Chapter 656 Section of Life
After travelling for the entire day, Shiro, Dimos and the carriage driver started to set up for camp. They were currently beside the road with some woods next to them. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any monsters or animals that she could hunt but Dimos had anticipated such an occurrence and had brought some rations and ingredients they could use to make a small meal.
After eating the meal, Shiro looked up at the sky and saw that the moon had already risen.
"I'll keep watch for the night in case anything decides to attack us." Shiro said as Dimos nodded his head.
"Sure. After a few hours, wake me up and I'll take the next watch." Dimos said while setting up a few bed rolls.
Looking around for a decent tree to sit on, Shiro sat on the sturdiest branch and kept an eye out on her surroundings.
Around 2 hours into her watch, something strange started to happen.
Small motes of light started to flicker on and off around her surroundings.
Understanding that these were an existence that was similar to spirits, Shiro smiled and reached out for one of the motes.
Landing on her finger, the mote of light danced for a little while before fading away.
'The closer we get to the towers, the more their influence shows. Since we're still in the Section of Night, the night will start to become longer during our travels meaning we'll have to be careful since the beasts are more proactive around this time.' Shiro mused to herself while playing around with the motes of light.
Watching these motes dance around her, Shiro started to notice that they seemed to be gathering towards her from the surroundings.
The normal phenomenon would be that these motes would act like fireflies and hover around where there is an abundance of nutrients/life energy from nature. For so many to gather around her, Shiro wondered if her influence as the Spirit Queen had carried over to this place.
However, there was a chance that this could also be wrong as she could not access her powers. After all, she woke up in this world without anything. Hell, she was even malnourished to the point where even she took a hit from an easily predictable monster and this hit had been bothering her for a while now without her monstrous regeneration.
It was only after almost two months' worth of hunting and eating did she finally regain some of her strength. In terms of appearance, she looked almost like how she did when she was on Earth but her hair was still a little on the rough side. Without mana to reinvigorate her body and keep it in perfect condition, she had to care for it manually and without soap or shampoo, her hair was naturally going to be damaged.
"Why are you dancing around me hmm?" Shiro asked quietly while poking the motes of light.
Every poke felt cold on her fingers like they were blocks of ice but at the same time, it was also quite soothing.
Unfortunately, they couldn't answer her question.
Thinking about it for a moment, Shiro wondered if there was an ambient energy similar to mana in this world.
The most likely case was Divinity as there had to be something that fuelled the abilities that were given to them. There was also the theory that if there was indeed an energy that fuelled the abilities, could she repurpose that energy to act in a similar manner to mana. After all, if she succeeds, she could begin to use her runes such as enforce weapons, body and maybe even cast spells but it was unlikely as this place had its own set of rules.
She had to be patient for now and wait for the Tower of Nike. She'll get most of her answers after obtaining her first divinity.
As her watch continued, it was finally time for Dimos' watch.
Climbing down the tree carefully, Shiro shook his shoulder.
*Yawn~
"Is it my watch now?" Dimos asked while sitting up.
"Mn, I've just finished mine." Shiro nodded.
"I se- huh? How come there are so many spirits around you?" Dimos asked curiously as he had never seen so many spirits float around a single person. Normally, when you see spirits around a person, it was a mere coincidence.
However for Shiro, she was surrounded by spirits which lit her up with an ethereal light.
Looking around them, he saw that there was a lack of spirits everywhere else and knew that most of them must be around Shiro right now. As they were just barely within the edge of the tower's influence, the number of spirits was a little low but he didn't want to imagine what it would be like when they got closer.
She'd be akin to a giant candle.
"Are you perhaps a Nymph?" Dimos asked as Nymphs were spirits that are close to goddesses. They had a natural affinity with spirits hence his suspicion.
But for Shiro, she translated Nymph into Nymphomaniac.
"Who the f*ck are you calling a Nymph???" Shiro asked as she felt like a vein was about to burst from annoyance.
The most she had done was hold hands. Why the f*ck does he think she had an uncontrollable s.e.x drive???
"Huh? Is it taboo to call women as Nymphs from where you're from?" Dimos titled his head in confusion as he hadn't seen Shiro like this before.
"Do you know what Nymph means?" Shiro asked with a twitching smile.
"Aren't they nature spirits who appear as beautiful young women? Legends has it that some Nymph had even tended to some of the gods when they were young." Dimos replied as Shiro paused.
Understanding that there was a small misunderstanding, she coughed embarrassingly.
"From where I'm from, Nymph has a rather… different meaning." Explaining her understanding of Nymph or rather, Nymphomaniac to Dimos, she watched as he glanced to the side awkwardly.
"Ah sorry, I didn't know that Nymph meant well… what you told me from where you're from. I'll keep that in mind." Dimos coughed.
"Mn. Anyways, I need to sleep now so if you lot can be so kind as to leave for now, it'll be a little annoying to have light shining on me when I sleep." Shiro said as the lights danced around her for a little while before scattering.
". . ."
'What the hell? Since when can people control spirits like this?' Dimos raised his eyebrow in surprise.
Stretching her body lightly, Shiro climbed up to the roof of the carriage.
"I'll sleep here. Good night." Shiro waved and closed her eyes.
"Right…" Nodding his head, Dimos made a small fire and started his watch.
###
Their journey towards Aegena was rather peaceful as they didn't run into any attacks that might have harmed them.
On the way there, they passed by a rather sizable forest that had some monsters roaming around. After scouting a little through the day, Shiro estimated that she could hunt them without much problem and had the carriage driver take a small break so that she could get some food for them.
The hunt went mostly as planned but Shiro had to over exert herself a little which caused her thigh wound to open up once more.
After a round of berating by Dimos, Shiro borrowed the carriage to reapply some of the ointment that Dimos had bought for her and bandaged it up again. However, with the monster that Shiro had hunted, they were more than ok for food.
Thanks to Dimos' ointment, most of her smaller wounds had closed up now and didn't leave behind any scarring. Unfortunately, the wound on Shiro's thigh was rather large so there was definitely going to be scarring.
Sighing softly, Shiro wondered if this was her real body or a double that Nyx had given her. If it was her real one, she hoped that she could get rid of the scar.
Looking into the distance, Shiro could see a small shift in geography. The grass had become much greener and the trees were larger when compared to the ones that she had seen before.
"In front of us is the transition point between the Section of Night and the Section of Life." Dimos informed as Shiro nodded her head.
Despite being so far from the Tower of Gaia, the nature around this place was already being affected and Shiro could already imagine how dense the forests were going to be the closer they got to the centre.
Taking a deep breath, Shiro could sense that the air was much fresher which was also a good indication that they had reached the Section of Life and Aegena was just past this forest.