiss on the forehead as thanks and left, passing the food to Miria.

She wanted to test her speed and endurance after becoming Asterios’s partner, so they made the whole trip in one go, with Miria running in her panther form non-stop. It took them just four hours at her second to best speed. Ast didn’t want her to end completely exhausted since that could be dangerous.

Still, Miria clearly noticed the difference. She was getting tired a little slower than before while achieving her previously highest speed. She was really excited for the future since Ast told her that those were just small and basic effects of their connection.

He himself was also quite surprised by how potent their connection was. He didn’t feel like he was dragging such a powerful partner down, which should have happened with his old aptitude. For the whole ride, Ast focused on training to efficiently control and pour his now different mana into Miria’s body to revitalize her. It didn’t come that easy as he didn’t have much experience with such robust spiritual energy before. He decided that it would be a good idea to return to some exercises he stopped doing years ago after he reached what he could with his energy reserves.

They rested for half an hour after arriving at the first spot marked on the map. Moontail Grass came first as both of them agreed to take care of the safer and less thrilling task from the get-go. Ast showed Miria, who changed into her humanoid form, the picture of the plant and explained which part was important.

Moontail Grass had a thin stalk ending with a part which looked like a crescent moon. There were two long leaves on both sides, growing higher than the stalk and then leaning to the centre, creating a bit of a heart’s shape. To properly conserve it, one had to gently wrap both of them around the stalk before cutting it in the middle.

Why? Because if you didn’t, the head would wither quickly. Moontail Grass coiled the leaves by itself during full moons and thus made it easy to collect, but the next one wasn’t anywhere close to happening soon. Supposedly, when it was surrounded by its leaves, it was absorbing the moonlight so the head had to stay active for the whole process. Doing that manually, you were simulating that moment.

In around two hours of searching and collecting, they gathered around half of the required amount. It wasn’t that easy to find bigger collections of the plant, it usually grew alone in the spots with clear views of the sky. Ast recalled Miria to come back to him and she arrived at his place just to see him preparing a fireplace.

“Let’s rest for today. It isn’t any easier looking for it during the night. Help me with the fire and the tent, please. Then, you can return back home,” he said.

Miria brought the items he requested and helped set everything up. Ast noticed how she was stealing glances at him in silence the whole time.

“If you have something on your mind, just speak up. Or do I have to make you talk every time, hmm?” He smiled and waved at her to sit near the fire. She complied.

“Can I stay with you here?” Miria asked a bit shyly.

“Hm? Wouldn’t you rather sleep in your bed?”

“I don’t mind sleeping on the ground and it would be more fun that way. I think…” Her tail was beginning to wag more and more behind her back while she was trying to keep a composed expression.

Ast checked his spiritual circuits and pondered. Again, there was barely any strain on them and Miria was in his world for some hours already. He concluded that this could be a decent chance to test it more so he waved his hand at her.

“I’m fine with it if that’s what you want.”

“Yes!”

Miria smiled beautifully, with her tail swishing gleefully too, and proceeded to bring out her own sleeping bag. She stopped for a moment in front of the tent they set up and looked at Ast. He glanced at her too.

“Do you need a separate one?” he asked and began raising himself up.

“No, no, no! I’m fine with sleeping… together… that is, if you don’t mind!” she shook her head and announced while averting her gaze.

“No need to get so flustered. You sure it’s fine with you?”

“Of course!” she answered and quickly dove into the tent to place her bedroll in there.

He shook his head and walked to the edge of their camp to set some wires as a safety measure. Unfortunately, none of them was a magician able to cast Alarm or similar spells so he had to resort to more conventional methods. Besides Livelihood Magic and a few various utility spells almost anyone with mana could learn, Ast was purely focused on summoning and techniques linked to it.

They chatted some more time around the fire, went through a few fighting strategies, set a few signals and predetermined actions and went to sleep in their respective sleeping bags. He let Miria jump into hers first, expecting her to get too flustered to do it at the same time and slid into his own after taking off his coat. They were lying around one arm length from each other since the tent wasn’t too big. Ast had no problems falling asleep, but Miria couldn’t calm her mind down from lying almost in reach of him for at least an hour.

In the morning, something ticklish brushing over his nose woke Asterios up. He groaned a little and blew a bit of air to get rid of the invader. It returned after a second so he blew even stronger. Irritated after it appeared again, he used his right hand to swat the thing away.

“Ehehehe… munyaamunyaamunyaa…” A cute giggle and some mumbling just by his side followed.

Ast’s eyes shot open and he found out that the ticklish thing was actually Miria’s ear in front of his face. He glanced down and found her snuggled into his chest, sleeping peacefully in his bag with him. She was cutely clutching his shirt with both of her hands and resting her forehead on his collarbone while he was lying on his left side.

He sighed and chuckled at the adorable sight. There was no way for him to leave without waking her up and he could already see her getting all embarrassed finding herself in such a position.

「Oh well, not like I have any other options,」he thought to himself and began brushing his fingers against the side of Miria’s face.

She soon started waking up with a cute yawn which made her head hit Ast’s jaw. Miria massaged the place while opening her eyes and froze. She squeezed her other hand which was still clutching his shirt, looked down, and then very slowly lifted her gaze up until her eyes met his smiling face.

“Good morning. Slept well?” he asked.

Miria’s face went red almost instantly, making Asterios chuckle again. Her eyes kept darting away.

“Is this Master’s…”

“Yes, it is.”

“Did I…”

“I think so.”

She hid her face in his chest. “I’m—”

Miria wanted to quickly apologize, but she remembered how he told her to stop doing so at every occasion. He didn’t seem to be angry at her for sneaking in. She tried to compose herself as hard as she could and looked up at him.

“I don’t remember being a sleepwalker, ehehehe~,” she exclaimed with an embarrassed giggle.

Ast smiled and patted her head. “You learn something new with each da—”

Miria’s ears twitched and stood up to attention. This wasn’t her usual reaction to his hand. Ast noticed Miria’s expression turning more serious and she locked her eyes with his, forgetting her embarrassed state.

“Someone is running this way,” she notified him.

Ast was impressed by her keen hearing, being able to perceive such detail even from the inside of a tent. Soon the voice of a man reached their ears.

“Help! Is there someone in that tent?”

They nodded at each other and quickly got up to see what was happening. Miria turned into her panther form and left the tent after Asterios.

★━━━━━━━━━━━━Author's Notes━━━━━━━━━━━━★

I don't really like telling people what to do so that I don't sound entitled, but since this series is part of a contest on ScribbleHub, let me just kindly ask all those who are willing, to also check the chapter on the site and possibly add the series to their reading list or/and favourite the chapters they liked. With your help, we have a chance to compete. Thanks a lot in advance!