Bofuri (The Strongest Shield Of Tensura)

Chapter 146 - One Hundred And Forty Six

SO I KINDA MADE A MISTAKE WITH THE ARRANGEMENT OF MY ChapterS. I’VE CHANGED THE LAST Chapter BEFORE THIS SO GO BACK AND CHECK IT OUT. MY BAD.

---

One moment Kyusha was still visible behind them, its elevated rails and floating platforms catching the morning light between the branches. Then the forest simply stopped, and the western continent opened up below them in every direction at once.

She had left the Forest before. The Raja trips had been her first time outside Maple Tree’s borders, close enough that the distance never felt like much.

Tingle looked out the window for a moment then turned back to the inside of the carriage.

Maureen had fallen asleep almost immediately after takeoff, her Automara sitting still in her lap, her head resting against the carriage wall at an angle that looked deeply uncomfortable.

Azeeza was eating something wrapped in cloth, chewing slowly, looking at nothing in particular.

Tingle watched her for a moment. "Did you bring food?"

"Yes."

"...Can I have some?"

Azeeza looked at her. Then broke off a piece and handed it over without a word.

Tingle ate it. It was good actually. Some kind of dense travel bread with something sweet pressed into it.

They sat in comfortable silence for a while after that.

Across from her, Azeeza was looking out the window at the terrain below, watching the ground move beneath them with a focused quiet. After a moment she glanced toward the front of the carriage where the rabbit man Sir Cameron sat with his folio open.

"At this speed we hit the first human territories in what, two hours?"

Cameron looked up briefly and tilted his long ears in consideration. "Closer to two and a half. We can’t push the dragonflies past a certain pace out here."

"Diplomatic reasons?"

"Mm." He turned a page. "Large fast moving creatures bearing Maple Tree’s crest over sovereign airspace." He paused. "We go too fast and it stops looking like a delegation."

"And starts looking like something else." Azeeza finished.

Cameron smiled faintly without looking up. "Precisely."

Azeeza accepted that and went back to her food.

Pip made a small sound and Tingle broke off another piece.

---

The first hour passed without much happening.

Tingle had eaten the rest of Azeeza’s travel bread, which Azeeza had allowed without comment. Maureen was still asleep against the carriage wall at her uncomfortable angle. Outside, the terrain below had been slowly changing. More fenced land. Wider roads. Settlements appearing at irregular intervals and then disappearing behind them.

Pip had gotten bored and was attempting to communicate with the carriage wall.

Tingle watched it for a moment. "That’s not going to work."

Pip tried again.

"It’s a wall."

Pip retreated back to her shoulder, apparently unconvinced.

Azeeza glanced over once then returned to whatever she was reading, a small worn notebook she had produced from inside her coat. Tingle had tried to see what was in it once and Azeeza had tilted it away without looking up.

It was Cameron who spoke first without being addressed, his ears angling back toward the carriage from the front partition.

"We’re in it now."

Tingle looked out the window.

The land below had shifted without her noticing exactly when. The settlements were larger now. More connected. Roads feeding into each other in organized patterns. It looked nothing like the country states near Raja.

Azeeza had already closed her notebook.

A few minutes passed.

Then Tingle saw something down on the ground.

A column of mounted knights on a road below, moving at a steady pace that kept them roughly parallel to the carriages. Their formation was clean. Not hurrying. Not falling behind.

She watched them for a moment. "Azeeza."

"I see them."

"Who are they?"

"Our watchers, presumably."

Tingle sat back slightly.

Maureen had woken up at some point without Tingle noticing. She was looking out the window too now, her Automara’s silver lines moving at a slightly faster pace than usual. She didn’t say anything.

Cameron’s voice drifted back again, unhurried. "Don’t stare at them directly. It reads as a challenge from altitude."

Tingle immediately looked away from the window. "Can they even see us from down there?"

Azeeza did not look away from the window. But she shifted her angle slightly so she was looking past them rather than at them.

The column stayed with them.

Ten minutes. Then twenty. Tingle occupied herself by looking at the ceiling of the carriage, then at Pip, then at the small scratches in the wooden floor panel near her left foot. Outside she could still feel them there without looking. The steady parallel presence of it was somehow worse than if they had been approaching.

Maureen had gone back to holding her Automara with both hands.

"How long do they follow for?" Tingle asked quietly.

Cameron turned a page in his folio. "Until the border."

"How far is the border?"

A brief pause. "Not close."

Tingle looked at the ceiling again.

Eventually Floyd’s voice came through the thin partition from the carriage ahead, muffled but audible. He appeared to be arguing cheerfully with one of the unnamed Riders about something that had nothing to do with knights or borders or Maple Tree. The other Rider’s voice rose in indignation.

Tingle listened to it for a moment.

Then felt some of the tension in her shoulders ease slightly without her deciding to let it go.

Azeeza glanced at the partition briefly. Then back out the window.

The knights stayed with them for another hour.

Then at a point Tingle couldn’t identify from the air, they simply stopped. The column drew up at the road’s edge and held there as the carriages continued west. Tingle watched them shrink behind them until they were too small to see.

She exhaled slowly.

Cameron’s voice again, already matter of fact. "If you were so stressed by that, then you should know that the next territory is in forty minutes. With a different jurisdiction."

"Different knights?" Tingle asked.

"Different knights."

Maureen made a small quiet sound that might have been a laugh. Or might not have been. Tingle couldn’t tell.

---

The valley Kanade chose for the rest stop sat between two low hills, with a narrow stream running along its eastern edge.

The dragonflies landed heavily, immediately voicing their displeasure in deep vibrating hums as the handlers rushed to unhook their harnesses and guide them toward the water.

Tingle hopped out of the carriage and stretched her wings with a relieved sigh. The cool air felt refreshing after hours inside the cramped carriage.

Behind her, Maureen stepped down quietly before sitting directly on the grass.

For the first time since leaving Kyusha, her Automara floated away from her lap and rose slowly into the open air. The silver lines across its dark frame glowed faintly as it rotated above the valley.

Tingle glanced toward it. "First time it’s been outside all day."

Maureen looked up slightly. "She doesn’t like enclosed spaces."

Tingle nodded quietly.

Around them, the camp was already organizing itself.

The Antari guards spread out along the edges of the valley while the diplomats gathered beside one of the carriages, discussing documents in low voices. Nearby, Cameron sat on a flat stone writing steadily into a notebook.

Cassy walked straight toward the stream without a word.

Floyd followed behind her with a book already open in his hands.

Kanade exited the lead carriage last.

He exchanged a few quiet words with Cameron, glanced over the notes being shown to him, then stepped away again, his attention drifting toward the distant hills.

Tingle watched him for a moment.

Azeeza lowered herself onto the grass beside her, notebook already in hand.

"What are you even writing?" Tingle asked.

"Observations."

"About what?"

"Everything." Azeeza wrote another line.

Tingle blinked. "You’ve been doing that this whole trip?"

"That’s my job."

Tingle looked back toward Kanade again. "Do you think he’s okay?"

Azeeza didn’t look up. "Why wouldn’t he be?"

"I don’t know. He always looks like he’s thinking about something nobody else can see."

Azeeza paused briefly before continuing to write.

"That’s usually what responsibility looks like."

Tingle fell quiet after that.

Nearby, Maureen’s Automara had drifted high above the hillside, slowly turning in the open air while Maureen watched it from the grass with one arm behind her head.

It was the calmest Tingle had seen her all day.

A soft chirp pulled her attention away.

Pip floated toward the stream where Floyd now sat with his feet in the water, reading peacefully as though they weren’t traveling through foreign territory toward a Demon Lord’s domain.

Tingle watched him for a moment.

Then followed Pip toward the water.

---

They departed again as the sun began to set.

Tingle watched the valley disappear beneath the carriage before leaning back into her seat. Outside, the fading sunlight stretched long shadows across the land below, bathing everything in deep orange light.

Beside her, Maureen sat quietly with her Automara resting in her lap once more. Though compared to earlier, the silver lines across its frame glowed noticeably brighter.

For once, Azeeza had put away her notebook.

The last signs of human territory disappeared sometime during the evening.

Tingle didn’t notice the exact moment it happened. The farmland below gradually faded into rougher terrain before giving way to coastline and, eventually, open water.

The ocean.

She stared at it silently through the window.

Cameron had mentioned they would cross it, but seeing it for herself was entirely different.

It felt endless.

Dark water stretched in every direction beneath the carriage, reflecting the last traces of evening light in slow shifting patterns. No roads. No towns. Nothing except the sea itself.

Pip let out a small uncertain chirp.

"I know," Tingle whispered softly.

Sometime later, she drifted asleep with her head resting against the carriage wall while Pip settled quietly against her shoulder.

---

She woke to Azeeza gently shaking her arm.

The carriage had fallen silent.

Outside, the sky was deep blue with the first signs of dawn beginning to appear across the horizon.

The ocean still stretched beneath them.

"Look ahead," Azeeza said quietly.

Tingle rubbed her eyes before looking forward.

At first, she only saw light.

A warm golden glow rising in the distance before the sun itself had fully appeared.

Then slowly, the shape beneath it came into view.

A massive volcanic peak rose against the predawn sky, smoke trailing faintly from its summit. Beneath it spread an enormous landmass far larger than Tingle had expected.

And at its center... A city.

El Dorado.

Even from this distance, it was breathtaking.

The golden light seemed to spill from the city itself, illuminating the surrounding landscape long before sunrise reached it properly. As the carriages descended lower, Tingle began to make out distinct sections spread across the continent below.

Forests.

Open plains.

A massive lake reflecting the dawn light near the center of the territory.

Everything looked carefully designed.

Beside her, Maureen had moved to the window as well, quietly watching the approaching continent while her Automara hovered near her shoulder.

Neither of them spoke.

The dragonflies continued their gradual descent toward the golden nation below.

Pip chirped softly beside Tingle’s shoulder.

This time, she didn’t answer.

She simply kept watching.