NOVGO.NET Chapter 563 - Taming the Fourth Year: Journey
Chapter 563: Chapter 563 – Taming the Fourth Year: Journey
Ren immediately got into guard position, sighing deeply. He recognized that voice.
“Seriously?” he shouted toward the nearby shadows. “You guys also want me to kick your asses? Because in case you didn’t know, I just defeated Lin. That Lin! Do you understand what that means?”
Min, Taro, and Liu emerged from the invisibility provided by Min’s amphibian, all laughing as if they had heard the best joke in the world.
“How the hell did you find me?” Ren looked at them incredulously. “My mana is hidden pretty well.”
“We arrived since you were lying on the ground with Lin,” Liu explained with a smile that Ren hadn’t seen from him in months. “We followed you stealthily to see what you would do.”
His friends had felt his mana during the fight.
The realization was both embarrassing and oddly comforting.
“Go away!” Ren gestured rudely toward the campus direction. “I have something important to do, and I’m not going to involve you in this.”
The three boys looked at each other for what was clearly the third time, obviously having had this mental conversation before. It was Min who spoke for the group.
“We already decided. We’re going to accompany you.”
“No!” Ren protested vehemently. “I already told you that you can’t do anything about my problem… You’re not to blame for anything. You don’t need to…”
Liu stepped forward, his expression becoming unusually serious.
“Look, brother. We already tried twice to give you space to resolve your problems alone. And both times it ended badly for you. This time we’re not going to leave you alone.”
“Didn’t you hear? Lin is lying back there because I defeated her!” Ren pointed vaguely toward where he had left his master unconscious. “Lin! The same Lin who’s going to kick all three of your asses together when she wakes up if you don’t leave right now!”
Min stepped forward with a malicious smile that Ren knew very well. It was the same expression he wore before saying something that would annoy him for being obvious but true.
“I’m willing to bet you barely beat her,” he declared with absolute confidence. “And that now you’re half dead. Surely the three of us can easily beat you.”
Taro and Liu smiled, clearly sharing Min’s sentiment.
The logic was infuriatingly sound.
“Seriously?” Ren looked at them as if they had lost their minds. “That’s your logic? If you’re wrong, you’re going to risk an extra beating from me?”
“Exactly!” Min clapped as if Ren had understood a particularly complex concept. “See! I knew you were smart!”
“Idiots… Why take the risk?”
Taro wiped tears of laughter from his eyes.
“Because we’re your friends… And the truth is Min has a certain logic. If you defeated Lin fair and square, you must have used everything you had. If you didn’t cheat, right now you probably can barely stay standing… And we’re fresh,” Taro added with an even bigger smile. “Not to mention that it’s three against one.”
Ren looked at them for a long moment, feeling a mixture of exasperation, affection, and genuine concern for their wellbeing.
They weren’t wrong about his condition. Every muscle in his body ached, and his mana veins were dangerously tired.
“You’re completely crazy,” he finally murmured. “Do you realize we’re going toward extremely dangerous territory? That we probably won’t come back?”
“That’s exactly why we’re not going to let you go alone,” Liu responded simply. “If you’re going to do something stupid and potentially suicidal, at least you’ll have company.”
“Besides,” Min added with enthusiasm, “it sounds like an incredible adventure! When else are we going to have the opportunity to do something really epic if the school doesn’t even let us go to the Silver ring?”
“When you’ve grown enough to not die in the first encounter with a Gold rank beast,” Ren replied dryly.
But he could see in their eyes that he wasn’t going to dissuade them. The determination was genuine, and he knew his friends well enough to know that if he didn’t take them, they would probably find a way to follow him anyway.
The thought of them tracking him alone through dangerous territory was somehow worse than having them with him.
“Fine,” he sighed dramatically. “You can come if you want. But I’m not going to wait for you, because I don’t know when someone will realize we’re gone. The most we’ll have is until early tomorrow morning, when they don’t see us in class. So we have to advance all night without rest.”
The three nodded solemnly, although Min couldn’t help but make a small jump of excitement.
“Yes! Nighttime adventure! This is going to be…”
“Shut up!” Taro hit him on the back of the head. “You better not fall asleep at 10 like always or we’ll leave you behind… And stop shouting. Do you want the entire campus to know what we’re doing?”
“Ouch. You’re right, you’re right.” Min rubbed his head but his smile didn’t diminish. “Total silence. Ninja mode activated.”
Min’s invisibility activated around all of them.
Liu rolled his eyes.
“Does your ’ninja mode’ include increasing your mana signature when you’re excited like a child?”
“Hey! That’s only when I invoke it. After that it’s much harder to find me… well, never easier… Well, that one time with Ren’s eyes… Okay, those two times. Fine, maybe three, but…”
“Min!” Ren and Taro silenced him in unison.
The normalcy of the interaction, the familiar dynamic of jokes and protests, made something in Ren’s chest relax for the first time in days. Maybe having company wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Although, considering the destination they were heading toward, he should probably be more worried about keeping them alive than enjoying their company.
“Alright,” he murmured, adjusting his cloak and checking that his artifacts were functioning correctly. “But when you start complaining about being tired, hungry, or scared, remember that you were the ones who insisted on coming.”
“Understood,” the three responded in unison, and although they tried to sound serious, Ren could see the barely contained excitement in their eyes.
’This is going to be a disaster,’ he thought as he began walking toward the edge of campus.
♢♢♢♢
Getting off campus turned out to be surprisingly easy once Ren distributed additional mana concealment hoods among his companions. Min’s invisibility worked perfectly for all four when they jumped the enormous wall surrounding the academy, and although the boy’s amphibian complained audibly about the extra effort, it managed to maintain the field until they were far enough away to run without being detected.
The escape felt almost anticlimactic after all the buildup.
About four hours later, when the sun began its descent toward the western horizon, they finally crossed the plains at maximum speed and entered the forest that marked Yano’s central territory.
The route Zhao had taken wasn’t at the range of the zone where Ren lived in ex-Goldcrest territory, nor at the range of the territory now divided in two by the Dravenholms and the Starweavers. Instead, it cut through the central territory of the Ashenwavs.
Due to its latitude, this forest, unlike the Shadow Stalkers’ domain or the one full of invisible Frog traps from Ren’s área, was one that had much more human activity since it was the natural niche of elemental Wind Boars.