The journey went on as normal after the party had gotten a new party member.

Eric still felt there were eyes watching him, somewhere. Maybe the journey was finally getting to him. It wasn’t until the party stopped to rest and Eric sat down, that he saw their new party member staring at him.

Eric took it as a challenge. He started back, and he stared back hard. The fierce battle wasn’t going to end anytime soon.

“Should we name him?”, asked Dave.

“Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”, thought Cess to herself. She was not showing off any emotion on her face.

“No. We shouldn’t get too attached to it.”, replied Orph. Maybe this was his way of getting revenge for getting jumped on.

“No. No. No. No.”, thought Cess to herself. This time almost unable to control the rage inside her.

“I guess you’re right. Besides, he probably has a name of its own, given to it by its owners.”, said Dave, while laughing awkwardly.

Cess stormed off somewhere else without showing her face to either of them.

“What’s wrong with her?”, asked Dave genuinely confused.

Orph looked at him and shrugged.

“I guess we’ll make camp here.”, added Dave.

The stare-off in-between the dog and Eric went on for some time before Eric realized what he was doing and turned away. He got embarrassed and thought to himself that he didn’t really like dogs. But he wanted to keep an open mind and maybe this dog is his arch-nemesis.

The dog had won the stare-off and even more.

Eric sighed and looked at the dog again before going near it.

“You must miss your owners.”, said Eric with a hint of sympathy in his voice.

The dog didn’t reply and kept staring at Eric.

Eric forgot that dogs can’t actually speak for a moment and got mad, “Do you want to go again? I will beat you this time!”, he exclaimed before realizing what he was doing. He sighed again and spoke, “What am I even doing?”.

The dog barked at him as soon as he said that. Which made Eric angry again. He picked up a nearby stick and spoke, “You know what? Let’s play catch.” and threw the stick as far as he could. It didn’t go that far. The dog looked at the stick and then back at Eric and then back at the stick again. It decided that it was better to just pick it up before Eric started crying. So, it did, but it walked there and came back as slowly as possible before dropping the stick right at Eric’s feet. It made a face that said, “Are we done now?”

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Eric, however, didn’t realize that. He took it as a sign that the dog liked him. He let a little smile and picked up the stick. He knew he couldn’t throw it far, so he called on someone who could.

He ran towards Orph and spoke, “Can you throw this stick as far as you can?” before giving him the stick enthusiastically.

The dog wasn’t fond of this new turn of events, it started to growl. Orph looked at the dog and smiled to himself and said, “Sure.”

He threw the stick as far as he could and it went far, really far away. The dog looked at others and realized that there were a lot of eyes on it. It whimpered and ran as fast as it could towards the stick.

“It looks so happy!”, Eric thought to himself. While Orph went away laughing. Cess finally came back to the camp and saw the commotion. She went near Eric and asked, “What are you doing?”

Eric looked back at her with a smile on his face and replied,” Nothing!”

“That doesn’t look like nothing...”

Eric didn’t hear what Cess said but instead thought to himself that maybe dogs aren’t that bad after all.

That thought, however, didn’t last very long. For when the dog came back with the stick, it came back fueled with rage.

“Wow, it’s fas-”, said Eric before being headbutted by the dog at full force.

Eric flew off and the dog still looked at him with rage in its eyes, still growling.

Orph ran over to Eric and asked if he was alright.

Cess was too shocked before admiring how strong the dog was.

Dave laughed and spoke, “Looks like the dog really likes you.!”

“I... Don't think it... does...”, replied Eric trying his best to speak.

Before anyone could say anything or help Eric get up on his feet, they heard a roar. Not a normal roar, but a roar of ogres.

“Ogres? But they aren’t supposed to be here.”, said one of the royal guards.

“Does it matter?”, replied Orph who went near the screams after helping Eric get back on his feet. He took out his sword and got into position. There were around ten ogres right in front of him.

Just before he went to attack, Orph was stopped by Knight Dave.

“Let me. The morale needs this.”, said Dave. Orph looked at him and then nodded in agreement.

Dave looked back towards Orph as a way of saying thank you and smiled. He picked up his sword and went near the ogres.

He gestured the others to stop and spoke, “I will handle this alone.” in a calm voice.

Somehow everyone felt that everything was going to be alright.

Knight Dave placed himself in front of the ogres with no fear on his face, the battle was going to start soon.