"Hey, I think someone else might be here."
"Why do you say that?"
Zero pointed to where he saw smoke, prompting Caelum to follow.
"Looks like campfire smoke, right?"
"I agree. What do you think we should do? Should we follow the smoke or find shelter for tonight?"
Caelum brought up a good point. The sky had become an orange gradient, and it would likely be hard to find this person at night. Still, just ignoring them felt wrong. So Zero went with what he thought was right.
"I think… we should give chase. We can cross the tree and run over to it. Or maybe jog there? I can't judge the distance to be honest."
"Then let us not haste. Hand me the Harvest Gnat if you will."
"It's fine, I can cross with it."
"You are mistaken. Let me show you. And stand back a bit, please."
Zero heaved the backpack over to Caelum, then took a couple of steps back.
'Surely he can't throw that far…"
"A few more steps back. I would hate to send you into the void."
Zero took a bit more than a few steps back, concerned with what Caelum said.
Caelum grabbed the end of the Harvest Gnat's limb with one hand, while he firmly gripped his staff in the other. Then he spun around and gained momentum. Finally, he let go of the Gnat's limb. Zero watched its trajectory and saw that it most definitely would not clear the void.
That was until Caelum carried his momentum into another spin and brought his staff around. Even from the distance Zero was standing, he could feel the air being pulled towards Caelum. Caelum abruptly stopped his spin and assumed a sturdy stance.
Bringing his staff forward, he sent forth the air at the flying Harvest Critter. The gust was powerful and propelled the corpse forward.
'Wow, it's going to make it.'
The Harvest Gnat cleared the void with a bit of room to spare and tumbled onto the other island. Except it tumbled too much. After hitting the ground on the other island, it bounced forward into a tree. Its momentum switched, straight to the void.
It bounced twice, then fell into the void below.
Caelum tried to send another wind burst at it, then pull the wind up to try and save it again, but it was to no avail. It turned into a tiny speck as it fell.
Zero burst into laughter. It was the first time he had laughed since escaping the Coliseum, and so the feeling consumed him a bit.
Bent over, Zero regained his balance and managed not to fall to the ground. It was quite ridiculous to laugh at such a thing, and maybe a bit rude, but he could not help himself. Perhaps he just wanted to laugh.
Eventually, he managed to compose himself and wipe a tear from the side of his eye.
'Huh, why are my eyes teary?'
"Sorry…"
He chuckled again.
"Sorry, sorry. Not to be rude or anything, I just found it a bit funny you know. It was an impressive throw for sure. Just a bit unfortunate."
Caelum had a frown on his face.
"Why are you apologizing. It should be me. I lost our source of water. For that, I greatly apologize."
Zero waved his hand in the air, "Don't worry about it. If anything, I'm glad it made me laugh. Now let's hurry and cross."
To be honest, Zero was a bit scared of crossing the void. His balance would probably be above average, and he was confident in his abilities. Still, if he fell, he would fall to his death.
'Wait, how can I die if the void has no bottom to hit?'
Correction, he would starve to death.
"Zero, you go first…"
'Agh'
"I will be right behind you and use my wind if you begin to fall. I have quite great balance, so do not worry about me falling."
'Oh. That is nice of him.'
So, Zero climbed the roots of the tree onto the trunk and began carefully moving across. The tree was rough, and whatever shoes he was wearing had good traction. Zero did not dare to look back at Caelum, nor dare to pay attention to the void. He just walked and walked until he met solid ground once more.
Now he finally looked back and saw Caelum casually stroll to the edge of the tree, then hop onto the ground.
'Showoff.'
Zero considered summoning his blade to calm his beating heart, but abstained.
"Shall we run then, Zero?"
"Yeah, let's go."
'It would be rude to say, try to keep up.'
They ran surprisingly fast. Faster than any average human could keep pace, but perhaps not above the most elite of athletes.
Since they were covering a great distance, of course they ran into another creature. Thankfully, this worked in their favor. It was just a small Harvest Gnat, which they swiftly took care of, careful not to puncture its lower abdomen and lose all the water. Zero now had his dragon head back on.
Zero strapped the Harvest Gnat on his back, as he seemed to run a bit faster than Caelum, and continued their journey to the smoke.
At the dying moments of twilight, Zero caught a whiff of smoke, similar to the candles at the coliseum, and followed the scent.
"Zero, it is getting hard for me to see. Should we take the risk and just call out?"
"Hmm, not yet, I think I can still see for now. And I'd hate to call out and it be a grown drake spewing fire."
'Wait, do they even shoot fire?'
Zero did not know.
Another thing he was not sure about before, but he felt his vision had become better adjusted to the dark than it was in the coliseum.
'Odd, Optic Sight doesn't say anything about it. Is it cause I'm a Seeker now?'
Zero finally found the direction with thicker smoke and dragged Caelum along with him. By now, the person, if it even was one, would have put out the fire so as not to draw attention during the night.
But there was still a sliver of hope, and that hope prevailed.
Zero spotted a humanoid figure and called out in the language Caelum spoke. He did not want to go through that ordeal again.
"Hey, hey! Are you lost, too?"
The figure turned towards them and faced towards Zero. Then, it promptly let out a high-pitched scream, causing Zero to flinch.