Angor considered himself lucky that he finished recording the books a day before Sunders’ return. Other than that, nothing special happened.
Angor was still tensed upon seeing Sunders, fearing that his teacher might have some ways to monitor his actions in the book room. His worry was soon proved to be unnecessary. Sunders was not interested in which books he read. The man only told him one thing, “Once we get back to Brute Cavern, keep in mind that you won’t receive anything easily.”
Angor was unsure about what he meant. Later, Flora explained to him in private, “I was pulling your legs the other day. The books you read that are intended for apprentices aren’t valuable to wizards in the least. But still, you need to obey the equivalent exchange rule. The teacher was telling you that if you want to find books to read in Brute Cavern, you must pay with magic crystals.”
… So Flora exaggerated the books’ value just to scare him.
Flora did not realize that there was no need for Angor to understand the more valuable books at all. He already kept them all. If he really followed the rule of equivalent exchange, Angor would need to pay a lot. This “if” did not exist now.
As for Angor, he knew he just earned himself a lot of profit by recording all the books. From now on, he would never reveal his secret about the hologram tablet so that people would not suspect him.
They would reach the land in the afternoon. After saying goodbye to his teacher, Angor returned to his tent to pack up his and Toby’s stuff. He did not have much to carry, but Toby’s daily necessities took up a lot of space. Angor tried very hard to compact them but he still had to carry a giant pack.
It was a good thing that Sunders knew that Toby was Greya’s pet. Even though Angor was the one taking care of it, Toby was still a guest of Brute Cavern as well. As such, they should be helping with the bird’s luggage.
“Butler Goode, I’m really sorry for the trouble,” said Angor as he handed Toby’s package to Goode with a little bit of embarrassment.
“Don’t be, Mister Padt,” said Goode as he took the luggage away.
Angor carried his own stuff. For one, Goode did not offer to help him with it. Secondly, Angor did not want to leave some of his valuable objects in the hands of someone else.
When the cloud whale completely left the thunderclouds, and the sunlight shone upon the entire ranch field again, Angor knew they had finally reached Fey Continent.
…
When getting ashore, Angor did not follow Sunders. Instead, he was arranged to join the other winners of the deathmatches and traveled to the continent on a demon falcon. A dozen giant demon falcons took off, let out several cries, and dashed towards the endless land at the end of the horizon.
Angor looked back at the cloud whale. The creature was silently watching them leave with those giant, gentle eyes. Angor waved at the whale to bid farewell.
The cloud whale seemed to have noticed Angor’s posture. It squinted its eyes a little as if smiling.
Behind the whale were the dissipating thunderclouds and the boundless sea.
Far away in that direction was a beautiful land that gave birth to Angor. Whatever happened in the future, Angor knew that his home would always be there.
“Homesick already?” An indolent voice reached Angor’s ears through the wind.
Angor looked back. He did not notice that Nausica had already moved closer to him while holding the reins to control the demon falcon in her hands.
“A little. I’m away for a while now. I wonder how my family is doing,” Angor replied, absent-minded. He did not want to talk about it too much, so he chose to change the topic by asking, “You can manipulate demon falcons?”
“Huh… So, this giant bird is called a demon falcon?” Nausica stroke her hair, which was blown apart by the wind. Even such a simple action looked exceptionally sexy on her.
She continued, “I’m not manipulating. The rein is used to tell it where to go, like riding a war horse.”
Angor rode horses before. However, Leon was always worrying about his safety, so Leon only chose Merson Long-Hair Dwarves for him to ride. These horses were no taller than a meter and did not need to be controlled by veins. They did not even gallop when someone’s riding them. They would only stroll slowly.
Angor did not enjoy such boring rides, but as an extreme brother-lover, Leon always refused to let Angor ride bigger horses so that Angor would never be injured. Angor never rode on any ordinary horses, let alone war horses.
Angor watched Nausica tilting the demon falcon skillfully and felt a bit jealous. He could not help but ask her for instructions.
Nausica did not hide anything either. She helped Angor to learn some basic maneuvers by hand, and soon, Angor was enjoying himself in it.
After a while, Nausica watched Angor steering the demon falcon around in joy and shook her head.
“Sigh. Kid,” muttered Nausica.
After Angor had his fun, they resumed their normal route.
Nausica looked back at the thunderclouds in the distance and muttered, “Those thunderclouds almost reached the edge of Fey Continent. They weren’t kidding about the extreme weathers on Devil’s Water.”
Nausica seemed to be surprised by the weather. However, for some reason, Angor sensed the excitement in her words. Why was she excited at the extreme weather though? Angor knew they were not really close friends, so he did not ask her.
Looking at Fey Continent from the sky, they could only see an endless forest and occasional mountains in the distance.
“So this is Fey Continent!”
After journeying for nine months, Angor finally found himself coming to the land of wizards.
The demon falcon landed on the eastern coast of the Twilight Harbor. There was still some way towards Twilight Town.
The other winners from the deathmatches reached the ground one after another.
Angor usually observed these people when they were still in their tents. Now they were up close, Angor could feel the usual auras from them.
Most of them looked tall and strong, and each person had some unique characteristics.
For example, the first one Angor saw when he left the demon falcon was a young man wearing a black and white velvet hat crouching on the beach and fiddling around a crab. A knight sword that was wrapped in cloth was placed behind him. Under a coconut tree nearby, a bulky man with a handlebar mustache was leaning against the tree and enjoying the mottled sunlight shining through the pinnate leaves.