The first few days, nothing happened. We casually passed by the familiar cities. We passed the city of desires at early morning this time around and there were people outside.

Our escort knight gave us stern warnings to not peek outside but… well, teenage curiosity, I guess. I’m not a teenager anymore though.

I got a quick glance and vowed to not even look that way again. Is that even physically possible?

What I saw this morning, in that frenzy of pink, moans, and fluids… it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen, it didn’t happen…. Shia actually didn’t care; apparently, she was above this.

Exactly three days later we crossed the border and were home free… no, no we weren’t. There were bandits, we had bandits here.

Sigh… I sighed and casually looked out. About twelve guys in front and like hundreds hiding in the trees. They were quite far away, presumably to not get in the range of my ‘abilities’. Rumors spread faster than carriages it would seem. Or we had a traitor amongst us. Probably both.

Technically, it didn’t matter how far they were, or how close they were though. We were out in an open field and I barely had any mana left whatsoever. I couldn’t do jackshit right now.

“Oh Sibrian,” Shia said, barely interested. “Deal with it.” Apparently, she was even less concerned than me.

“As you wish my lady,” he grinned like a fool, and took a scimitar? Odd blade. It had a handle and looked somewhat like a scythe at the edge but… double edged and I’d never seen stuff like that in real life before.

Sibrian dashed ahead, while the archers laid their arrows on him. Yet, the guy actually dodged the arrows like Neo dodged bullets in the Matrix. Sibrian closed in on the front liners, but he ignored them and went into the forest of archers and hidden imbeciles. He quickly disposed of them in a frenzy of red and entrails. I hardly saw anything. And the people didn’t even get a chance to scream for their lives.

He was quick, he was an expert, and he was a murderer. That Mercenary was one thing, killing everyone in a single stroke, but this guy was a whole different beast. He killed them all in less than ten seconds. And brutally no less.

Meanwhile, the front liners were pissing themselves. “It’s Sibrian of the hellfrenzy,” they screamed.

Does everyone have a nickname or something?

Sibrian just smiled and casually ended their misery. Unlike our Merc friend, he didn’t really let the bandits escape. No, wait, he did let one go. “Be sure to tell all your friends what happens if you mess with our family.” A big wide grin.

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And I pissed ‘that’ guy off….

Gulping hard, I tried to straighten my thoughts. Okay, maybe handing over all remaining elixirs would have been a much wiser choice after all.

***

The next two days went by slowly. Me and Shia played around, tried archery, and other stuff. I hadn’t kept up with my spear practice but I figured a little break couldn’t hurt.

While my magic didn’t increase, I was getting a hang of manipulating air for little to no mana cost. The main issue was, I had little to no mana to begin with; so I was tiring myself out way too easily. Of course, I could supplement it in two ways. Ingest more mana (the addicting and dangerous way) or use mana outside the body from a stone or other dense material (the expensive and complicated as fuck way).

Neither option seemed viable right now. But wait, if the duke would give me things when I need them, couldn’t I have asked for a half decent wand?

Huh… fuck.

“Sol, Sol!” Shia jumped. “I hit it! I hit one!” Ecstatic.

“No sis, it’s a fucking feather,” I wanted to say that. But I didn’t. Apparently, when she’d struck a bird, the bird flew away but a feather came lose. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it probably wasn’t the arrow that did that. She’s still young, she’ll figure it out eventually.

Nodding myself to satisfaction, we recollected our arrows and kept on having fu- I mean practicing. After a while we started traveling anew and by the end of the fifth day, reached a village.

Just half a day of travel and we were going to be back in Schalion. I wasn’t feeling great about it actually. There was a good chance, my relationship with Sharmon would worsen significantly and he’d try harming me from here on out. Although my immediate problem of no abilities got somewhat solved, I still had to worry about actually not failing classes. Practical classes would start from next week and I had exams by the end of the month. I’d skipped too many classes, and I’d skipped work for literally three weeks in a row now. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d already replaced me a while ago.

I groaned, as the water bubbled. In a bath. They say, baths can melt away all anxiety but every time I got in one, things just got worse for me.

“You know, you handled this pretty well. I’m impressed,” Shia said. “A Baron’s still too low of a title but we can work with this.”

As usual our dear sister was rocking just a towel like shame didn’t even exist in her vocabulary.

Strangely, I never got an erection. No, I never got an erection in general. Does this thing even work? “Thanks,” I said, not necessarily looking her way. “Things can only go south from here though.”

“No, things can only get better. Always think positively.” She winked.

“And how would that help?”

“At least you won’t worry needlessly.”

Funny, my sister used to say that too. But she was diagnosed with hypertension herself, so maybe she didn’t really believe in that.

Sighing a couple of times, I got out of the bath. “See you tomorrow.” We’d already had dinner and we had separate rooms. So, this was goodbye for now.

“Yeah, good night. Sweet dreams.”

“…You too.”

I honestly didn’t know what so say at these times. People never wished me stuff like this. No one told me, ‘good night’ or ‘sweet dreams.’ I didn’t have friends or family like that. I didn’t have anyone-

No, wait… my sister did sometimes… Why the fuck am I missing her?

Probably just nostalgia. And it’d probably just pass.

Probably.