Chapter 31: The hungry duo
"Ahh!"
Echidna freaked out and found herself sitting on the ground, hiding right behind Kelvin, who was also panicking since he had no idea what he should be doing in that moment.
Once his mind had calmed down a bit, Kelvin pointed at Ash, his face beet red with every word that left his mouth.
"How dare you sneak up on us like that? Have you no courtesy for basic human respect?"
Ash glared at them for a while, the low hum of Aisha singing as she put up their tent for the night audible in the far distance.
Then he sighed.
"Stop following us; it’s fucking creepy."
Not another word left his mouth before he walked away from them.
As soon as Ash was gone, Kelvin looked at Echidna.
"Again, why are we even following this guy? Come on, Echidna, we can head to our destination without the help of this loser."
Echidna stood to her feet, dusted the back of her dress, and then proceeded to puff her cheeks while folding her arms.
She watched Ash’s behind as he walked away from their position, her cheeks swelling even more.
"What’s the deal? Why is he acting like nothing can faze him or something? I am doing all this for his sake, geez."
Kelvin sighed. "Don’t tell me you think tailing him is to keep him safe."
"Of course it is! Why else would I be stalking a dude? As a gold-ranked mage, it’s my duty to make sure my juniors are okay and healthy," she replied with a smug look on her face.
Kelvin sighed once again.
"There is no way you think that dude can’t handle himself in a fight, not after you’ve seen how he fought against me. Even if I wasn’t going all out, he still put up a decent fight. He is no beginner."
"Ehn? I was sure you did give it your all, though. Are you hiding your powers from me or something?"
Kelvin guiltily averted his gaze. "Y-you can say that."
"Tsk, in any case, he is pissing me off with his attitude. We are going on this trip together whether he likes it or not, and there is nothing he is going to do about it."
Kelvin looked away and towards where Ash was seated, then sighed again.
"There is no stopping her when she gets like this."
...
A few moments later, after the moon had shown itself and was now casting a blue glow over the entire ground, Ash and Aisha were seated in front of their tents.
A fireplace was already built, along with a piece of meat they had hunted for a few minutes prior.
In order to increase their survival rate for the night, Ash purchased a small item from the magic shop, costing 700 points, meant to detect monsters approaching their territory.
All in all, they were set for the night and had nothing to worry about, even until the next day.
However, as for the other two, Kelvin and Echidna, they had a far more different situation than Ash and his companion.
Rather than a tent, they found a small rock to stay under, and then lit a small fire where they could keep themselves warm for the night.
Since it was a small space, they had no choice but to hug each other inside, another way to maximize the use of the space they had.
Aahhchew!
Echidna sneezed. "This fire isn’t doing anything; are you sure you lit it properly?" she asked.
"I didn’t know there was a way to light a fire, do show me how that is done! Oh wait, now that I think about it, we wouldn’t be in this mess if someone had not thrown our bags away thinking that idiot would let us share his equipment!!!" Kelvin yelled, his anger boiling against his skin.
Echidna winced and looked to the side.
"I thought he was really going to help us. It’s not like we had decent food in there anyway."
Kelvin sighed.
"Do you even understand our predicament right now? We have no food, and we are more vulnerable to monster attacks. We might die before tomorrow morning."
"Don’t worry about it!" Echidna threw a thumbs-up his way. "I am sure Ash won’t allow that to happen."
"Stop with your darn false hopes!!!" Kelvin clapped back. "And how the fuck do you know his name already?!"
"Teee hee~"
"Don’t tee hee~ me! Gah!!!"
Meanwhile, at Ash’s tent, while he was busy eating his food, thinking about how he was going to gain more points to purchase better equipment, Aisha, on the other hand, could not keep her eyes away from the starving group.
"Uhm... Master Ash..." she called out, a worried look on her face.
Ash raised his head. "What is it? Don’t like your meat?" he asked.
"No, it’s not that. Actually, yes, but that’s not what I mean." Aisha paused for a while, then shyly pointed at the duo. "I don’t think they would survive the night like that."
Curious, Ash turned his gaze to check, and he too wore a deadpan expression on his face after seeing Echidna and Kelvin.
Hell, the moment Echidna noticed Ash was looking at her, she began to wave her hands.
"What the hell are they still doing there? I already forgot about them."
Aisha nervously spoke right after.
"They have been there for a while. I thought you already noticed them."
"I did." Ash faced his food again. "I just didn’t expect them to still be there."
There was silence for a while, which was then followed by a loud sigh from Ash.
"If you want to feed them that badly, then be my guest. Just don’t make them disturb me. Other than that, I don’t really care."
Aisha’s face widened with joy.
"Thank you, Master Ash!" She reached for the meat on the leftover plate and grabbed another cup of water before sprinting towards the dark corner of the pathway.
Once she was gone, Ash stood up from the log and headed straight into his tent.