Leo could feel Akino’s muscles stiffen slightly. I guess she’s pretending to sleep; I wonder why? “What’ll I do with her? I’ll bring her back to the capital and reunite her with her family. Isn’t that the normal thing to do?”

The woman looked at him as if she was making a deal. “Her parents are nobles, didn’t she tell you? You can get some quick cash from these kinds of things. Why don’t you just leave her with us? We’ll take care of everything, how about you get 40% of the final cut?”

“No, most definitely not. You inhuman bastards. She’s my patient, and I won’t let her be alone with the likes of you. I’ll just find something when we arrive in Topesh.”

A deer jumped out of the woods on the road, making the horses stop abruptly. All the boxes in the cart were shoved a bit deeper inside, with Leo an Akino on top of them. The conversation continued after the woman, who looked mad, turned back to the road.

“The girl won’t do anything we ask her,” the woman said with her focus on the road. “She stayed up the entire time you were meditating just to watch over you. It looks like she’s quite the grateful one. Lucky you”, she had a tone of jealousy hidden behind her words.

An hour passed by, now Akino acted as if she had just woke up, but Leo knew she had been pretending to sleep the entire time. Her acting performance was far from undetectable. Leo played along as if she wasn’t doing the most obvious act ever seen to mankind and tried his best to keep in his laughter. “Good morning Akino, or should I say good afternoon? How did you sleep?”, Leo said it while hiding his smile behind his arm. Akino stretched out with a big yawn and a wide smile, then sat back down next to her new friend.

“Very good; you’re a nice pillow.” She then began to lean against Leo again which made his work pretty hard to complete. “Where are we going?”, Akino whispered, she looked a little worried. “The capital, Topesh. You told me it was your home city, right? When we arrive, will you show me around, okay? I need a guide, you know?”

I feel bad for tricking her into making it look as if I really need her. It’s for her own good, she might be sold off to slavery if she stays with those two. I really can’t completely estimate what kind off people they are.

A playful smile appeared on Akino’s little face. “Sure, but only because you asked. I wouldn’t do it for anyone else. You should feel honored,” she said. In the front, the woman hit the bench out off frustration but Leo hadn’t heard it.

Feel honored? That way of talking, she must really be from a noble family, or she just has some weird superiority complex. Probably a small family; after all, there haven’t been any search parties on these roads. I’ll ask her when we’re alone.

“How are your wounds?”, Leo asked. Akino gave him a confused look before saying, “What wounds? I don’t have any.” Leo returned her confusion with an even more intense one. “Wait, what? You don’t have any wounds remaining? Zero?”, he asked. “I don’t; only a few thin scars from your treatment, I think. I can show you if you want to.”

“Nope, you don’t have to. I completely believe you; I’m just a bit shocked.” What kind of power is that? I’ve never heard of a magic type that can completely heal such a grave infection in mere seconds. If word of this gets out, I’ll be hunted… again.

Leo leaned over and whispered to Akino. “We’ll talk some more when we get to the city. I don’t trust these two people; it’s better to not say anything to them. Who knows, they might sell the information.” Akino nodded and leaned in tighter, as if she were trying to hide behind Leo. “I also don’t like them”, she whispered.

Akino’s unending smile re-appeared as she spoke: “Can we still talk about the normal stuff? I think I’ll get bored otherwise and I want to get to know you better.” Leo smiled at her innocence and agreed to her proposal. It would be less boring if he had someone to talk to.

“I’ll ask a question first,” Akino said with her deep golden eyes flickering in the sun, “How old are you?” “I just turned fourteen. It’s my time to ask. Do you have any siblings?” She looked satisfied with both the answer she had gotten and the question she was asked. “No, I’m an only child. Although I have half brothers and half sisters I’m not directly related to any of them and all of them are younger than me. My turn! Where are you from?”

Half brothers and sisters? Maybe her dad has multiple wives, which is extremely common for nobles. She said she’s the oldest; wouldn’t that make her the first in line? What was the question again? Where I’m from? Fuck, I can’t give her the real answer because of those people, I’ll just make something up.

“Uuuh, I’m from a small village called Reno; it’s hidden in the mountains.” I feel sorry for lying to her but I have to. “How old are you?”, Leo asked. “I’m almost thirteen. ?Next, what do you enjoy doing in your free time?” They played multiple little games throughout the day to let time slide by. The both of them were tired from thinking, talking and playing all day and fell asleep after eating a very basic meal consisting of some dried bread and a piece of fruit.

The man in the front who had just swapped places with his wife looked at the two kids with a dead expression. His blue eyes had a cold look in them. The two children looked so close already even though they met yesterday. He watched as the girl moved around and put the boy’s arms around her as if she was searching protection. She made a few satisfied sounds before arriving in the world of dreams while hugging her friend tightly.

“Are you awake?”, Jeff whispered to his wife. The brown, leather blanket next to him moved a bit and a head stuck out with a mischievous smile. “Of course I am. What did you expect?” “Good,” Jeff said,“so, what will we do with these two? Neither of them are normal.” Eli, the man’s wife thought about it for a while. “The girl seems to belong to a wealthy family. It would be a total loss to not claim the reward that’s on her head. The question is how do we claim it, there’s two options. One is to bring her to her family and reunite her with them. They might give us a decent reward depending on her status in the family. The other is to bring her to her enemies. They might give us a lot more if she is the heir of her family.”

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Jeff listened to her with all of his attention. His wive was always the one who made their plans, they had worked every single time. “You’re right. We first have to figure out her position and what family she belongs to. Next up, the boy. What do you think about him.” A wide grin spread across the woman’s face. “That’s the easy one. Although his background is worth nothing, his skills are something else, he’s a complete monster. From what I have seen these last days I can tell a lot. First of all he has incredible physical capabilities. Have you ever seen someone outrun a grown demon wolf? A child at that? I don’t think so. Even a grown man can’t do that unless he uses magic or aura. Second is that durability. You’re the one who saw him counting his wounds right? You said he was filled in them and that they looked extremely grave. If that’s true it means he has some inhuman durability. A normal child his age would act as if they were dying from a little cut. The last thing is…”

The man finished her sentence: “that weird power. I’ve never seen anything like it. He first took a pretty potent mana stone which should’ve killed him and then proceeded with using that dark energy. I felt a part of my mana being pulled towards it as if it was trying to consume me. So, what do we do with him? If we’re careless he might kill us somehow” Eli’s eyes darkened as her husband mentioned that power. She had also felt it, the instinct to get away, to run away. The moonlight cast a sinister glow on the silver jewelry the woman was wearing. She did some contemplations about her options.

“We’ll sell him off to the Exiled. It may be a bit dangerous but we’ll earn a fortune from him, enough to settle down for a year or two. They’ll be dying to get their hands on him. Those creepy bastards are always looking for exotic pieces with weird powers. In combination with his purple eyes and the things we just listed we might be set for life. We have to get in contact with them as soon as possible.” The man hesitated and looked concerned. The people his wife were talking about were on a whole other level than they were.

“You want to sell him to the Exiled? Isn’t that a bit to much, aren’t those people out of our league? Those people are unpredictable, who knows if they will actually pay. They might even imprison us. Are you sure it is worth that risk.” As if she was offended, the woman looked at him with shock.

“Of course I am. Just trust me. Maybe we should sell the girl as well, that might give us more money and spares us the time of figuring out which family she belongs to. Yeah, let’s do that.” Without any option to put in his opinion the man went back to focusing on the road. He had always been careful when acting, and he always had acted on his instincts. This time he felt unsure, he felt that the risk wasn’t worth the profit.

His wife went to sleep. The rhythmic sound of horse feet tapping on the soft dirt along with soft snores from inside filled the silent night. This continued until the sun began climbing upwards again and the birds awoke from their slumber, singing their melodies.

The nightmare had grasped Leo for the third time. Once again, he had to suffer from his trauma. The first three warps went by fast. The boy already knew what happened to them and knew how that person died. First it was a beheading, then a cremation and third was being pierced by a sword. He became more numb every time he went through the same one, as if building a immunity to pain in that body.

Leo’s consciousness went into the fourth person, which he had completed last time. This one wasn’t as bad as the others. Acid. A soldier grabbed the old man’s body he was residing in and forcefully pulled his jaws open. He then proceeded by putting a dark brown liquid in his throat. The soldier’s face was covered in a shadow like all the others inside of the dreams yet Leo could still see he was smiling, he could feel it.

The acid entered the old man’s body and started to bite on his organs. It slowly ate away the man until holes in his outer layer of skin were made and it came back out again. The biting feeling burned internally, a sickening feeling. The worst part was when it reached the outside world and melted away his skin. The liquid multiplied in amount as it ate away the body and streamed out of the man. The pain was everywhere before the man at last died. The fifth warp was drowning, the one Leo had failed last time.

He entered a young child’s body, barely ten years old. His neck was grabbed by one of the soldiers and put in a lake. It had tried to resist but was too weak to stop a full-grown man. As his face had been pushed in the blood-filled pond the boy started to panic. Minutes passed by, and Leo tried to withstand the terrible feeling, the emotions of such a young child were hard to endure. A burning sensation filled him as water entered his lounges. It felt like he was being lit on fire from inside. His soul failed to withstand the amount of pain and his natural instincts, and he retracted from the body, going into the spectator state again. He realized that the ones he had seen die in the dreams were not his entire tribe. He had known all of them by face, but his parents he hadn’t seen die yet.

Leo opened his eyes and felt disgustingly bad, like always. Something inside of him told him he had to finish the dream for some reason but was that really the right thing to do? It was disgusting to watch all of them, let alone feel all their fear and pain. The boy carefully moved Akino away from his body, who was sleeping while using Leo as a pillow, and vomited again outside of the carriage.

This feeling is almost as bad as dying in those dreams. I have to focus now; these last days I’ve been slacking off. Leo began to move around quietly as he didn’t want to wake anyone up. Eli didn’t notice the child’s presence and just kept her concentrated stare towards the unending road ahead.

He looked around the cargo and at last found what he was searching for: two small, short, metal bars. The boy had spotted them before while sorting the mana stones. The two objects were shaped like very blunt short swords and had around the same weight; they were ideal for training. Leo proceeded by grabbing a wooden plank and attaching it to the wall of the carriage. He got into his combat position and began attacking the plank. Words from his father echoed through his mind.

It was a simple thing his father had said, the man probably didn’t even think about it, yet it still lingered in Leo’s mind: “In a fight, it is not about the visible damage but the internal type. A cut heals faster than a fracture. Try to destroy the target from within; do it without him knowing. Keep studying our tribe’s arts, and you’ll see why.”

Leo had done the same training for years. Hitting a tree without leaving scratches, but hadn’t gotten any results. When his father had showed him how to do it as an example, Leo had thought it was easy. Four years later, he still wasn’t able to even grasp the basics of it. Back then, his father had hit an extremely sturdy tree with a simple knife.

At first sight, it looked as if nothing had happened to the plant but when the tree was cut open the entire inside was splintered into millions of pieces.

Leo kept on practicing, his movements growing more fluid and powerful with each strike. He slowly got rid of the stiffness in his muscles. The rhythmic sounds of his low quality weapons against the self-made practice dummy echoed through the carriage. Lost in his focus, he didn’t notice the girl behind him waking up until he heard a soft, startled snicker.

He turned sharply, his eyes meeting Akino’s. Her face was filled with an expression of horror, her eyes wide and glistening with primal fear. She looked not just shocked, but utterly terrified, as if she had woken from a nightmare only to find herself in another.

Leo took a step towards her, his hand outstretched in a gesture of reassurance, but the effect was the opposite. Akino scrambled backward, her movements frantic and desperate. Her entire body shaking as she tried to put distance between them.

“W-what are you?” she whispered, her voice trembling with raw fear. The words hung in the air. Leo stood frozen, the weight of her question pressing down on him, as if her fear had the power to crush him where he stood. What am I?