Cast Out (Book 1 Done; Book 2 In-Progress)

Chapter 8: Part 4.1

PREVIOUSLY:

Wahshi was betrayed by Zhang and his party, and died at the hands of the "Elder Dragon". He revived at the Mist of Souls, where he then proceeded to rush out of there, at the cost of immense amounts of pain. And several pounds of flesh. After jumping through the pool near Gaia's tree, he plummeted through the canopy and managed to survive.

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"Hey Misa, do you think we did the right thing back there?"

I stared at her.

It had probably only been an hour, or maybe an hour and a half since we ran from the "Elder Dragon", as Zhang called him.

We were walking down a path that Zhang was sure led out of the forest. This time around, the forest vegetation was actually getting farther apart. That and the fact that everything seemed to be getting smaller only proved his point.

This time around, I'm going to make sure that we're headed the right way, regardless of what Zhang said.

Zhang was walking in front like usual, trying to act like a macho man. He'd switched to his Knight set of equipment, no doubt because his Tower set was already ruined by those monkeys from earlier on. It was too bad, because that had been one of his favorite sets that he had, armor that he'd been able to enchant to make a flying, protective dome.

Of course, it didn't mean that the armor he had on wasn't impressive. It looked a lot like a certain possessed armor from some old cartoon that Zhang used to love watching. Some kind of Alchemist anime? If this was in real life, he'd probably be drowning in sweat somewhere in there. The heat probably would've choked him alive by now too.

The whole continent had a tropical climate after all. That meant hot, humid and sweaty. Even though this was a game, people still died from being stupid about things like that. Luckily though, you could get your armor enchanted with a handy Rank F cooling spell. It made it a lot easier to wear heavy armor around. Aside from that, the gleaming steel armor was made so that almost anything that hit it glanced off. Just like armor in real life too.

There was an enchanting circle on the palm of each gauntlet. Zhang was always so proud of those, because they did something special to any weapons that he equipped. He was always boasting about how it was the best feature from the Knight set that he'd made. Though he boasted about that Tower set even more.

In my opinion, that Rank F cooling spell probably hadn't been strong enough to stop the hot air from making his head swell up like a balloon.

Honestly, sometimes it got a little annoying to see him act like this. It pissed me off more than just a little too. But I couldn't really blame him.

After all, we'd both changed a lot since that night.

Even thinking about that night lit a fire in my chest. And it wasn't the kind that ended up in a bedroom with my fiancée.

It was the type that ended up with somebody in a ditch.

Alexa took one look at me and shuddered. She turned away, almost as if she couldn't bear to look at me anymore.

'Wonder if it was something in my eyes?'

Wouldn't be the first time somebody thought my eyes had a "sadistic" glint to them.

She probably thought that I was mad because of her question.

I wasn't sure how I felt about us having left him back there, but it didn't feel good either. Especially when I remembered those black eyes that just stared at me right before they got squashed by a giant equivalent of a toenail.