The carriage was silent while darkness cladded over us as night was coming. Ilise brought the carriage to a suitable area before poking her head in and letting me know we can set up camp now. Following what she said, I got out of the carriage and grabbed the box near the back which had the camping supplies from what Ilise told me.

We began setting up the campsite still in silence except for the few words of need. When Ilise started setting up the second tent, I stopped her and let her know I don’t like to sleep.

“What do you mean? Everyone needs to sleep.” She asked, confused.

“I just can’t. I always have vivid nightmares when I sleep.” I explained. “You can sleep, I’ll watch the campsite.”.

“Hmm… I don’t know how I feel about this but if it’s how you say, I’d rather not force you to have nightmares then.” She said while putting away the pieces of the tent she pulled out.

Once we finished with the tent, we moved on to making the fire. When the fire was made Ilise then handed me some bread and dried meat. We sat across from each other in silence as we ate.

I didn’t mind the silence but when I looked over to Ilise, she was fidgeting around as if she had something to say. “Are you okay?” I asked, getting straight to the point.

Ilise then gazed towards me upon hearing my voice “It’s nothing, I just haven’t been out of Trennent since I started working at the desk.”.

“We will be fine.” I assure her as my hand finds its way to my hilt.

Ilise then shakes her head “Anyways, since we are going to be on this trip for a while, could you tell me about yourself?”. “Of course I’ll tell you about me as well!” She quickly adds. Once I realized that she doesn’t know I lost my memories, I looked up to the sky thinking on how to handle this.

Nothing was heard except for the crackling of the fire as I thought in what to say. “I don’t like talking about my past, hence the nightmares.” I finally told her. What I said wasn’t a lie but wasn’t the full truth either.

Ilise closed her eyes while nodding to me with a smile “If that’s the case, I won’t pry.”. I was happy she wasn’t going to ask more. After hearing that, Ilise then got up “Well, I’m going to go to sleep now, I’ll entrust you to watching over everything.” She said awkwardly before walking towards the tent.

The flickering fire kept my attention while I was in thought. The one thing on my mind was how much I want to reveal about myself to the guild through Ilise. It took me a bit before coming to the conclusion of avoiding showing too much to Ilise. Once I made up my mind of not doing anything related to magic while she was around, I got up and decided to practice my swordsmanship for the night.

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I had my eyes closed as I focused my attention to my feet as I did the motions for the spinning strikes. I repeated these motions time and time again, trying to make it second nature. Over time I began to see light through my eyelids. Once I noticed, I opened my eyes to see the sun beginning to sneak it’s way through the tree branches and decided to stop.

I was calming my breathing when I suddenly heard something I heard once before “I thought you were never going to stop.”. I peered over to the source to see Ilise standing there, leaning against the carriage. When I looked at her she then added on “I woke up wondering if you really were still on watch, I wasn’t expecting you to be practicing with your sword.”.

“It’s what I normally do every night.” I said while I put my sword once more on my back before wiping sweat off my forehead.

“How do you never feel tired if you never sleep?” Ilise asked with a concerned expression.

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“I have my ways.” I told her while thinking about meditating with the mana essence.

Ilise looked a bit troubled before finally giving up on it and changed the subject “Let's eat something before packing up and getting a move on.”. Ilise then began walking towards the back of the carriage and opened up a box, grabbing out a few pieces of dried meat and bread. I was walking towards her as she turned around; handing it to me.

After I took it and began eating it, I wondered if dried meat was a normal thing that travelers normally brought with them. I finished eating before Ilise and began deconstructing the tent after confirming with her that everything was taken out of it. Ilise began helping before I was putting the pieces away in the box. We finished packing up shortly after that and both got into the carriage.

Once she confirmed I was ready by poking her head through the black cloth. the carriage then started moving. Majority of the time spent on the road was done in silence while I occupied myself with watching the always changing scenery out the back. I watched the bright forest scenery change to following a large body of water that reflected the lowering sun. While the reflecting sunset was disappearing from sight, darkness was settling down around us.

We spent the night much like the previous one with setting up camp, eating dried meat and bread in silence and then Ilise going to sleep. Once it was just me, I did the one thing I normally did for the night and practiced my swordsmanship.

“Wow you really do this every night.” Were the words I heard that broke my concentration. Noticing that the sunlight was already creeping through, I fixed myself before we began doing the things that were becoming routine. We ate only dried meat this time before taking down the campsite and getting back on the road.

As I sat in the back of the carriage watching out through the parted cloth, all that could be heard was the horses trotting and the wheels of the carriage spinning through the terrain. Once again I watched the forest go from bright and sunny to slowly become dark.

Those events repeated themselves for several days before I finally decided one time while we were eating around the fire to mention something about myself. “I was in an orphanage.” My words surprised Ilise.

“Really? From where?” She inquired.

“Marawa.” I answered her. “I think.” I then added shortly after.

“What do you mean, think?” Ilise was visibly confused.

“My memory is a little bit hazy on it but I think the orphanage was burnt down.” I elaborated.

“Oh… I’m sorry, I guess I can understand where you get nightmares from.” Ilise mentioned with a frown.

“Yeah.” I said a little bit awkwardly.

“It’s okay, I understand a little bit on how you feel.” Ilise had a smile on her face. “When I was a child, I didn’t really know my parents. You see they were on the way to be high grade adventurers for the guild so they had very little time for me.”. “I spent most of my time with a caretaker that they hired for me. It was like that for a long while until five almost six years ago now when a bunch of promising and high grade adventurers died.” Ilise then posed for a moment. “Unfortunately my father was one of the few survivors but he has a limp arm and scars from that time.”. Ilise wiped a tear forming in the corner of her eye “After that, I didn’t care that he didn’t have time for me when I was younger. Instead I wanted to help him in any way I can so I started working at the guild.”.

While hearing her story, I was a bit confused on why she was working at the guild to help her father but decided to not worry about it. I wasn’t really expecting to hear her story but it seemed like she's a bit more comfortable now so it didn’t bother me.

“Anyways, hopefully when we get to Marawa you get to see some good memories at least.” Ilise said sheepishly. She then got up “I’ll be off to sleep now, good night.” she mentioned before turning around and heading towards the tent. Once she was in her tent, I began my swordsmanship training for the night.

I roused myself out of concentration before sunlight started to break it’s way through. To my surprise I saw an awake Ilise feeding the horses with something in her hands. She turned my way when I put my sword away. “Oh, you’re done already?” She asked. I wiped the sweat off my forehead before I nodded to her. “You know, the more I watch you practice, the more it looks like you’re dancing to me.” She then said.

I thought back to when Chelsey mentioned something similar. “Does it really look like a dance?” I asked her.

“Just a bit, if you had a few more different movements, it would look more like a dance routine I saw once in Briona.” Upon hearing her words, I began thinking that I should learn more footwork. I gave up the thought a moment afterwards since I had no knowledge of how the footwork actually works right now.

Afterwards I then started taking down the campsite with Ilise joining me shortly after she finished feeding the horses. Once we were all packed up, we ate some more dried meat before heading back out on the road once more.

While I rode in the back of the carriage I thought about how I was a little happy that I told her a little bit about myself since she seems a bit more comfortable around me now.

This time instead of watching the scenery out the back I decided to meditate with my back towards Ilise so if she were to peek in, she wouldn’t think much of it.

Once I was in my subconsciousness I then did the same thing and sat down and began meditating there too, trying to absorb the mana.

I broke my concentration when I felt the carriage coming to a stop. When I opened my eyes, the parted cloth revealed the forest at night. After realizing that we are stopping for the night, I got out and began helping with the normal nightly routine we had.

While we sat around the campfire Ilise began talking after she finished her dried meat “If my calculations are right, we should be passing one of the five Great Lakes, this one being Gyuzuu which also means we should be about four more days until we arrive at Marawa.”. By the look on her face, she seemed excited to see the lake. “And then from there it should only be a day's travel away from the Forest of Tranquility.” She added.

When she mentioned the forest, I began thinking about what’s to come since I didn’t even know what I’ll be going against. Once I was ready to begin my night time practice, I didn’t even notice that Ilise already took her leave. Not bothered by it, I began my normal nightly routine.

I finished my training after doing thousands and thousands of sweeping strikes. When I looked over to the carriage, Ilise was there by the horses watching. It seemed like it was becoming routine for Ilise to watch me practice early morning. Once I fixed myself we packed up, ate and got back on the road once more.