Yarra's Adventure Notes-Chapter 154 - 16: Trusted and Trustworthy_1

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"Crack", the sound of horsewhip echoed in the air. Departing from the ruined city of Briana and entering the periphery of the forest, the light seemed dim. Although the tree trunks were sparse, sparse enough to allow the carriage to pass smoothly, the wide crowns of the broad-leaved trees still shaded the whole sky above the forest.

"Tree." Catherine held the reins tightly with one hand to control the direction and pointed to the front with the other, indicating a tree trunk as big as an adult male’s waist that was difficult to evade. The dark whip spiraled out quickly towards the base of the tree. The heavy trunk, wound around the roots by the whip, broke like it was cut by a sharp blade. Dora held on to the whip and pushed the ten-meter-high trunk horizontally a few meters away before it fall with a thud to the side. The carriage didn’t even need to slow down to bypass the spot where the tree stood.

"Perfect." Catherine’s attention was fully focused on steering and had no time to look elsewhere, but she still praised Dora for her timely assistance. With a confident smile on her face, Dora swirled her whip through the air, "The cooperation between two knights makes it easy to pass through this place."

With a "boom", the crystal gun fired. A silver-rank crystal gun was continuously activated by Pannis’s silver-rank Aggression, and seven or eight energy balls were shot from the gun mouth, blowing up several lower-rank magical beasts that had pounced from the woods mid-air.

On the Yarran Continent, the existence of crystal gunners is rather awkward, as they face too many restrictions. Firstly, they rely on equipment for battle. If they lose their crystal guns, their combat power can basically be negligible. Secondly, crystal guns also have ranks. Only Aggression of the same rank can activate the crystal guns of the same or lower ranks. Silver-rank Aggression cannot activate gold-rank crystal guns. Thirdly, lower-ranked crystal guns can hardly damage the professionals of a higher rank. Therefore, silver-rank crystal gunners find it hard to hurt gold-rank professionals, leading to an outcome almost entirely determined by the rank of a crystal gunner’s equipment. Very rarely can a lower-ranked crystal gunner beat higher-ranked professionals. However, these are not the most critical weaknesses. The key problem is that legendary-rank crystal guns are so rare that even if a gunner upgrades to legendary, it is hard to find corresponding guns, leading to their combat power remaining not much different from that of ordinary gold-rank gunners. Thus, legendary-rank crystal gunners are rare. As for demigod-rank gunners, they are even rarer, appearing perhaps only once in hundreds of years.

However, there is a bright side to being a crystal gunner. Against enemies of the same or lower rank, as long as their Aggression does not run out and their crystal guns have sufficient Crystal Energy, they can fight for a long time. Moreover, they can attack the enemy at high frequency in a short time, attaining mighty attack power. That advantage is very tempting. Many professionals once wanted to carry a crystal gun as a weapon for this reason. However, unfortunately, the Aggression or mana required to activate a crystal gun has very unique characteristics and requires extremely high energy control ability. Most professionals couldn’t do it, which discouraged them from the idea.

So, when Dora saw Pannis assemble a crystal gun and started to watch out for danger, she couldn’t help but sigh. Choosing to be a crystal gunner often means cutting off the possibility of upgrading to legendary status, which is a painful choice for human professionals under forty years old. The other three girls, seeing Dora’s expression, didn’t enlighten her about the reality but just secretly laughed.

Pennis smiled at Dora. With a shake of the gun-holding hand, the cylindrical crystal depleted of Crystal Energy popped out from the energy storage of the activator, and another full-energy crystal was inserted. The nearly one-meter-long crystal gun began to flash again with radiant energy.

"How much further?" asked Catherine, gently stroking the new pendant hanging around her neck. The little banshee Annie had made a cozy home inside the pendant and was curiously observing the outside world.

"At our current speed, we should reach Spindle Village in about ten to fifteen minutes maximum," Dora answered. Since Catherine had put on the pendant, Dora had struggled internally for a while before finally deciding to stand in the carriage a few steps away from Catherine, not daring to stick close to her.

"Are you sure your subordinates are all there?" As a spellcaster, Lina was in the role of being looked after. She didn’t need to participate in such rush-hour and grinding battles, so she was sitting leisurely in the carriage with Vivian. However, Vivian was fine as she could brainstorm, but the bumping vehicle was not ideal for reading, which made Lina feel bored. She had to look for every opportunity to chat with others.

"Almost." Seeing that there was no need to clear the way in front of her, Dora also withdrew her whip for a rest, "The agreed time is before tomorrow night. Let’s set out the day after tomorrow. After all, you have been on the move for more than twenty days in a row. You need to rest for a day."

"Do we need to find a guide?" Pannis asked, after confirming that there were no hidden predatory magical beasts in the vicinity by smell, "Or can you guys double as guides?"

"We can’t." Dora shook her head, "We only know the periphery of the forest. Opportunities to really go into the depths of the forest are rare. No one can take the responsibility of being a guide. However, some hunters in the nearby villages are quite skilled. They may seem like ordinary people, but they can, with the aid of some drugs, venture into the central part of the forest unscathed to pick rare herbs or collect valuable parts from the corpses of magical beasts. They come out safe and sound simply by familiarizing themselves with the terrain and understanding the habits of magical beasts. We need to find a guide like that, and then the later part of our journey will become much easier. Also, a guide like that can be very helpful for your treasure hunting later, right?"

"Stop the carriage." Pannis did not answer Dora’s words but suddenly changed his expression and shouted loudly to Catherine, "Quick."

Without any hesitation, Catherine pulled hard on the reins as soon as she heard Pannis’s shout. The two horses reared up due to the enormous power, angrily neighing. Meanwhile, Pannis lightly flew up and landed smoothly from the speeding carriage, ignoring the inertia. One hand rested on the front of the carriage. The firm carriage, under the conflict between the forces of forward motion and sudden halt, made a frightening noise, but it managed to withstand the forces and stopped safely. The other people in the carriage were not so fortunate. Especially Dora, who was standing, was nearly thrown off the carriage due to inertia. Lina and Vivian also nearly rolled over each other.

"Holy Words, Shield."

"Protection, Spell Deflection."

Lina and Vivian, despite their clumsy state, did not panic or show surprise. Instead, they cast spells immediately, setting up two defenses around the carriage. After making sure the defense was secure, Lina asked softly, "What’s the matter?"

"There’s a heavy scent of blood up ahead," Pannis said. "Stay vigilant. I’m going to check it out."

"The situation is unclear." Catherine raised her thumb to Pannis, "Be extremely careful."

"Is it alright for him to go?" Dora murmured. "Isn’t he a gunner?"

"No problem, he’s a professional," Catherine replied. "Take care of yourselves, vigilance on the spot."

After acknowledging Catherine, Pannis flicked his coat, his body shifting a few meters to the right, and disappeared behind the trees nearby. The moment he vanished, Dora found she couldn’t pick up any trace of him, not by hearing, sight, smell, or energy detection. Everything indicated that he was gone.

"What?" Dora exclaimed in surprise. "Sis, your teammate certainly interests me. My senses are pretty sharp among Golden Rank professionals, yet he just vanished right under my nose. That’s no ordinary feat, is he a thief?"

"You guess." Catherine replied with a mysterious smile, ignoring Dora’s question.

"C’mon, sis, spill it," Dora teased, leaning over to Catherine, her left hand naturally cozying up around Catherine’s waist. "Humor me and satisfy my curiosity, will you?"

"Sorry, not this time." Catherine lifted a pendant from her chest, dangling it in front of Dora’s face, causing her to retreat in fright. "Go on, come closer, why are you running away?"

"You’re so cruel." Dora glared resentfully at the pendant.

Vivian had already jumped down from the carriage, using it as a shield. She took out six differently colored potions from the pockets of her blue work clothes, lining them up in front of her for easy access. She murmured some unknown chants, pointing her finger at each bottle cap in turn. Each point illuminated the corresponding bottle and soon all six were glowing subtly.

Lina was still sitting in the carriage, appearing unarmed, but the book in her lap had turned from an ordinary book to her frequently carried silver spellbook. Her left palm faced upwards, hovering over the spellbook, which flipped automatically. With the flipping of the spellbook, her palm emanated varying intensities of holy light.

"What are they up to?" Dora asked Catherine in a low voice, without disturbing the two spellcasters.

"Preparing for battle," Catherine reached down, pulling out a shield tucked away under her seat. The half-person-high Falcon Shield was propped against Catherine’s left side, while her right hand drew her knight sword and drove it into the soft ground, "What else could we be doing?"

"The situation isn’t confirmed yet." Dora couldn’t understand. "Isn’t it premature to prepare for battle?"

"You don’t know Pannis." Catherine shook her head. "He wouldn’t insist on a halt just for a scent of blood. Only something more severe would compel him to this extent. As for his judgment from this distance, we trust him."

"Such a trusted companion he is." Dora sighed with envy. "He is truly fortunate."

"You’re mistaken." Catherine smiled. "The true fortune is ours to have such a trustworthy companion."

A breeze blew by, and Dora seemed to perceive something. She turned abruptly to find Pannis who had quietly reappeared behind her. The somber expression on his face was unsettling as he approached. "There are eight bodies up front, they are your mercenaries according to their symbols, said Pannis. "They haven’t been dead long, no more than three hours at most. The killers are a Terror Beast family, two adults and six juveniles. Both adults and three of the mature juveniles are of Golden Rank; the three young ones are of Silver Rank. They seem to have noticed us. They’re encircling us. Brace yourselves for the fight."

"We’ve been ready." Catherine banged her sword against her shield, a sharp clang echoing in the air.