Ep. 321 Heading for the Summit Part 1 (Patreon)

It takes me another couple of hours to finish the coat, but I should still get plenty of rest before morning. Before I go to sleep I walk over to check on Asuna, putting my hand on her side I scan her core again. Seeing how small it currently is I decide to only put a small amount of power into it, I don't want to stress her young body.

If I just make small improvements to her core it should strengthen her as she grows. Once she is a bit older I will be able to increase the amount, this way she should be able to become Kechara's equal. Since I only use a small amount of power on Asuna I use the rest on Kechara's core.

Then I curl up on the floor and get a few hours of sleep, I wake myself up when the sun comes up. Both of them are still sleeping so I do my best not to wake them as I get up and move around. Deciding to let them sleep a bit more I take what is left of the boar fur and make it into a proper nest for Asuna.

Only once that is complete do I start making breakfast, as soon as I start cooking the two of them start waking up. As the smell gets stronger they finally open their eyes and get up to stretch. Asuna is the first to leave her nest and come sit by the fire to watch the food cook.

Kechara just watches from her nest, she knows by now that she will get the same amount no matter what she does. Looking down at Asuna I would say she has grown a few inches already, and she seems perfectly fine. That should mean the little bit of power I put into her core didn't cause her any problems.

After handing out the food I eat my portion quickly and then finish setting up Asuna's nest. Then I put on my new coat, I am quite pleased with how well it turned out. Once Asuna is done eating I pick her up and put her inside the hood of the coat, she quickly curls up for her nap.

When Kechara is done eating I walk outside and she quickly follows me, the weather looks pretty good. So I set off down the slope and then start following the path once again, Kechara looks curious so I explain we are heading for the temple. As soon as I say that she gets excited and starts jumping all around me, she only calms down when I say she is coming with me.

Looks like she was worried she was going to be left behind, which I guess is understandable. While she has an expressive face and I can mostly tell what she is thinking I can't help but wish she could speak. Although, Great Mother Wolf was able to talk so maybe as she gets older or higher rank she will be able to as well.

After a while Asuna wakes up, but she seems perfectly content to ride along in the hood. The only real change is she sticks her head out to look around as I continue following the path. This makes me happy, since as long as she is with me I have a much easier time crossing the snow.

Apparently she also makes it easier to keep my footing even when I am walking across ice. All in all, having Asuna with me is going to make it a lot easier for me to reach the summit where the temple is. I am fairly sure I could just go straight up the mountain instead of following the path, but I decide to play it safe.

After all, the path was made by mages, maybe if you don't follow the path you can't enter the library or something like that. For all I know the path might only exist as some form of test for mages. It is better to just play it safe and stick to the path, especially since I have already followed it this far.

When I round a bend and spot another slope with some trees on it I decide to stop for lunch. After collecting firewood and starting a fire I let Asuna down to explore, I make sure to keep an eye on her though. I notice Kechara is also keeping an eye on her which makes me happy.

After lunch we continue on, Asuna is once again napping in my hood, but that is the main reason I added a hood. Unless I am in a bad storm I won't actually use the hood since it will limit my hearing. After the experience I had hunting I am well aware that there are predators on this mountain, they are just really good at hiding.

So I have all my senses turned up to the max, I don't mind fighting but I don't want to be ambushed. Most of the time Kechara is flying around rather than walking, so between the two of us not much should escape our notice. This is especially true for Kechara, it is a lot harder to hide from something that is flying.

Again I find myself wondering what it would be like to be able to fly, then again I think everything born without wings dreams of flying. Maybe one day I will be able to fly, but for now I just keep trudging up the mountain. For the entire time since lunch I have been keeping an eye out for somewhere to spend the night, I would prefer not to be in the open.

If I can find a good place I will even stop and camp early, having some sort of shelter is more important than making a bit better time. Unfortunately, by the time the sun starts going down I still haven't seen any shelter, so I ask Kechara to look around before the light fades. She quickly flies off to have a look around and I stay put so she can find me easily.

It only takes about ten minutes before she comes back and starts leading me somewhere. Since the path is a slow spiral around the mountain there is plenty of area that the path doesn't cross. Kechara leads me to a cave entrance, but I stop before reaching it and crouch down.

The snow in front of the cave has a lot of strange holes in it, when I take a closer look it looks like a spike was driven into the snow repeatedly. As I look at the holes I am remembering that the drider's spider legs ended in spikes. I didn't really get a chance to see what their tracks looked like but I would imagine it is close to this.

When I ask Kechara if she senses a barrier, she looks around and then nods at me. When I ask if she has been to this one before she looks ashamed as she shakes her head. Reaching back I draw Blitz and tell Asuna to stay in the hood, then I slowly walk into the cave to have a look.