Chapter 205: Ashamed

Walker's eyes slowly lifted, the sun in the sky had fallen low to the horizon, orange and pink hues seemingly drifting away with the breeze. Feeling the weight in his head accompanied by the fog after using all his mana he was a bit unsteady. He could hear a fire crackling nearby and looked around to find that Gil was asleep nearby. Su and Remey were sitting with Midnight by the fire, Maria was curled up asleep on Su's leg. Lifting his hands to wipe away the sleep from his eyes he found that Onyx was in tattoo form sleeping himself. "Aauuhh" He yawned a bit more loudly to let them know he was up. "How long have I been asleep?" 

Su looked ready to stand up and move to him but she stopped in place remembering Maria on her lap. Remey smiled at that and headed to Walker herself. "Well since you used all your mana like an idiot Midnight and I cleaned up your mess a few hours ago. We even set up camp, so you owe us." Making a fist and hitting him on the shoulder much softer than she normally would have. Walker had begun to realize she only did this when she was happy that someone was looking better, especially when she had been worried about them.

"Thanks…" Walker was not very happy with his obvious lack for mana and really wanted to get to a place where he could use spells more efficiently. Thinking of this he remembered that as he focused on imagining the shape the earth would take using his elemental manipulation skill the system had notified him. 

' Through vigorous use of elemental manipulation on earth elemental mana the user has gained the skill, High earth sculpting from the prospector system.

High earth sculpting- mana 0+ cost

The user can more finely sculpt the earth as they want it to. The more efficient and clear their methods the less mana is taken in the manipulation skill. Additional mana can be used to increase speed of manipulation or to create larger sculpted sections.'

This explained why he was able to make everything move so well, he had never tried to move earth around people and to lift himself up while also building walls and spikes. The multitasking was something that took all of his focus. "Seriously you get yourself awake and then space out!? Seriously first you left us sitting there in the cold forever when you said you were building walls and now you're doing it again."

Remey had turned a bit red with anger and looked like she was about to turn her last soft punch in to a flurry of tough love. "What do you mean forever? It only took me like a minute to build the defenses before?" 

Su was listening and watching the exchange making sure the noise wouldn't wake Maria. "Leader you were laying flat with your hands on the ground for a very long period of time. We had gotten worried you were frozen." Walker was wide eyed, was it really that long? To him it had only been a minute or two at most. Could he have been fully absorbed in to his meditative state while imagining how the defenses would take shape?

"I see...I'm sorry…" Walker was still not sure how to make sense of this, he knew he should apologize for causing them stress. What if a horned rabbit had approached them while it was unguarded? They would all have been forced to defend him while he did not even more a muscle to hello. As the leader of his party he felt great shame being the weak link for them. His actions had the potential to get them all killed and the increased realization of this made him reaffirm his will to train his elemental manipulation. It was clear that there were skills that he needed to gain to better use his elemental manipulation, he only needed to spend time and energy to comprehend them. 

The flame flower spell was a perfect example of this, if he had understood more on how compressing more mana would affect the spell itself he could have held more back. The system had notified him as well when he did so, remembering this Walker checked things out.

'The over charge skill has been taken from the spell crackers system due to the user's actions in forcing mana in to a spell.

Overcharge- mana 1+ cost 

The user can force more mana in to any spell. This is controlled by how much mana the user wishes to add, however this skill has a high chance of causing the spell it is used in tandem with to break down. The breakdown can forcibly break magic lock, circle, and other spells but often will cause a large knock back effect.'

The damage he had done to Su's hands was a major factor in the regret he now felt. He could still see some redness on Su's hands from holding her metal shield. The over charging of the flame flower spell had forced it to grow much more powerful but that also put him and his party members within the range of damage. If he had been slightly less lucky then Su could have been completely incapacitated or even killed. Not to mention this sounded like a small knock back effect, what if the spell had blown up in his face, that would have been the end. The entire party would have been wiped off the face of the world without anyone knowing. 

"Leader, my hands are fine, you can still rest more." Su had seen Walker's eyes on her hands and wanted to reassure him she was dine and not to worry too much. Walker refused that answer and stood himself up, he made it over to the fire and used jis light heal skill two more timers on Su. The green light faded away showing her hands had returned to their undamaged state. "Thank you, that feels much better."

"Don't thank me it was my fault, I forced the spell to get bigger and risked everyone's life for more experience. I was rushing us to get to level fifteen, I should be more patient." He hung his head low.

"Hmpf, at least you know." Remey gave him another hit to the shoulder as she sat back down around the fire. Su was just smiling at him and Remey knowing that there was no ill intentions between the two. 

Walker looked around from his spot by the fire realizing there was a large pile just behind their tents. "Umm guys, what is all that?" His finger pointed the the black and white pile, he was struggling to make sense of it due to the fading light.

" Those are the remains of all the horned rabbits you burned away. Also the ones Midnight and Remey finished off. They spent over an hour dragging all the defeated ones back." Su's words were a small shock to Walker, he had completely forgotten that there would be horned rabbit bodies left for them to collect.

Not wanting them to sit out and attract predators Walker got up again and tried to store them all away. He had no clue if any of them could have any value at all. Some had no fur and severe burns all over. Others were charred to a crisp and for lack of a better word, cooked. However something kind of unusual about them was that the horns seemed to have resisted the flames the best and looked only a bit soot covered. This made him wonder if the poisons could still, be extracted or if that would have burned off too. 

With a sigh he got to work storing away every single one, He had seen in the system his massive experience gain from the party defeating seventy three of the horned rabbits but all that was left when he checked his storage were, twenty eight bodies. This added on to the ones that had already gathers but them at an even thirty one horned rabbits to have the guild dissect. 

Hilda will be busy making jerky for days, was the only thing Walker could really gather from this. However he knew his mother would be more than just a little excited to do so. She had books and books of recipes she had never been able to try, spice combinations that she knew she couldn't sell to the average adventurer due to the fact that they only had the funds for the most basic provisions. At the very least he knew he would be making one person happy due to his poor choices as a leader. Remey and Su saw that he was a bit more dejected as he returned to the fire, but did not want to pry knowing it would take him more time to accept what had occurred and the consequences from his actions as leader.