“Isn’t there a better way than this?” asked Kelima.

The pair had been walking ever deeper into the heavily forested area to the east of the city for most of the afternoon. They were following a more or less straight line to the mountain range where Wyvern Peak was located. Terry hadn’t thought much about the ground they were covering. He’d done a much harder walk through a much more hostile forest when he’d been significantly weaker. To him, this still mostly felt like a pleasant hike in the woods. In anything, it made him nostalgic for some of the hiking trails back on Earth. Man, do I miss those hiking boots. They had such good arch support. Not that his arches were bothering him, but he suspected it was hard to have too much arch support.

No, his mind had still been stuck on why the city guards had developed a sudden case of survival instincts and let them go without a hassle. At first, he’d assumed that some people would just follow them out of the city and try to press them into service where fewer people were watching. Also, it would be somewhere there would be less collateral damage if Terry decided to buck harder than they expected. He didn’t know how much it would cost to repair the city if he had a knock-down, drag-out fight with somebody who could keep up with him, but he assumed it would fall somewhere in the general territory of a lot. It might have even been enough to make rich noble wince. A thought that made him smile more than was probably healthy.

However, despite keeping his new ability to sense monsters and other dangers at a moderate distance up and running, he hadn’t caught wind of anyone trailing them. That didn’t mean they weren’t back there, somewhere, but they weren’t following close enough to get caught. That didn’t do much to alleviate his paranoia. He wouldn’t really feel like they’d escaped until after they’d gotten a few days out without signs of pursuit. He glanced back at Kelima, who serving as a person-sized vehicle for Dusk at the moment. The little cat was perched on the girl’s shoulder and casually licking a paw.

“Better how?” asked Terry. “It’s not like we’re visiting a city. We’re going to a place that even adventurers usually avoid.”

“I don’t know. Isn’t there a trail or something we could follow?”

“A trail made by who?”

“Okay, maybe not a trail, but isn’t there a river or something?”

“You want to follow a river?”

“Sure. Why not? There’d be fresh water, and we could even fish if we wanted.”

Terry actually gave that a moment of thought. It wasn’t entirely a bad idea, at least not on those grounds. He remembered how desperate he’d gotten for fresh water back in that other forest. Still, it was clear that the girl hadn’t thought the problem all the way through. It only occurred to him then that she’d probably never strayed that far from towns and roads. Most of the contracts he’d seen at the Adventurer’s Guild halls that he’d visited didn’t take people very far from the beaten path. He knew that it got increasingly dangerous the farther away from human civilization one ventured, which meant the lower-ranked adventurers probably couldn’t handle it. Since they made up the bulk of the guild’s membership, as far as he could tell, the guild would just be hurting itself by giving them contracts that took them out into the uncharted area.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Do you know what else likes fresh water?” he asked as he started walking again.

“What?”

“Monsters. They eat too, and some of them will like fish. And that’s assuming that there aren’t monsters living in the river.”

“Oh,” said Kelima, sounding a little discouraged. “That makes sense.”

“It’s good to know where you can find water, and there are supposed to be some small rivers between us and the mountains,” said Terry. “We’ll probably run across the first one in a few days. Assuming it’s safe, we’ll get some fresh water there. As for trails, I don’t know. There was nothing on the maps I saw, but I assume you know what maps are worth.”

“Not much.”

“Exactly. Which means that even if I saw a trail on one of the maps, we could have spent weeks looking for it in the wrong spot and never found it. Not my idea of a fun time. For the moment, we’re going this way because it’s more direct. Hopefully, that means it’ll be faster.”

“That was surprisingly helpful and informative,” said Kelima. “Are you feeling well?”

Terry shot her a look over his shoulder and said, “No more tips for you.”

“Sorry. Sorry,” said Kelima lifting her hands. “You just haven’t said anything for hours, and then you were helpful. It caught me off guard.”

“Listen. We’re stuck together for the moment, and I’m not looking to be responsible for your untimely demise.”

“Thank you. I think.”

“Add to that, your mother is terrifying.”

“My mother is terrifying? You do remember that you’re a rank two, right? She couldn’t do anything to you even if she wanted to.”

“I keep telling myself that. I know in my head that it’s true, but my heart remains unconvinced.”

“So, basically, you, a grown man and a rank two, are afraid of my mom?” asked Kelima.

“And you’re not?” asked Terry. “Maybe I should tell—"

Kelima’s eyes went a little wide, and she almost shrieked, “We’re not talking about me!”

“Anyway,” said Terry, drawing out the word. “I have zero interest in explaining to her why you’re dead. So, yes, I might accidentally drop some helpful knowledge from time to time in a bid to keep your heart beating.”

“I’m almost touched.”

“Mostly, though, my cat is sitting on you right now. I don’t want anything to happen to her.”

“I take back that part about being almost touched.”

Terry snorted a little before he looked around at where they were. It was a relatively sheltered clearing that was big enough for their tents. He also knew that darkness would settle on them before too long.

“We should set up camp here,” he announced.

Kelima took in the clearing before glancing up toward where the sky would be. Terry could almost see the question forming in her head.

“You’ve never been this deep into the forest before, have you?” asked Terry.

“No. Why?”

He pointed up to the thick canopy far overhead.

“Do you see all those branches and leaves up there?”

“Yeah. What about them?”

“They block a lot of light. It’s part of the reason it’s cooler out here than back in the city, which is actually pretty nice. Unfortunately, it also means that nighttime arrives a lot earlier. When it would just be starting to get dark back by the road, it’ll be very dark here. Trust me, you don’t want to be putting up a tent in the dark. It’s a pain in the ass.”

“Pain in the ass,” said Kelima. “What a strange turn of phrase.”

“Has your ass ever hurt?”

Kelima gave him a look that suggested she was waiting for some off-color joke, but she said, “Yes.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“No, of course not.”

“There you go,” said Terry. “Turn of phrase explained.”

Kelima’s eyes narrowed.

“I understood what it meant from the context. I’m not a moron. I’d just never heard it described that way.”

“Oh,” said Terry.

He had the uncomfortable feeling that he’d just mansplained something without meaning to. Deciding that if he was in for a penny, he was in for a pound, he went with the man classic of deflection.

“Well, you know us poor peasant. We do love our colorful language.”