"It's been really long. I should go check."
As more time passed, Lia became even more concerned for Raphael. He had left a long time ago and wasn't back. He was just looking for a shelter. It shouldn't have taken him that long. And even if he couldn't find a shelter, he should've been back by now.
"Don't be stupid. You can't fly. You can't find him even if you leave. Instead, you'll get lost yourself." Azekiel refused to even consider the suggestion.
He didn't want to be in a situation where he sent Lia to look for Raphael, only for her to get lost herself. It was much better to wait for Raphael's return.
"Knowing him, he is probably trying to find Shelter even now. He isn't the kind of person who will return without success. As I said before, it's not easy to find a shelter. Even if there were one, it would've been destroyed by this storm."
"Does that mean he will never return if he can't find a shelter? We can't just stay here waiting for him for months."
"Months...." Azekiel muttered, gazing at the mist-covered ground.
It just hit him how optimistic he had been when he made that Blood and Soul Pact. The pact only gave him seven days. When he made the pact, he thought the Temple was going to be like that from the inside. He thought it was going to be a closed space where he could get to the end within a few days.
According to his initial plan, seven days were more than enough for him to complete the task. Unfortunately, the Temple was nothing like he imagined. It had an entire world on the inside, which made the search even harder.
On top of that, this storm created even more trouble. If it was really going to take a month, then it was a real headache. He didn't have a month. He couldn't waste that much time or even close to that.
"We can't afford a month." He agreed with Lia.
"Right. I'll go in the direction he went and try to find him."
"I didn't say you can leave. You'll stay here. I still have some Soul Energy left. It's not enough to summon him to the material world, but it can summon his soul inside me temporarily. If I need to tell him to return, I'll use that. But let's give him some time first."
"If he isn't back in a few hours, I'll call him back myself."
"Soul Summon? Can you also summon me inside your body if needed?" Lia inquired.
Azekiel nodded. "I should be able to, but I would prefer not to. In my body, If I need someone, I'll summon Raphael. He can keep me safe while fighting since he is a long-range and a short-range fighter. You're only a long-range spellcaster. If it is my body in a battle, Raphael's soul it'll be."
"Hmph, who even wants to enter a man's body. I'm happy with Ordinary Summons." Lia rolled her eyes. "That aside, it seems to be a pretty convenient skill. It's like an instant connection. If you have that, I don't need to worry, it seems. We can wait a few more hours."
She folded her arms, looking up at the sky as the rain droplets passed through her soul.
"It would've been so nice to feel the rain again." She spoke in a barely audible voice, yet Azekiel managed to hear.
"Do you like rain?"
As it was just a long wait with nothing better to do, Azekiel took an interest in Lia's life. Even though he knew quite a lot about the lives of his two Familiars, he still wanted to know more since those two were like his partners on this journey for now.
"I used to love the rain. Where I lived, there rarely used to be rain, but whenever it rained, I used to become so happy. Now that I think about it, it also rained that day..."
"That day...?"
"The day I was burned. It was raining that day as well. Just a light shower, which couldn't even quench the flames that burned every inch of my body."
While talking, Lia appeared to lose herself in the memories.
"What about you?" she asked, pulling herself out of those memories, remembering that it wasn't good to lose herself in those dark memories.
"I am not too fond of this rain."
Lia only flashed a smile in response. "How unfortunate. I like rain yet can't feel it. You don't like rain, yet you're facing this storm, even taking dips in the water."
"By the way, is there any particular reason you don't like rain?" she asked, gazing at the young man who was wet from top to bottom.
"You mean other than the fact that it's creating an obstruction in an important mission of mine?"
Lia chuckled. "Yeah, other than that, any reason?"
"Hmm. Honestly, even I didn't have the answer to that question until a few years back. I'd grown up hating rain for some reason, even avoiding rain altogether."
"It wasn't because I didn't like water either. It was just something inside me. Like a feeling that I hated rain..."
"Well, many people hate rain for no reason. It's not too strange, I guess." Lia reacted. "Wait, I'm slow. Did you say you didn't know the answer until a few years ago? Does that mean you know why you hate rain now? There really is a reason?"
"Yeah, there seems to be a reason."
"What's the reason then?"
"I-"
"I found a place!'
Azekiel was about to speak, but right then, another voice intervened as a figure landed before him.
"I've found a shelter. It's forty kilometers away from here," Raphael explained. He was finally back.
"Forty kilometers? That's not close at all. In this rain, it might take over half a day to even get there." Lia grimaced. "Especially with all the water and the fog, it might even be harder."
"That's true. It might even take close to a day." Raphael agreed. "But the storm doesn't seem like it'll stop for a long time either. It's not an ordinary storm, so we can't stay here either. It's better we keep moving."
"This storm is spread for forty kilometers?" Azekiel asked. That was really quite a long area for this kind of storm.
Raphael shook his head. "The storm only covers slightly over thirty kilometers. After that point, the weather is clear. That's why the one shelter I could find was in that range. Everything under the storm is destroyed."
"What if we walked forty kilometers, only to have the storm extend further and destroy that shelter too? And what if that's the wrong direction for the map? Forty kilometers is too long to travel without a plan, especially when we don't know the direction we need to take according to the map." Azekiel rubbed the back of his neck in frustration.
He had thought that there was going to be a shelter in a nearby range where they could get easily. It could make things easier for them, but if it was too far, there were many factors that came into play, including the importance of time, which they lacked.
"Do we have any other option?" Lia asked.
"Only one," Azekiel softly said, seemingly lost in some thought. "If we can't get to a Shelter, we need to bring a shelter to us."
