After killing the injured dog, it calls out to the last one, “Cecil let’s get going”. It leaves the fight with Lucas who was clearly at a disadvantage.

It reaches the joker and yelps happily as if it didn’t notice the death of its siblings. Joker jumps which get him to the top of the beast’s head where he sat comfortably and gets the beast moving towards an unknown location.

He doesn’t seem to be bothered about the remaining survivors and whether or not they would track his location. This was the influence of absolute confidence in one’s powers.

After being left all alone, a great wave of exhaustion swept Lucas, together with the injuries inflicted on him by the beast.

It was after all a hard-fought battle and although they might seem to be on equal footing, that was just the beast being playful and not taking him seriously. But overall, some amount of damage has been done to him which causes him to cough a large amount of blood while slowly slipping into unconsciousness.

The only people who were unhurt in this fight were the girls. Huge discrimination against the guys I would say after all they have all pitted their lives against the beasts while the women did nothing but watched the proceedings.

Olivia’s horse goes forward to pick up the body of Lucas who was currently unconscious before riding toward Andrew.

“Hey, Lancelot. Can you still fix him up?”, Olivia questions this moment with a frown on her face. Although she was angry over the troops she lost, she also saw the way Andrew had fought for them and how he had saved the two of them albeit at the loss of one soldier, but there were bound to be sacrificed after all for the greater good since it was a good bargain, killing one for the lives of two and one of them was even an average medical practitioner.

But Andrew had seen Lancelot dying so which Lancelot was this you would say? Lancelot had a look-alike and since Andrew didn’t look carefully around the battlefield, hence he was confused.

It was a really special situation though as Lancelot could be easily mistaken in the troop and more than often, punishments have been meted out to the wrong person. What was shocking was that Lancelot together with the other soldier was planning on killing Andrew although he had risked his life to save the fake Lancelot.

Although the real one hasn’t noticed such deeds, it was still over the top. If Andrew was awake to listen to this conversation, there would be little doubt that his injuries would worsen.

“I would see what I can do”, says Lancelot while running off towards the cart to see if he could ravage some stuff from it. He comes back with some tools on which he quickly starts operating on Andrew, first cleaning the injuries before applying some medicines and changing the bandages which were formerly used. He was generous in his application of the medicine since the other soldiers whom they were formerly reserved for have now all been dead, sent to the afterlife.

“I have done all I can. But he would still need a good doctor and better equipment which are both unavailable to us. All I have done is place his life out of danger for now and since he hasn’t been poisoned this time around, he should be quite stable but that doesn’t mean we can delay his treatment though”, says Lancelot after an hour or two of treatment went by.

It was dark by the time he was through and the girls had already set the camp up and were even preparing meals. During the period when Lancelot was treating Andrew, Olivia together with the remaining soldier had already gone around rounding up their stuff while gathering the corpse or what is left of the already dead soldiers, which she buried together.

“Yeah, we are going to the capital immediately. There would be no stops on the way. This matter needs to be reported and if am told to continue my mission, I would need new troops for that too”, says Olivia who was standing by the side.

“Check up on Lucas too”, she continues pointing in the direction of a tent where Lucas was now lying. Lancelot acknowledges the command and goes forth toward the tent in preparation to treat Lucas.

The treatment of Lucas doesn’t take long and he was through in no time, after which they all sat to eat. After they finished eating, Olivia orders the soldiers to go to bed while she alone would stand as a watch. They were all exhausted from the fights and all she did was watch the massacre without being able to provide anything as much as aid during the battle.

It was a way to try to repay their valour during the fight. The soldiers quickly fell asleep as they were truly exhausted, especially Lancelot whose snores could be heard echoing all over the forest right now. It was at this time that Marian walks up to Olivia while Eve was laying by the side sleeping.

“Couldn’t sleep?”, Olivia asks noticing that Marian was walking towards her. “No”, she says while shaking her head in reply, after which she takes a seating position beside Olivia.

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“Nightmares?”, asks Olivia once again, but Marian gives the same reply. A moment of silence ensued before Marian speaks, “I have been thinking for a while now”. “About what?”, Olivia asks in reply totally inquisitive.

“Andrew is someone close to me whom I even consider as a family. He has always been taking care of me although it hasn’t been too long he has always shown me greater care and love, and I have been seeing him going through a lot, being put in a near-death situation more than once just to save me from harm’s way”, Marian continues, “And I want to be of some use to him rather than being a burden”.

This time around, Olivia stares at Marian for a while before she says, “So what do you intend to do about it?”. “I hope to be as strong as you do. If possible I want to join the military and fight bad guys”, says Marian with bright and shiny eyes. Such a great aspiration for a little kid and a girl at that. But her dreams were bound to be cut short as the next words which come from Olivia's words weren’t something she had expected.

“You? Join the military? That’s impossible, you clearly have no talent and at most would end up as cannon fodder on the battlefield and would have just wasted your life”, says Olivia denouncing her ideas blandly.

Hearing such words being said to her struck her heart badly, after a lot of thinking, that was the best decision she had come up with and since Olivia was even a general in the army, she thought it would be easier to become a strong warrior so that she could fight alongside Andrew and at least share in some of his burdens.

But now she was being told she has no talent in becoming a warrior, she wanted to refute this as since Andrew could do it, thus she could too. And how could Olivia just conclude that she didn’t have any talent just by staring at her? That wasn’t her decision to make at all.

About to open her mouth to voice out all her thoughts, Olivia sighs before saying, “You might think that I am being too harsh by telling you such words or that am too hasty by concluding that just by staring at you. But you don’t have the talent, even in your village, you could have sensed that as not everyone is strong enough according to the concept of realms. And maybe perhaps you don’t know anything about realms and such. But being able to break through doesn’t necessarily need only strong wills, you also need talent and you lack that. No matter how you decide to train, you would hardly be capable of breaking through the first shackle into the speed realm. And even if you are capable of eventually doing that, it would be at a very advanced age which means you won’t be able to go farther than that hence it would be a waste of time and effort”, after saying all these in one breath, Olivia pauses to stare at Marian with fondness in her eyes.

She seems to have started liking this girl in front of her although she was thinking childishly, it was all to help Andrew so she found no fault in that.

She continues after staring at her for a while, “The likes of Andrew whom you consider your family is unlike that which is seen all over the kingdom and his talent is even shocking to me as a whole. You might think that our kingdom is strong to be capable of producing warriors like us but when you grow higher you will be privy to some details which would shock you to the core. But I would like to tell you this, this kingdom is nothing but a frog in the well in the stage of the lords. It can be used as a sacrificial pawn at any moment if those really at the top feel so and we all would just litter the floor with our corpses. There are much stronger kingdoms out there and am sure that such kingdoms don’t even have a talent like Andrew in their midst. You might feel that am strong but I was only capable of getting here through the help of herbs and various other stuff, thus I can’t pass the shackle holding down me and would forever be limited but the future of that boy is limitless and he would surely reach that realm sooner or later without a doubt. But basing yourself on his accomplishments is a far cry from what you are capable of doing. So I would advise you to give up on such dreams of yours”.

Listening to all this, made Marian reel in shock, she was still little and although has seen deaths and destruction which made her mature a bit, she was still young and this news made her understand that she was still a kid with wild dreams. But still, she doesn’t seem to want to give up, she still believed that there was some way she could be of help to Andrew if she trained hard. “There is a way through which you can help him if you would want to”, says Olivia, extracting her from her thoughts. “Hmm?”, obviously inquisitive about what she could do, her ears were perked up fully wanting to listen to everything so that she doesn’t miss a word.

Olivia smiles seeing that she has fully gotten her attention once again, and then she says, “You can help him once he gets back from war or when he is taking a rest from a long war”.

“Huh? I don’t understand what you mean by that”, says Marian in reply. “How about you become a medical practitioner on the battlefield? Treating those who are injured and require medical aid”, says Olivia, she said it all to prevent this young maiden from going down the wrong path and also give her some sort of hope.

“Huh. Can I?”, Marian says finally seeing some sort of hope based on what Olivia has just said. “Of course, you can”, says Olivia with a slight smile on her face.

“Then that’s what I would do then. I would learn hard, then become a good doctor so that I can treat any kind of injuries Andy comes up with”, Marian says with newfound spirit as if she has finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel. She seems pretty cute at this moment.

“Don’t worry, I would recommend you to the people I know when we get back to the capital”, replies Olivia. Marian then nods her head in a very happy mood with her previous damped mood already nowhere to be seen while her eyes were now shining brightly.

They talked about some other stuff with Olivia just asking more about Andrew's life, after which she got some valuable information. A bit later when she noticed Marian was a bit sleepy, she allowed her to go rest up. They would be resuming their journey a bit earlier in the morning after all and proper rest was needed since she would be helping in riding a horse since she after all had an idea about it.

While Marian laid down to rest, Olivia turned towards Eve’s tent, and Eve’s eyes could be seen wide open inside, she seems to have been eavesdropping on their conversation ever since and was unable to sleep, after all, although their voices hasn’t been too loud, they were in a very quiet environment. Olivia just smiles and turns away from that direction while returning to her meditative state. Although she was in that state, she is still aware of what is going on around her even of every vibration made by this world’s insects.