Reverse of the Rain

The group departs from the Island at dawn, feeling anxious about The First Warning. However, their journey through the muddy sea is surprisingly smooth, with no sign of any monsters. They have now reached the Sun Rock plateau.

The group maintains their positioning, with three saints in the front, Rain and Faye in the rear, and Aria taking on the role of tracking and navigating the safest route through the rocky terrain. This allows them to avoid unnecessary fights.

This place would be like paradise for Rain, a rock lover. But now, his mind filled with darkness because of the incident that occurred last night. With a grumpy expression, Rain crosses his arms and states, “I’ve told you multiple times, I am a man, a Big Real Man.” He kicks the floor in frustration, causing dust to scatter around.

Faye raises her gaze and observes the angry boy, struggling to suppress a laugh as her eyelids droop halfway. She covers her mouth with her hand, “Huf Huf..Man,” attempting to hold back her laughter, but couldn’t hold it any longer and burst into laughter, exclaiming, “Bwah ha ha, I’m a real man, Ha ha. You are still a gi— no no, a boy! Ha ha ha.”

“I’ve already mentioned that I’m a grown man, 18 years old. I’m fully grown in and out!” Rain exclaims. He lifts both hands in a claw shape and brings them over his shoulder, biting his own teeth. This situation makes him feel like he’s back in jail, where people consistently misunderstood him because of his appearance, his skinny, long hair, and big cute eyes. He was constantly getting teased.

Faye doubles over in laughter, clutching her stomach and even shedding a tear. She couldn’t help but counter, “Grow in and out! This is so funny, it might actually kill me for real!”

She attempts to suppress her laughter, lifts her head, and glances at Rain with slightly closed eyelids. The corner of her mouth slowly opens. She said, word by word, “That part of you not fully grown yet.” She gently touches her own mouth, lifts an eyebrow, and looks at Rain with a pity expression.

“Who told you that? I’m gonna show you,” Rain says as he grabs his own pants, ready to prove himself. But suddenly, a cold sensation touches his back, causing him to stop what he wants to do. His breath stops, and goosebumps run throughout his body. Even in the hot temperature of the Sun Rock plateau, resembling a sunny summer day, this freezing sensation pierces him. Aria stares at him.

Aria’s face grew dark as she stared at him, her eyes glowing blue with a threatening gaze. Rain could sense her silent message. “If you dare to do it again, I will not hesitate to kill you. I will cut it down and burying it with your lovely rocks.” Cold sweat dot pours entire his face.

The truth had come to light in the previous night when Faye asked about the girl next to Aria, only to find out it was Rain. Faye was initially shocked by Rain’s presence, especially considering the floral scent of the soap Aria had given him to wash his body and hair, increasing the likelihood of him being mistaken for a girl. When Faye started teasing and hitting Rain’s weak spot again and again, Rain reached his breaking point, so he took off his pants to display his manliness.

Rain’s head hung low in defeat. Frustrated, he grabbed a stone from his bag and rubbed it, questioning, “I’m really a man, right?” Meanwhile, the Red witch smiled like a girl who had just received a new toy.

Ella gritted her teeth in anger, uttered the words “low bastard, Can’t we just leave him alone or get rid of him in the wild or Let the monsters eat him, Or we call the Judgment to drag him back to Jail. he is crazy only good for dog food,” Ella spoke incessantly. She approached to Aria and shook her arm. “He does good nothing to our group. He’s only a burden.”

Aria, confused, asked, “Have you witnessed what he’s doing?” She tilted head with confusion, wondered why Ella had to show anger like that.

“I couldn’t see anything because it was too dark,” she said, grabbed Aria's arm tightening, looked down to earth to avoid eye contact.

Huh, she saw it. Aria instinctively clutched her own head. She let out a sigh, turned head slowly to look at Eeon.

Eeon, with his usual cold expression, calmly responded, “Don’t include me. I stayed by the campfire. Besides, I’m not a child anymore, and even when I was, I never did that.”

Meanwhile, Faye gracefully combed her hair, twirling her body as her skirt fluttered in the breeze, the sound of her accessories jingling in the air. She looked at Rain with lovely eyes. However, this had the opposite effect on him. Rage ignited within Rain, his claw raised, and his mouth opened wide to prepare for a bite.

Whoosh! Stone fly fast, Rain instinctively dodged it in time. He looked around to find the thrower, and saw dust swirling around Aria’s hand, her hair slowly falling down after hurling the rock.

“Stop, both of you!” she exclaimed. “If you make another sound, it will attract a monster. Trust me, if the monster comes, I will eliminate both of you first.”

Both Pretty boy and Red witch whimpered.

Rain used a vine as a rope and styled his hair into a ponytail. He had a noticeable scar on the back of his neck that resembled a blade cut. It was only visible if you paid close attention, but Faye, with her keen senses, immediately noticed it.

Softly, the words came out, “I’m sorry, does it hurt?”

He flicked his hand up. “Don’t take it seriously. It doesn’t hurt as much as you tease me. It happened when I was a child, and I have long forgotten about it.” He then moved away from the group, finding solace in silence and talking to his rock friend.

—§—

The group continued walking, no more sounds coming from the back. The plateau they were on had stepped land surrounded by rocks. Sometimes they had to climb up because monsters occupied the slope way.

“This place is too hot, and the stones are scorching. Climbing rocks hurts my hands, and I’ve even got a burn. Why can’t we use the road path?” Ella complained as she climbed the rocks. Her tiny body struggled to climb between the step plateaus, and she had to hold on to her skirt every time a hot wind blew. That make not a good experience for her in this journey.

Aria took out the map and checked the marked points and landmarks. She then said, “We’re about half an hour away to the north way. We’ll find the road that merchants use, but be careful when we get there. There have been reports of rockfalls.”

She looked around, check her comrade, all of them look exhaust because hot air and not have experience for rough terrain.

“Why is it so hot here? Winter is coming, right? Why is it still hot like this?” Ella muttered, grabbing her water bag and opening the lid. Hot air that come with boil water fly out, and only a gulp remained. Ella was thirsty and couldn’t resist, so she drank it all in one gulp.

“Do you need mine?” Aria offered her leather flask. There were no sweat beads on her face or body, and her skin remained unburned, still beautiful as usual. Her hair fluttered slightly.

“It’s okay, that gulp was already satisfying,” Ella replied, shaking her head. “by the way, Aria, are you using water cover around body to control temperature? That is so convenient.”

Taking Ella’s empty water bag, Aria filled it with her own leather flask and said, “Um, that’s it. And I’ll use my hair to transfer the hot air out.” Aria finished pouring the water bag and sent it back to Ella.

Ella checked the water inside and saw that it was completely full again. “That’s too much. I don’t need this much,” she said, pushing the water back to Aria.

“Don’t worry, I don’t need it,” Aria smiled at Ella and used her hand to sweep a rock off Ella’s shoulder. “Even if I need it, we have a water merchant behind us.”

“Water merchant?” Ella asked.

Aria headed to back and said, “You have nothing to worry about.”

From afar, Rain had a sparkle in his eyes, jumped on his tiptoes, looking around. He collected a lot of rocks and his sachet was full of them. But not only did he find rocks, he even found something that was hard to find in Sun Rock, water. There was a small two-inch water tunnel hidden under a rock, the only water source for the tiny monsters in the area.

Aria waved her hand and called Rain. “Water merchant,” she said. Rain noticed and hurriedly ran.

“Yes, Lady Aria, Lady Ella, do you need my help?” he asked, bowing properly and turning his head with a merchant’s smile.

“Can I get some water?” Aria asked.

“Oh, Water, Lady Aria, in this barren land, hot scorch and burning like flame, only one drop of water price as gold coin. Lady Aria, prepare for the price, right?” Take out one of his water bags, “because we are good trading partners so I will charge you only this.” he shows three fingers.

Ella exclaimed, “How ridiculous! Just one sack of water for three gold co—”

Aria touched Ella’s shoulder and said, “Let me negotiate.” She turned to Rain and said, “The water merchant of Sun Rock, we are good trading friends, so I offer you good conditions. I will forgive the anger you caused. Could you just discount it to one?”

Rain looked at Aria and shook his head. “You’re a really strong negotiator, Lady Aria. You give me a tempting one...” He closed his eyes as if considering something, then opened them again. “I will take that offer of you!”

So Aria, take something from her bag, then trade it with Rain.

He checked the item he received and said, “Ho ho, Lady Aria, you have brilliant eye. Thank you for trading with our merchant group. Have a good day, Lady Aria, Lady Ella.” He took three steps back and turned, walking away like a great merchant.

“Aria... did you give him that?... just a normal rock?” Ella was confused and shocked. What she just saw “Is he crazy?”

“That’s it. He just wanted a rock.” In reality, Aria knew well that Rain didn’t actually need an object. He just wanted something from his acquaintances, something that could convey a feeling, like when we were kids and gave each other gifts.

“I’ll give him a proper one later,” Aria said softly, then headed to the frontline to continue scouting.

As he moved further away, Faye approached him. “Rain, I need some water too. Give me one and I’ll give you these rocks,” she said, taking out various types of rocks.

“Hump! Bad Lady has to find water herself.” Rain crossed his arms and moved away.

“Jeez!” Faye said.

When the group climbed up to the plateau, they could see the road that people usually traveled on. It traversed along the edge of the next plateau. Aria gave a hand to Ella, helping her climb up. “The road is up ahead,” Aria said.

In front of us was a roadblock created by humans, simply built using Cutting Edge Curbing rocks, and arranged randomly to form a simple road.

“Finally, we get through. The human culture welcomes us,” Ella said, using her hand to sweep the sweat off her head.

The group continued walking along the road, and after about ten minutes, they found a group of caravans ahead.

“Oh, is that a merchant cart?” Ella said. Up ahead, there was a medium-sized cart that could fit six people with a tug for two horses, although there were no horses now.

“Ella, wait,” Aria grabbed her sword handle. “There’s something wrong.” She looked at Eeon and sent a signal with her left hand to move and check the cart.

Eeon nodded and moved closer. Nothing happened, and there was no sign of any life form. He opened the curtain and his eyebrows lowered. “The cart still has a full load of goods, and there’s no sign of fighting. It wasn’t caused by bandits,” Eeon sounded concerned. He moved on to the next cart to check, but they were all the same.

“Faye” Aria said.

“No trace of magic. Everything is clean,” Faye said.

Eeon grabbed a rope at the front of the cart and turned around to check. “The horse's rope was broken by force.”

“That must be a monster,” Ella said.

“Maybe.. Monster, but why is there no blood or monster blood, or even signs of a fight?” Aria wondered.

While everyone was thinking, Rain approached Faye and asked, “Eh... Why did we come to this place? And why are all of you still talking and not running?”

Faye and Aria looked at Rain simultaneously, both with small beads of sweat on their faces. Faye spoke in a low voice, “What did you say?” as she grabbed her luxurious sword.

Rain pointed at a large rock mountain in the distance. “Um... It’s been staring at us since we arrived.”

The rock mountain slowly moved, revealing its camouflage. It was ten meters tall and had the shape of a long snake, though the length of its body was unknown. Its enormous body could shake the ground with just a slight movement.

“It should not be this place, it should in the core of lower terrain… It’s Elatar Earth Python!” Faye Exclaim.