‘Dragons…’ Keith envisioned just what kind of an enormous power they would possess. He had heard that Dillim had actually fought one, but he had also heard that that wasn’t a ‘true’ dragon. It had been a wyrm, instead of a true dragon, a wyvern. The difference between the two is that wyrms don’t possess any wings, while wyverns do.

Keith’s party continued walking through the forest. This wasn’t yet the forest Rinza had talked about –the one with the magical beasts. This was the forest that was located around Nizlon, the city with the teleport gate in the Erelath kingdom.

Rinza had explained that they would first have to exit this forest, then they could either choose the regular road, or they could choose to take a shortcut. This shortcut would directly lead them through another forest, which would be a lot larger than the one they were currently walking through. That forest is called ‘Erelath’s Woods’. It was a huge forest that actually occupied quite a lot of land from Erelath, hence, the forest was named after the country it resided in.

The road they could otherwise choose to take, had been especially constructed to avoid this forest; regular people wouldn’t be able to deal with the magical beasts in the forest after all.

They continued walking until they reached the edge of the forest around Nizlon, the sun had started to go down, and they only had a few hours left until nightfall.

“Let’s set up our camp here.” Dillim’s gruff voice stopped Keith’s and Rinza’s continuous marching. Dillim proceeded to unpack the tents and other items he had brought in his backpack, while Rinza was sent away to get some wood. Rinza didn’t want to use his wind blade spell to get the wood this time; they were located too close to the edge of the forest.

After Rinza had walked away, Keith, who had been sitting on the ground, directed his focus towards Dillim. “Why did you bring that backpack with all those items? Couldn’t you have simply stored everything inside your ring?”

“Of course I could. But did you already forget what I said? I can’t randomly use it in the presence of others, not even in Rinza’s,” he replied.

Keith thought that he might be a bit too cautious, but he didn’t doubt Dillim’s decision. After his experiences, he was led to believe that Dillim’s cautiousness may not necessarily be a bad thing.

After a while, Dillim had set up the basics of the camp; he had put up 2 tents, and he had readied some rations he had brought. Now Dillim and Keith just awaited Rinza’s return.

After a long time, they finally heard a familiar voice.

“Look what I brought!”

Dillim and Keith both looked up from where they were sitting, it had taken Rinza longer than they had expected, so they were planning to press him for an explanation immediately. But when they saw him, both their brows furrowed in surprise.

He was walking towards them with a grand smile, looking extremely content with himself. Behind him, a few pieces of logs were floating, but the most surprising thing was that there was also a dead fox alongside the logs.

“Heh,” he started to chuckle when he saw their surprised faces. “So now you finally understand how clever I am. I actually knew that you forgot to bring food, so I went out of my way to get us some dinner!” He walked over to the camp while loudly exclaiming that.

“…”

Dillim silently stared at him for a short while, seemingly trying to kill him with his indifferent gaze. Just when Rinza was about to explode from awkwardness, he saw the rations that Dillim had unpacked lying at Dillim’s feet. He then realized that he had gone out of his way to gather food, while it was completely unnecessary. Now he understood why Dillim had been looking at him like that, he had delayed their meal time.

“Ahum,” Rinza coughed awkwardly, while he dropped the logs in the middle of their camp. In the meantime, he had also dropped the dead fox by the rest of the rations. He sat down, and casually waved his right hand, which had started to light up.

Some small, fiery, red light had gathered around his hand when he waved it, but it disappeared after he completed the motion. The next moment, the logs –which had been dropped in the middle of the camp, immediately lit up. The small pile of logs was slowly burning, creating a warm, cozy campfire. The campfire was lighting up their surroundings, and the flickering lights created a peaceful atmosphere.

“How come you can control fire elemental energy too? Do you specialize in two elements as well?” Keith couldn’t help but exclaim his surprise.

“Hah,” Rinza scoffed, hearing Keith’s question. “A mage focused in fire? Thank the heavens I’m not. Those mages specialized in the fire element are generally all hot-headed trouble makers!”

“How come you can use fire energy then?”

“Well, I have allocated a very small part of my mana core to all the other elements aside from wind,” Rinza explained. “I don’t have enough elemental mana to use their big spells, but I can use every element for some random chores.” He paused, and continued speaking after looking at the campfire, “It’s useful to have a tiny bit of mana from every element in your mana core, that way you can easily create a campfire or something!”

They continued talking and eating throughout the time it took the sun to fully go down. Although it was more like an interrogation; Keith was asking Rinza a lot of questions about magic. Dillim had only experienced some fights with mages, but he didn’t know the exact details concerning a lot of mage things. That’s why Keith fully used the opportunity to learn more; even though he wasn’t very enthusiastic, he would still actively speak up to learn something new. The rest of the time he would remain quiet, not seemingly sad, but also not cheerful.

After some time of listening to the conversation, Dillim rolled his eyes at another question from Keith, and couldn’t help but to shut both Rinza and Keith up. “Keith, it’s late. Go to sleep.”

He had been anxious to let it continue, because it had started to feel like an infinite loop. Keith would ask about something, and then Rinza would explain. But because Rinza seemingly liked to show off his wisdom, he would stray from the subject. Which in turn, resulted in a lot more questions from Keith.

Keith still didn’t dare to defy Dillim without a very good reason, so he just silently entered his own tent and prepared to sleep.

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Dillim looked at Keith’s disappearing figure, and after seeing him enter the tent, he directed his attention towards Rinza. “Seeing how you’re the one who picked us up, you must also be aware of the issues surrounding Keith, right?” Dillim said, getting down to business.

Rinza had been joyfully explaining everything Keith was curious about, but hearing Dillim’s question, he turned serious. “Yes.” He started. “I know about the agreement. When we have reached the National Magic Academy I will take care of the other volumes reaching Lirix.”

Dillim had only brought up this issue after Keith had entered his tent, because Keith was still ignorant of the schemes. He still thought that it was Dillim who had instigated his departure towards Erelath. Dillim was quite happy that Keith hadn’t questioned why someone would be waiting for them after they had entered the teleport gate, nor why he knew Keith’s name. Keith didn’t think anything was off, so Dillim didn’t have to explain any unpleasant things.

Dillim had also started about the novels, not because he still had any feelings of loyalty remaining towards the king, but because he didn’t want to be bothered. He knew that if the volumes wouldn’t arrive in the king’s hands, then they might send people after Keith. Even though they didn’t care about Keith, they still wouldn’t allow one of the princes to remain in the hands of a potential enemy.

“Hmm,” Rinza hummed after contemplating something. “I guess it would be wiser to keep his identity a secret for now. You never know who might get a hold of this information, and if it falls into the wrong hands, some people might try to strike at him,” Rinza speculated. “They might weaken Lirix by killing one of its princes, and in the worst case, it would result in a war. That would result in the weakening of Lirix and Erelath, which the other countries might be aiming for.” Rinza looked at Dillim, to see if he agreed, but Dillim only shrugged in response.

Seeing Dillim’s reaction, Rinza rolled his eyes and spoke up again: “On another note, I can understand why Lirix chose Erelath for this transfer.” A peculiar light had appeared within Rinza’s eyes. He moved his gaze towards Keith's tent, and continued: “There are only a few countries that aren’t influenced by the Church at all, among them are Lirix and Erelath. I heard he’s the 13th prince, right?” Rinza inquired. But seeing how Dillim remained silent, he could only shrug and continue, “It’s a miracle that he was left alive. Were it any other country, they would have immediately killed or destroyed a number thirteen. Be it items or humans. Don’t tell me Lirix wants to bring a calamity upon Erelath,” he said, his gaze turning even more serious.

Dillim, who had remained silent, spoke up at this: “Don’t worry. Nothing has happened to him, so nothing special will probably happen.” He paused for a while, and then continued: “Even though the Church is against the mutations, and thus destroys everything numbered thirteen, it still isn’t clear whether every number thirteen mutates. Keith hasn’t showed any signs of abnormality at all.”

“Most of the humans who are born as the 13th child immediately die upon their birth. Only certain items that are created as the 13th object by their creator, have some slight abnormal aspects, but I haven’t heard of a human surviving and showing peculiarities after growing up,” Rinza said, before continuing, “But I doubt the king of Lirix is unaware of these things. Are you telling me that nothing happened at all? Did the Lirix’s king really simply tolerate a number thirteen? That’s the same as directly opposing the Church’s orders,” he inquired.

“Hmph,” Dillim snorted upon hearing this. “Of course the king knows. He simply didn’t care about the Church. ‘Who are they, to tell me what I should do?!’ were his exact words upon Keith’s birth. He figured that if a 13th child would really mutate, and it would grow powerful, then it would only be in his favor,” Dillim said. “But he didn’t expect, that the only peculiar thing that would happen that day, was that Keith’s mother would die giving birth to him.”

Hearing this, Rinza raised his eyebrows, urging Dillim to continue.

“But it turned out to be a completely natural death… resulting in no other doubts about Keith,” Dillim said. He didn’t say anything about how Keith was held partly responsible for the death of his mother. Nor did he say anything about how a little of the Church’s influence had still made Keith an easy target to harass for most of the inhabitants of the castle.

After looking at Dillim for some time, Rinza smiled and spoke up: “Alright, thanks for telling me,” Rinza said amiably.

This might seem like a weird conversation, but it was quite necessary. Dillim also knew that Rinza would eventually inquire about it. If the Church got hold of the news that Erelath was actually sheltering someone who was directly related to the number thirteen, it might cause huge friction between the Church and Erelath.

If Dillim wouldn’t have said anything about Keith’s situation, it might cause the people who would know about Keith to exclude him, or make his time at the academy horrible, out of cautiousness. But he told Rinza that the number thirteen hadn’t affected Keith at all, which was more or less the truth, which caused Rinza’s initial worries to fade. He didn't doubt that he could keep Keith's identity hidden, as long as nothing weird was going on around him.

Having said everything they both had to say, Rinza made his way towards his own tent –which he had set up before, and disappeared.

Dillim remained sitting for a while, staring into the still ongoing campfire, contemplating what had transpired. He wondered how Keith would fare at the National Magic Academy, but he had high expectations. He believed that Keith would be able to recover there, and even gain some power. They hadn’t assessed his talent for magic yet, but he had high hopes for him. He never doubted that the Church was wrong about the number thirteen. Dillim knew that they were only simple myths, which helped the Church to show off their power.

After he looked at Keith’s tent for a while, he put out the fire, and headed for his own tent. They would leave the forest around Nizlon by tomorrow morning, and head for Erelath’s Woods. When Dillim entered his tent, a faint smile could be seen upon his face.