Eres lay out on the grass outside the town walls, using his new pack as a pillow as he looked up at the clear blue sky above him. There was no sign of any of the summer storms that the region often had to deal with, just a cloudless sky and a blazing sun, with just the right amount of breeze. It was glorious.

They had stopped by Myla’s father's bakery and grabbed some supplies for a picnic, which turned into a second tearful goodbye between her and her family, though it was mostly just hugs and encouragement and promises to return whenever they could. After that they had wandered back to the patch of grass they had eaten at all those years ago, the stump still sporting a slight mark from the goblin’s arrow. The food had been pleasant and the company wonderful, but as the morning continued, Eres began to feel restless.

“So, what's the plan then?” Myla said as she finished off her food, “We headed anywhere specific, Eres? Or just playing it by ear?”

“Well, I want to get on the road sooner rather than later. I don’t trust my family not to be vindictive about me not being a branch head and setting out on my own,” Eres spoke without lifting his head, focusing on a small Mana construct he was throwing between his hands, “It would be hypocritical for them to care about it now, but considering it is just the Baron and his heir here right now… Yeah, trust isn’t so much something I am feeling for them.

“I talked to Brom about it before he left, and he recommended heading in the general direction of the Capital. There are more than a few towns and cities between us and it, so we should be able to get registered as Adventurers at the first one we come across with a guildhall. Maybe get lucky and make some money with a bounty or a dungeon run before then. That’s what I have been thinking anyway, but what about you two? There are three of us here, decisions aren’t just on me,” Eres’ eyes began to shine purple as he reinforced the Mana in his hands, making it more and more solid as he rolled his head to look at his companions.

Myla was staring transfixed at his hands and the now mostly solid purple dagger that he was tumbling between the two and rolling over his knuckles, wrists and palms. Freya however had gotten used to his habit of playing with magic whenever he had a spare moment and was instead looking off into the distance and pondering something.

“The Capital sounds like a good idea. I have always wanted to see Leodas for myself, so that seems as good a place to aim as any,” Freya furrowed her brow as she spoke slowly, “I think a dungeon might not be the best idea, though. Monster bounties are one thing, but dungeons need more cohesion, and usually, it's more than a party of three that delves into them.

“We should really work on fighting as a group before looking at doing that. Our formation is pretty obvious because of all of our Blessing’s and skills, but we still don’t have a Mind or Knight Blessing, so it might take us a while to kill anything strong, even with you and Myla being as strong as you are.”

“Huh, that’s a fair point,” Eres muttered, rolling onto his feet and smiling at the green-eyed girl, “Sorry, guess I got ahead of myself. So, let's go sign up for the guild, kill some monsters, and get some practice in. Oh, and make some coin while we do it too, ‘cause the purses Mother slipped us won’t last forever.”

Myla and Freya looked at each other blankly, before turning slowly to look at Eres.

“What purses?” They said, simultaneously.

Eres looked at the pair of them incredulously. “You… you didn’t check the packs before you started loading them up, did you?” He struggled to keep his face blank and emotionless, but he could feel laughter rising in his throat.

“What? No.” Myla stuttered, looking at the bag on the floor next to it, “An enchanted bag is such a gift already…”

Eres barely managed to keep the laughter from erupting. Both of his companions were looking at their bags like they were venomous snakes. “Well, you might as well open it, go on. Myla I would expect Mother to get one over on, but you Freya? Come on now, you know that woman at this point. You figured she would send me off with my two only and dearest friends, and not give them gifts?”

“I thought the bag was the gift,” Freya muttered darkly as she shoved her hand into the bag and started rooting around, her arm disappearing up to the shoulder as she began to search. Myla was only a half second behind her, both of her arms disappearing into her own bag.

At the bizarre site of these two gorgeous women looking stricken and pale as they rooted around in enchanted rucksacks that they clearly underestimated the price of, Eres couldn’t hold back anymore and rolled back onto the floor, shoulders heaving as he laughed. It wasn’t the gentle kind of chuckle you get from a good joke or the snicker at someone else's expense. It was a rolling, deep belly laugh, the kind that leaves tears in your eyes and steals your breath, leaving you gasping and struggling to do anything other than try to remain sane until your brain caught your body up with the real world again and got you back on your feet.

It took over a minute before Eres could wipe the tears from his eyes and get his lungs to stop screaming at him for oxygen. Once he managed to get back to at least a sitting position, he could see both of his companions holding coin purses and trying to count the amount inside, looking rather nervous. Myla in particular was slowly getting paler and paler as she counted.

“Umm… Eres,” Freya said, eyes as wide as saucers, “I think the Lady might have made a mistake.”

“Nope. There was a note with mine, and it wouldn’t surprise me if there is one somewhere in that bag, though knowing Mother maybe wait til you are on your own to read those, it is likely there is either an embarrassing anecdote about me or unsolicited advice… or both,” Eres shook his head as he remembered his mother's letter reminding him to be safe, that she would always love and welcome him, and requesting grandchildren sooner rather than later… The last eight years of them actually being close had really led to her being far too free with her advice. “Anyway, the note in mine mentioned she had given both of you the same amount she gave me, about 50,000 Leons. Mostly in gold and silver, to keep spending it easy apparently.”

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“What!?” Myla shrieked, nearly dropping the bag and losing count, “That’s more than my Father’s shop made in a year!”

Eres shrugged. “I mean, I get what you are saying but she can afford it. She owns a bunch of stuff in the capital, separate from the Barony’s interests. So she can afford to give us some seed funds, and trust me we will need it. Potions aren’t cheap, and neither are weapons and armour, especially if we are looking to get them enchanted, and we will need to if we want to end up working on clearing dungeons.

“Yes, Freya, I can see your pointed look. I’m not saying we are about to arm up and dive into the first underground ruin or monster nest I find, but if it is our end goal we should keep it in mind.”

Freya stopped with her mouth half hanging open and glared at me, while Myla was still pale and staring at the coin pouch.

In the Kingdom of Leodas, named after its capital city, or vice versa, the history books were never particularly clear on the matter, the currency was Leons. These were divided into Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Royal coins, equalling 1, 10, 100, 1000 and 10,000 Leons each. Eres couldn’t help but relate the currency back to dollars or pounds in Adrien’s life, and one Leon seemed to be basically the same as a dollar. This meant, between the three of them, Eres’ mother had swiftly dumped the equivalent of more than 4 years' average salary on them as “going away” money. Eres might be acting cool about it now, but when he opened his own pouch he had had much the same reaction.

“Anyway, stop trying to catch flies in your mouths,” Eres laughed as he clambered to his feet once more, shouldered his pack and held a hand out to either of them, “If you feel bad you can take it up with her once we get to the Capital. She should be in Leodas basically year-round, now that the Baron is spending all of his time with the heir and Ellsa and I have left.”

Both of the girls gripped his hands as he hoisted them to their feet. Myla’s complexion had started to even out, but Freya was still slightly glaring.

Or maybe pouting is a better description? Eres thought, eyes skating over the pushed-out bottom lip and the hand placed on a cocked-out hip. Yep, pouting. That’s new… I wonder why I am seeing so many new sides of Freya today. What is she up to?

They gathered up and packed away the last scraps from their breakfast and made sure all their packs were secure before Eres looked back at the wooden walls of the town. “Alright, ready to go then? We can always come back, but it will probably be a while, so if you need anything, better to grab it now.”

“Oh!” Myla suddenly gasped, a hand shooting into the air like she had a question, “Sorry, I will be, like, five minutes? I need to grab something from the barracks, I will run- wait here!”

She was already running before Eres or Freya could speak a word. Eres just shrugged at his ex-maid and started forming and playing with another mana construct, this time a short spear that he tossed from hand to hand, focusing more and more mana into it until it was barely even translucent. It had taken him quite a while to work out how to harden his creations beyond what their initial manifestation was capable of, but he now used it as a good way to train his Mana control and Magic output. It was while he was training this way that he caught sight of Myla running back, and his concentration was so thrown that the construct shattered into pieces before turning into dust.

“Myla, love… What the fuck is that,” Eres said, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. He had expected her to be grabbing a coat, or maybe even a mount or a pet or something. Instead, Myla had come jogging in their direction carrying a huge weapon across both of her shoulders. It looked to be a spear or polearm of some description, with the total length being longer than Myla was tall, around six feet long. Rather than a simple spear point or a halberd head, the head of the weapon was a two-foot-long sword blade, built thick and sturdy like a broadsword. Then came a large crescent-shaped crossguard that swept to either side of the weapon, before it melded with the four-foot haft of the weapon. There was no ornamentation to the weapon, it was all dark wood and polished steel, even the counterweight on the back of the haft looked to be a cap of thick steel.

“Oh, this?” Myla smiled as she twirled the weapon like it weighed almost nothing, “This is a Great-Spear. It's what I learned to fight with. What did you think I would be using?”

“Um… Honestly, Freya told me you were training with the town guards, so I assumed a pike, maybe a sword… but that’s me being stupid I guess, wasn’t thinking about your Blessing,” Eres muttered, rubbing the back of his head, “It sure looks impressive, I look forward to- What?”

Eres came to a sudden stop when he realised Myla and Freya were both looking around guiltily.

“Well, M-Myla might have been getting a little more t-training the last few years,” Freya stuttered, “and your mother and I might have had something to do with it.”

Eres let out a small sigh and gestured for her to continue, feeling his earlier embarrassment disappear.

“Well, you know how, when you were fourteen you and Master Brom decided to lose one of your Spellwork sessions during the week so you could work on experimentation yourself? Well, me and your mother thought, that if he was here anyway, and you weren’t missing out then maybe we could get him to train Myla up?” Freya rattled off quickly.

“Okay…” Eres dragged the word out into as many syllables as possible before he continued, “And you are both looking guilty about this why?”

“Um, well,” Myla spoke up, not dragging her eyes off of her feet, where her boots were once again digging into the dirt, “We didn’t tell you, and he was your tutor. But your mother and Freya both knew how much I wanted to come with you, so they helped out. Still, feel bad, ‘cause I feel like I took time away from your training… so yeah, sorry.”

“So let me get this straight,” Eres spoke before standing before the two surprisingly guilty-looking women, “You are telling me that you chose to come along years ago, you found out that a skilled tutor who could teach you to fight, as well as give you tips on how to fight alongside me most likely, knowing Brom, and you jumped on that chance to get stronger so that when I did leave you could make sure you could fight alongside and protect me… and you expect me to be annoyed at the pair of you? For what, looking after my best interests?”

Eres laughed as he scooped both of them up into a hug, their feet briefly leaving the floor as he squeezed them for a second, before depositing them back on the floor. “Thanks, both of you. For looking out for me, and for coming along. Now, come on, we gotta hit the trail soon or we won’t make it to the next town before nightfall, and for our first night outside of home I reckon a bed at an Inn is far better than a bedroll in the woods!”

Eres pulled them by the hands as he walked backwards towards the thin road at the edge of the forest, making sure they were moving before he let them go and turned back to face their destination.

“No time like the present for adventure, I guess,” Freya laughed, as they settled into a comfy walking pace and, for the first time, set out on the road.