After trying to pay as much attention as he could, Louis straight up just got worn out and went for a nap.
But out of nowhere!
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
"AH, DAMNIT!"
BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
Louis instantly jolts awake!
"Did you guys see that?" Laura asks.
"Huh, what?" Louis still hasn't composed himself.
"And you, sleepy boy, stay awake! From here on out we are in enemy territory!"
"Yes, ma'am! What happened, though?"
"A mana beast just rushed across the highway. See what I meant, Jeanne? If you didn't have your seatbelt, you would have shoved your head right into the seat!"
"Ugh, I am gonna be sick!"
"Anyhow, I'll park on the side of the road, and you guys set up camp while I go catch that fellow and scout!"
Fuyuko quickly parks and then hands the key to Jeanne. "This is on your hands now!"
"Teacher, before you go, what about the instructor you talked about?"
"Ah, don't worry, she is already close by working! Either wait for a bit and she will come for you, or light a flare, and she will pop right out to help!" As soon as she finishes her piece, she turns to dust and leaves.
"Uh, you guys brought flares, right?" Louis asks.
"I know a flare spell, so I didn't bring one." Laura comments.
"I got ya buddy!" Jeanne goes and rummages through her backpack for a moment, taking out two flares and handing one to Louis. "Guys, hear me out. As missions are rated, we should do our business just fine as soon as we get the recon going, so how about you and Laura finish setting up camp and I take a quick look around as well? If you need anything, just shout; worst case, light the flare."
"Understood." Laura responds.
"O-ok." Louis feels a bit nervous; this is starting to look like that part in horror movies where people separate and horrible things start happening, and it is also starting to get dark…
Jeanne turns to Laura and extends her hand; Laura gives her a spell tag, which Jeanne then puts in her pocket, turns into a werewolf in quick succession, and leaves.
"So Laura… "
"What?"
"What's the paper for?"
"Usually casting spells, you can write them on paper with your soul string, and depending on the spell, either it casts continually or you can rip it to trigger it."
"What spell was on that?"
"None."
"None?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"She just needed something to smell to find me in case someone casts a map-blocking spell. Didn't you give her something of yours too?"
"No? I don't think so, at least…?"
"? Anyhow, don't get too far away from me; let us find a clearing or something."
Louis and Laura walked not too far away from the spot where the van was parked. the trees around weren't too thick and seemed to be planted at regular intervals.
[Seems to be a reforestation area?]
After a few silent moments of setting up tents while Laura gathered some sticks, preparing for a campfire later, Louis figured he should ask what had been in his head for a bit.
"So, Laura…"
"What?"
"I think… I used to call you something else before, right?"
Laura drops a few sticks. "… You…, What do you think that would be?"
"Was it Reina? Why was that…?"
Laura seems to freeze for a moment, and her eyes seem to slightly redden.
"You…" Laura puts all that she was carrying on the floor and wipes her eyes.
"Are you ok?" Louis starts approaching to check on Laura.
"WAIT, DON'T COME HERE." Laura extends her hand towards Louis.
" !?" Louis tries to ask Laura what's wrong, but no sound comes out.
Laura then proceeds to pull some tags from her pockets, throws some to the ground in a square shape, covering the camp, and picks one of the sticks she was carrying.
She signals to Louis what he can only interpret as some sort of get ready!
[Are we getting attacked?]
Louis then proceeds to sync his soul with his body as much as he can; he goes carefully towards his backpack and starts looking for his flare. He might need to use this at any time, so he better be ready!
Laura, with her extended soul string towards the tip of the stick, draws a symbol in the air, and the tags on the floor activate, forming a barrier around the camp.
Once that is done, she seems to relax for a bit; she shakes her stick into the air and hails Louis closer.
Louis comes in with a short leap.
Laura cups her hands and seems to be writing some letters with her soul string.
*Danger*
*Silence spell*
And the following two works shook Louis the most.
*Enemy*
*Sorcerer*
*Possibly*
[Enemy sorcerer? How do we even deal with that… and… Possibly? Oh, maybe Fuyuko just cast that for some reason? But…]
[I can't think for another reason to cast a silence spell that hit us all the way here if it is not an enemy…]
Either way, Louis redoubles his attention.
Over time the tension lowered, but he still couldn't lower his guard; the spell still continued, and both Jeanne and Fuyuko haven't come back yet.
Laura kept the barrier up, took out all the combat gear she might need from her backpack, and now has something like a wand with paper on top. It seems more like a proper magic weapon now. She is sitting on a log in front of Louis while snapping her fingers in rhythm, seemingly checking for whenever the silence spell ends.
Louis tries to fiddle with the multitool he has. The compass is still working properly; he can see two small arrows for Jeanne and Fuyuko, northwest and east, respectively, and one pointing north for Laura, who is in front of him, and another white one with a symbol, which he now remembers is actually north, so by now, he has totally forgotten how the compass works.
[How did this thing go again? Well, I guess Laura should know at least?]
Louis goes ahead and sits next to Laura while pointing at the map, she then looks at it and thinks for a bit, then she wags her finger and points toward the floor, displaying a symbol that means 'stay'.
[I mean, of course we should stay here, I just mean to say, maybe we can know if the others are fine from the map? how can I even comunicate that? I can't do this soul string thing…]
By now Louis feels a bit bummed out, He can't do much to help anyway.
He changes the multitool function to clock; it seems to be 17:65 already. It is pretty dark, and it is a bit late; it should be time to sleep.
[I think they have been out for 2 hours or something already…]
Louis then proceeds to mimic to Laura, maybe she should sleep first and then swap?
Once she sees Louis mimic sleeping, she seems to kinda get it and display the following symbols.
*You*
*Sleep*
*I*
*Protect*
*Teacher*
*Arrive*
Louis understands, but he doesn't like that he is the one that has to be protected.
[Once I figure this stuff out… I want to be the one people rely on…]
Louis has always been a light sleeper; he figures he just needs to put himself in that weird nap posture he did when working overnight, and he should be up again after 30-40 minutes or something.
Louis signals "ok," which leaves Laura with a puzzled expression, and he heads for the tents. One last look at Laura, and she is trying that gesture too.
[I guess they don't do that one around here either?]
…
Over the course of a few naps, Louis does the following routine: sleep, wake up, crawl outside of the tent to check on Laura, see she is fine, try to check for noises, and then go back once he sees the silence spell is still active.
After doing so for the fourth time, he feels something shaking in his soul and gets fully alert, He jumps, even a bit groggily, out of the tent while clumsily syncing his aura and sees Laura looking back at him with a confused look.
She gets up from the log and looks around carefully; maybe there is something wrong after all?
After doing so, the tension seems to calm down; Laura points at Louis and forms a new symbol at him.
*Nightmare*
Louis reads that and shakes his head; he still feels that something is wrong, and then he points to the east side of the barrier.
Laura also looks there and sees a sharp diamond cut into the wall, with the cutout floating just forwards enough that it would seem to still be connected if you look from far away.
Big enough to fit a person.
Laura instantly casts another spell on a stick in the ground, which splits into 3 parts, one pointing at Laura, one at Louis, and one going towards the hole in the wall.
The only thing Louis is sure of now is that there is definitely something or someone there, even if he has no idea what the spell actually does.
In the blink of an eye, just as Laura seems ready to cast another spell, something made out of shadows comes out of the hole in the wall, skittering towards Laura like some giant bug.
Louis, startled, pulls out the flare at the sight, points it at the hole, and triggers it.
A large amount of bright light starts pouring out of the flare, right at the creature, which seems to actually be a cloaked person walking on all fours, who gets blinded by the light!
Laura casts a spell that makes her soul string pull out a scroll that flows toward the person, with intent to bind, and….
"BOOOOOM"
From the flare a large noise comes out!
The cloaked person falls down, contorting in pain!
Not only sound came from the flare, but it seems like a golden? hand comes out as well, doing a gun gesture.
Out of the light, which grows into a ball, it jumped with a flip!
"HELLO EVERYONE! IT'S ME!"
Just like it came in, the cloaked person starts to scurry away from the same hole.
"BANG BANG"
Like a cowboy, the light figure gets in position and shoots light at the legs of the intruder.
"Did you ask my name? How wouldn't you know! It's me! STAR DEATH!" Shouting and posing, the woman skids on the ground without moving, like a PNG in a shitty cartoon, and gets right next to the person down.
" ?" Laura tries to say something.
[Uh, that's crazy? That dude seems to be bleeding real bad?]
"HAHAHA"