I had been right and it was quite difficult to make my way through the forest without the guide's help. Not being a friend of the forest was making bushes, branches, and leaves hit me all over and at random times. I had eventually resorted to covering myself in a thin layer of Presence to stop it from happening. I made it back to the clearing and saw that all of the trees had moved back and the clearing was more like an overgrown field now.
“What happened?” One of the elf guards asked.
“I've lost my status as a friend of the forest.” I said and the elves gasped at that revelation.
“What did you do?!?” She exclaimed the question.
“It doesn't matter.” I said and felt something enter my detection range. I turned around and looked up. “Well, damn.” I said as one of the bird-like things circled overhead. “I knew a crack was near here; but, I didn't think she would have hidden it from me on purpose.”
“She? She who?” Dawn asked.
“The heart of the forest.” I said and tried to draw in the mana around us. Nothing happened. I smiled and drew in the Presence around me instead and felt the energy pour into me. That was why I wasn't upset about her blocking me from using the mana in the forest. I knew I could still use the surrounding energy, since everything had Presence in it, including the air. I formed a thicker layer of Presence around myself and reduced the pull of Presence from the planet. I was only going to get ten minutes out of the technique, because I needed at least half of my Presence reserves to close the crack.
Fred stared at me and I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head. “What are you doing?”
“Something stupid.” I said and bent my knees. “I'll be back in about ten minutes, one way or the other.”
One of the guards started to speak. “Wait! If she wanted it hidden...”
“She hid it so that I would listen to her offer and not close it until she wanted me to.” I said and used Presence Jump. I shot up into the air completely weightless and I pulled out my mother's Light sword. I activated it just as the bird saw me coming and it squawked at me. “Too late.” I said and swiped the Light sword across its throat and severed the sacks of flammable liquid. I had been going too fast to decapitate it completely, so I took the more efficient route and stopped its main attack. It tried to spit a fireball out of its mouth and it came out its neck hole instead.
It lit itself on fire and burst into flames, then it squawked several times as it fell to the ground. I surrounded it in Presence to extinguish the flames and watched it crash into the trees and then the ground. I kept ascending higher into the air and felt the crack nearby, because it disturbed the flow of Presence. I was completely surprised that it was at the very top of the mana barrier that covered the elf lands. Thankfully, there wasn't a nest or anything, and I couldn't see or detect another bird-like thing anywhere around.
I slowed myself down and just as I reached the crack, one of the creatures poked its head through the crack. I had plenty of time to deal with it now, so I swiped the Light sword up through its throat, intentionally missing the fluid sacks, and cut the head clean off. I caught it and stuffed the head into my creature bag of holding and pushed the body back into the crack. I grabbed the edge of the crack and pulled it closed, then sewed it shut and healed the wound.
I sighed in relief and checked my energy reserve. It was almost gone. I absorbed my protective barrier of Presence and it gave me some energy back... and I dropped like a rock. I turned on my armor to make it weightless and then used small amounts of Presence to guide where I was falling. The wind buffeted me and tore at my skin and my hair. When I was close enough to the ground, I could see where Dawn and Fred were. I could also see that they were quite upset at my uncontrolled descent. I held a hand out to wave just as I approached the top of the trees, then I activated Levitation for three seconds to slow my descent... it was then that my energy reserve bottomed out.
“NO!” Dawn and Fred yelled out. Fred grabbed a bedroll and tried to put it where I was going to land and I laughed. I slammed into a tree branch and broke my arm, bounced off and tumbled through the air, ricocheted from another tree when I hit my back, then fell to the ground. I had gathered just enough Presence on the way through the trees to reinforce my legs, just in time to land on several tree roots. My left ankle snapped like a twig and I dislocated my right knee as I tried to absorb as much impact as I could, then I collapsed to the ground on my back.
“HUNTER!” Dawn screamed and she and Fred rushed over to me.
“N-nice.... try, Fred.” I managed to say through gritted teeth. “An... A for... effort.”
“For Black Laura's sake, shut up!” Dawn said and knelt beside me. Tears came to her eyes and she didn't know what to do. She turned to the guards. “Do something!”
“We aren't healers.” One of them said and Dawn growled at them.
“Useless trash!” Dawn spat. “How are you supposed to protect him if he dies?”
They couldn't answer that, so she turned back to me.
“Hunter.” Dawn said in a soft voice. “What can we do?”
“Fred... straighten my... breaks.” I said.
“I was wrong.” Fred said and put the bedroll down. “You're completely insane.”
I barked a laugh and spat up blood. “Don't... make me... laugh.” I said. “Punctured lung.”
“Give me a hand.” Fred said to Dawn and they picked me up carefully. Too many parts to my liking, and theirs, flopped around.
“Oh, goddess!” Dawn moaned and they put me on the bedroll. “Hunter... oh, goddess.”
“It's okay.” I said. “Fred, I'm going to pass out now, so pull everything straight, will you?”
“Sure thing, Hunter.” Fred said. “I'll give you a minute to make sure you're really out.”
“No need.” I said. “I'm...”
*
“Wow. When he goes, he goes.” Fred said and shook off the weak sleepiness feeling and he wasn't surprised when there was no followup feeling of peacefulness. He waited a few seconds, just in case, then he straightened Hunter's ankle. When he didn't react, Fred moved his leg and Dawn covered her mouth when she heard the bones grinding together.
“Oh, goddess.” Dawn said and started to mumble a prayer.
Fred picked up Hunter's arm and it felt like it was boneless. He shook his head and straightened it out as well as he could through the armor. He looked at Hunter's head and saw that his hair was a tangled mess, full of branches, leaves, and missing chunks.
“What do we do with that?” Fred asked and motioned to the hair.
Dawn finished her prayer. “I've got it.” She said and took out the brush Hunter had given her and she slowly worked it through the worst of the tangles and picked out all of the debris. It took her a while to get through the whole mass of hair to make it look normal again.
“What do we do now?” Fred asked.
“We have to go for help somehow.” Dawn said. “The thing is, Hunter was the one who brought us here.” She looked at the elves. “You don't know how to get back to the road, do you?”
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The elves shook their heads.
“Useless!” Dawn spat, then looked back at the man on the ground beside her. “We can't move him like this.”
“Then we sit here and wait.” Fred said and sat down. “If we can't move him and we can't leave, then we stay.” He said, confidently. “If he was awake, he would tell us what to do. He's not, so we wait until he does wake up.”
Dawn wanted to argue, because she wanted to do something. She ran her fingers through Hunter's hair and sighed. “All right. We wait.”
They stayed there for the rest of the day and waited for Hunter to wake up.
*
“Ugh.” I moaned. “Someone remind me to never do that again.”
“HUNTER!” Dawn yelled.
“Take it easy on my ears. I'm not deaf.” I said and slipped off my blast shield. “What time... oh, damn.” I sighed. “I was out all day?”
Dawn and Fred stared at me, because I had used my broken arm to remove the shield.
“Just a second.” I said and closed my eyes. I used my detection technique to check myself all over. “Yep, I'm fine.”
“How?” Dawn asked. “Your arm was shattered!”
“Yeah, that and a couple of ribs, along with my ankle and knee. It's probably why I was out for so long.” I said and sat up. Everyone stared at me, including the elves. “Is there something on my face?” I asked and touched it. “It was about the only thing I didn't hit on the way down, so it should be okay. It's okay, right?”
“Hunter, you... when you didn't wake up after a few hours, we... you were barely breathing, and... I thought you were going to die.” Dawn said as tears sprang from her eyes.
“I'm sorry.” I said and put an arm around her to let her cry. “I thought I told you that I have Regeneration and Self-healing. Then again, this is the first time I've needed it.” I said. “I was pretty much out of energy, so it took a while for my body to gather it and use it to fix my injuries.”
“I've never heard of that before.” Fred said. “Regeneration? Self-healing? That's not supposed to be possible, is it?”
“Well, I'm not from here.” I said. “This planet, I mean.”
Dawn stopped crying almost immediately and leaned back. “You're a summoned adventurer?”
“Yeah.” I said and checked my armor. “Ah, dammit. I left it on.” I said and hit the switch. It didn't make any difference because the batteries were drained. I sighed and looked at the others. “Did you eat everything?”
“You've missed two meals.” Fred said. “We were about to start foraging for supper.”
“No need.” I said and stood up and went to the table, then set out another feast for everyone. “We'll be staying the night here, then we'll move out in the morning.”
“Why not leave right now?” Dawn asked.
“I need to gather my energy back.” I said. “I'm still running on the bare minimum.”
“But... you're awake and you slept all day.” Dawn said.
“Being unconscious doesn't count as sleep and my body used up all the energy I gathered.” I chuckled. “I'm going to eat and then I'm going to bed.”
*
Dawn came into the tent and was surprised when Hunter didn't make himself invisible to change. She watched him as she changed herself and he didn't look at her. She was both impressed at his restraint and upset that he didn't try to take a peek. It was a vexing feeling for her to both want and not want him to look. They climbed into their bedrolls side by side and Hunter fell asleep almost immediately.
Dawn turned onto her side as she reached out of her bedroll and into his to take his hand. He never objected to her needing comfort like that and she pulled his arm against her and hugged it. She knew intellectually that she shouldn't be doing it, and yet, she couldn't stop herself from taking advantage of him. She wanted to wallow in him and rub herself all over him.
After he hurt himself so much and then was miraculously healed, Dawn's desire to use him as much as she could became a burning need inside of her. She loved another and her heart had broken with his recent death; but, here was her saviour, letting her comfort herself as much as she wanted, as long as it didn't go further than casual touching. The first time she had gone further than that, it had been an accident. Since then, though... she wanted to try it. She knew she shouldn't, though.
Dawn had seen Hunter's anger when he killed that prisoner as if it meant nothing to him. The thought made her shiver, in the bad way, and she wasn't sure how she felt about him being able to take a life so casually, even someone who was a murderer. Things like that should be handled by a mayor, or a judge, or even an experienced guard who dealt with criminals on a daily basis and not by an adventurer. She knew Hunter was a good man, he had to be; but, he was also a bounty hunter and would kill anyone he was hired to kill.
Was it just business for him? Was he hired to kill that man? Dawn asked herself, then another thought struck her. Would he kill the elves for me if I hired him?
Dawn chuckled softly at the absurd thought and hugged his arm, then she caught her breath. It was the arm he had shattered earlier that day. She eased her hold on it for only a moment, then she couldn't fight her urges and hugged it tightly. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep with thoughts of watching Hunter break all of the elves' necks with his magic. The images floated through her mind and calmed her.
*
The four elves sat in their tent that was made of local materials and listened to the message.
“He must have done something very upsetting for his status as a friend of the forest to be revoked.” The elder said. “Healing himself must be a trick or a spell effect, or even more likely it's an enchanted object.” She said. “Keep a constant eye on him and try to discover what happened in the forest. Perhaps we can gain favor with the forest if we discover what went on and fix it.”
“Yes, Elder.” The guard said and the ball of light faded. “You heard her. Rotating watch. Every six hours.”
“I'll go first.” One of them said and slipped silently out of the tent.
“Get some sleep. This is going to be a long task with only the four of us.”
The others nodded and laid down with her and they huddled together for comfort.
*
The next morning I felt great. My Presence reserve was back to full and it had been cycling through my body to reinforce it and made it stronger. It was going to take a long time to get anywhere near where Allirynn and Steven were with their body reinforcement, though. My Detect Presence technique was also working, and seeing things how they were supposed to be was comforting. I also had my arm buried between Dawn's breasts and it made me miss Maylia quite a lot more than I had, mere moments before.
“Good morning.” I said.
Dawn slowly woke up from that gentle verbal prod. She realized where my arm was and looked at me sheepishly as she let it go and gave it back to me.
“Thanks.” I said, and she gave me an odd look. “You can decide for yourself what I meant.”
Dawn opened her mouth to respond and then sighed. “You know.”
“Yeah.” I said. “I'll repeat myself if you want.”
“No, I understand.” Dawn said. “I'm sorry for...”
“Hey, it's okay.” I said and sat up. “We're going to be spending quite a few more nights together. I need the cuddles just as much as you do.”
“I want more than that.” Dawn said, quite boldly, then she shut her mouth.
“I know, and you know I won't let that happen.” I said and tapped my crotch and created a metal sound. “This is reserved for my girlfriend.”
“Hunter, I... please, don't think less of me.” Dawn said and rolled over.
“Ha!” I barked a laugh and stood up. “After what happened to you, you've been surprisingly calm and collected.” I said and turned my back to her to slip off my nightgown. “It's quite impressive, actually.”
“Really?” Dawn asked and sat up as she turned to face me, then she caught her breath at the sight of my butt fairly close to her face.
I bent over to pull on my armor pants. “Yeah, it reminded me of my reaction when I escaped.” I said and took out my long-sleeved t-shirt and slipped it on. “I had been through an ordeal and I didn't let it affect me. I got out of there and left it behind me.”
“I... I wish...” Dawn reached up and stopped her hand before she grabbed my backside.
“You're doing great.” I said and slipped the armor coat on and buttoned it up. “I'll help you in almost any way that I can; but, I can't help you in that way. You know I can't.”
Dawn dropped her hand and sighed as she leaned over. “Why can't you have just a little less morality?”
I chuckled as I slipped on my blast shield and used Presence to hold it in place, then I used two hair ties to make a ponytail and to tie it up. “You have pretty brown nipples.”
Dawn took in a sharp breath and looked down at herself. Her nightgown had slipped down just enough that it billowed out and gave me a great view of her breasts. She blushed and put a hand at the neck and closed the gaping hole, then she looked up at me and I looked down at her. She couldn't see my eyes; but, she knew that look.
“I'll get breakfast ready.” I said and left the tent.
I prepared breakfast for everyone and we ate quickly, gathered the horses, and led them out through the thick underbrush and close trees. It took several hours to get to a point where we could mount the horses again. Once we could, the elves boosted all of the horses, even mine. I didn't help, however. The elves were surprised by this until I told them why. With the horses significantly slower and having to stop at mana trees to recharge them along the way, it took us all day to visit two more towns and a city.
I had to pay gold to have access to a hot bath for an hour at the city, so Fred and I rushed through it and let Dawn have most of the hour for herself to soak. The elves declined the offer. We camped at a rest area that night and moved on the next day. I closed a crack and we kept going. Even being forced to take our time like we were, we still managed to close the remaining cracks and visited the very last city and gathered the final prisoner, another woman, in under two weeks. She was a magic user and had cooperated without resistance right from the start, so her imprisonment wasn't as harsh as the others.
We visited two more towns and then we reached the end of the elf lands. I was tempted to leave right there; but, we were on the other side of the elf lands and would then have to travel all the way around the magical barrier to get back to where I had left Maylia and Afyne. So, we turned around and spent another week or so travelling as we followed the road all the way back across most of the elf lands to the capital.