“You know, I'm surprised Sela and the other two haven't caught up to us yet.” Maylia said to try and distract herself from thinking about how that man had made her feel.

“They probably gave up.” One of the guards said. “They didn't seem very capable.”

“You haven't seen them at their best.” Maylia said in their defence. “Don't forget they had been held against their will and...”

“You seem to have fared much better than them.” The commander said. “Why is that, exactly?”

“I could claim that I don't know; but, you know that would be a lie.” Maylia said. “After we met, even though I did try to defy him at first and he had hurt me, I was the only one to willingly cooperate with him to help him escape from the protection tree.”

“How does it feel to betray your people?” One of the guards asked.

“I didn't betray anyone. I protected them.” Maylia said, and they knew she was telling the truth. “If I hadn't helped him, imagine what he could have done to the others, or to the tree while trying to escape.” She said. “He even retrieved the two artifacts from the sacred chamber without opening the door or being invited in.”

“What? How?”

“I don't know.” Maylia said. “Two holes were burned out of the wall, then the two cylinders floated out and he caught them, like he did with the spear the princess threw, actually.”

“He damaged the sacred chamber of the elders?”

“Yes... for a moment. He somehow healed it.” Maylia said. “That's why I said he wasn't just channelling mana for the healer to fix the damage from that charged spear. He was actively healing it.” She said. “He healed my broken ankle as well.”

“Does the princess know this?” The commander asked.

“Well, she saw what we all did.” Maylia said and smiled. “I doubt she would think it matters.”

The commander had to reluctantly nod. She would be unconcerned about the specific details.

“Hey, do any of you have a burn spell handy?” One of the guards asked. When they looked over at her, she had an arm and a leg caught up in a twisting vine.

“What did I tell you about watching your surroundings?” The commander said and walked over to her, touched the vine and said a quick chant, then fire covered the vines. A squeal was heard and the vine quickly let go and retreated as the Flame Touch spell disappeared.

“I thought they were normal vines and not entangling ones.” The guard said. “I was looking to make a trap for our prey.”

“Actually, the entangling vines would be a good deterrent for him.” The commander said. “Make sure not to harm the base plant.”

The two guards quickly followed the vines to the base and tucked the plant into a sack and brought it back to the group. The commander nodded at the efficiency and they attached the sack to her horse. They checked the horses and saw they had recovered and they mounted up.

“Move out!” The commander said and the horses were covered in mana and took off at their best speed.

*

Okay, I'm definitely going to avoid their trap, now that I know what it is. I thought while I had waited for the guards to mount up and leave. A spider about the size of my hand had crawled up and over my leg while I stood still in concealment. I had been smart and covered myself in a thin layer of Presence and made it solid, because the little monster had tried to bite me a couple of times.

I wanted to squish the damn thing, because they creep the hell out of me; but, depending on where it had come from, it could be alone or part of a colony. The last thing I wanted was to have dozens of these things crawling over me and trying to bite me. I waited until it failed to bite me one more time, then I used a Presence Hand to pick it up and moved it down the tree. It skittered around in a circle as if it was confused about what had happened, then it crawled away.

I absorbed the solid Presence around myself and ran after the guards. I still had that floating green arrow that pointed me in the right direction of the First Sothen Kingdom, so I followed it and my 'pursuers'. Even without going at my full speed, I was making great time by my estimation. It was only that, though. An estimation. I didn't have any real measurements to go by. My only real gauge was the speed of the elves on their horses, and since they were rushing to catch me, I knew we must be getting close to the barrier.

The rest of the day passed by in a flash, despite having two-thirds of it left, and the elves only stopped twice to rest the horses. I noted where they stopped and saw the difference from the surrounding trees and wondered why they always tied the horses to those trees. I saw them try to perform a locate spell on the hair tie I had returned to Maylia, and they cursed in their native language when it failed. They mounted up and took off instead of stopping for the night like I thought they would.

So, that's how they caught up to me. I thought to myself and ran after them. I had given up my huge head start by stopping for the night and they didn't, and I smiled. They must be getting tired by now after being up for two days.

I stayed behind them for most of the night and stopped when they did, then I decided to check out one of those trees for myself. Its lower branches were in a star pattern and I didn't take the chance of being discovered by going down too low and stayed in the higher branches. As soon as I touched the tree with a bare hand though, I felt the energy inside of it want to flow out.

Oh, that is so sneaky! I thought and held in my laugh. They haven't been resting the horses, they've been recharging them! I looked at the horses and saw them eating the thick grass at the tree's base. The grass didn't even look like they had touched it, despite two of the horses munching on it. Now I wonder if the elves use it, too?

No sooner had I thought that when Maylia leaned against the tree and closed her eyes. I had taken the chance of moving close enough to put my detection range over the horses and she had walked right into it and didn't notice. I could see the energy in the tree flow into her and her mana grew brighter.

Now I know why they aren't falling asleep in the saddle. I thought. She still looks tired, though.

I didn't try to take any energy from the tree I was touching, just in case it interfered with my Mask Presence and Stealth techniques. The break the guards took was a little longer than normal and I saw that all four of them partook of the tree's energy. When they were done, they mounted up and took off, and I followed them and my unerring green arrow of direction while maintaining my distance.

When the guards reached the edge of the forest that morning I had to stop because of the sight before me. Despite it not being within my detection range, I could clearly see the green energy wall half a mile away. Not only was it massive and disappeared into the sky, it covered my entire sight in the direction I needed to go.

I kind of thought they were pulling my leg with the whole protective barrier thing. I thought and the green arrow in front of me jinked forward and back twice as if to tell me to hurry. I chuckled out loud. “Yes, we're almost there. Your job's almost done.” I whispered to it.

It jinked up and down this time and I stared at it.

“You can understand me?”

It jinked up and down again and I reached out to touch it. It avoided my hand easily and kept pointing.

“I might have talked to you this whole time if I knew.” I said.

It turned and faced me for a second and then turned back to point the same way it had been.

“Can you point to Maylia?” I asked.

It turned slightly to the right for a moment and then went back to pointing in the original direction.

“Where's the closest energy tree?” I asked, and it turned to point at ninety degrees. I looked that way and about a hundred feet away was one of the trees. I looked back at the arrow and it was already pointing back towards the First Sothen Kingdom. “You'll keeping pointing until we reach there?”

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It jinked up and down again and I smiled.

“Then I really am sorry that I didn't talk to you. You've done a great job so far.”

It flipped around and pointed at me for almost two seconds before it turned back to face the proper way.

“Let's go.” I said and the arrow flew ahead of me and I ran through the remainder of the forest to the edge of the trees. I lowered myself down carefully to a lower branch, close enough to the ground that I wouldn't hurt myself if I had to jump, and looked at the guards as they searched around the large field between the forest edge and the barrier. I could see that I wasn't quite close enough to touch the barrier with my detection range, so I crept forward on the branch just enough for my perception to touch it.

I held in my grunt as the massive amount of mana slammed into my Presence detection range and I felt like it was crushing me with pressure. I thought that was really odd, then I remembered that I wasn't including mana in the technique on purpose so I wouldn't be discovered.

I can't... move over enough to... keep my mana... out of their detection range. I thought. The pain wasn't actually that bad, since it was just energy holding me down and nothing physical. I stayed there for only another few moments and made a decision. I was going to have to reveal myself anyway, and now was as good a time as any. I stopped my Detect Presence technique and modified it to include mana energy. With nothing to do except run the last two days, I had plenty of time to go over several of my most used techniques to try and compensate for the added mana energy.

The first had been Mana Presence Run and that was the easiest to just add mana to. I could see mana in my Detect Presence technique; but, I couldn't detect it like I did with Presence. It had taken me a lot longer to learn how to see using just that technique, so adapting it to use with mana instead wasn't something that could happen by just adding the energy. The flow had to be strictly regulated, just like I did with Presence, so my brain could interpret what the shapes of the objects were, their colors, and what they were doing and their functions.

The most I could do at the moment with Detect Mana Presence, after tweaking it a little with the knowledge I already had with using Presence for all these years, was make out the shapes the mana was creating in my sight. I had to leave them green, because I had no practical experience with created mana shapes and what the associated colors should be. I took several breaths to calm down and then activated the technique.

Both my breath and my heart stopped for a beat as all the trees and leaves I could see became glowing masses of green with the shapes of Presence buried inside of them. Everything was green. The air, the trees, even my hands were green. The arrow in front of me was already green and in an arrow shape except now it had a bright green ball of energy in the center of it and gave off wisps of mana. I closed my eyes and deactivated the technique.

Okay. I thought. That was a bit too much added mana.

It took me several more tries and failed attempts to filter the glare down and to get the mana emanations to stop propagating in my vision. Seeing the mana was one thing; but, I was also seeing the aura of mana energy that things gave off. It was really difficult to see anything properly that way and closer things obscured things farther away.

I had intentionally avoided looking at the protective barrier around the elves lands. Now that I was including mana in my detection range, I could still feel the pressure from such a huge amount of energy; but, it wasn't trying to push my Presence away anymore. Everything still had a green mana haze on it, though.

I'll have to keep working with it to fix that. I thought and looked at the elves. They hadn't noticed me or my experiments at all. I smiled and climbed down the tree to the ground as silently as I could and crept out of the tree line and through the tall grass towards the group of horses.

*

“Why is there no trace of him?” The commander of the elves asked. “This was where he was headed.”

“We've searched the projected area of where he would have come out of the forest and there's nothing. The grass hasn't been disturbed.” One of the guards said. “You don't think he could have...”

“No, there's no way he can get through the barrier.” The commander said. “Even the princess can't lift the barrier to pass through without one of her sisters to help.”

“Maybe we did pass him somewhere.” Maylia said. “It would explain...”

“No, he knew we were close to him. He wouldn't bed down for the night and let us potentially catch him.” The commander said. “No, he's here. He has to be.”

“We could search again and...” One of the other guards said.

“No, if he can cover his tracks good enough to hide them from us, searching more is pointless.”

“Then what...”

“I'm tempted to order you to race in both directions and set up watch posts within eyesight of here.” The commander said. “That way, if he pokes his head up from the grass or from the edge of the trees, we will see him immediately.”

“We can't set a trap if we don't know where he is.” One of the guards said. “How will we deal with him if he just shows up?”

“Get the sack with the vines. We can stretch it out and cast mimic on the surrounding vines.” The commander said. “He won't get away.”

The commander turned to Maylia while the guard went over to the horses. “You've done well keeping up with us.”

“The horse did most of the work.” Maylia said and shrugged. “I just held on.”

“You don't need to hold on for much longer. We will capture him and bring him back to the princess.”

“I don't think so.” A squeaky voice said from not far away and the commander and Maylia turned in that direction. “He's travelled the universe and fled an entire organization for a year before being caught. A handful of beautiful elves won't succeed.”

“He was caught before!” The commander said and ignored the beautiful comment while Maylia's face went slightly red. “He will be caught again!”

“I don't think so.” The squeaky voice said in another direction, and both women turned to face that way. “He doesn't like being held captive, even if the people holding him don't believe he's a captive.”

“It's a privilege to serve the royalty.” The commander said. “You should be honored to be chosen by the princess to help our people.”

“I don't think so.” The squeaky voice said from near the barrier and both women turned to face that way. “What would elves need with someone they hate?”

“We don't hate men.” Maylia said. “It's just... men are mostly useless, even when painstakingly trained and schooled. They are terrible fighters and their work is sub-par at best.”

“That sounds like a flaw in the design.” A male's voice said from right behind them.

“AHA!” The commander yelled and reached for her sword as both women turned to face that direction, only to see both of the other guards were restrained by the entanglement vines that were around all four of the horses and they were all unconscious.

“Missing something?” A man's voice asked as the commander's hand tried to grab the hilt of her sword that wasn't there. She turned back around to face the voice and saw Hunter as he held her weapon in mid-air. “I didn't think that a simple children's game could trick experienced fighters.”

“A children's game?” Maylia asked, surprised.

“The name of it won't mean anything to you.” Hunter said and grabbed the commander by the neck with a Presence Hand and lifted her a foot up into the air. She wasn't quite choking like that; but, it was close. “Children make noises in different spots to distract someone that's trying to find you.” He said and examined the sword. “This thing looks surprisingly weak.” He said and used a second Presence Hand to grab the sword and started to apply pressure to it.

Hunter knew where the weak spot was, since he could see through the blade, so he turned away from them and used a Mana Presence Blade to cut it in the middle. The commander and Maylia gasped as the sword broke apart into several pieces and dropped to the ground.

*

“See? Weak.” I said and absorbed the Presence and mana I had used, and left the Presence Hand holding the elf.

“You... are the one... that's weak.” The commander managed to get out. “Easily... hurt.”

“Yeah, for some reason I am.” I said. “I haven't figured out why yet.”

“Male... half-breed.”

“I'm not one of your males.” I chuckled. “I'm not even from this planet.”

“Relique is the center of the universe.” Maylia said. “Everything is from here.”

I turned and looked into her eyes. She really believes that. I thought. “Well, we all have strange beliefs.” I said instead of what I wanted to say. “I believed that playing around with my pursuers would anger them into giving up or convince them that chasing me was pointless.”

“Will... keep following.”

“I know that now, so I need to do something to convince you not to.” I said.

The commander's eyes widened as she assumed I was going to molest her and she stated to struggle.

“No, not that.” I said and carried her over to the other elves and held her against the vines. She was entangled in seconds and couldn't move, so I absorbed the Presence Hand.

“This won't hold me for long.” The commander said.

“Until you wake up, at least.” I said and she glanced at the other two. “Don't worry. It's only for about twelve hours. I didn't want them to starve or get caught by something else.”

“The beasts will consume us long before then.” The commander said, angrily.

“Beasts?” I asked and looked around.

“The forest has dangerous creatures all over it.” Maylia said. “We always travel in groups so that if we meet any or are attacked, there is enough of us to overcome them.”

“I didn't see or feel any beasts along the way, except for that spider.” I said.

“You broke my sword!” The commander spat. “Decades of battles fought with it and now it's lost for all time!”

“More like decades of damage.” I said. “You might have gotten a few more battles out of it, if you were lucky. I barely put any pressure on it and you saw how easily it snapped.”

The commander didn't say anything in response.

“I probably could have just told you it was going to break and advised you to get a new one.” I said with a smile and leaned in close. “Would you have believed me?”

“Of course not! You're a man and know nothing about...” The commander stopped talking because she had just proven my point.

“Yeah, you people need a better understanding about dealing with men not from your culture.” I said and stepped away, then turned to look at Maylia. “So, we meet again.”

“Yes.” Maylia said. “It's surprising that we didn't find you when we got here.”

“That's because I was behind you.” I said and she didn't gasp or react, except to glance at the other elf. “You already suspected it.”

“Among other things.” Maylia said. “What are you going to do now?” She asked. “The protective barrier has been in place for centuries. Only gathered members of the royal family can open it to allow people through.”

“Gathered members?” I asked and thought about it. “So, even if I had brought the princess with me, she couldn't have gotten me through the barrier anyway.”

“You were going to take the princess hostage?!?” The still-conscious elf tied in the vines exclaimed.

“I doubt she would willingly come with me, so I guess she would be a hostage.” I said. “I figured she would have some kind of power, being royalty and all, over her people being contained. I guess I was wrong.”

“The elders can open the barrier briefly, too.” Maylia said.

“Why are you telling him these things?!?” The restrained elf exclaimed.

“Because the information is useless to me, obviously.” I said. “I'm not going back there and there's no way they would come here to let me out.”

“Then you're trapped here.” Maylia said. “Please, don't fight or cause a fuss.”

“Why?” I asked and felt three people on horses enter my detection range. “Never mind. You brought reinforcements.”

The horses burst out from the treeline and ran at full speed towards us.