Chapter 37: the night comes
Joel was shocked to see the rune appear out of nowhere, but he had learned not to ask Raze too many questions. Every time he asked a very sensitive question, it would always piss Raze off.
The rune in Raze’s hand was a long piece of red paper with the rune drawn in black on it. Raze looked at it just to observe it—he liked the way it looked, and it was also not done on yellow paper but red.
It was a higher grade of rune paper and could withstand more of the rune tension. When runes were drawn, every rune had its own tension, and so it added that tension to the material.
So when multiple runes were drawn for a specific result, all their rune tension was placed on the paper, and the paper or material had to take all that tension and not get destroyed.
If the tension of the runes was bigger than what the material could take, the material would shatter under the tension.
This was the reason why a person could draw a rune anywhere, but it was not advised to draw it anywhere, as the tension capacity might be lower, and it could lead to an explosion that would harm the person.
Raze took the rune paper and set it close to the wood, where the smallest twigs were, and then he thought of letting his mana flow, and it did, activating the rune. The runes lit up, and the tip of the paper exploded into flames.
Raze dropped it into the twigs, and the flames lit up immediately. It took a few seconds, and the fire had already caught onto the smaller sticks.
The fire grew and grew until it caught on the bigger sticks and made a huge flame. Raze got up from the ground.
"I don’t really have a way for us to cook this, so take out your sword and use it," Raze said. He brought his sword and all the meat from the first beast they killed.
He took some of them and walked to the stream, washing it there. Joel followed his lead and took some, his amount bigger than what Raze took.
Raze finished cleaning the meat and then placed it above the fire at a safe distance, hand-roasting the whole thing.
Raze slowly roasted his meat above the raging flames. He stared into the flames, watching as they blazed in all directions.
Joel finished cleaning his meat and came and sat down opposite Raze. He stretched out his own meat, and with the same method, he started roasting it.
"You know, flames are very insightful," Raze suddenly said, not looking up at Joel.
"How do you mean?" Joel asked.
"Well, you see, the flames are hot, they burn. Their base characteristic is destruction—that is their base form.
But when you look beyond the destruction that they cause, they also have a good side. They warm you when you are cold, they cook your food, they purify your metal.
They give light so that you can see. So you see, when we look at the good, it pretty much counters the bad. But when you speak of fire, the first thing that comes to people’s minds is destruction, burning, chaos. And why is that so?" Raze asked, keeping his eyes focused on the meat.
Joel paused for a bit, not sure how he should go about answering the question. He thought about it for a while, but he could not think of anything that made sense.
"I can’t think of why," Joel said.
"Well, I believe it just has to do with presentation. Fire comes off as rageful, angry, and ready to destroy—that is the impression it gives at first glance.
And from that impression, people make decisions, and they base its whole character around that. Now, the people are not really to blame, as it is the flame’s fault for looking that way.
Now that I think of it, water is the opposite. Just take everything that I have said and flip it, and that’s water," Raze said. He pulled his meat close to him to check if it was getting done.
"So why? Why did you say all that?" Joel asked.
"Huh? Oh, well, nothing really. It just came to my mind—the fact that things are not always as they seem. It gives more meaning to the saying ’don’t judge a book by its cover,’ but the book should try to have a good cover in the first place," Raze said and pulled out his meat.
He tried to pull one off the sword, but the heat burnt his finger. "Ouch." He swung his finger in the air a couple of times to fight the pain, and then he tried to blow some air on it.
The meat cooled a bit, and he finally pulled one off. He bit into the meat and started eating. There was no seasoning, but it managed to have some flavor.
Joel joined him to eat. They ate until the night was fully set in, and darkness covered everywhere. Only their flame on the ground gave some light for a good distance.
Raze looked up suddenly. He held his sword and stood up. "It’s about to get really messy," he said.
Joel got up as well. He took out the wand in his strip to make sure he amplified his casting.
Growling sounds slowly started coming from the surroundings. Raze and Joel kept their guard as high as they could, putting their ears down for even the slightest sounds.
Raze knew they were surrounded already, but he was trying to avoid a surprise attack—that would be really bad right now.
He used Spatial Zone, and the pulse went out into the darkness. They were there—a pack of wolves with somber horns had surrounded them.
There were eight of them, waiting, their eyes pinned on Raze and Joel. Raze looked at the stream. His first idea was to use the stream to his advantage.