It was evening and we had just finished preparing our camps. The princesses were resting inside the camp while the rest of us were preparing the dinner outside. It was their first time traveling in a group like this so they were pretty exhausted. Miss Lilith was also in her camp. She said she will be leaving the rest to us and went inside her camp right after the princesses.

Nina was doing the cooking while the rest of us were helping her in preparing the ingredients. We wanted to complete preparing the dinner before it got completely dark. We had the magic lights that could be used to work in dark. But, since we didn"t have any monster warding light, those magic lights would attract the attention of nearby creatures.

"Those don"t look like normal birds," said Nina looking towards the direction Marina pointed at.

There were two big bird-like creatures circling the sky directly above us. Both of them had a long beak and round head.

"Looks like the smell of stew is attracting monsters. I will use the wind magic to suppress the smell," said Ronald suppressing the air around the stove. But, even after he suppressed the smell, the monsters still kept on circling above us.

"We aren"t even in the forest yet and we are already attracting monsters."

"Ronald, I have an idea, but I will need your help. Let"s go around those bushes and test it out," I said pointing towards nearby bushes. Ronald replied with "okay" and followed me.

Predator birds usually circled above their prey waiting for a suitable opportunity. They attack them when the prey least expects them so waiting for them to attack wasn"t a good idea. This was something I learned in my previous world.

"I will try attracting the monster birds. You will have to attack them when they come towards me," I said after we reached around 200 meters away from the camping site.

I asked Ronald to come with me because he could use wind slash with great precision. Ronald positioned himself 50 meters away from me. Since the smell of stew wasn"t the thing that was attracting them, the only possibility left was the heat that "Magic stove" was radiating.

I produced a fireball my hands, unlike magic stove the flames of my fireball were clearly visible. The monster birds moved towards us and started circling above me. I made the fireball smaller to make it look like I am letting my guard down.

As soon as I did that, both birds came charging towards me. I jumped backward to avoid them. When they were on the right range, Ronald took out his blade from his sheath and fired two wind slash towards them.

Two Monster birds with severed head dropped right where I was standing before. Purple blood was gus.h.i.+ng out from the severed part.

"Ugh, that"s the most horrible looking bird I have ever seen"

We got back to the rest and explained what happened. Marina was a little angry at me for being reckless, but since everything worked out, that didn"t last long.

After the dinner was ready, we called Princesses and miss Lilith for dinner. This kind of cooking was not what princesses were used to but both of them ate without complaints. We finished our dinner quickly and divided the night watch duty among ourselves.

Nina and Arica will stay on watch for a while and they will be replaced me and Sistina. Ronald and Marina will replace us after that. Princesses were too tired after the journey so we told them to rest for today. Miss Lilith went inside her camp saying, "this is part of your training" so it was only the six of us.

I went inside our camp to sleep after we decided that. Ronald and I were sharing a camp. We had five camps among which Miss Lilith was using one and we were sharing the rest.

Sistina woke me up when it was our time for watch. When we went outside, I saw many dead Spider monsters. They were giant Spider-like creatures that ate animal flesh to survive. They weren"t that dangerous if you keep your guard up but could sneak up on you from behind if you are not careful enough.

"Phew... I can finally take a break now," said Arica when she saw us coming. She turned her "Flame blade" off and put her sword back in the sheath.

"Okay, see you guys in the morning," said Nina getting inside her camp to which we replied with "Good night".

There were several Spider monsters that tried to attack us, but I used wind slash to deal with them as they came closer. Sistina didn"t get to do much since her specialty was close-range combat. There weren"t any other monsters that attacked us during our watch except the Spider monsters. It could be because a Spider monster"s nest was nearby and this area was their hunting territory. After a while, Ronald and Marina came to replace us so we went inside our camp to sleep again.

The next morning, when we woke up there were around 60 dead Spider monsters around our camp. Princesses were shocked after watching all those dead monsters. Since this place wasn"t exactly suitable for having breakfast after all this, we decided to travel a bit further before having breakfast.

After we had our breakfast, we resumed our journey. After traveling for around two hours, we saw two men pus.h.i.+ng their cart that was stuck on sand. Ronald stopped the carriage near them and Ronald and I helped them push the cart out of the sand. The sun was hot today so everyone else was still inside the carriage.

"Thank you, youngsters, where are you traveling to?" The old-looking man among them asked. He was wearing a straw hat and farm clothing.

"We are adventurers on a quest. We are traveling to the village that is past the Serpent river," Ronald replied petting the horse. The horse was struggling hard to get the crat out of the sand.

"Hoho, adventurers at such a young age!," said the jolly-looking man among them who was in his early thirties. He had brown hair and a long beard. He looked towards the sky and wiped the sweat his forehead with a handkerchief and started speaking again, "You guys saved us. Who knows, how much longer we would be stuck here if you guys hadn"t helped."

"We only did what we thought was right, please don"t mention it," Ronald replied with a smile.

"Our village is just up ahead so you youngsters can come have lunch there," said the old looking man.

"No no, there are nine of us so that would be too much trouble," said Ronald to which the jolly-looking man replied with "Hoho... the more the merrier" so we decided to make a stop there for lunch.

After we reached their village, we learned that the man"s old man was Albert and the jolly-looking man was Lucas. They were father and son and ran a tavern called, "Father and Son"s tavern". We also introduced ourselves without going into too much details. They said they were bringing supplies from the nearby village when their cart got stuck.

We had our lunch in their tavern. When we asked how much we need to pay for the food, they replied that they were just repaying the favor that we did to them before. We were tight on our budget so we didn"t insist.

It was already afternoon when we finished our lunches. We said our goodbyes to them to which they replied with, "come to our village every time you are pa.s.sing by". After saying goodbyes, we got back to our carriages and continued our journey.

Next Chapter: The Journey to the Village - Part 2