Nomad didn't wait around for him to react, opting for a flying round kick. He threw his foot high, smashing a perfect kick on the neck, sending the guard to the ground, unconscious.

The air erupted in a blaring sound a moment later.

He turned around and glanced, finding the tents that had been dark lighting up. Nomad blinked, then cursed. Someone likely discovered his empty cell.

"W-what? Why?!" Emma said, shocked.

Nomad didn't have time to explain to the little thing, so he quickly looted the guard of a thin, yet strong blade and sprinted ahead into the forest, grabbing and yanking the dumbstruck girl over his shoulder. She squealed in surprise, almost thrashing before going quiet. Nomad paid it no attention as he kept running into the heart of the night and towards the endless woodlands ahead.

The sounds of shouting knights were trailing close behind as a red-glowing trail formed from behind him.

The idea was to run into the woods, and lose their chasers. Unfortunately, Nomad could not accomplish his goal given his current predicament of carrying extra luggage. Groaning, he pulled a small amount of Aether from his shard, and sent it to his lower half, pumping a speed boost in order to give himself a quick increase. It hurt him to use what little Aether he had, but it was necessary; death would cost him far more than some Aether he could recover by killing some monsters.

An arrow whizzed past him, nearly missing. The knights were on their horses, galloping and chasing from a safe distance. Nomad hurled Emma in front of him. "Hold. Tight."

"Huh what do you mmmffffff--"

He pumped more Aether into his limbs, far more than before, and blasted forth like a rocket.

"I-I'm going to die!" Emma squealed, her eyes closing shut. She did not hesitate to secure herself tightly around him.

Arrows continued their unrelenting pursuit, Nomad cursed himself inwardly as he dodged what he could, the wind howling in his ears as branches passed, whipping him lightly. An arrow slammed into his back and he grunted. His shard's power focused on running, he couldn't heal for the moment. Fortunately, the arrow didn't deal any significant damage. At worst, it stung.

Nomad rushed forward blindly.

He was now beyond fast, faster than most humans were capable, and coupled with the fact that the knights had to be rather careful with their horses in a bloody forest, Nomad was able to put considerable distance between himself and the knights giving a chase.

At last. He saw that the glowing lights in the distance had stopped following. Or, more specifically, 'he' had come far enough for the lights to vanish. A chance had arisen for him to slow down.

But he didn't.

Even as his legs and feet ached, he sprinted forward, changing his route enough to not go exactly the way they'd expect, until the trees cleared out to make space for a small creek that shone in the dimness. He could see the light of the morning sun in the far-off, gleaming over the horizon and peaking through the leaves.

For all intents and purposes, Nomad thought he was alone, and decided the risk wasn't worth it. The few precious moments of a new day were still too dangerous to take risks.

So, once he'd calmed down enough and regained his thoughts, he turned to the girl who hadn't said a single word during the ordeal, or had let out not more than a tiny squeak here and there.

The little thing had her eyes shut.

"..."

Nomad wondered how she could sleep in a situation like this. Shaking his head, he found a log, settling his aching, sore back. He set her against a tree. His body was stiff as he straightened, his Aether dried and he let out a frustrated sigh. Damnit. So many things gone wrong and it hadn't even been a few weeks after his hibernation. He'd lost what little Aether he'd gotten from the environment. The bloody slumber was supposed to make things easy for him, not much worse.

Nomad dared not think about how much the world had advanced, or changed. His enemies were sure to have gotten even stronger, yet here he was, struggling to even protect his life against a bunch of brainwashed idiots. He looked at his hands. Useless. Absolutely worthless. His throat felt dry.

He didn't pull the arrow out just yet. It was better inside for now, if he pulled it out, the wound would open and give way to blood, worsening the wound itself. He'd pull it out once he gathered some Aether again. Nomad took a deep breath, clenching his hands and getting himself to calm down, and take things bit by bit.

Cold wind caressed his cheek and he looked at Emma, finding her shivering, balled-up, lips a shade of blue and hands tucked under her armpits.

Right. There wasn't a source of fire for the moment--

"Morning," a soft voice called out to him. He shifted his sight over to see Emma, her curly brown hair hung loosely over her shoulder as she rubbed her eyes. "Are the meanies gone?"

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Nomad coughed out a reply and nodded.

The girl eyed him, her eyes going wide as they focused on his back. She shifted forward and asked. "Need help with that."

"I'm not letting a ten-year-old deal with my injury." He would pull it out later, once he regained some Aether.

"I'm twelve!" She halted herself after, eyes crumbling. "Sorry. Silence. I remember."

Nomad stared ahead, sighing. Right. Fire. He stood up and scavenged for tinder and kindling, frowning when he found a few rabbits gutted. He'd need to keep his guard up.

Emma, meanwhile, decided it would be a wonderful time to follow him around and pick up rocks, twigs, and pebbles. The brat also came upon a rabbit's bone lying not too far away and decided to grab it and put it in her bag.

He snorted as she collected more bones before coming towards him and adding some twigs she'd gathered to the small pile he made, nodding satisfactorily to herself.

"Good?" She looked at him and asked.

Nomad shook his head and decided not to talk. Instead, grabbed a few rocks and sat down with a grunt, his back stinging.

Nomad started by grabbing Emma's bag and pulling out her small mirror.

"Hey!"

He stared at the bag for a moment longer before returning it back, ignoring the rudimentary protests. Nomad scraped the rocks on the glass one after the other until one left a scratch. Hard enough. Grabbing another rock, he hit it again and again, breaking the rock into small pieces with sharp edges.

With the rock ready, he prepared the tinder. Then, he grabbed the sword he'd gotten from the guard with one hand and held the rock in the other. Taking the sword, he began scraping the iron edge, collecting the metallic flakes, dropping them onto the tinder, and adding them to it. After scraping for a while, Nomad found a small ember within the pile. He took a deep breath. He bent, grabbing the tinder with his spare hand. After several blows, the ember smoldered.

With everything set, he gently grabbed the smoldering tinders and used it to set a flame and blew gently. The flame licked and flickered with a wave of yellow. And soon, he had a small, small fire lit between the rocks, slowly growing larger.

He put the sword back and, hearing Emma.

"Wow."

Nomad was glad he couldn't see her stupid face.

"You totally looked like a caveman, it was scary with all that dried-up blood and the arrow in your back." She sniggered and slapped a knee.

Ignoring her, Nomad gathered small, dried twigs he'd noticed before and fed it the fire, throwing in the thick twig last, giving him a decent bonfire.

"Starting a fire with rocks, eh?" Emma whispered to herself as she gripped a rock in her hand, hugging her knees as she drew near the fire, her cold blue lips gradually returning to their original color. She observed the flicker for a moment. "My brother tried to teach me but I wasn't very good at it."

There was a silence between them, broken only by the cracking of twigs as the fire burned, casting light upon her. Nomad had no interest in her so-called brother, and so, continued staring into the fire.

"Anyway. Why are they chasing after you so bad, anyway? Even in the books and legends of the past, nobody pursued someone that badly aside from you. Like, I can clearly see you're not corrupted or whatever. So, why--"

"Rest up," Nomad said, cutting her off. "We'll be moving in the night from now on. The day will be our resting period."

"Uh...sure?" Emma fidgeted around. "Does that mean I can talk or am I still not allowed?"

"Not like you were silent anyway. Whatever."

"Oh, thank god!" She spoke a million words in a single breath, her shoulders relaxed, as if the weight of a world had fallen off her finally. "It was really, really hard." At the end of her long string of rambling, she spotted his dry stare and coughed, whispering. "Right. Silence."

"Ehem," the girl continued after clearing her throat. "Well. As you said, rest, right? Sleep?"

She pointed a finger in a random direction near the fire and stretched her arms, as if pointing at a tent. "Here, somewhere."

With her gone silent after a few minutes, Nomad once more calmed, the fire crackling. Finally, peace. He could think straight.

First of all, his condition was bad. He quickly needed to establish a base and hunt monsters to level his shard up, not to mention he needed Aether. More than that, he was traveling in unknown territory---who knew what that changed in three centuries?

With the biggest oddity being the one near him who talked too much.

Nomad closed his eyes, dispersing his thoughts, finding that she was surprisingly deep into her dreams by now. This made him decide to pull out the arrow and do something about it. He grit his teeth and ripped the thing out with a quick jerk, grunting silently as his flesh bled. His shard pumped Aether toward the wound, and it stung, healing quickly.

Waiting for it to heal, his strength failed, and Nomad rested against the tree, keeping his senses on his surroundings to the best of his ability. The sound of the bonfire slowly lulled him away from reality.

----------------------------------------

"Wake up!" Emma hissed into the side of his ear. "Goblins!"

Her tone was heavy, yet frightened, making him tense his body and shift to get his vision around as soon as he woke up, any sign of sleep dwindling under his honed sense for survival. He blinked when he saw none. "Where?"

"Just there!" She pointed in a direction. "I was out there when I spotted them."

Nomad frowned. "What were you doing out there alone? Do you want to die?"

"Nothing!" she said, finding a rock interesting to look at as her ears reddened. "I had to. You know. Pee."

Nomad stood up and checked up on his Aether reserves. He had some. He'd learned to gather Aether while sleeping.

"Okay, stay here; scream if you need help." He said to her, bending down and grabbing the sword. Emma nodded, and he walked away, eyes on the lookout for signs of danger. The woods were quiet, not a noise. That in and of itself was bad enough. His hands tight on the sword, his mind ready to call upon Aether at a second's notice.

Slowly, slowly, he marched through the shadows of the trees, each movement controlled and cautious. The faint sounds of wind filled the atmosphere, whistling into his ears, mingling with his calm breath and beating heart. His skin prickled, the hairs standing. Something didn't feel right about all of it. He gripped the sword's hilt, turning.

A sudden flash of green whizzed into his vision, as expected, and he swerved to the side, letting the flying knife embed itself into the bark. A gurgling sound followed as several little goblins strode out of their hiding positions, carrying crude knives and clubs in their stubby, dirty hands, their clothes tattered and faces gnarled.