Chapter 238: An Unreasonable Woman

"Why are you being so sloppy? I told you that's not how it works!"

"Use your Mana wisely!"

"Why are you circulating it while you're in the air?"

"Use it when you've reached your vertical peak in preparation for landing!"

Two figures could be seen jumping up and down across the woods.

The one in the lead seemed to be scolding the one behind him.

A flushed look of embarrassment appeared on Christine's face.

This was the first time since long ago that she was being scolded like this.

Back then, her father scolded her like this because she slapped the son of a noble who tried to cop a feel of her body.

Yes, this scene was incomparably similar.

But they differed a lot.

That time, she felt humiliated.

But now, she felt nothing but embarrassment.

With the way she was being scolded by Calvin, she felt as if her years of training had gone to the donkeys.

The foundation that she had painstakingly built up seemed to be crumbling in the face of Calvin's teachings.

But to be honest, she couldn't really be blamed.

After all, the circulation routes that Calvin was teaching her was something that was unfamiliar to her.

It was understandable that she found it hard to cope.

"You're being sloppy again? Have you had your breakfast? Faster! Keep that up and you are going to eat my dust!"

Calvin scolded once more.

"We obviously haven't eaten our breakfast yet! What are you talking about?" Christine couldn't hold it back anymore as she glared at Calvin.

Calvin was speechless. He was obviously talking figuratively. He didn't expect that Christine would take his words quite literally.

"Less talk, move more!" He scolded again.

"Shut up!" Christine retorted.

Calvin didn't say anything anymore.

The two jumped up and down as they tried to catch up to the carriage-taxi.

Unfortunately, they had underestimated the terrain.

The ground was too muddy for them to gain enough foothold and what annoyed Christine more was the fact that she was now dirty all over her body. The sight of her white tunic stained by mud made the scene look as if she was a tainted maiden. How ironic.

"How about we stop first?"

Calvin noticed Christine's apprehension and he couldn't help but ask, "We should be able to find a stream of water somewhere in this forest, would you like for us to take a rest?"

"I don't think that we'll be able to catch up to that carriage considering how we are only using our feet in this kind of terrain while that carriage has an entire suspension and wheels."

Christine's movements came to a halt.

She huffed and puffed as a faint blush spread on her cheeks. Sweat was thick on her body and caused her tunic to stick close to her body. It emphasized her snow-white skin and the black breast band that wrapped around her supple chest. This world didn't have the concept of the bra, so most women often wore corsets or breast band.

Christine's lower body was covered with stockings that seemed to reach well over her upper thigh. There was an additional fabric on the soles of her hosen which seemed to further cushion both of her feet and ankles whenever she walked.

Usually, hosens limited one's flexibility but Christine wasn't a member of a noble family for nothing. The fabric of even her simplest clothes was made of a material that even Calvin couldn't recognize.

A garter was wrapped around both Christine's thighs, securing the dark stockings that seemed to be thin enough that someone could vaguely make out what's underneath.

A frown spread on Calvin's face.

Christine was covered with mud all over.

Since she was wearing such thick clothes and it didn't seem like she was carrying anything with her that she could change into.

How was she supposed to clean herself?

Calvin had always been a survival expert, so it wasn't that difficult for him to locate a stream of water.

They found a small waterfall that was about waist deep.

Calvin looked forward and noticed in the distance that there was an animal drinking near the waterfall.

"This water is safe to drink." Calvin judged and looked at Christine, "What do you want to do? I can strip off, wash my clothes, and then dry them using the wind. But how about you? You're a woman, I can't just expect you to get naked, right?"

Christine nodded her head.

She bit her lips and trembled.

Obviously, she didn't want to strip naked in front of somebody else.

But her body felt so itchy as the mud had irritated her skin to the point that she couldn't bear it anymore.

Calvin pondered for a solution.

Then, he proposed, "How about I go upstream? I can go above that waterfall. I'll take a bath there and you take yours here!"

His solution made sense since with this idea—both of them could do their business with some degree of privacy.

But unexpectedly...

"No, no, no!"

... Christine refused his proposal.

"if you took a bath upstream, wouldn't that mean that I'll be bathing in your bathwater? That cannot be! It's lewd!"

Christine hurriedly waved her hand and refused.

Calvin facepalmed. He didn't know what to say.

Come on, it's not as if she would actually be bathing in his bathwater! This is a stream of water, for god's sake! The dirtied water that I've bathed in would probably be purified the moment it goes down the waterfall!

"All right, then what do you want to happen?"

"You'll go up, and wait for me to be done with the bath. You better not peek at me or else, I'll let you taste my wrath!" Christine warned.

"Sure, sure..." Calvin rolled his eyes at her before he leaped above the waterfall and disappeared in Christine's eyes.

Christine let out a sigh of relief when she saw that Calvin had indeed followed her instructions.

But there was still a hint of doubt in Christine's heart, she couldn't help but feel suspicious that Calvin might just be kind to her because he had an ulterior motive.

Christine couldn't explain why she was feeling this way, but her gut feeling had never betrayed her even once. She was convinced that Calvin had an ulterior motive for approaching her and being so kind to her like this.

Indeed...

Calvin had an ulterior motive.

But it wasn't as sinister as Christine thought it to be.

Calvin was convinced that Christine would definitely become the future Goddess of Blade.

Her fundamentals were excellent, and her mind was set. Sure, he had no idea what kind of motivation did Christine had in her mind to pursue such a radical path back then, but he was convinced that what would happen in the past would happen once more in this timeline.

This was why Calvin had to get close to Christine.

He wanted to have the future Goddess of Blade in his side.

Calvin sat cross-legged near the bank of the stream of water. His breathing was even as he meditated.

But then, he suddenly remembered the matter about the Ascension System's Version Update.

[Version Update has been completed]

[Patch Notes 1.1: Inventory System has been added.]

[There is an upper limit of 100 kilograms worth of items. Non-living items are not allowed in the Inventory. Items that aren't taken out of the inventory once every month might experience significant deterioration of their quality. Please be advised.]

"An inventory system?"

"How does that even work?"

Calvin thought for a moment.

He took a random rock nearby and held it in his hand.

"Insert Inventory."

He mumbled in his heart and the rock dissipated into innumerable light crystals.

[Igneous Rock(x1) has been added into the Inventory]

"Remove Igneous Rock; Quantity one," Calvin whispered and the rock slowly materialized in front of him.

"Damn, can this be any quicker?" The rock took about three seconds to completely manifest.

That was too slow for Calvin's standards!

What if he wanted to use the Inventory System to hide his hidden weapons? If it would take them three seconds to manifest, then that would be too slow indeed!

Unfortunately, even though the number of seconds in which the items manifested remained a consistent three seconds.

There was no way for it to be quicker.

It was always three seconds, no more, no less. Regardless of the item's size nor mass.

Letting out a sigh, Calvin activated his Predator Senses.

He could still hear the faint movements of Christine downstream. It was obvious that she wasn't done with her bath.

"Damn, it's been an hour! What's taking that girl so long?" A frown spread on Calvin's face.

'Let me open up my status window real quick, it's been so long since I've taken a look at my stats.' Calvin thought to himself.

"Status."

Whispering into the air, several transparent windows quickly appeared in front of him.

[Class: Golden Class-Scribe]

[Skills Available in Slot: 3/???]

[Skills Slotted: 3/???]

[Experience Points: 2563/10,000]

[7437 Experience Points necessary for Ascension to Historian.]

[Passive Skills: Enduring Heart, All-Consuming Flames, Transient]

[Active Skills: Metamorphosis, Bane of All Beneath the Sun, Flash Series, Log]

[Ultimate: Reversal of Fate]

"This is quite organized..." Calvin smiled in glee.

He stretched his hand out and tapped on the name of the skills, but a description window didn't appear. "Damn, the skills aren't being described. Does this mean that I have to find out what kind of skills did I get from those legendary creatures?"

Calvin held his chin and started to imagine.

"Metamorphosis seems to be something that includes transforming into something. I would love to try what kind of transformation would happen, but I cannot obviously do that with Christine so close to me..."

"As for this, Bane of All Beneath the Sun... Wow, that sure is a domineering name. This is probably from the Golden Crow..."

"As for this Flash Series, I cannot think of anything other than it's from the Bakunawa..."

Calvin glanced in Christine's direction.

"How can I test these skills without Christine noticing it? Is it even possible?"

He thought for a while, but before he could even make a decision.

Christine's voice rang from downstream.

"I'm done!"

A breeze swept past and Christine's figure suddenly appeared in mid-air.

Landing gracefully, a smile was on her face.

"You can go down and take a bath now."

"What took you so long? You were in there for like an hour."

"What?!" Christine was astounded.

An embarrassed look appeared on her face as she said, "It's probably because it's been such a long time since I've taken a proper bath. And the water here is not too cold and too hot. It's just right, so I must've forgotten to keep a track of time. I apologize, are you angry at me?"

The look on Christine's face changed from an embarrassment into uncertainty. The way she stared at Calvin with her dark brown pupils opened wide made Calvin think of a puppy that didn't want its owner to get angry at it.

"No... It's okay." Calvin couldn't get angry anymore.

"All right!" Christine beamed with a smile. "I'll give you fifteen minutes to take a bath, that should be enough."

"What? Why am I getting fifteen minutes, while you got an hour?"

"Do you expect me to wait that long for you? There are a lot of mosquitoes here and I don't want them nibbling on my flesh! If you take too long I'll go ahead and drag you to Azucar buck-naked, do you want that to happen?" Christine glared at Calvin.

"A-All right... Chill out, okay?" Calvin gave up arguing with this unreasonable woman.

He leaped from the waterfall and took his bath.

At exactly fifteen minutes later, he came up with his clothes—already dried up using his Mana.

Then, the two continued their journey to Azucar.