270 Mountain Ranges
The mountain ranges that divided the Oteforge Empire and the Melki Empire were a frightening place. The mountains were kilometers long and stretched as far as the human eye could not see. Their sharp peaks were made of the purest ice, and even the middle parts of these mountains had layers and layers of deep snow.
A warm wind blew from every corner of this mountain, and it came from all directions. Not to mention the treacherous and deadly terrain.
The word slip in this place was synonymous with death, and it was no wonder that these mountain ranges prevented a major war at the time the continent’s Empires were making moves to expand.
“Luke, when will we stop for a rest? Sniff…” Meredith asked with her nose running a little. She was hugging herself from being so cold, and yet she was shivering quite a bit.
The half-wolf turned back around, taking off his hood, “There’s no way we can stop now, a storm is coming, and if we’re homeless when it starts, we could freeze to death.” He looked at the region of the sky behind the half-fox and saw that the higher clouds continued to follow him toward the mountain ranges.
It had been five days since they had left Sheltered Halvoy, crossed a dense forest and started up into the mountains. Saying goodbye to his friends was not easy, not when he had fought so hard to bring them close to him and was suddenly leaving them, but in his view it was necessary.
When Ayumi Yamazaki heard about Luke’s plan, she asked him to try to talk to the Emperor, because maybe he could get a team that specialized in infiltration, after all, in her view this was better than him going it alone. Luke refused for the same reason he refused the position of Shadow Squadron Commander. He didn’t want to carry the responsibility for the life and death of others, he wasn’t ready for that yet.
In any case, all the half-wolf wanted to do at this moment was to focus on his goal, and not on the people he left behind.
Since the storm was coming in their direction, Luke and Meredith urgently needed to find a cave for shelter, or at least a hole in a mountain. However, getting around was very difficult because of the more than forty centimeter layer of snow, and any sudden movement could mean a deadly slide.
“Okay, Meredith, get on my back.” Luke ordered. He had his back to her, and leaned forward a little as he called to her with his hands. “If I can jump, we can go faster.”
The half-fox put her hands on her waist, and debauched a little. “Do you really think you can do it? I’m a little heavy.” She inquired.
Luke knew her so well that he knew her debauchery was just her way of disguising her shyness. Did he know that from the tone of her voice? No, it was because her tail was wagging really fast.
As soon as he glazed his eyes on her bulky, red-haired tail, Meredith realized that she let that give her away once again.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
She turned her face for a second, and this time her tail did not wag, however, her face did blush quite a bit.
With Meredith at his back, Luke felt more confident to go faster. So, he began to jump from side to side, and these jumps were over ten feet high. This was only possible now because the Second Stage of the Sea Ornament greatly increased his physical attributes, especially his agility and strength.
The moment the storm started, and the swift winds from the mountaintops began to whistle in the eardrums of the two half-beasts, they knew they were in trouble.
Despite this, Luke kept moving forward. He jumped, landed in a safe place, waited a second, watched for the next place he should land, and jumped once more. This process was deterministic so that they didn’t land in a snowy hole or, worse, fall off a cliff.
Luke kept moving forward, but suddenly Meredith squeezed his shoulders firmly.
“Luke, wait a minute. There’s something wrong here…” She shouted so that her voice would stand out over the noise of the wind.
He immediately stopped. “What is it?”
“We are not alone. Pay attention to your hearing.”
At first, the half-wolf found such a request strange in this situation, only he still followed the instruction as he knew that Meredith would not be alarmed by any nonsense.
Since the half-wolf had senses as sharp as Luke’s, it wasn’t too difficult for him to hear what she was talking about. At a frequency lower than the wind, there was the sound of snow being pressed down firmly, which in this situation could only be footsteps.
If there were footsteps, it could mean that there were locals nearby, so they felt relieved for a moment. Only when they got a little closer to the sound, strange voices became quite evident.
“Come on, you slugs! Can’t you people realize how boring this fucking weather is!?”
The two half-slugs sneaked closer to where the voice came from, and noticed that they were on slightly higher ground. They peered down from above and saw a very small man riding on the neck of a very large humanoid creature. In front of this man were five other humanoid creatures.
For a brief moment the storm abated a little and the vision became a little clearer, which allowed the half-beasts to see better.
The giant creatures were fat, but had very muscular arms and legs that could easily crush the small man with the annoying voice. One look at these things was enough to realize that they were not humans, but monsters, and that they looked almost perfectly like the descriptions of a Goblorc, in other words, real giants.
These giant creatures grumbled a little as they kept walking forward with wooden boxes strapped to their backs, but they didn’t even question the directions of the man on the back of the last monster.
“That’s it, move on! Let’s enjoy that the weather has improved a bit! Hihihi!”
Luke looked at Meredith beside him, and they didn’t need to say another word for the other to understand each other’s intention. It was cold, but they needed to follow these monsters.