Chapter 153

153 Follow the plan, please! part “What do you mean you didn’t bring any potions!?”

Luke yelled at Bob who held a troubled expression on his face.

“I didn’t think we’d need them and those were Ryu’s so...”

“We are literally doing this for him, do you really think he would get mad at you for taking some of his potions?”

Risa, who had enough of Luke’s attitude tried to jump in on the argument to defend Bob.

“Well, miss Risa, if you knew him better you’d know he really hates wasting his potions... he’s even let people die in front of his eyes to avoid spending them”

“You can’t possibly be serious! That’s not the Ryu I know”

“It doesn’t matter! we’re barely outside of the city and we’re already sick and exhausted. If things keep going like this we might not even be able to reach Sera at all, let alone rescue her!”

“You’re such a pessimist Luke, grow a pair already!”

.....

“Oh, blow me!”

“I would if you had something in between your legs!”

As Luke and Risa were quarreling, Bob’s condition became even worse and he was starting to look pale. It wasn’t a life threatening situation, but it was bad enough they couldn’t walk too much that day.

By night, they found themselves in prairie wolves territory which adventurers would usually avoid at night. Wolves weren’t strong at all, but they were certainly smarter than insects and they were a bothersome enemy to face, especially in the dark.

Bob shivered in the tent while Risa and Luke stood watch for the night, the constant howling in the background kept them awake worsening their situation.

“It’s our second day walking and we’re at a distance an average person should be able to cover in six hours, as if that wasn’t enough, Bob is still sick!”

“Don’t worry about me, Luke, just go ahead and rescue Sera”

Bob was still lying down tryng to recover as much stamina as possible, but it didn’t matter how much he rested all his stamina remained depleted.

“Bob, do you remember how did the berries that Ryu used to cure stomachahe looked like?”

“Oh right! the berries! they were uh... small and round... and red... I think?”

“You think? ufff, nevermind, I’ll just go fetch whatever berries I find and hopefully you don’t end up dead after eating something poisonous. Risa, get a fire going in the meantime”

Risa hated receiving orders from others, even more if they came from someone she deemed weaker than herself, but Bob didn’t look so great. He was in pain, tired and suffered from severe diarrhea and she decided to keep quiet and do as Luke asked only for Bob’s sake.

Luke had no idea of what he was doing, he simply picked whatever he found in the bushes, even some insects without even noticing. Ryu would usually take it slow and analyze everything before storing it in a separate container, Luke instead relied on his speed to grab as many berries as he could.

When Luke came back to their camp there was a lit fire, water boiling on top of it and Risa was sleeping right next to Bob to keep him warm.

Luke was sleepy and tired, spending more than two days awake was hard even on strong adventurers like him, so he felt the need to wake Risa up. If he wasn’t allowed to sleep then no one was allowed to sleep.

It was only when he was already next to Risa and he looked at her relaxed face, so innocent and calm, that he realized how selfish he was being and how it made no sense to fight over something like that. He woke up Bob instead of Risa and showed him the berries he brought back with him.

Bob did his best to remember how did the medicinal berries looked like, but it had been too long since he saw them last. In the end he discarded the ones he was sure he had never seen before and only two types of berries remained.

“I’m absolutely certain that one of these is the medicine, but I can’t tell which one”

Luke was desperate, his companions were an absolute mess and they were so incompetent, yet he depended on them to rescue Sera. While he really thought rescuing her first was the right choice, he wondered how easy things would be if Ryu was with them.

He calmed himself down and decided to shut off his ego for a few minutes while wondering what would Ryu do. If only he had paid more attention to him while they were at their settlement.

There were two different types of red berries that Bob thought might be the medicine.

Either of them could be medicine, food or poison and he had no way of figuring out what was what. He could choose one randomly and feed them to Bob or mix them both and hope for the best.

While picking at random had a fifty percent chance of being correct, mixing them both had the advantage of being one hundred percent certain that Bob would get the medicine and only a thirty three percent chance of ingesting a poison.

“Bob, I’ll mix them both in an infusion if you’re ok with this”

Bob only nodded in reply, he trusted Luke’s judgement and he wanted to get better as soon as possible to be able to resume their quest. But he was also somewhat scared because his sickness was so severe, about half of his healthpoints had been lost already and he wasn’t sure he could survive if he ingested something toxic.

The taste of the infusion Luke gave him was odd to say the least, It was so bad that no one would ever call it an acquired taste and drinking it on purpose would be considered nothing but masochism. That contrasted heavily with what Ryu made back then, but he fell asleep before being able to complain about that.

By nightfall Risa woke up to stand watch and let Luke get some sleep. She was grateful towards him because he let her sleep and didn’t nag at her when she woke up, thanks to that she resolved herself to follow his lead as long as he didn’t ask something really stupid.

“Good morning everyone!”

Were Bob’s first words after waking up completely refreshed with his health points to the max. He felt even better than before, he regained his strength, his cheerful attitude and even the bags under his eyes had disappeared.

“Dude you look great!”

“My mom made me this handsome”

Bob joked.

“Haha, now seriously, I don’t remember Ryu’s medicine being so effective”

“That’s because it wasn’t, I don’t know what you gave me yesterday but now I feel amazing!”

“Well, there’s something I didn’t consider. The unidentified berry could have been poison, food, but I didn’t even think of the possibility that it could have been a medicine too!”

“Does this mean...”

Risa barged in the conversation rubbing her eyes but before she was able to finish her sentence Luke replied.

“We have medicine now!”

The next few days they ran at full speed to make up for the lost time and covered an insane amount of distance. They learned their lessons and made a fireplace wherever they camped and they skipped every town in their way because they didn’t have the need to buy supplies.

They fought many different kinds of beasts and because Risa was an experienced adventurer, she knew most of them and provided useful advice on how to defeat them efficiently. Since they were walking along the road they didn’t encounter as many beasts, the closest to a city or town the weaker beasts were.

Adventurers and soldiers alike made quick work of anything that came too close, but the middle point in between two citiies was always the most dangerous.

“What is that thing!?”

Luke opened his eyes wide at the sight of a weird looking creature with huge protruding thorns on it’s back and tail.

“That’s a thorny lizard, you got to be careful because...”

“Fiery spiral of death!”

Bob spinned on his feet as he swung his hammer at the creature. The thorny lizard took heavy damage and fell into a daze after being hit on the head, but Bob fell on one knee right in front of the beast.

“You idiot! those things reflect part of the damage they take!”

“How are we supposed to kill it then?”

Luke screamed without trying to hide his fear. Thorny lizards were huge beasts, he could only compare it’s size to a school bus, but that wasn’t all. Their appearance was as fierce looking as it’s attack damage which increased the damage they could reflect with their passive skill.

“You usually trap them and kill them with ranged attacks, or wait until it gets too tired to activate it’s skill. Anyway, as long as you don’t touch it directly you won’t receive any damage”

Risa walked towards the stunned creature until she was about five meters from it, then she took some knives from her waist and threw them at the beast’s neck. Most of them bounced off on it’s spikes, but some got stuck in between it’s scales causing some minor damage.

“Aren’t you scared to get so close?”

“I’m new to archer’s skills so I’m useless from afar”

“You’re useless from close up range too, get back or it might hit you!”

“Don’t worry, it’s stunned,I’ve seen this many times. Now come over and throw some stones at it”

Unfortunately for the poor creature, it ended up being stoned to death in a slow gruesome manner unfit for any hunter to inflict upon their prey. By the time it finally died even Risa had a grim expression on her face, no one enjoyed doing that but they couldn’t afford to let such an agressive beast roam around near the road.