Chapter 197: Nearing the quest

"Stop it already!" Teria"s desperate shout seemed to shook the air around us. Even back when we were arguing never had her voice reached the magnitudes of emotions infused in it that it did right now.

"What, miss super-strong winged fighter cannot handle a bit of teasing?" With Arsha sleeping currently while curled all over my back, there was a strange sense of liberation filling my soul.

Sadly, even being a witch didn"t make it any easier for me to decipher the reason behind it. My current one and only guess was that ever since we first met Longinus party, it was only now that the two of us returned to the type of relationship similar to what we had going back during the first part of our journey.

"You can tease me all you want, but I won"t allow you to disgrace my homeland!" Shouting in response, Teria harumphed before speeding up a bit. While it allowed her to gain some distance on me, given how she quickly returned to her previous speed, we didn"t continue to grow the distance between the two of us.

But with her words pointing the problem out, I couldn"t help but look at the lands below once again.

After just a single day of traveling at relatively high speed, the entirety of the wingless-human countries was already left far behind us. While we still had the stalling element in form of Arsha, outside of the need to knock her out every few hours or switch who would be carrying her, she wasn"t that much of a hindrance either.

Yet, contrary to what I thought, I didn"t even notice when the three of us crossed the barrier between the lands of the normal humans and the areas controlled by the winged tribe. Because ultimately, there was absolutely no way to discern one from the other.

At first, I thought that the differences would be great. From nature, through the atmosphere at building style and the air itself ending. Yet, as soon as Teria notified me that the town we were pa.s.sing above was already one of her own, I realized that outside of this natural body-building trait, the two tribes had no other differences at all.

"Teria!" After giving the girl a few long moments to calm herself down, I called her out. Obviously though, given the breakneck speed that we were traveling at, I could as well just start making barrel-rolls instead of flying straight as it would have a pretty similar chance to grab the girl"s attention.

That was the scope of the noise produced by the air when we were cutting through its ma.s.s at such a high speed. That was also the reason why Arsha had to suffer several headshots from my fist. If she were to be awake, she would clearly refuse to be glued to my back as tightly as she currently was, resulting in a rapid changing of the air resistance during my flight which would quickly lead both of us to an inevitable disaster.

That"s why, as taxing as it was for my mana reserves, I had no other choice but to phase forward in order to catch up with the girl.

"HEY!" Only when I basically shouted right into Teria"s ear did she even noticed my presence. Turning her head to the side, she allowed me to see that her face was still twisted in a pout. Rolling my eyes at this sight, I pointed my hand at the ground below.

At such an att.i.tude and speed, there was no need to even attempt having a conversation. The roaring of the air would make a short work of any sound produced by us, making a full-stop the only way to actually have a talk.

In the end, Teria didn"t oppose my wish. With her wings slowly spreading further and further apart, the drag of the air heavily affected her speed, quickly bringing her to a stall after which she started an uncontrolled free-fall towards the distant ground. On the other side, I simply allowed my body to fall down properly rather than constantly ejecting myself forward. Once I neared the ground, I focused my energy and shifted upwards, canceling most of my downward momentum with that move. With one more phasing out made in a similar manner for the same reason, I finally stepped on the ground, lowering myself on my knees to kill all the remaining momentum of my body.

"So, what did you want?" To compare, Teria"s landing was far more graceful. Like some kind of angel descending from the heavens, she hovered just a few feet above the ground before slowly descending this last bit down. Contrary to what I did, she had absolutely no need for fighting off her momentum, as she had no momentum when she touched the ground, to begin with. n

"First off, I wanted to say sorry." Reaching out with my hand and pointing in the direction we came from, I lowered my head before my upper body followed suit. "I expected for your homeland to be way… different than what I saw in the countries of the wingless tribe. It were my bloated expectations that made me so negative when they were shattered by the mundane reality."

This was one of the rare chances when I actually apologized from the bottom of my heart rather than in order to gain some benefit. As someone who came from a nation of quite a tragic history, I could easily understand what one would feel when his land or nation would get slandered by others who knew nothing about it. And even though for me, everyone in this world was as good as some random barbarians, making fun of their homelands was in pretty bad taste.

"It"s okay, you were really stuck at it for so long?" Looking at me as if I was some kind of madman, Teria widened her eyes before slamming her palm against her forehead. "If you just wanted to talk about something so silly…" She didn"t even need to finish her sentence. Just the single, longing look that she cast towards the direction we were still heading towards was enough to betray what she wanted to prioritize right now.

And talking about respect towards one"s land and country definitely wasn"t at the top of said list.

"I know that for you it might be nothing. But it"s something that"s actually really important to me." Spreading my arms, I admitted to my own faults. "I just didn"t want for this to pull our relationship down. Even though we clashed here and there, I still consider you to be one of my… friends? Well, let"s call it a temporary friend for now."

Putting a shy smile on my lips, I looked away for a brief moment. This time I wasn"t acting. Revealing this simple fact of my basic sympathy towards this girl was more than enough to make me embarra.s.sed. Obviously, given how I still had Ayda back on earth, my thoughts towards Teria were of purely platonic friendship, born not out of l.u.s.t but out of the fellowship of the arms.

"Gosh, what are you even saying!" Turning all beet red when she heard my words, Teria proved that she wasn"t just a mindless and goal-oriented warrior that she pretended to be so far. Unless it was some kind of insane acting skill on her end, by blushing and then attempting to hide her blush just like that she proved that she still was a simple, young girl. Even if that part of herself turned already too small to survive on its own within her soul.

"But there is actually another topic that we should discuss." As much as it pained me to wreck this relatively pleasant atmosphere, I didn"t really have any say in that matter. In the end, I was about to bring up the real reason why I asked the girl for a short stop. "Actually, I think it"s better if Arsha hears it as well." Bending my knees, I lowered myself to the point where the girl could slide off my back to the ground rather than outright just falling down. A single spike in the intensity of her emotions quickly allowed her to break free from her dreams.

"WHAT?!" Shaking awake, Arsha nearly instantly raised and sat down on her a.s.s, before quickly scanning the area around her. Upon noticing our two silhouettes in her proximity, Arsha"s face was instantly taken over by a furious expression.

"HOW DARE…" Just as the girl started, I lost all my patience to deal with her. "Silence, wench." Squinting my eyes at her, I added. "I do not wish to be annoyed by you. I just wish to finish my mission. And about that…" Bringing my hand to scratch the side of my head, I took a cautious look at both of the girls.

"You know what? Ever since a while ago… I got a feeling that the second part of my mission, the mission to "Reunite the family"…" Unsure how to explain the flashing light appeared all over the name of the subquest whenever I was nearing the condition to fulfill it, I got silent for a moment.

"It"s near, am I right?" Rather than waiting for my own answer, Teria stepped up and finished my words on her own.