As Joseph's vision returned he was standing in the smoke again. Catherine walked up to him and touched his shoulder.

"Is everything ok? You seem distressed."

Joseph touched his shoulder where the arrow hit him a few minutes ago. There were no traces of any damages on his armor nor his clothes.

"I'm not sure."

Catherine used a spell to disperse the smoke and looked around.

"The one who made this smoke ran away almost immediatelly. I don't know what was their objective."

Joseph blinked a few times.

"How much time went by after the fire blew up?"

"Just a few seconds. Why?"

He spoke to her about what happened.

"That is quiet strange. I don't know what happened to you, but if I would've need to guess, it would be some mind trick."

Stolen novel; please report.

"Perhaps. it was certainly strange. In one moment I'm really sleepy, then I wake up to feeling that I'm in danger. It was like a dream."

"I think we should hurry back to the city. We are safer there, then here in the open."

"I guess so."

They grabbed their stuff and went back to the guild.

They gave their report about the job and asked around about the strange stuff that happened to Joseph.

There was nobody who had any idea what happened to him. In the end they returned to their rooms and set up even more safety measures. After that they had a night rest.

Joseph had weird dreams about being in the dark and running away. Then waking up in bed sweating, but no actual thing happened.

They took off the next few days and went around in the city, buying some necessities. They have not noticed anyone following them and Joseph did not get any warnings as well.

Both of them were worried, because they couldn't detect the person in the forest, where were no peoples around. So they knew they could not do it in here as well, but noone attacked them. It seemed like they weren't sure about attacking them in the city.

They spoke about it at the table eating, but they had no idea how to deal with the person for now.

They bought some protective equipment for Joseph and a new armor. Then they travelled to a nearby lake, which was a place with fairly good amount of manna around it. Though it wasn't nearly as good as the last place they were at, this was still better than the city, where the mana got absorbed by the items the mages used.

At the lake there was a camp site where rich people had spent their free time. They rented one of the cheaper place which was at the edge of the whole site. It was still beter, than the opening, because the place was guarded by guards.

They spent there a few days practicing.