CHAPTER 51: 48: SUPPLIES FOR A JOURNEY.

So they were dead.

Edward was sure of it.

Considering his luck, and what Rowan and Aria had just told him, he was as good as dead.

Yup, it was over.

It was all so over.

"Edward?"

Edward snapped out of his trance, jumping a little as he he looked at the voice.

Aria was looking at him with worry in her eyes.

"Are you okay?"

Edward gave her nervous smile.

"Yeah... I think its just the fatigue."

She gave him a sceptical look, then nodded and turned around.

"Can anyone here use long range teleportation."

All of them shook their head.

Aria sighed. "Figures..." She looked at Selene. "What about you? I thought you were good at magic."

Selene was silent for a moment, considering her words carefully before finally speaking.

"My mana core is a little unstable currently, if I use such a taxing spell, I don’t think I would survive the shock."

"Then that’s out of the question. Does anyone have any other suggestions?"

"Can’t the dragon fly us out of here?"

Everyone paused for a moment, then looked at Calen, who had a deadpan expression.

Rowan coughed, and shot Aria a look.

Aria sighed.

"Rowan can’t undergo complete transformation, he is quite limited in terms of what he can use of his draconic abilities."

Silence enveloped the air once more, and they all fell into deep thought, considering any answers they could come up with.

It was Selene that broke the silence first.

"Why don’t we just travel on foot?"

Everyone considered the answer for a moment, then Calen spoke up.

"That could take us well over a month, not to mention the safety concerns."

"We would need a lot of supplies too" Rowan finished his sentence for him.

It was then that Edward saw Selene’s expression turn into surprise.

"Supplies? How much?" She asked.

"Enough to survive at least a week until we reach the closest town." Rowan answered.

Selene flicked her hand, and one of the rings in her fingers suddenly started to glow. The while light that formed out of it quickly ran up to her palm, turning into something resembling a small cube.

Then she crunched the cube in her hand.

Edward jumped as a handful of large bags suddenly materialised in front of, appearing literally out from thin air.

"Would this be enough?"

Rowan let out whistle.

Aria was shaking her head in disbelief.

Edward could swear that he heard something along the lines of "You adventurous freak.." slip past her lips.

Edward inhaled, steadying himself.

He knew it himself, even if the others had tried their best to show. In such a perilous journey, their weakest link was Edward. He was also the one who could end up putting them in the worst kind of danger.

He felt a pang of guilt tug at his.

Trying his best to not feel bad, he took a quick look at the system panel floating next to him.

He cursed his bad luck.

You useless thing.

Then,

[ Your desire to grow stronger has been recognised by the system. ]

[ It will do its best to guide the host through the mana awakening. ]

His eyes widened in surprise.

"Edward?" Of course, Aria had immediately notice.

He coughed.

"Its nothing."

Internally, he was feeling giddy.

Finally! This useless thing was finally going to help him with something!

Edward could still remember all the system type stories he had read on Earth. How all of the were so omnipotent, so powerful, so broken that sometimes it made the readers themselves frustrated.

Compared to that, his own system was a little... lackluster.

He internally sighed.

At least I have a system.

He genuinely would have gone crazy from the fear long ago if this thing wasn’t here distracting him one way or another.

Wait...

Now that he thought about it.

It hadn’t given him any embarrassing quests in a while.

He took another quick glance at the panel.

[ Name: Edward Myrvale]

[Class: Femininity (Awakened)]

[ Current Objective: Form a bong with Selene Verdigris (73% completion) ]

[ Additional Objectives: Form a bond with the rest of the Nexuses. ]

[ Passive effects: Allure, Femboy Aura ]

[ Active Skills: Catwalk step Lv.1, Waltz of charm Lv.1 ]

It just floated by him like always, looking as mischievous as always.

He was a little worried that he had just jinxed himself.

Shaking off the unnecessary thoughts, he focused back on to reality instead.

All of them were rummaging through the hoard of items, and from it Aria picked up what looked like a pile of clothes.

She flashed Serene a wide smile.

"Looks like you have your uses after all!"

"What is that supposed to mean!?"

Edward watched the two women bicker, but the momentary levity didn’t fully reach him. His stomach was still twisting itself into anxious knots. As the others continued sorting through Selene’s absurd magic-pouch-of-doom, he took a step back and tried to breathe properly.

Travel for a month.

Mana beasts.

Forbidden grove.

Curses.

No teleportation.

A dragon who couldn’t turn into a dragon.

And him... the barely functional decorative noble.

Great.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, steadying himself. If someone had told him a week ago that he’d be stuck in a death forest with royalty, a dragon, a sword master, and a literal prodigy mage girl... he would have laughed. Maybe cried. Probably both.

Aria suddenly tossed something his way.

He yelped, barely catching it.

A thick black cloak.

"You’ll need that," she said, matter-of-fact. "You get cold too easily."

Edward blinked. "H-How do you know that?"

She stared at him like it was obvious. "You shiver every five minutes."

He flushed.

Great. Even his bodily weaknesses were public knowledge now.

Rowan stuffed dried rations into a spare bag. "We leave within the hour. Once we start moving, don’t wander. Stay between Selene and me."

Edward nodded quickly—maybe too quickly. He could feel Selene’s eyes on him, warm but assessing. Calen, meanwhile, kept glancing between the trees, tension etched into the rigid lines of his posture.

The forest around them creaked with an unsettling, unnatural silence.

For a moment, Edward wondered if they would even survive long enough to argue again.