Chapter 211: Wait... We Still Have a Journey Tomorrow! (Patreon)

Sometimes the more you worry about something, the more certain it is to happen.

Deep in the night, Isac was jolted awake by the wind howling outside.

He got up and crept across the floor, guided by the glow of the wood stove, to the hut's only glass window and looked out.

Pitch black, just as he'd expected. All he could see were snowflakes, driven by the bitter wind, rapping against the glass. Judging by how thick they were coming, the snow had picked up again.

When the survival squad had reached the hut, the snow outside had barely qualified as a moderate snowfall. Now it was trending toward a full-blown heavy one, and the temperature inside had dropped a good bit with it.

"What's wrong?"

A sleepy woman's voice drifted over from behind him.

Isac turned and found that Kaguya had pushed herself up from the bed at some point.

Well, "pushed herself up" wasn't quite right. The bed was so small that there was no way for all four of them to lie flat on it, so tonight they'd all slept propped against the wall, half sitting, half lying down.

Compared with sleeping flat, this was definitely not comfortable, but for people who'd been on the road for days, they could make do. They just slept lightly, waking at the slightest noise.

Isac had been woken by the wind picking up.

"The snow's getting heavier out there," Isac said, keeping it short.

Kaguya's head was thick with sleep. It took her a good while to process his words before she managed a reply: "So are we still going tomorrow?"

"Depends. If it snows too hard, we might lose some time," Isac said.

He watched her head dip again and again as she fought to stay awake, and it struck him as funny. "Go back to sleep. I'll put some more fuel in the stove."

Kaguya didn't answer. All he heard was the sound of her even breathing.

The rest of the night passed without incident.

By the time Isac woke again, Yukinoshita Yukino and the others were already sitting at the edge of the bed in thick coats, talking quietly.

Rubbing his stiff neck, Isac asked, "Is it still snowing?"

"Still coming down, and hard, too. It probably won't stop anytime soon," Hayasaka Ai replied.

Yukinoshita Yukino handed Isac a thermos of Birch Bark Tea, along with a hot towel.

Isac took the towel and wiped his face, then drank a mouthful of hot tea. By the time he was done, the last of his drowsiness had melted away.

"We're not going anywhere today." After handing him his things, Yukinoshita Yukino sat back down on the edge of the bed.

The main problem was how cramped the hut was. The bed was the only place to sit, there was standing room for just two people, and even then you couldn't work without bumping into something.

"I figured..." Isac nodded, not surprised in the least.

He glanced out the window. It was light out now, but the sky was still a murky gray, with snowflakes whirling wildly through the air. In weather like this, forget long-distance travel. Even stepping outside would be a hassle.

"In that case, let's take advantage of it and rest up properly here for a day," Isac said.

Yukinoshita Yukino sipped her tea. "Not much else we can do."

Kaguya asked, "Can we still reach the coastal town before Aurora Week?"

"If the snow only lasts a day or two, we should make it. Any longer than that... then we can only hope the aurora doesn't clock in right on schedule," Isac answered at once. Clearly he'd already worked out the timing.

Kaguya knew there was no use rushing something like this, so she turned to a far more pressing problem.

"So how are we going to handle the bathroom situation in the meantime?"

Isac looked around the hut: one third sled cargo, one third bed, one sixth stove, table and other furnishings, and only the last sixth left as space to actually move around.

After thinking it over, he said, "Right on the spot?"

Even he could barely keep a straight face after saying it. Why did this feel even rougher than the forest cabin days, seriously?!

Back then, at least there'd been a curtain. Forget a curtain. Now, whenever one person needed to go, everyone else had to pile back onto the bed just to make room.

Luckily, the hut had a spare tin bucket, or they'd have had to build a makeshift toilet from scratch.

When they'd arrived yesterday, Yukinoshita Yukino and the others had handled things this way. But that had only been number one, so it hadn't been a big deal. Now that they'd be stuck here for a while, there were some things they couldn't avoid facing.

"Just grin and bear it," Yukinoshita Yukino said, trying to comfort her. "It's not like he's never seen it."

Kaguya's cheeks flushed, and she ground her teeth. "You're only tough now. I hope you're this cheerful when it's your turn."

Yukinoshita Yukino didn't understand why Kaguya was reacting so strongly. After a moment's thought, her gaze drifted downward. Kaguya's legs were pressed tightly together, and a look of dawning understanding crossed Yukinoshita Yukino's pretty face.

Stifling a laugh, she said, "Want me to cover his eyes for you?"

After a long moment, Kaguya muttered, "...Yes."

…

Day three of being trapped in the hut. The snow outside had eased considerably and looked about ready to stop.

After a full day of rest yesterday, apart from a few awkward moments, everyone's energy had recovered pretty well.

The hut was a little small, sure, but you know what? Squeezed together, watching the firewood burn in the stove while the wind howled outside, they felt an oddly snug, cozy sort of peace.

Especially with three beauties beside him, leaning on one another, their warmth and scent mingling together. It was deeply reassuring.

"The snow's let up. It'll probably turn to light flurries soon. Should we head out?" Hayasaka Ai asked, looking at Isac.

Isac didn't answer right away. He checked the map first.

In the meantime, Kaguya chimed in. "We've already lost almost a day and a half here."

"Safety first... but we have lost quite a lot of time here," Yukinoshita Yukino said. It seemed she leaned toward pushing on to the coastal town, too.

But none of them, not Kaguya, not Yukinoshita Yukino, not Hayasaka Ai, had any intention of making the decision for Isac. If he decided they should stay, they wouldn't say a word.

"If the snow stops before noon, we leave," Isac decided. Light snow wasn't safe enough. The snow around here came in waves, and it could look light when they set out, then suddenly pick up again after they'd gone a ways.

They had to wait until it stopped completely.

"We'll chow down on lunch early today, so we can head out the moment the snow stops. Three or four hours in the afternoon should be plenty to find our next place to sleep," Isac said.

He'd studied the map. There were buildings along the railway, but nowhere near as many as along the road to Mountain Town. Only a handful were marked, and they weren't close together, with at least several kilometers between each one.

In good conditions, at the squad's pace, a few kilometers still took an hour or two. Add some margin for surprises, and three or four hours was about right.

The three girls nodded at his decision and began preparing lunch.

Since the survival squad had no clock, Isac and the others usually judged the time by the charcoal in the wood stove.

Every morning after waking, they'd make a rough guess based on how bright it was outside, then add charcoal to the stove. A standard-size piece, burning normally, lasted about two hours.

By his observation, once the two hours were up, the heat the charcoal gave off dropped noticeably. Using that as a baseline, they'd add more charcoal and start the next count.

This homemade method couldn't pin down the time exactly, but combined with the color of the sky, it gave a good enough estimate.

So at around ten in the morning, the survival squad sat down to their lunch, and about an hour later, the snow outside stopped.

Isac glanced at the sky. It hadn't yet reached its brightest point of the day, which meant there were at least four hours left until dark.

Enough.

Everything went according to plan.

They poured the hot water that had been kept simmering in the pot into the thermoses. After filling all four, there was still some left, so they dumped it by the door.

A few pieces of charcoal in the stove hadn't burned out yet. Isac picked out the big ones and put them in an iron bucket to carry along. They could warm their hands on the road, which was better than nothing.

And so the group set off again toward the coastal town.

They hadn't gone far when Isac's steps halted. He turned to Hayasaka Ai and found her already looking at him.

"You felt it too?"

They said it at the same time.

Bewilderment flickered in the eyes of Yukinoshita Yukino and Kaguya. They hadn't spent long in the wild, and their sense of their surroundings couldn't match Isac's and Ai's.

The blatantly hostile gaze from before, they could just about pick up. But now whoever was watching had clearly grown much more cautious, probably trailing from far away, so the feeling of being targeted was faint, almost undetectable.

Only someone like Hayasaka Ai, with naturally keen senses, could pick it up.

The reason Isac could feel it was mainly that most of the watcher's attention was fixed on him. It probably had something to do with the shot he'd fired two days ago.

His expression darkened. Two whole days, and the thing was still staring at him.

Some creatures really don't learn until the bullet hits them.

"Ignore it for now. Keep moving," Isac said in a low voice after drawing a deep breath. "The terrain's pretty open around here, so an ambush isn't likely. The moment it shows itself, shoot. You don't need to ask me first."

Yukinoshita Yukino and the others nodded, their grips tightening on their guns without their noticing.

Since that unidentified beast had set its sights on them, they'd find out whether its fangs were harder, or their marksmanship was.

By now, Isac was fairly sure that whatever was tailing them wasn't the bear spirit.

If it were, they'd have been in danger back in the hut. It wouldn't have needed to do anything but tear the place down, and that alone would have been enough to put them in serious trouble.

Not to mention that, with a body the size of the bear spirit's, tearing down a house would probably take a single swipe.

Realizing that, the tension in Isac's nerves eased a little. As long as it wasn't the bear spirit, then with their current physical condition, anything short of an off-the-charts creature like that was basically manageable.

And even if they couldn't win one-on-one, they could always gang up on it, right?

The only worry was an injury delaying the trip.

For the rest of the road, Isac kept feeling that faint gaze on him. He ignored it and just kept his head down and pushed on.

The thing's patience was surprisingly good. Right up until the survival squad entered a wooden building by the roadside, it never attacked again.

Isac was a little disappointed about that. Come on, give it a try! How would you know if it'd work unless you tried?

As of now, Isac still had no idea what kind of animal had marked them.

Strangely, though, he wasn't in a hurry anymore, mainly because, according to the map, they were nearly at the outskirts of the coastal town.

If the hut hadn't delayed them, they'd probably have arrived the day after tomorrow. Now... it would be a day later.

Three days from now at the earliest.

And the day after tomorrow was the earliest Aurora Week could theoretically arrive. He hoped the aurora wouldn't be in such a rush. Better if it waited until they'd reached the coastal town, scouted the area, and set up their defenses, just like they had back in Mountain Town, and only then came crashing in.

"That thing's probably marked us, but we ignore it. Let it watch. We've got food, we've got drink, we've got beds. As long as we keep ourselves in good shape and show no openings, the one who'll get anxious is it," Isac said, thoroughly pleased with tonight's resting spot.

The place had probably been a roadside inn once. It had several rooms, none of them big, but plenty of beds. Each of the four of them could take a bed of their own, or they could push a few together into one big one.

Tonight, they could finally get a good night's sleep for the first time in ages.

But before sleep, Isac started getting restless again. The past two days they hadn't chowed down on much venison, yet the fire in him hadn't dimmed one bit. And now there happened to be so many beds, and little rooms, and even the night was so long...

Of the three girls present, Hayasaka Ai was the first to notice something off about him.

Their eyes met, and she understood his meaning in an instant.

Isac: Up for it?

Hayasaka Ai: Let's go!

But the building was only so big, the soundproofing wasn't great, and Hayasaka Ai made no effort to hide anything.

It left the two raven-haired girls flustered and speechless. After about half an hour, Isac walked out of the room. It wasn't that he'd run out of steam. Time was short and the workload heavy, and he had to spread the love evenly.

By the time Yukinoshita Yukino and Kaguya realized what he was planning, it was obviously too late.

They had time for only a single "We have to travel tomorrow" before being swiftly devoured by a certain someone.

Travel? With his recovery speed, one night was plenty to make up for it. No delay at all.