What would I want from a dragon? This was not a chance I could get more than once, should I hold on to the favor, maybe she will save me one time when I need it. Rather than making a half baked decision, having a get out of jail free card seemed to be my best bet.

“Just to be clear, I won’t break the contract to help you. Your help prevented me from the smallest of infractions, there would be no point in owing you this favor should it come with the same punishment I avoided.”

Well that puts a damper on things. The contract prevented her from using her power to interact with humans on human lands unprovoked and completely prevented her from doing anything other than passing through a city. She couldn’t even help me survive a beast attack as that would be her interfering with a human, me.

“You’ve seen me practice my magic on the way here, right?” an idea came to me.

At her nod I pressed on. “I can’t get schooling in the caster way of fighting, could this favor be you helping me with gaining magic gear so that I can use my mana without ruining it?”

After all this was one of the biggest obstacles for me to progress. There was no way I was going to get myself magic equipment, but with a dragon's help that might not be the case.

“And how would you like me to do that?” she asked.

“I’ll leave that up to you, I have barely started learning anything about it, whereas you’ve probably spent more time wielding mana than my parents have been alive.”

“Well that is a smart request, very well. I shall help you, when I have your gear I’ll come find you.” she said standing up.

In the next moment the chair under me gave way and I landed on the ground. By the time I looked up the clearing was empty, the dragon, Shifter, and even the table was gone. Deciding I had spent enough time on my little outing I returned to the caravan.

It had taken us three days longer to make the trip back than it did going to the city. The caravan was filled with food so we moved quite a bit slower. During this time I just practiced my skills. The practice barely made a dent in my skills but the experience wasn’t bad. The only headache I had was the new [Mana Syphon] skill. Unlike humans the presence of mana is what turned beasts into monsters so even the few beasts that I did run into were no good for it.

The only option I did have was to try it out on the other members of the caravan, and that was not something I was willing to do. Maybe if I knew that it was harmless I would have convinced myself, but I couldn’t even properly remember getting the skill and using it for the first time.

As we finally made it out of the forest we could finally see the village. Off to one side must have been where the army had set up camp, it was a wide field that used to have quite a few trees covering it. This would be prime real estate, it would be sold for quite a bit, if it wasn’t already, to a farmer. Next spring all that cleared land would make for a perfect field.

After finally reaching the caravan set-up area Alana, Judy and I all left the caravan to the drivers to set up. Judy and I headed for our house while Alana went towards hers. It had only been seven weeks since I left home, and I had been unconscious for two of them, but it felt like a lot longer. I was also dreading the conversation I was going to have to have with my parents, but I had kept this from them for too long.

As we entered the home, they were setting up the table for dinner. Luckily it seemed that mom had made stew. I guess the original plan was for it to last them two days but with four of us it was probably going to be gone by the end of the evening.

“Judy! Ajax! You’re back.” Mom was out of her seat as we entered the house.

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“Made it back a lot sooner than we were expecting, those soldiers sure can move fast” dad said a lot more composed as mom went from hugging Judy to hugging me.

“So, how was the city?” mom asked as we took two bowls and sat down to join them.

The dinner continued peacefully with Judy and I explaining around time in the city, we steered clear of my mana and the vampire, those would come after dinner.

“Mom, dad, I have something to tell you.” I said as we cleared away the plates.

“What is it?” mom asked.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you. For a while now I have had the [Sense Mana] and [Expel Mana] skills.” I finally came clean.

They both sat there in stunned silence. Dad was the first one to speak. “It’s not that I am upset that you kept that to yourself, but why didn’t you tell us?”

“Well, I remember back when Judy got her rare skill mom made a big fuss about keeping such things quiet. I also didn’t want anyone else in the village to know about it, so I just practiced it by myself.”

Dad gave me a small smile, but mom just looked at me a little lost. “But where could you have practiced it? I know we didn’t stay together the whole time but you couldn’t have had that much time.” she was talking more to herself, piecing things together.

“Wait, your garden.” She now looked me in the eyes. “ Is that where you were practicing, is that why everything you were growing there came out so much bigger and better?”

I didn’t even get a chance to answer and she just kept going” Ajax, you can’t do that, you were selling those plants! Those can be identified as having been grown with mana, you’ll expose yourself to people you really don’t want knowing about your mana.” She went from confused, to focused and now panicked in only a few seconds.

“It’s ok mom, I know that now. I got lucky, the sleazy merchant I was selling them to was just passing them one village away from twice the cost. I lost quite a bit of money to him, but thankfully nobody found out.”

“That is actually how Alana and I found out he had mana. Our appraiser looked at them and told us they were grown by a mana user, not a particularly good one, but definitely a mana user.” Judy contributed. “ Alana thought quickly enough to cover up the fact that he was the mana user so for now I don’t think anyone outside the family knows he has mana.”

“Besides Hatchet” I murmured.

“Well at least you are ok. Now that we know, your mother and I can do our best to help keep this under wraps.” dad said as he breathed out a long sigh.

“Ajax, I know that you’re already past ten years old and it may be a little late to start, but, if you want, I can get in contact with my family. We might not get along that well but I’m sure that they would be willing to help. If you want to go to an academy to help train in using your mana we can do that.” She seemed quite upset, most likely at her parents disapproval of her young marriage, but the look in her eyes was determined.

“There is no need for that, I have found my own way to use mana. It’s actually probably best that I practice here, where there is nobody really looking for mana users. I might even get Hatchet to help me out.”

“You told Hatchet?” dad asked, he seemed disappointed.

“I didn’t tell him, but I used a quick healing spell after the fight with the kobolds. When I made it to the city Tom told me he looked into who he was before he came here. Apparently he used to be an adventurer, a pretty good one at that. He definitely has [Detect Mana] so he knows.”

“So, what is your plan now?” Dad asked me, it seems he figured I wouldn’t be staying in the village.

“I think that I will be training here with Hatchet for my Apprentice. After that I will most likely go to join the Adventurers guild, they are one of the few places that can offer me protection from the nobles, hunting monsters seems like something I’d like to do.”

“Where did you even encounter a monster to get that idea? The kobolds and wolf you saw don’t count, Hatchet took care of them.” dad said.

This led into a long explanation about what happened with the vampire. It was a long night after that. Mom stayed up hugging me for another good hour or so, all the while lamenting why she hadn’t been there to take care of me. The fact that there was nothing she could have done didn’t seem to make one bit of difference.

After seeing them react like that to the vampire I decided not to bring up the dragon tonight. The whole encounter still seemed unreal to me. I half doubted that it even happened. If I was going to tell them about it I would do it after I got my new gear, I didn’t want them to think I had gone crazy after my encounter with the vampire.

The next morning, after breakfast, I changed into my hunting gear and headed towards the edge of the village. As I came up to the solitary house standing a little separated from the rest I found Hatchet in his backyard chopping firewood.

“So, you know?” I started off.

He turned back to look at me. He stayed silent for a few moments that might as well have been a few years before he responded with a simple ” I know.”

“Are you still willing to train me?” I asked

“What do you want me to train you in?”

“Hunting” I answered straight away but after a brief moment I continued deciding it was best he get the full picture. “And adventuring, I plan to go join the guild in a few years.”

“I can’t teach you magic, I can barely get a hint of what you’re doing with mana.”

“That’s ok, I plan on figuring out magic for myself, maybe you could give me a few pointers from experience.”

“Fine then, go do your warm up while I finish here, after that we go hunting.”