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By the time Zeph and Freya reached me, I had already searched all the corpses and backpacks and retrieved my sword scabbard.

I also used some of their water to wash away the blood I had on me. Not everything came off, but it was better than nothing.

“Hey there! Long time no see!” I waved cheerfully when they were closer.

Freya waved at me and said quietly, “Hey there.”

Zeph, instead, gave me a strange look, and said, “It's been just a few hours.”

I waited for a few moments, but nothing else.

“Hey! Where’s the praise?! The cheers?! The stunned and awed faces?!!!” I asked, demanding my rightful reward.

I've been absolutely amazing! It was my first ambush, after all.

Zeph snorted a smile as he passed by me.

“If it can satisfy you, I’ll have you know that I was plenty awed when I watched the fight, but I had time to calm down after the trek. Still, I thought you had enough cheers and praises after fighting in an arena for so long,” he said, heading towards the backpacks.

“This and that are two different things,” I said as a matter of fact. “Would you like it if someone you hated cheered for you?”

He thought for a moment before making a disgusted face.

“No, you’re right,” he concluded.

He then looked at the items strewn around.

“I took out and gathered what I thought was useful,” I said, pointing at a small group of things. “If you want, you can search too, but I don’t think you’ll find anything else.”

By useful I meant food, water, and coins. There was also a map, though it looked much worse than Zeph’s.

I really need to learn how to read a map. Maybe I should ask Zeph to teach me one of these days.

At least the basics, so if I ever needed to read one, I wouldn’t be totally clueless.

I turned to Freya, who had stopped near me.

“So how was the fight? You could see it, right?” I asked her.

She nodded, then shook her head. “I couldn’t see well.”

Too bad.

"But I knew you would win," she added.

“Oh, you knew it, huh? Why did you look so worried then?” I asked, poking her with a grin.

“I thought you’d get injured,” she answered uneasily. "You could have died."

I may have been a bit moved. Just slightly though. I swear.

“Bwahaha, don’t worry about that. If I can survive, I’ll get back in shape soon enough! We have Zeph's healing things, after all,” I said as I ruffled her short hair.

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I probably wouldn’t even need to rely on Zeph, I thought, shifting my gaze to him, who was looking over all the objects.

I pondered about it a lot lately, and I concluded that if I could control my healing with pinpoint precision, I could survive almost anything not immediately lethal.

Healing required an enormous amount of mana, but even if I had a big wound, I didn’t need to heal all of it to survive.

If I concentrated on only the critical parts, the expenditure would be minimal, and probably within range of my abilities.

After all the training and the injuries I suffered, I knew almost all places that could result in a quick death. Some healers also didn’t mind explaining when I asked them questions about what they did, so I considered myself quite knowledgeable on that front.

Anyway, after a few tries, I found out it wasn’t too hard. I just had to feel the right place, and since mana was disconnected where I had a wound, and I could vaguely feel where blood was going out from thanks to the mana it contained, I felt reasonably confident I could succeed.

“So, what does the map say?” I asked after I saw Zeph looking over it.

“Calling it a map is a bit too much. It’s more like a drawing. And there isn’t any explanation or message anywhere,” he said, not lifting his gaze.

“I’ll have to look better into it tonight and compare it with my own map, to get the distances right,” he continued after a few more seconds, closing the 'drawing'. “But from the marks on it, I think that there should be a few lookouts like these four, ahead and behind us.”

I moved my shoulder, which still felt painful. I didn’t want to exhaust all my mana, so I slowed the regeneration after I saw it would not impede my movements.

It should be fine by tomorrow.

“I’ll have to kill a few more of them, then,” I said, already charging myself up for the challenge.

He shook his head.

“No need,” he denied, waving the map. “Having this, I can find a path to avoid them. They probably have a few of them searching for clues behind us but, even if they find the corpses and follow our trail, at the pace we’re going, I doubt they’ll reach us before we get to the next City. After that, it will be nearly impossible for them to track us.”

"Oh," I said, deflating a bit, "Fine.”

After that, Zeph took the food and water into his ring and, like usual, I had Freya get on my back before we started running.

We didn’t waste time to hide the corpses or do anything else. The quantity of food and water they had on them meant they would have stayed there for at least a few days, according to Zeph, so no one would find out in the meantime.

Right after eating, Zeph went to his tent so he could compare the maps before going to sleep. These few days of consecutive running were wearing him out so I didn't say anything and let him go.

He could have looked at the maps here anyway, I thought as he went inside. But it doesn’t matter.

I could ask for explanations when he was in better shape.

Freya looked tired too, but I had to say a few words before she went to sleep.

“Before you hit the sack, I need to talk to you, Freya,” I said to the half-asleep girl.

She turned towards me, drowsily.

“I want to remind you of my offer, in case you forgot about it, after all this,” I reminded her. “Zeph said that the next city, Rivergate, is a fairly peaceful place compared to the others, and still maintains a good economy, despite the troubles of this kingdom.”

I didn’t get everything, but he said something about distributing Caldris’ minerals and getting them food from the capital.

Her expression became more alert now after she heard my words.

“So,” I continued, “You can take your time to think about it, since it’s a big decision, but in two weeks, when we reach that city, you’ll have to give me your answer, because if you refuse I’ll find you a place there. Got it?”

She had a determined look as she answered, “I have already decided. I—”

“Stop there,” I said, cutting her off, “You can give me your answer later.”

She paused for a moment before nodding.

Truthfully, I needed the time to think about it, too.

When I made that offer, I was still giddy about getting out of slavery, so I didn't feel the weight of my proposal back then. If she accepted, though, I would be responsible for her on some level — I’d be her teacher, after all.

I wasn’t planning to back off, but I needed some time to prepare myself, too.

“Well, since we got that clear, you can go to sleep now,” I said, waving her off.

Good, I thought seeing her enter our tent, Now that that’s done I can do an experiment.

I had a thought today about how to proceed with training my mana but opted to wait, since I didn’t know if we could have another surprise along the way.

But now I was free to do as I wished.

It’s testing time!

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