Taron and I decided it would be best to run toward the danger.
Which, in retrospect, probably wasn't the smartest idea when we saw an entire forest of Aethren run away from it.
There was a difference between recognising danger and understanding it; sadly, right now, I understood nothing.
Branches broke off and brushed past my shoulders as Taron and I followed the route marked on our assignment map. We moved against the constant waves of fleeing wildlife; small F-rank Aethren darted between tree roots and bush hedges around us. A burst of birds emerged from parasols above us in frantic clusters; their screams were sharp and disorganised.
It was clear none of the creatures we encountered cared about us, and that bothered me more than anything else.
If there was one thing I learned in class, it was that Aethren were territorial. They were predatory and defensive; heck, even some were curious or stupid enough to attack anything that happened to appear within their visual range.
But these?
These Aethren were fleeing, and I had no idea what from.
'Codex, you got anything that might help?'
[ENVIRONMENTAL AETHER FLUCTUATION INCREASING]
[MULTIPLE BIOLOGICAL SIGNATURES RETREATING]
[CAUSE: UNKNOWN]
'Great, so even the Codex doesn't know the cause of all this chaos.'
Taron jumped over a fallen trunk beside me.
"You know," he said between breaths, "I'm starting to think that maybe running toward whatever scared the hell out of all these Aethren might've been a bad idea."
"Funny. I was just thinking the same thing."
"Haha, and yet we're still running."
"We don't have a choice; the next token is this direction."
"That's not a reassuring reason for defence, though."
Exhaling a deep breath. "Yeah. I know."
A violent crack echoed up ahead.
We both stopped.
It wasn't the sound of a branch, but something much heavier.
I heard a tree shake.
Then another.
Then leaves exploded in a flurry.
Taron slowly raised his left hand in front of me. "Uhhh. Kael..."
"I see what you see, Taron."
A mysterious entity barrelled out of the forest undergrowth. At first, all I could see was brown fur and an absurd amount of muscle, but then the creature smashed through a rotten, torn tree trunk and entered through the open path just ahead of us.
It resembled something akin to a beaver from my old world, except it was much larger, with a reinforced skull; it had enough muscle to make its shoulders look malformed, and it was clear that whatever part of its brain handled reasonable decisions had been removed.
Its body was nearly as tall as my chest.
Its dark brown fur clung to its torso like a thick mat; its forelimbs were oversized, and its claws, broad like a shovel, extended to the level of its hardened tail, which dragged behind it. There were two enormous pincers that protruded from its mouth, ragged and yellow.
But most importantly... it looked terrified.
It stumbled onto the path and turned violently, slamming shoulder-first into one of the forest's old barriers, hidden between the trees.
The green runes of the barrier flashed.
Once.
Then twice.
Until it ultimately failed, allowing the beaver-like creature to tear straight through.
I felt my stomach tighten, and the Codex reacted to it.
[D-RANK AETHREN DETECTED]
[TARRAFOD]
[BEHAVIOURAL STATE: EXTREME DISTRESS]
[HOSTILITY: UNSTABLE]
[RECOMMENDATION: AVOID ENGAGEMENT]
I didn't need the final line to realise what to do next
"Taron."
"Yeah?"
"That's a D-rank."
"I gathered."
The Tarrafod turned.
Its small black eyes found us.
For half a second, the three of us stared at one another.
Taron whispered, "So? Do we kill it?"
I looked at the creature's body, its dense musculature, heavy-duty skull and thick fur. Given that it was D-rank and considering our current Aether reserves, I had only one answer.
"No."
"Good. I agree."
The Tarrafod screamed; it didn't sound remotely similar to how a beaver would.
It charged toward us, prompting Taron to shout.
"RUN!"
We turned simultaneously.
The ground shook behind us.
Taron vaulted over a low root and twisted mid-step.
"Ventus: Draft Twist!"
A violent spiral of wind ripped sideways through a pile of dead branches and leaves. Debris burst across the Tarrafod's path, but the creature barely slowed.
"Okay," Taron shouted. "That did a lot less than I hoped it would!"
"You think?!"
He shaped another spell.
"Okay! How about this one then! Ventus: Cutting Draft!"
A crescent of compressed air tore through a dead tree ahead of the Tarrafod.
The trunk cracked.
Collapsed.
The Tarrafod smashed through that too, but its head turned. It was a slight turn, but enough to lose its direct line toward us, as it ploughed through a cluster of bushes instead.
Taron grabbed my arm.
"What are you doing?!"
"IMPROVISING!"
"What do you mean improvis—"
Bright green Aether suddenly flooded around his legs like a dam finding land. This wasn't thin Aether either. It was dense. It wrapped around his calves and compressed beneath the soles of his boots until the air itself began to distort.
Taron pulled me toward him. "Hold on!"
"To what?!"
"To me!"
"No, stop. I dislike this plan."
My protests were easily ignored as I heard Taron quietly say two words.
"Zephyr Step."
The air exploded beneath us.
My stomach stayed where it was, but the rest of me didn't.
Taron accelerated forward with enough force that the trees began to blur.
Compressed bursts of Ventus erupted beneath his feet in rapid intervals.
Left. Right, and forward. Each release changed our direction before gravity could properly argue back with what Taron was doing.
Soon after, I realised, with growing aggravation, that Taron was carrying me.
Not over his shoulder.
'Thankfully.'
One arm hooked beneath mine and around my torso as he propelled us both through the forest.
"Let go of me, Taron. I don't need to be carried like this."
"Kael, I'm the only one who can move us this quickly."
A compressed burst launched us across a shallow ditch.
"How are we moving this quickly?!"
"It's my Traversal Art; I promise I'll explain all of it once we get a chance to catch our breath!"
"... Fine. I'm going to hold you to that, though."
Another burst occurred. Trees flashed past, and the Tarrafod's crashing footsteps faded away.
There was a pause.
"Not a word of this to Ryn, by the way."
Taron looked down at me.
Even while moving at an objectively unreasonable speed, he somehow found time to smile.
That smile worried me.
"Taron."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking it."
"I think of many things."
"Well, stop."
"Nope."
Eventually, as we escaped north of the forest, we stumbled upon a ravine.
Annoyingly, Taron slowed so suddenly that my feet nearly forgot how to walk. He let me down, and I moved away immediately.
The ravine stretched across the woodland like an old wound, perhaps thirty metres wide at its narrowest point. It was deep enough that the bottom dematerialised beneath layers of branches and mist.
Fortunately, the Academy had maintained a bridge that crossed it.
'Though it looks like it's been a long time since they did any repair work on the bridge.'
The bridge was made of old stone, reinforced with metal pickets and jagged iron lines. Many sections of the bridge were cracked, but it still somehow looked stable enough for a couple of students to walk across it.
Probably.
Hopefully.
Taron bent over, hands on his knees.
I breathed heavily beside him.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then I looked at him.
He looked back.
I raised an eyebrow, as if saying, 'So are you going to tell me or?'
He sighed.
"Ok, right. What is a Traversal Art?"
We started walking onto the bridge.
"A traversal art," Taron explained, "is basically Aether used for movement rather than attack or defence."
"That sounds incredibly useful."
"It is."
"Why don't they teach us this in our Fundamentals class?"
"They do eventually. Usually once they can trust that people won't accidentally break their ankles due to miscontrol of their Aether."
"Reassuring."
"I think it gets taught anyway in second year."
'So the nobles, or at least the nobles of the Great Houses, get taught this beforehand. Seems like an entirely fair situati— damn. I'm starting to sound like Ryn now.'
Taron playfully stepped over a crack. "From my understanding, every affinity handles it differently. Ventus is probably one of the easiest because movement is already part of what wind can do. Zephyr Step compresses air beneath my feet and releases it in bursts."
"So you're effectively generating directional thrust."
Taron looked at me.
"I have no idea what that means."
"You propel yourself using controlled force."
"Ah. Yeah, that's what I said."
"You didn't."
"It was close enough."
I glanced toward his feet.
"So how do I learn one?"
"Depends. Some traversal arts are inherited techniques. Some are Academy spellforms. Some people make their own once they understand their affinity enough."
'I can make my own, you say? Interesting. Very interesting.'
My eyes began to sparkle.
The Codex pulsed faintly.
[NEW TECHNIQUE CATEGORY RECORDED]
'Not now. We'll discuss this later.'
[ACKNOWLEDGED]
We were roughly halfway across the bridge when a harsh sound cut through the air.
A scream.
High and almost metallic.
Taron stopped.
"What the hell was that?"
I turned around.
Something emerged from the forest on the side we had just left.
Large.
Much larger than the Tarrafod.
It resembled an oversized wild boar; its muscles were broad and hefty, with what looked like scraggly burnt-orange fur embelished with black rings and circular markings across its flanks and shoulders. Menacing, thick ivory tusks curved from its darkened muzzle, and its steep, forward-leaning build made it look specifically designed for one thing.
Charging through anything that stood in its path.
The Codex flashed.
[C-RANK AETHREN DETECTED: HIYIP]
My eyes widened in utter shock. 'C-RANK?! What the hell is a C-rank doing here??'
The Hiyip screeched again.
It lowered its head and began making a motion I wasn't comfortable with.
"Taron, you see what I'm seeing..."
"Mhm. Yep."
The Hiyip charged... although not at us.
It bolted at the old stone structure that was anchoring the bridge.
"Oh no."
Taron's expression dropped. "That can't be good."
The Hiyip rammed into the structure, causing Aether to detonate and the old structure to split. Blue-white light radiating from the anchoring structure erupted violently through every line carved into the bridge.
Stone snapped outward.
The entire bridge transformed beneath us.
Taron looked down.
"Ah, crap."
The section of the bridge under him collapsed.
His foot vanished, then half of his body followed.
"Taron!"