My Second Life Is A Heroic Power Fantasy 51 Bedrolls And Bandages Part 4

Rose looked puzzled, staring off into the middle distance in thought for a moment before she asked "Are you still able to touch me now?"

"I honestly don't know. I'm almost afraid to try." Jack said.

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"Well, if you don't, you'll never know." Rose said. "Hold out your hand."

"Okay... Jack said, hesitating.

He reached his hand out gingerly and held it out, palm up in front of him. Rose lifted one of her hands off her lap, and gently ran her fingertip across the inside of his palm. Jack instinctively flinched and pulled away, shaking his hand several times. She was painfully hot to the touch again, and the inside of his hand stung for a few seconds afterward.

"No good, huh?" Rose said, looking at him apologetically.

"Fraid not." Jack said, grimacing.

"Sorry about that." She said, and then added "I wonder what could have made it possible before.... Do you think it had something to do with me crying or something?"

Jack thought about that for a moment.

"I honestly don't know. Do you normally feel cold when you're sad or something?" He asked.

"I guess? I've never really noticed one way or the other." She said, shrugging.

"Well, that'll have to be our working theory for now, because whatever it was, it's gone now, and I'm not looking to make you cry again just to see if I can touch you. It'll be my luck you'll be upset AND still burn me." Jack said playfully.

"Maybe." Rose said, lifting her head and making eye contact with him through her eyelashes. Her yellow irises seemed to almost glow in the warm, flickering lamplight, and she smiled a small, crooked smile. "Maybe one day we'll figure out how to make it happen again."

Her look took on an almost suggestive quality as she said this, causing Jack's heartrate to speed up again. He wasn't sure if she meant what he felt she was implying, but either way, he felt his face redden, and after a moment of her statement hanging in the air between them, Jack cleared his throat awkwardly, and changed the subject.

"So, we have about 3 days travel to get to the cave where Ellie is. It's somewhere through a forest, over a river, and up the side of a mountain. I don't know where that is in relation to anything else in this world, but that's where we're going." He said.

"3 days.... through a forest... side of a mountain...." Rose muttered to herself as she reached for her pack. Rummaging through it for a moment, she pulled out a rolled piece of parchment, and unrolled it out in front of her.

Looking across, Jack could see that is was a map of some kind. It was weather-stained brown, and looked handmade, which it probably was. After a moment staring at the map, Rose pointed at a spot on it.

"That's probably where she is, if you're right." She said.

Her finger hovered above a single free-standing mountain sandwiched among a group of hills not terribly far northeast from the town they were located in on the map. Drawing a straight line with his eyes, Jack could see that, based on the drawing in front of him, they'd encounter all of the landmarks he'd described. From the looks of things, this would be the only mountain they could reach within three days travel that would have them cross everything Frumpkin had shown him.

"Yeah, that'd have to be it." Jack said, nodding. He looked up at Rose and smiled. "Good work!"

Rose smiled back. "Thanks," she said, before rolling up the map again and sticking it in her pack.

"Now, I think it's time for some sleep. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow." Jack said.

And with that, he blew out the lantern, plunging the two of them into the darkness of a long night's sleep.