Medium Meld (Naruto/Gamer, Male OC)

Chapter Sixteen - Dreaming of Dragonblade

The trip through the Land of the Woods was long but mostly uneventful.

It took us about three and a half weeks to make it through the country entirely, and it was exactly what the name suggested trees and lots of them. There was a scary moment when we were about a day's walk from the border when I sensed four Jounin level chakra signatures right on the edge of my range to the east.

We ran the rest of the way to the Land of Mountains, without a break. We had both had more than enough of fighting Jounin, thank you very much.

The run wasn't as exhausting as I imagined it might be, my stamina seemingly held out pretty well. Karenbana seemed to be completely fine, my running speed was seemingly a nice jog for her.

The trees quickly thinned out, and after a couple of hours, the terrain began to become increasingly craggy. Stone, dark tightly packed dirt, and boulders seemingly dotted the landscape, broken up by the occasional dead tree. There were a lot of mountains, which wasn't surprising given the name of the place.

Mount Koryū sat as a paradoxical existence of death and endurance, it towered hundreds of meters into the air, and even from here, I could see a massive cavern carved into the face of it, halfway up. A darker shade of grey and black, on a grey and black backdrop.

There was also an obvious gradient to the land, where the land started rich and fertile, trees growing strong and tall to the east, but the further west we traveled, the more dead the land became. Cracked earth, crumbled and dead trees, animal carcasses, and a complete lack of birds. I made sure to keep an eye on Karenbana's chakra reserves to see when they started to dip, and as soon as they started to deplete, I turned around and headed back for a couple of hundred meters.

I scuffed a deep mark into the ground and then sat down.

"Karenbana, my dear, this is as far as you go," I said cheerfully. "Any further, and your chakra will start falling again."

"I didn't even notice it," Karenbana said nervously. "It's fine here?"

I nodded.

"Although if you start to feel weak, I'd start running east as quickly as you can manage." I said wryly, "Better to not risk it after all."

Karenbana sat down beside me and hugged her knees to her chest.

"You really don't have Chakra?" Karenbana said quietly. "You're not going to go up there and die, right?"

"Didn't believe me, huh?" I said, amused, "I'm one-hundred percent sure I do not have chakra, I do however have another source of energy, I'm pretty sure it won't affect me, but if it does I'll notice immediately."

Karenbana didn't say anything for a moment.

"I thought you were lying about it," Karenbana said honestly, "Sorry."

I just laughed, and we sat in silence for a long while.

"What are you going to do now, Karenbana?" I asked cheerfully. "Are you going to retire somewhere? Startup a noodle shack? Get into gambling?"

Karenbana didn't reply.

"Buy a fishing boat? Buy two fishing boats? Make them fight to the death for your amusement?" I rattled off, "Sneak in and take the Chunin exams at one of the main villages for a laugh? Hunt down the tailed beasts, create a single massive super tailed beast, and try to take over the world?"

I smiled faintly.

"Nah, that last one was too much, wasn't it?" I said easily, "I always go overboard with these things."