Getting some rest was of extreme importance.

After pushing past my limits during the tournament, I only had the healing spell to thank for keeping me on the correct side of the edge. And the second it started to run out…

I managed to hold for long enough to reach the room in the inn and find a place to sit. Yet, the moment my butt fell into the soft cushion of the chair, the exhaustion of the day finally caught up with me.

The second I allowed myself to relax, my body rejected any sort of effort, near instantly putting me in a state of shallow sleep.

It felt weird.

Not even by my own standards, but by the standards my body was used to, to be exhausted that much.

The cost of keeping my consciousness up was far too great for my body to be able to afford it. And yet, my brain somehow refused to fully shut down, putting me in this weird sort of lucid dream, where memories of my host's past mixed with my own.

Still, as shallow as it was, I did fall asleep. For the first time since entering the deep dive, to boot.

So, while stuck in this weird lucid dream, I lived through the entire process of my brain slowly organizing the new content and forging logical connections between all the synapses responsible for holding those foreign memories.

'This is tough,' I thought, struggling to keep a hold of who I actually was.

This feeling was far greater than anything I've experienced in my previous dives, the courtesy of a much deeper connection I guess.

Still, while in other times the process of my brain getting used to the new reality would amount to a slight discomfort at most. This time, however, it turned into a real torture during which I could sense my very self starting to break apart and reforge itself from the soup of disjointed memories.

And then, a slight rustle somehow caught my attention, putting a halt to this crucial process. My synapses fired up again, rapidly creating makeshift connections between memories just to bring me back up to speed.

It would be a lie to claim I fully woke up. But as the activity of my brain increased, I could no longer profess to be asleep.

Balancing on the edge between dreams and reality, I listened in to the strange noises.

For a few moments, everything appeared to be alright. I was ready to believe that I simply experienced the natural noises a wooded building would make at times…

Before I heard the sound that had no right of appearing.

The sound of a tiny piece of metal cutting through the air at an extreme speed. The noise I've heard when studying the sounds of bullets to implement them into my simulation.

But how could there be guns in this world, where crossbow stood at the peak of engineering thought? And even if there was some random explanation for the appearance of the gun… where was the loud noise of the shot itself?

Startled by the noise that I couldn't explain, I felt tempted to just open my eyes and take a look… But for some reason, I couldn't sense even the tiniest hint of bloodlust. And for a mercenary with as much experience as…

My eyes nearly shoot open when I realized what just nearly happened.

I then pushed my eyelids down on my already closed eyes, petrified of what would happen if I were to fully open them up.

As long as I kept my eyes closed, the synchronization of all the memories in my brain could still resume. And if I dared to put a definitive end to my sleep right now…

I gulped down my saliva, terrified of the idea of losing myself over a failed synchronization. And for how much I wished to learn what was going on…

This time, the prize of doing that was too damn high.

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And so, I kept on sleeping while the gentle hissing of metal cutting through the air continued. I slept when the noises stopped. I kept on resting when Nay's presence vanished from the room and I continued to do so when her presence returned.

I forced myself to calm down, slowing down my breath to reinforce the effect. And soon, I could sense my consciousness diving back into a deeper slumber, allowing the synchronization process to pick up.

'The next few days are going to be a pain, huh?' I thought, once all the main changes in my brain finished and the synchronization process moved on to more minute yet equally as important honing of the details.

And as I now regained my full consciousness within this lucid dream of mine, I instantly rushed to make use of this opportunity.

With a mere thought, I summoned all the relevant memories of my host before transforming them into graphics that I then layered upon each other.

And as a result, I've now stared at an extremely incomplete map of the lands that my host knew or at least heard about.

Quite notably, I could see quite a detailed map of the Karkuz Legion's land, my host's homeland. Then, a long stretch of details extended first south from the Karkuz before going quite a distance to the west.

This was the path that I took after receiving my first assignment as a journeying legion mercenary, along with the path the company I joined took to reach the empire.

Sadly, save for the spots that my host walked through before, most of the map was covered in different shades of gray. The more intense the color, the less details I could see. And while there were some places that my host knew quite a lot about, the great majority of what I could see on the map only boasted a single piece of information.

'Something exists here.'

'The layout of this world is pretty damn weird,' I thought, taking a step back to look at the map from a greater perspective.

A massive block of the empire took over a western third of the continent. Then there were a few of the empire's big vassals, the remnants of the kingdoms of old that fell under the imperial shoe.

And then, covering even more land than the empire itself, laid a land of scattered princedoms, where every noble with a bodyguard or two would declare their shed to be an independent castle.

'Those princedoms are too chaotic for any realistic tracking of people or money,' I thought as my eyes drew towards one of the few princedoms that I've visited. A principality that laid directly to the south to the dry highlands that were such a pain in the ass to cross…

'And that makes them perfect for us to escape to,' I decided, smiling as two familiar names appeared before my eyes

Kovets, the rich capital of the principality in question had everything a mercenary could ever dream of…. And Stornes, the fortress at the edge of the frontier, where mercenaries gathered up and organized ventured out into the dry highlands to hunt an exotic monster, find some rare herbs, or battle it out with the last few barbarian tribes that remained.

It was a place of opportunity, a golden city for mercenaries.

And a place where it couldn't be any easier to disappear into the crowd, never to be found again.

'That will be a good destination,' I thought, already feeling a strange sense of anticipation at the mere thought of escaping the oppressive empire and reaching the lands where personal freedom still prevailed. 'And to get there…' I thought, turning my eyes west, closer to the area where I was right now.

And my eyes fell on a relatively gray area with only a few markings outlining the lay of the land and major points of importance.

'If that's this port…' I thought, staring at a certain city located at the north-western edge of the drying-out salt lake. Then, my eyes traced the long distance that separated the city I was in from the port that I'd already designated as our getaway from the empire.

Then, my mental face soured, as I realized the tough reality of this strange world.

And it was huge.

Or rather, the technology of this world had yet to bridge the logistic gaps in it.

'That's at least four days of a rush to the border, then three more to the port town,' I thought, estimating the time and distance I would need to cross to evade the chase that was most likely already brewing.

And then, before I could iron any further details in my mind, a gentle shaking of my shoulder forced me to finally open my eyes.

Rather than opening my eyes as I would normally do, my body took a moment to adjust itself to being awake, quickly ridding itself of the sleepy sluggishness. My eyes opened only once my entire body was ready for a fight…

But with Nay's perfectly still face in front of my eyes, there were no enemies around for me to battle.

"It's my turn I guess," I muttered before gritting my teeth and standing up from the chair. "Feel free to take the seat. Try to get as much rest as you can," I added, paying the girl hardly any mind.

Since she refused to as much as speak to me, I could hardly be bothered to interact with her either. As for what I've heard happening before, during her night's watch… I decided to just ignore it for now.

My eyes drew towards a random nail that stuck out from the wall.

I hurried my steps before resting my back against that precise spot on the wall, using the pain caused by the nail poking into my back to keep myself awake through the shift.

'We will be leaving in two hours or so,' I thought, watching how the skimpy-dressed girl happily took over my spot in the chair before covering herself with some blanket and closing her eyes.

'I really wonder what her deal is.'

In the darkness of the room, I could hardly make out any details of Nay's face. And soon, my curiosity died down, replaced by the boredom of my current task.

'Well, it's not like it matters,' I thought before heaving an exhausted sigh. 'Since I'm going to release her as soon as we get past the imperial border!'