33 Risen#re

During the first hour of the march, Lirian's watch began to beep.

<New Discovery>

Lirian had the watch read it aloud, as the commander all new discoveries would ring on his watch.

Someone had found a piece of fungus growing on a tree and decided to try their luck and recorded it.

This came as a pleasant surprise to Lirian, aside from the generals, scouts and cartographers, and psychics he hadn't given out any roles, and he wanted to give it when distress started to build up in the students.

A new discovery would make the students more eager to work hard without any additional incentives and in doing so prolong the time before problems arose.

The best part about the new discovery was that it came before they reached the unexplored area, which meant that they'd get extra credit for finding something that was previously missed, by other exploration teams.

It was a few hours later that the river entered into a proper forest, and it was there that the first problem started.

The forest was beautiful and green, but the insects inside it were anything but beautiful, and entire hordes of flying insects could be found frequently along the riverbanks.

The swarms formed black clouds within the trees, that could easily cover 30 people.

After over a dozen encounters in three hours, they were forced to stop their advance and the candidates held a meeting on how to proceed.

"The scouts have it fine they can easily avoid the swarms with their small parties, however the students have been asking if we can use the insecticide on the swarms," Wentian was telling them, as he was the one in charge of the scouts.

Media shook her head, "We can't waste the insecticide, we only brought a little extra, but it's needed to keep our campsites free of insects."

"I propose that we form a pyromancer division with the mages, they can incinerate the insects as we move," Media put forward her idea.

Cole shook his head, "Bad idea, I did something similar, but the moment you start playing with wildfire the creatures will go crazy, we'll be constantly fighting everywhere we go."

"That won't be a problem here," Edith said pointedly, "We have over 3000 people, the only creatures that will interfere with us while we march, will be those that are starving and desperate for food," she reasoned.

No creature was stupid enough to attack a large army.

"Well, so long that we don't invade and destroy their territories, or we run into a third-grade creature that can completely steam role us," Lirian added in optimistically.

They had already resolved the problem before he could add anything useful, it wasn't like what he said was wrong.

---

The new teams were quickly formed, and they resumed their march through the forest, with little to no problems and three days later they broke past the explored area and into the unknown.

In terms of scenery nothing changed much, but the cartography division got extremely busy from then on, as they joined the scouts every morning and begun to compile the route they were taking as well as the landmarks that could be used as references.

Over the next few days, the timid looking cartographers were heard cursing and shouting at frequent intervals within the camp, because as it turned out finding actual landmarks they could work with in a forest filled with enormous trees was almost impossible.

On the 9th day a scout came rushing back into the camp along with the cartographer on his team, as soon as they arrived they created a stir as they raced to the candidates, ignoring the protocols.

On one hand the cartographer seemed to be ecstatic while the scout looked panicked.

"Sir Lirian," both of them greeted quickly, Lirian recognised the cartographer, she was that girl Carmen that dared to say cartography was about drawing maps.

"What's this about?", Lirian asked them calmly.

Carmen smiled, "You know how my division has been moody because we couldn't find a proper landmark to reference, well we found one that can't be mistaken or missed," she said ecstatically.

"What is it?" Lirian asked from the way the scout was panicking he had a feeling that it would be bad news.

Carmen's face lost it's glow when Lirian asked that, and she turned to the scout, "We are heading straight for a water fall and a huge one at that, it's 4 hours away, and all the other scouts are converging on it, the fall is way to high we need to find a new route.

Media was sitting on her horse next to Lirian and her face dropped, with a waterfall, they would have to re-route, if they were lucky it would only waste a day of their time.

"How's the view?" Lirian asked thoughtfully, without any anger or annoyance in his tone, which left everyone in surprise

"-t-t-The view?" the scout repeated not sure what Lirian was talking about.

"At the waterfall, how is the scenery? is it beautiful? is it ugly? will it take a person's breath away when they see it, or will they glance at it once and never bother to look at it again?" Lirian asked, this time a mild tone of annoyance was mixed into his voice.

"It's extraordinary Sir," Carmen quickly chimed, she didn't see how the view could affect him, but entertaining him seemed to be the only way to proceed without causing a problem.

"The drop is at least 600 yards it's a rush to simply look down," she added.

Lirian nodded, "One last thing, is there a clearing at the fall where we will be able to set up camp for the night?"

Carmen answered positively, and soon the entire group was made aware of the situation.

"Shouldn't we re-route from here," Media complained, "We are going to lose a lot of time, besides if we go to the waterfall now, we'll waste three hours of marching time."

Lirian shook his head, "We've already lost the time we need to do what you wanted, even if we can reach our original destination, we'll only have a few hours before we have to turn around."

"It was a good plan Media, but sometimes things don't go as planned, if we want to salvage this we need to sit down for a long time and rethink our path," he consoled the saddened Media and followed the sound of the students footsteps.

---

"It looks amazing," Lirian said for the hundredth time already as he stood on the very edge of the ledge by the waterfall where no one else dared to go, the view down made them queasy.

"You aren't fooling anyone into coming closer," Edith complained as she looked at Lirian standing so close to the edge that it made her stomach tighten.

"I just want my girlfriend to accompany me here is that so much to ask," he asked in a saddened voice.

"Girlfriend!?" he heard several shocked cries as the candidates glanced between the two of them, they knew that the two of them were fooling around from time to time but they weren't aware that it was official.

Edith ignored them and looked at Lirian sternly, "If you keep standing so close to the edge, that is going to turn into ex-girlfriend," she retorted.

Her response was a confirmation for the others, "When?" Cole blorted out as he glanced between them.

"The day before we set out," Lirian answered Cole's question while smiling at Edith playfully.

"And you can say that the relationship came to an end on the day we reached the waterfall, because Lirian insists on acting like an idiot!" Edith told Cole and turned around to walk away.

Lirian chuckled and ran after her, when he caught up with her he grabbed her hand and made her face him, "Sorry I don't do take backs, so you're kinda stuck with me," he said with his best smile.

Edith didn't try to fight back as she was caught up in his smile, "Please don't do that again," she implored him while hugging him tightly, "It's scary enough to see someone who has their eyes do that," she whispered placing her chin on his shoulder.

"I still have my eyes," Lirian complained, "They just aren't working temporarily," he mused to her.

He felt her fingers suddenly dig into his back as she huff in anger, "You know what you're doing turns me on," he whispered and gave her a quick kiss on the lips.

She puffed even harder as she had to stop digging her nails into his back and stomped on the ground, she intended to stomp his foot, but she was afraid it would turn him on even more.

"Okay, I'll stop," Lirian gave into her demands with a happy laugh, "But, tell me how is the view, do you like it?"

Edith turned to look at him with a saddened face and gently rubbed his face, "I wish you could see it with me," she said softly with a slight quiver in her voice.

When Edith looked around she could see this place become some sort of romantic resort for new couples to visit.

"I'm glad that we came here together," she said wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a proper kiss, despite knowing that some of the students were probably watching them.

She didn't know how to tell him how amazing the view was so she did the only thing she could to let him understand.