Earth's SSS Pornstar to SSS Combat God in Another World-Chapter 14: Relentlessly Chased Over Fifty Miles

After they ate a few more salmon, they let Walter rest a good distance away.

Joji stretched his arms over his head and rolled his shoulder. Alaric watched him with the confused focus of a man staring at a foreign tool.

"What art is this?" Alaric asked. "Can you show me?"

Joji knew there were no systematic exercises in this world.

Most men swung a sword until their joints failed and called that training.

He wiped sweat from his brow and kept his face stern.

"I created this art," he said. "It increases stamina, improves muscle dexterity, and helps with aura control."

"You know I had no combat arts before this. These are my own."

"I am ashamed, but it is the only thing I can point to and say, this is what makes me Sins from Crossroad."

Alaric went still. An art created by one’s own hand. Not inherited. Not bought.

And he claimed it sharpened stamina and dexterity and aura at once.

He chose his next words carefully.

"Despite us being close, I would not want to pry such an art out of you if you are not comfortable with divulging it."

Joji smirked to himself. This was the opening he had been waiting for, and he acted on it at once.

He slapped Alaric on the back, harder than needed. Alaric’s face pinched from the hit.

Joji let his own expression twist, playing wounded.

"You really think I’m that shallow, Alaric?" he said. "Better you don’t call me Joji at all. Call me Sir Sins from now on."

Alaric startled, alarmed by the sudden turn. His eyes watered fast.

"My heart is black... alas, alas. I misjudged my place in your regard," he murmured, stepping closer as though to fold him into an embrace.

Joji lifted a hand to stop him.

"Alaric, cause you’re really my true friend, I’ll still show you one of them," Joji said. "This one don’t even need elements. So listen close. I’m only teaching it once. It’s called the Cobra Stretch."

Joji lay face down, legs long behind him. He planted his palms under his shoulders and pressed the ground away, lifting his chest.

He kept his shoulders down, elbows bent just a little, hips heavy toward the earth.

His joints by his spine popped in a steady chain, like a door being unlatched.

Alaric copied him. It looked easy until his back cracked loud enough to make Walter lift his head.

Alaric’s eyes widened, then his mouth softened.

"Urgh... that felt far too good," Alaric breathed, half a groan, half relief.

"Walk," Joji said. "Tell me how it feels."

Alaric jogged a few steps. His hips and lower back felt looser, more agile, like rust had been scraped away.

"Too amazing. But. This... I cannot repay."

"If you’re a real friend, you share the upsides, straight up. Honesty and transparency, that’s the foundation."

Alaric shed silent tears, trully moved by such beautiful words.

Joji watched him, satisfied. Then he leaned in with one last push, voice sharpening on purpose.

"I still have Butterfly arts, Horse Stance arts, Cat Cow, and fourteen more," he said, sneer pinned on like a mask.

"Do you think I waste my time doing nothing but swing my sword, Alaric?"

Alaric flinched and realized that his words cut deeper than any sword as Joji even called him his true friend, so he took a deep breath.

"How do I make it up to you?" he asked.

Joji had been waiting for that. He cleared his throat, pretending to think.

"Since you are my true friend, I will not make it difficult. If there is an adventure, you come with me."

Alaric straightened like he was taking an oath. "I, Alaric, will stand by Joji’s side at every beck and call when adventure comes to our path," he said, then patted his heart three times.

Joji only nodded. He did not yet grasp how sincere that promise was, how heavy it could become.

Over the next hour, Joji taught Alaric the ins and outs of the Cobra Stretch Art he claimed as his own.

"Let’s move," Joji said.

He rose, then kicked Walter’s foot with the edge of his boot.

Walter jerked awake with a grunt and a curse that stayed trapped in his throat.

"Where are we going?" Walter asked.

"We still gotta reach Lacrosse," Joji said. "If we stay here, we’re just cornering ourselves. Remember, those people got horses."

Alaric nodded. He did not argue. He had seen what mounted men did to the ones on foot.

Joji crouched and turned his back. Walter climbed on with a wheeze, arms looping around Joji’s shoulders.

They started down the road again.

This time they paced and conserved their aura. Even so, their speed was nothing to scoff at.

They still made close to twelve miles an hour, an elite runner back on Earth.

The Everhart Tempest Art was one of the best in the Vicario kingdom. Even the throne had coveted it.

A man could run all day with it, so long as he was not forced into hard combat.

That was why Everhart knights were always chosen for long range reconnaissance and for quelling rebellions in distant provinces.

The art could even be tied to a mount, if you had a horse to carry you.

After two hours of running, Joji began to breathe deeply, and the fatigue fell away as his physique made him almost unable to tire.

He gave Alaric a look. Alaric hauled Walter onto his own back without complaint.

Another hour passed. Joji raised a hand.

"We’re far enough. Stop here."

No one had bothered them for a long stretch. That was proof enough. The enemy had lost their trail, at least for now.

"Alaric. Let me sleep for a while. Two-hour shifts."

Alaric nodded. Joji lay down with a stone for a pillow.

He fell asleep fast, snoring like a man who had been holding his fear in his ribs and finally let it go.

Alaric watched his face in the moonlight, keeping an ear on the road.

It was Joji’s turn. He drank water and stared up into the sky.

Three moons hung above them. Nothing like earth.

Their light washed the ground in a pale glow that kept the night more illuminated.

Joji squinted into the distance. A wolf moved at the edge of the light.

Then he saw what made his stomach drop.

A collar. Wild wolves did not wear collars.

"Alaric. Alaric. Wake up," Joji hissed, and he kicked Alaric harder than he meant to, panic making him rough.

Alaric’s eyes snapped open. He took one look at Joji’s face and understood.

He grabbed his bow, fingers quick and practiced, then nudged Walter awake with the toe of his boot.

While they’d been running earlier, Joji had taught Walter something new. A simple idea from another life.

A ghillie suit. Not a name that mattered here, just the method.

Every time they paused, Walter stuffed dried herbs and scraps of brush into loops and seams, building camouflage out of whatever the road gave them.

Walter worked like a man born for cloth. His fingers moved quick and sure, knotting, weaving, adjusting.

At first Joji had thought the merchant would not understand. He had underestimated him.

Walter made something that blended so well it would have made trained killers jealous.

Joji leaned close to the large merchant and whispered.

"Hide. Now."

The night held its breath. Only a single cicada cried somewhere far off.

Then footsteps arrived, soft, measured, not human. Joji heard them first. Alaric heard them a beat later.

In the distance, a dire wolf slid into view. A black collar sat tight on its neck.

Behind them, another appeared. Then another on their flank. Then another.

Shadows multiplied until the pack swelled to nearly twenty, eyes catching moonlight and displaying the wolves’ bloodthirsty visage.

One was larger than the rest. The leader. A red, innate beast aura rolled off it in a low pressure that made the hairs on Joji’s arms lift.

It threw its head back and howled. The sound pushed wind through the trees and made branches rustle, like the forest itself was answering. Like it was calling a master.

Alaric did not wait. He loosed an arrow fast. It struck one wolf before it could even shift its weight.

The animal jerked once and dropped, dead in an instant.

The pack erupted. They charged, snarling, claws tearing at dirt, hunger turning into rage.

Joji set his stance and waited for the first lunge. He moved to strike, but the wolf dodged with a snap of speed and shot low for his calves.

Joji drove aura into his legs and used Lightness of the Wind Art.

His foot flashed out faster than the bite. It smashed into the wolf’s jaw. A crack sounded in the dark.

He did not let it recover. Joji charged his fist with Emerald Blade Wind Art and hammered the wolf’s head.

The force went through skull like a weapon that exploded from the inside.

Blood burst from its eyes and snout and ears. The wolf collapsed as if its strings had been cut.

Alaric dropped his second wolf as well. He baited it close with a half step back, then drove a dagger through its ear, deep enough to end it before it could even yelp.

Then the same thought hit them both.

They could kill the wolves. They were confident of that. They had the arts. They had the nerve.

But their killing speed was too slow.

They were being stalled. Held in place while the night did its quiet work. And even with their arts, if a hundred men arrived now, they would still die.

They needed a plan to get out. Fast.