De-Bugging Another World

VOL.3 A ruthless drill instructor

Shaking violently, the carriage rode along the winding roads between the massive trees while Aelanna held the reigns of the two drakes with Emiko next to her, receiving instructions for safely navigating these woods. The forest was still a massive expanse of densely packed, massive trees that spanned the entire southern half of the continent almost directly down to where the south pole would be in this world.

Kanrish found it an odd idea, the south pole of a world, if it was just as frozen over as he was used to from earth, immediately bordering a massive tropical forest. Geographically it made zero sense to him that those two could even border each other. But the value of the materials rumored to be there aplenty was immense.

There were two metal ores that could only be found there, but also lay under the protection of massive frost elementals, the so-called frostbrand demons. The creatures were to be fought if one wished to even get near one of the legendary frostbrand mitral veins. But if you got your hands on enough to make even a single weapon, it would settle you for life.

Or so the tales of adventurers went that braved both the deadly forest and the frozen south that bordered like that. Most of those that made the treacherous journey all the way to the Frostbrand Tundra never made it back though. So the immense value of weapons made from one of the two ores that could be found only there was solely the result of the tremendously dangerous conditions under which they could be found.

That very Tundra was where they were headed now. Even with Kanrish's doubts about the ordeal, Lyya had insisted on it.

While Kanrish sat with Lyya and Hapii who was getting rather advanced for her Elvish writing and reading. So now Ayame was studying up on her own efforts next to them only in a different language. Out of curiosity she had asked for a basic Dwarfish language book and sat studying the basic script at the moment.

"Hm... familiar sounds...?" Hapii suddenly asked when she looked up from her parchment where she sat writing. Kanrish heard a wide variety of chirping and other distinct sounds from the many brids that populated the trees above them. His head turned at the harpy's question and Lyya suddenly rose inside the carriage bed.

"What's wrong Lyya-Chan?" Akane asked while she sat maintaining her new sword. She had been immensely proud of taking down the massive bird, Aelanna had let get away, yet Kanirsh felt she had cheated in that hunt.

"We might be getting near a few settlements from the sounds of it. I already noticed more birds around the other towns we passed through." She replied and Kanrish gave her a curious glance. "You picked that up? I completely missed that." He replied and Lyya gave him a smirk, saying. "Well, you only became an elf about four months ago from what you told us so I guess you're not as used to our keen hearing."

Taking a few steps, Lyya suddenly stumbled as the carriage's wheels struck a ditch in the road. Without taking her eyes of the road ahead, Aelanna shouted an apology for the sudden shaking.

"We kind of reached a less travelled part of the forest, so we'll be getting a bit of a shaky ride for here on out." Emiko added and climbed back into the carriage bed behind her to relax a moment.

Although she took a break from her navigating lessons, the girl still continued to study the maps they had bought of the area.

"It still sounds strange that a Frostbrand mitral sword was so cheap..." Lyya muttered when she sat down again after confirming they were getting into another town's territory.

Her eyes rested on Akane who sat oiling the blade as she had done often since acquiring it. Oddly proud of her weapon, she kept it in good shape and properly maintained the weapon. She did the same for the other weapons Kanrish had bought, all of them except for one, Aelanna's Tora no Kiba tribal blade.