Spiritmal, By The Light Of A Star

14. Forest Ranger

"Great... we have to find another new job?" Star muttered, slightly annoyed by the fact that I seemed to be changing jobs way too frequently.

"I guess." I answered the little bird.

Apparently, I had gotten fired for failing to report to the boss that I wouldn't be able to arrive at work while I was sick.

Star sighed once more as she flew onto my shoulder. "You know, being a racer, a battler or a coordinator would get you tons more credit. Even being a performer helps. Besides, you couldn't get sacked from those!"

"I know Star! But I don't have a racer heritage like most families do! Besides, I suck at battles as evident from the fight with Team Alchama. As for being a performer, I don't know a thing about contests!" I sighed. "Perhaps I should try to take up a job in photography."

"Photography? Isn't that a little hard?" Star shook her head sadly. "What's this about a racer's heritage anyway? Is that just an excuse or something?"

"It's not an excuse Star. A racer's heritage is quite an important aspect to being a racer. If you're in a prestigious family of racers, you would be guaranteed a place among the racers. If you have a racer in your family, you would still have a chance to compete in racers... just not all of them unless you've bagged yourself a title. It's kind of biased honestly, but they haven't got any official races that the general public can join. The only way to start racing from scratch would be joining the unofficial races, then getting promoted to the official ones. For most, the chances of that is extremely low." I sighed. "Besides, you couldn't make any money until you manage to join the official races."

Star was silent, seemingly processing my words.

"If I ever manage to do so some day, I want to rid racing of this unfairness." I carried on. "Only then would the world learn to enjoy the true meaning of races..."

Star pondered my words for a while longer.

"You know Emily, you should become a battler." She suggested.

"Why?"

"For starters, I have experience battling." Star explained, showing off her swift attack and flying in front of me. "Secondly, everyone can do it." She continued flying backwards as we advanced through the forest. "Thirdly, the two of us happen to have a special connection that allows us to communicate. Last but not the least, we'll need to get stronger to beat Team Alchama anyway."

Just then, Star bumped into another female that happened to be heading in the opposite direction.

"Oops! I'm sorry about that!" I helped the women up to her feet. She was wearing a bright red uniform, the logo on her vest portraying a wolfabeast howling in a forest. One look at that badge told me that this women was in fact, a forest ranger.

"It's ok!" She answered. "I'm always bumping into people for some weird reason. By the way, do the two of you need any help?"

"Umm... no?" I answered. Wondering why a forest ranger would ask that out of the blue.

"For starters, the two of you are off the main path and near the very middle of the forest."

Surprised by her answer, I looked around to realize that while I was talking to Star, we had ventured off the main path without knowing it.

"Oops. We didn't notice..." I answered truthfully.

She chuckled.

"Don't worry! It always happens! Trainers have a tendency to go off the beaten track for some weird reason. I'm always finding them lost around here. Be it in a group or individually. In fact, there are many weird reasons why trainers end up lost. Just yesterday, another trainer got lost while running away from a swarm of bees. Seriously, I can't even imagine why the bees would be chasing him, there are hardly any beehives remotely near the main path!"

I couldn't help but smile, imagining the trainer as Felix running away from the bees alongside his lionblitz.

Now that would be a funny sight.

Meanwhile, the ranger continued telling us stories of her forest adventures while leading us back to the main path. I must admit that the stories were interesting. She spoke of tales where trainers could end up falling into a nearby river due to them getting spooked by rusting sounds in the bushes. It turned out that the rusting was caused by their very own spiritmal.

Then there was the other story, where a trainer took up an interesting stone only for it to be an egg.

And the other one about...

Well, there were just too many.

Before we knew it, we were already back on the main road bidding farewell to the forest ranger.

"Try not to get lost again!" She chuckled, nodding us goodbye. "Also, you guys may want to stop by Timberlog Town, it's near here."

"Ok! Thanks again!" I answered back, waving as the ranger walked back into the forest.

"Those were some interesting stories." Star commented as soon as she was out of sight.

"They sure were..." I answered, looking up. The sky was pained vibrant shades of yellow, orange and pink, a few rays of golden sunshine shining through the canopy. Pulling out my map, I realized that we were only a hundred meters away from Timberlog.

"It's that close?" Star read the words on the map before looking up towards the darkening sky. "Would we be stopping there for the night?"

"I guess?" I answered Star, continuing along the trail.

"Cool! It's a town situated beside a river with the main forms of transport being boats and Spiritmals!" Star pointed at the picture.

"Yea." I agreed. And we should be reaching it right about now!"

I looked up, seeing a vibrant town shining in the light of the setting sun. Wooden houses were built at both sides of a river, a few water spiritmals and boats cruising along in the water.

"It looks very different from Lilywolf..." Star commented, looking around the area.

"It sure does..." I answered back, looking at the different Spiritmals in the area. Seafoams, Slimeries, turtotles and many other water Spiritmal were in the river, their figures hardly moving. On their backs, their trainers seemed to be fishing up some dinner for themselves. Some of them had a relatively big haul, others seemed to have no luck.

"Hey there miss! Would you want to join our annual Timberlog race?" I looked to my left to see a young man holding a ton of pamphlets. Picking up one of them, I had a good look at it.

Apparently, there would be an unofficial race three days later in Timberlog. I wondered how it'll be like, joining a race. Perhaps I should join this one to find out.

"Thanks for the Information!" I quickly thanked the man, looking back at the pamphlet.

"Star? What do you say about joining an unofficial race?"

———————
Author's note:

My exams are over! As such, I could finally resume my update schedule for this book.

Here's the Friday update, just as promised. 😉

See you guys in the next update!