When a person travelled on a caravan, they usually expected to not be disturbed during the trip. Even if bandits attacked, they usually only managed to steal cargo and not fully take over the caravan, so as long as people stayed in their cabins they were safe, right?

  Valar woke up to a crash, the morning light and a strong gust of wind. Considering he was in a spatially expanded and enchanted cabin, none of those things should have been possible. Still, reality seemed to disagree, as half the cabin was filled with two dark objects that seemed like they were made out of smooth stone.

  Rodrick’s groan from the other side of the room woke Valar fully, and he actually looked at what was happening around him. It did not look good.

  The objects that had rammed through the side of the wagon were horns. More specifically they were the horns of an absolutely massive goat that had stuck itself in the side of the wagon. That goat was at silver rank…

  Perhaps fortunately, the goat bellowed out an earshattering MAAAA and ripped itself out of the wagon, eliciting another grunt from Rodrick who was smacked by the horn once again.

  The anatomy of a spatially expanded cargo wagon was certainly an interesting topic to think about. Perhaps differing from people’s expectations, a caravan wagon wasn’t just a spatially expanded box with lots of walls and doors added in. It was more like a big spatially expanded box surrounded by smaller spatially expanded boxes that were connected to the main container with magical links. That meant that a single container breach on the outside wouldn’t destroy the enchantments for the whole wagon, just that single cabin.

  As for what happened when a cabin was breached sufficiently badly… Well, its contents were ejected. Fast.

  Valar heard a distinct POP as he was sucked out of the hole in the cabin wall alongside his clothing, bed, table, Arthur, Rodrick and all the other furniture and equipment stashed inside. It felt like a massive pressure dragging him out of his bed, and that force let up the instant he was out of the cabin walls. That didn’t mean that he didn’t continue his flight.

  The images flashing in Valar’s vision as he flew across the clearing were chaotic, disturbing and nonsensical. He thought that he saw a whole herd of goats running across the wasteland, chased by something truly massive. He was even pretty sure that the being’s head rose higher than the trees of the Ronaheim forest, and those trees weren’t short.

  He had no way to tell if what he saw was real as he didn’t receive a long enough chance to look before he crashed against the hard ground. The boy’s wind was knocked out of his stomach and he gasped for breath. He didn’t even hear his own groan.

  Valar managed to touch his ear with his finger and the finger came back bloody. “I need to heal that. Focus!”

  He started casting Lesser Restoration on himself, but his concentration was broken as the massive beast ahead stepped down, shaking the very earth under its foot. Valar had no chance but to try again, channel as long as he could until he lost focus and try again. That process of healing lasted way longer than it should’ve, but it didn’t matter. The caravan would not be moving for quite a while unless it wanted to be in the middle of the ongoing stampede.

  Eventually, after long minutes of healing devoted to the minor injuries Valar had sustained, he heard another POP as sound returned to the world. And that sound returned with a vengeance.

  The wasteland around them was filled with thundering hooves, panicked MAAA’s and the roar of an apex predator. It was a full blown stampede, and the caravan could do nothing but huddle up and endure until it passed.

  Valar stumbled back to the wagons where the other team members were gathered. Carla, Ciel and Arthur looked all fine, although Ciel had some shallow wounds on her arms, but Rodrick was actually injured. He seemed to have a broken leg, but it had been straightened and he was just about to chug down a healing potion.

  “Stop!” Valar yelled over the noise. “I can heal you!”

  “Not fast enough alone!” Rodrick roared. “I’ll drink the potion, and you can supplement it with healing!”

  As Valar got to work, he heard the other team members’ discussion somewhat clearly.

  “What do we do?” Arthur yelled. “How is there even a stampede here?”

  I… I think this is bad.

  “Do you even know what you’ll find if you look past the wagons?” Carla shouted back. “It’s a fucking gold rank behemoth ursa! We do nothing and pray to all the gods that it doesn’t find us tasty!”

  I know that is bad!

  “How did a behemoth ursa even end up here?” Arthur asked. “This isn’t its territory! We would know that for sure!”

  “It’s running,” Ciel’s calm voice rang over the thunder. “Something, or someone, is chasing it.”

  That… I don’t even know anymore. Just focus on healing.

  For the next fifteen minutes, Valar healed the injured Rodrick among the sounds of a massive stampede happening all around them. Somewhat fortunately, the caravan had camped itself in a basin that would have slowed down the goats’ escape, so no more beasts attacked the campsite.

  “Why did that one goat attack?” Valar asked when he was nearly finished with Rodrick’s healing. “None of the others are coming here, and even that goat left straight after!”

  “It fell in the basin and hit the wagon!” Carla answered. “Not an attack! They don’t care about some bronze rankers and their caravan!”

  Yet another earthshaking step shook the entire caravan. Right afterwards, Valar got to experience something that he would probably never forget. He could live to a thousand, and even then a memory like this one would never fade.

  The morning sky and the rising sun were swallowed in seconds by a massive bear. First its head, the size of a small house, then its body, flowed over the basin they were hiding in. The gold rank behemoth ursa was running over the basin, and all they could see was fur. Then… it roared.

  An expert on the subject could've deduced that the roar was one of panic, not challenge. Valar couldn’t have told the difference either way. He just heard the rumbling sound that filled the whole space around them. The roar was so loud that it felt like a physical force, pushing every adventurer down to their knees. Every single one of them did, eyes unfocused and ears bleeding. The whole party had been defeated instantly, and it had not even been an attack…

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  During the following minutes, nobody got up. They just looked up and ahead at the swiftly passing form of the behemoth ursa that had defeated them so easily. Defeated, and showed them what was possible when you became stronger. The behemoth ursa was a force of nature.

  And that force of nature was being chased by something that considered it prey.

  The party never saw what the massive bear had been afraid of, but perhaps they were fortunate in their ignorance. Everybody knew what different being popped up in their heads when they thought about possible predators, but nobody wanted to voice their thoughts.

  Besides, nobody could before Valar healed everyone’s eardrums. That took over half an hour, everyone just silently processing what had happened inside their noggins. The first one to speak was Arthur, well over 15 minutes after everyone had their ears healed. “How are we alive?”

  “I don’t know,” Valar groaned from the ground. He was holding his head with both hands, racked by pains that resulted from his overuse of magic and lack of sleep during the past day. “And that was a gold rank behemoth ursa… How big do they get at onyx, let alone diamond rank?”

  Carla shrugged. “The size of a small mountain? Big one at diamond rank? Does it even matter at that point?”

  “Not really,” Ciel muttered. “It doesn’t really matter at those ranks. A fae lord would still kill one, even if the lord itself was the size of a normal human.”

  “True, but a big bear is much cooler looking,” Arthur commented.

  “Dragons are cooler,” Valar mumbled. “Much cooler…”

  “Have you seen one?”

  “No.”

  “Lucky.”

  Nilas was flying through the air, doing the normal rounds of the land that had been assigned to her. To be completely honest, the lands were not really assigned to her but her father Kronas, but who really even made the distinction? She would become an adult in under a decade, so her family treated her mostly like a diamond ranker already. Just a few years in her century of life, and she would be a full blown dragon instead of a juvenile!

  Being an onyx ranker wasn’t that different from being a diamond ranker day to day, as she could easily protect herself from any threat that wanted to attack her. As long as she didn’t attack the sapient races, phoenixes, abyss gates, angeli… Okay, it was different! A full blown adult dragon didn’t really have to care about what the other races thought, and Nilas was so ready to become an adult like her siblings!

  Passing me off to some boring lands where nothing ever happens… Honestly, this human kingdom of Leoria is maybe the most boring place ever! Practically all the other lands were embroiled in conflict at all times, and there were actually interesting fights to spectate. Seeing a gryphon and phoenix fight was amazing! Here in Leoria, the best she could get was the ongoing fight in the wasteland.

  A human, one of the crown princes if she remembered correctly, was chasing a gold rank behemoth ursa around the flatlands. That had of course riled up a stampede, but the incident wasn’t nearly enough for a dragon to interfere. Onyx and gold rank conflicts were below her… even if she was an onyx ranker herself.

  Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole conflict was the caravan they had run over. Despite the giant stampede of beasts up to silver rank, a gold rank behemoth ursa and an onyx rank crown prince, who was clearly a lunatic, the caravan had survived without any casualties. Sure, there had been injuries among the protecting bronze rank adventurers, but they had a healer who was hard at work patching them up. It wasn’t a fast process as the healer was at iron rank—a young one too—but they had managed to actually survive! Nilas loved an underdog story, so she burned the group into her mind as she passed over them. Perhaps she would spectate the group again when she got bored. At least it would be more interesting than this drivel.

  She would have time to be bored after all. The young dragon would have to wait naught but a decade before she would ascend and join the ranks of her elders, and become a true protector of Aldun. For she was a dragon, and no being could challenge her might.

  Valar’s head hurt. A lot. The academy training he had gone through could have in no way prepared him for the sheer amount of spells he had to cast and mana he had to channel during the past night and day. In fact, the training was not designed to do so, as the only real way to increase your capability to cast magic was to progress through the ranks.

  That didn’t mean that he couldn’t have used his mana more efficiently. His spellforms, created under duress and channeled haphazardly, used way more mana than they should have. That was the aspect of his magical skillset that would definitely improve over time.

  Still, nothing could replace the mana gained from slaying beasts, or in Valar’s case, being part of the effort. Every single bit of mana he drained from slain enemies was useful in ascending to bronze rank, but the progress was exceedingly slow. He was in a team now, and the gained mana was split between the members essentially evenly. The split apparently depended on contribution to the kill, but it was kind of nebulous. How does part of the mana know to come to me when most of my work is done after the kill itself? I don’t do much during the fights apart from the occasional Lesser Fortify, and that isn’t nearly as much as any of the other members…

  And besides, even if he reached the tippity-top of iron rank, he wouldn’t be able to ascend to bronze rank before he gained a certain understanding of himself on a deep level. The professors at the academy had warned the students that a wall would come, but not to fret over it. Understanding of self was largely unique to each person, and some would ascend immediately while others had to meditate on it for weeks or even months. Worrying was useless, as there was no way to know beforehand.

  Valar had the time to think on these things as the sound of thundering hooves, massive stomps and frightening roars disappeared to the distance. As long as the team heard those sounds, they would not get up from their hiding spot. None of them wanted to become a casualty in a stampede, even if it had already mostly passed.

  As the noises of beasts finally subsided, the party slowly climbed out of the hovel they were hiding in. Each member looked around in wonder at the completely trashed campsite.

  The most noticeable difference was of course the hole in the wagon. It was smaller than what Valar would have expected, but the hole being small made at least some amount of sense. Each cabin was actually quite small and only seemed big from the inside because of the spatial expansion enchantments, so of course the hole in the wagon would be small to account for that. The only thing that he couldn’t comprehend about the sight was how he, Rodrick, Arthur and all the furniture fit through.

  All the furniture that had been ejected from the cabin in addition to all the men' s equipment was strewn around the campsite. Three pieces of furniture that were recognizable as beds, Rodrick’s axe and Arthur’s bow were the easiest to spot.

  “Do you think they are gone?” Carla asked the other members of the team. “Can we finally head out?”

  “I think so,” Rodrick grunted. “The sound of the beast has almost completely subsided, and I can’t see any of them anymore. Even the ursa, as hard as that is to believe.”

  “Yeah, we’re clear,” Ciel said as she jumped out of the hovel. “I think we need to wake up the others.”

  “What do you mean wake up the others?” Valar asked in confusion. “They must have woken up from all the chaos, right?”

  “No, they wouldn’t have,” Carla said. “The only reason you woke up was that your cabin was breached. We were awake with Ciel as she had just woken me up for the shift change, but I can guarantee you that nobody inside these wagons woke up from what happened here. Even the horses sleep in the storage areas and everything is soundproofed.”

  “I’ll go get the driver,” Rodrick said. “I think we’ll need to do the rest of the trip in one day. This area seems unstable, and I don’t want to be here if something similar happens in the following days.”

  “Agreed,” Arthur muttered as he looked around. “We should get to Lyndale fast.”

  As Rodrick left to get the main driver, Valar surveyed the site of carnage more closely. “Where’s the fourth bed of our cabin? We had four, right?”

  “Oh, it’s long gone,” Ciel commented. “The goat beast ran off with it skewered on its horn. Lucky that none of you slept on it.”

  Valar looked at Arthur with wide eyes, but the man just gave him a thumbs up and a stupid grin.

  The boy clutched the necklace hanging against his chest. I think I should listen to this guy’s gut feeling in the future as well… That might be good.