Thor happily trotted along the route that Hawk was giving him, avoiding the puddles, likely soft spots and anywhere else that the Hawk thought looked sketchy.
But the Cerro leading a bus was gathering a fair bit of attention from the residents of the grasslands they were passing by.
Most of it came from the semi domesticated buffalo beasts, which were a primary source of monster meat for the Elites and raised by the ranchers in the area, while the rest came from the small animals who felt the vibrations in the ground from the odd combination.
Their first thought was that the Cerro had stolen a bus.
They were pack animals, and left alone, as the other monsters thought this one had been after the flood, they would try to return to their pack as soon as possible. The bus was large and shiny, just like his scales, so the local wildlife thought at first that the Lightning Cerro had just adopted the mechanical contraption as part of its new pack.
Then they noticed that it was full of people who felt like power. The Cerro wasn’t alone and vulnerable, it had taken a pack of magic using humans, and it was leading them across the hills.
They were carefully making their way around a wetland area, where long reeds grew up out of the mud, when Hawk suddenly dove into the long grasses, and came back up with something long in its claws.
[Haha, I got another one. Oh, this is going to be so tasty.] He cheered as he contemplated the snake caught in his claws.
To a normal Windspeed Hawk, this was not a target it could hunt, the snake was much too large. But at his current size, the three-metre-long python was no match for him. It had an ability to harden its scales as armour, but it was still a Common Grade monster, and no match for Rend at the level that Hawk could use it.
[Toss it in the space for later. No playing with your food when you’re scouting.] Karl reprimanded his partner.
[Fine, fine. But I’m not stopping.] Hawk pouted, before decapitating the beast and throwing the body at the bus, where it vanished a few metres from the window, pulled into the beast space.
“Care to explain what that was all about?” Dana asked carefully as she watched Karl staring out the window before Hawk threw a snake at him.
“Hawk is pouting because I told him not to play with his food.” Karl replied.
Dana smiled and shook her head. “Is this his teenage rebellious phase?”
The other students hid their smiles at the thought. Hawk had always been an independent sort of beast, but they had never thought of it as a teenager rebelling against its parent’s control.
Hawk was back to patrolling the area to keep the bus from getting bogged down, and though there were some soft spots where Thor was definitely helping pull them through, they hadn’t had to stop once yet, and the map said that they should be getting close to the road.
[There are enemies on the horizon.] Hawk warned them just after lunch.
“Hawk says there is danger on the horizon. It’s still too far for even his eyes to make out the small details, but I trust his judgment.” Karl informed the bus.
He leaned out the window to see what the Hawk had found, and the sight of large wings in a V formation caught his attention. It looked like Drakes again, and they were a little closer now, enough that he could see the riders on their backs.
They weren’t heading for the bus, they were flying toward the Holy Relic and the region where his group had been gathering that day.
He pulled out the Academy issued phone, and checked the list of emergency numbers, then recalled that he already knew the one that he wanted.
He dialed 777 and waited for it to ring through.
“Speak.” The voice informed him.
“This is Awakened Karl, 95988. Full flight of Drake Riders spotted headed toward the newest Holy Relic from the south. The distance is roughly sixty kilometres.” Karl replied.
“Understood.”
Then the line went dead, and Karl put the phone back in his pocket, satisfied that he had done his duty.
“So, do you think that they’re drawn to the location by the Dragon Magic?” One of the mages asked.
“That’s my thought. At first, I thought that they were after the clerics, but this time they’re headed the same way, so it has to be the lingering energy in the area that they have noticed. It might not be safe to go gathering there again for a few months, but we can always go look for another spot.
With the gains that we got this time, and our lucky charm amulets, we might be able to find another good patch of resources before these run out.” Karl suggested.
The other students smirked at the reference. They had gotten so much this time that they wouldn’t run out for quite a while, and some of the resources, like the holy stones, would last the mages for their whole training and beyond. But that only made them want to go out again once their strength had improved, so they could come a little closer to keeping up with the leaders of the class.
An hour after the Drakes were gone from sight, Thor pulled them up onto a gravel roadway, and Karl called him to a stop. The bus was back on the road now, and they could make better time, so it was the end of his guide duty for now.
He had gotten a solid workout, with the intermittent need to pull the bus through the soft spots, and Thor was happy to return to the beast space as Karl packed up the chain into the bus’ belly boxes and Hawk landed on the roof to survey from a perch for a while.
“The bridge should be less than a kilometre ahead. We will stop when we get there and inspect the footings to make sure it is in good condition, and then we will be on the home stretch to the Academy.” The driver explained once Karl was back in the bus and Thor was snoring away in his Holy Stone lined pond.
[It looks good. I searched over and under it, and it doesn’t look broken.] Hawk informed Karl in a distracted voice as he considered whether to fly over and eat one of the Earth Mice for nostalgia’s sake.
He had gotten his fill of snake before throwing it into storage, so he wasn’t actually hungry, but they were mice.
If the mice had known what he was thinking, they would have been terrified. But their eyesight wasn’t good enough to notice that he was sitting on top of the bus, whose vibration was hiding any presence that the Windspeed Hawk might have given off.
The drive to the bridge was remarkably smooth compared to bumping over the tufts of grass in the grasslands, which had been irregularly packed by the buffalo.
“Ah, the good life. I will never insult the quality of the gravel roads again.” One of the warriors laughed as they drove up the bridge.
The driver looked up in the passenger facing mirror over his head. “It’s all about life experience. The field saved us days of waiting or working, and now we’re almost at the bridge. I will need to check it out quickly before we go, to make certain that there was no damage, but that’s the last river crossing before the Academy.”
The driver pulled the bus to the side of the road, but Karl didn’t see any sign of other traffic anywhere, and hadn’t seen any all day long. If this road was regularly travelled, the traffic wasn’t out today. Most likely it was used by the farmers and trucks going to the villages in the area, but with the floods, everyone else would be stuck and waiting for road repairs.
The driver’s inspection only took a few minutes, as he walked the length of the bridge and looked over the sides with a mirror on a stick.
“Hawk is right, there is no damage, and the water didn’t cut away the base under the concrete. We are good to go.” He announced as he returned.
Hawk gave a self-satisfied noise, as if questioning why anyone doubted him to begin with, and settled down on the cargo railing he had chosen as his perch atop the bus.
Once they were across, it was like the storm had never happened. The roads were bare and dry, with no signs of washed out shoulders, and an increased amount of wildlife. None that dared to approach the bus, but every few minutes Hawk would spot something and relay it to Karl.
“And this is the last corner before the Academy. Might as well start getting your gear ready and packing up the dishes. We will be there in ten minutes.” The driver reminded them an hour after they passed the bridge.
The students groaned as they realized that it was their duty to clean up after themselves again, but Sister Betty had already started packing away the leftovers, and had packed the rice and beans into their usual squares, then fried them in the pan until they would hold their shape.
Who she planned to feed them to was a mystery, but she had the traditional snacks all ready should she happen to meet a horse here at the Academy.
“It has been a pleasure travelling with you all. Good luck on your next mission, and don’t forget about my brothers and sisters at the Seminary Academy.” Sister Betty informed them as the bus rolled through the gates.
“Best of luck on your mission, and may the fates favour you with all the resources that you need.” Karl replied.