Summoned! To Grimworld

Chapter 9: Keeping the Otaxel Pet Quest on the Menu

As Sina jogged through some waist-high grasses – sparse, dry plants with sufficient space between them to allow her to run easily ­– she had a realisation. This was the first time she had ever been alone in her life. Was that a sad thought? Well, yes. She missed her maid, Kristina, and all her friends. She even missed her parents, though she had only seen them at formal events in recent months. On the other hand, there was freedom on this planet. Freedom from responsibility and schedule and especially freedom from public scrutiny. Back home, a part of her mind was always on guard duty to make sure her social media was always positive and gave no opportunity for critics of the monarchy to score points.

Here there was the sound of her feet slapping into the ground; her panting breaths; the brush of tall grasses against her thighs; a salt-filled scent of the sea; the feel of the afternoon sun warm on her left cheek and neck. But there were no people. No cameras. No events to prepare for. She liked this aspect to the adventure at least. And when she got home – she would get home one day, wouldn't she? And out of this old woman's body? – there would be another benefit to having been alone, a gain at a deeper level than having experienced the enjoyment of having no responsibilities. Sina would have a much better understanding of who she was.

When you spoke lines that had been written and rehearsed by others, or even words that were your own but which you choose to please family, church and your Instagram followers, then you had no idea what you really thought. All Sina knew about herself was that she was a good person, who tried to be kind to others and honest too. But what she thought of other issues, especially anything to do with politics – which the monarchy was obliged to avoid – she had no idea. She wouldn't even have known who to vote for, so carefully had her advisors trained her to stay away from controversy and from being seen to take sides with one party against another.

An hour into her run and her body finally eased up to a walk. Not bad for an old lady carrying a spear (she really needed to fashion some kind of harness to fasten the weapon to her back). On Earth, Sina could manage a ten kilometres run in about the same time: well, her personal best was 54 minutes. The Otaxel, unfortunately, had been moving steadily northwards too and while Sina had closed the gap she was still about an hour away from it.

Forcing her body into a jog again, Sina ran for about thirty minutes until she came to two parallel lines of flattened grass. They were about two metres apart. She stood between the tracks and looked north and south, the directions in which they led. What were these lines? The impressions of a cart of some sort probably. To judge by the depth of the two tracks heading north compared to those going south, the vehicle had travelled northwards... in the same direction as the Otaxel. And not too long ago either.

What did this mean? North on her map was the realm of Red Moon tribe, who had been described as cannibals by the Kangarans. Was this the trail made by one of their vehicles? Maybe the Otaxel was drawn to it by whatever the cart was carrying? Should she turn back? This new development made her uneasy. But the system menus made it clear that taming the Otaxel was possible and that might make all the difference to her survival.

The edge of the forest was only about another thirty minutes to the west and it ran north-south. Once among the trees, she could travel northwards without being openly visible on the grasslands. Very well. Swapping the spear to her left hand to give her right arm a rest, Sina began jogging again, now very much more alert to possible movements, especially from the north. While she was relived to reach the cover of the trees, there was a downside to running in the forest, which was that the bracken and bushes underfoot were much thicker than the grassland. Settling for a brisk walk, she pushed on, checking the map from time to time to see that she was still gaining on the Otaxel.