“If a council of merchants decides most of the things in your town, doesn’t that mean that they know that he is being moved?”

“They know,”

“... Since that is the case, you should just have hired more capable people for this kind of job.”

“That was my intention, but we can’t trust the people of the town. They don’t like my clan and our abilities. As for hiring someone from outside, that would be difficult since in the last conflict. We lost a lot of people… those who could accept the job could be bought. I knew that Hei wouldn’t be bought, but asking him would be difficult since it would leave his territory unsafe. With that in mind, I decided to choose you since you should be capable enough for the job.”

“Well, thanks for the vote of confidence…”

Heirina acted as if the job would be easy, but now she was deep in thought. She knew some information about the job, but a few things had changed. Considering the prisoner's state, the job was supposed to be fine, but she wasn’t confident now.

“We will do our best so you can rest easy.”

“Thank you. If you don’t mind, I will sleep for a bit since the last few days have been pretty tough.”

“All right, Aleph, watch the back of the carriage. From now on, we need to be a bit more cautious.”

“Understood.”

There was a compartment on the back of the carriage that was almost like a balcony, so Aleph could stay there and watch the back with enough room. He wanted to climb on the roof and sit there while he exercised, but he wasn’t sure if it would endure that much weight. It was better to be cautious.

Aleph also wanted to ask some questions, but he decided to wait until later when Edea was resting and Elmer was unconscious. Despite his condition, he was trying to endure everything in order to learn more about the people around him and his surroundings.

Aleph realized that with a prisoner like that, they probably wouldn’t have the chance to sleep in any town or village. It was better to keep the carriage completely closed and away from everyone. That way, Elmer wouldn’t know when he would have the chance to move or not.

At the end of the afternoon, they made a brief stop at a village to buy a lot of food. The number of people traveling with them increased, so that was necessary. At the same time, they couldn’t keep Elmer without eating… as far as Aleph could tell, he hadn’t been tortured that much; the marks on his body of wounds were faint, but he could have been tortured and healed at the same time.

“Aleph, try to keep your distance from him and don’t look at him in the eye. It is hard to tell what he is thinking, and we don’t know his traits either. He might try to do something to us and he might think that you would be the best person to attack in order to escape.”

“I will keep that in mind.”

Despite Irlan’s warning, Aleph wasn’t worried; he didn’t look at that guy at all, and he had no reason to get too close to him. With that in mind, they kept working since they had just stopped to camp. While the women of the group kept an eye on the prisoner, Aleph looked after the horses, and Irlan took care of the dinner. 

As soon as Aleph finished the job, he prepared to do some light training since he couldn’t go all out and lose sight of the prisoner. Soon, he heard Kaitrine groaning, and when he looked at Heirina, he saw her familiar annoyed expression.

“What is wrong?”

“... He has been bothering us for a while to go to the bathroom.”

“This was bound to happen, so why are you so exasperated?”

“Edea’s trait loses power when she is more than five meters away from the target, and she has to use more energy to weaken him again. I guess I shouldn’t ask how he solves that kind of problem by himself in the prison.”

“The cells have toilets for the prisoners to use. I just move away from him a bit at the appointed time, and he solves that by himself.”

After Edea’s explanation, Aleph realized the problem: The target couldn’t escape there, but he could escape now, even with a bit of energy or weakened. As long as he has access to his trait, he should be able to cause problems or alert anyone nearby.

“Let’s him do what he needs to do, and it is better to let him piss or shit himself here. You will keep the usual distance. If he tries anything funny, then I will smash his stomach with my club. That will speed up the process of him going to the toilet even more.”

“... He will need to clean himself so that he might move more than a little bit suspiciously, and you probably wouldn’t want to see that.”

“I have seen worse. Besides, I can’t let the so-called ladies see such a scene, right? We need to preserve the prisoner’s honor.”

“All right, since you are going to say this much, then I won’t feel bad for letting you take care of that job.”

As much as those girls could be cheeky, they didn’t want to go that far on the job. That was part of the reason Irlan and Aleph were there. In the end, while the whole group stayed on guard while the prisoner was finishing his business on the other side of a bush, nothing happened. He behaved well and just looked exhausted, but Aleph could tell his eyes moving suspiciously…

The prisoner was smart and wouldn’t try anything so drastic so soon. He would rather wait and see and let everyone get used to that and to nothing happening along the way…

After three days, the group was starting to get used to the journey and the people around it, to the point that they began to strike up conversations with each other. Mainly Edea with the others since Elmer was mostly so dizzy that he didn’t have the energy to say a single thing.

“... I heard that Hei welcomed some former slave kids to his group after the last battle. Is he one among them?”

Aleph was working on his club and making it a bit heavier, so Edea decided to ask that. She knew that everyone had their own methods of training their traits, but she still couldn’t help but think that Aleph’s method was pretty unusual.

“That kind of information spreads like wildfire, huh? Well, that is right, but don’t call him a slave. He is sensitive about that.”

“I am not. I just respond accordingly to the way people talk to me. Besides, she called me former slave, not slave boy.”

“I see…”

Edea studied Aleph for a while, but then she decided to stay quiet. It was better not to talk too much when the prisoner was around since he could use any information against them. Still, sometimes, the silence was just too hard to deal with.

Once he had repaired the club's weight, Aleph began to swing it once again. Still, he soon found a problem. While he was adjusting his strength, the handle suddenly cracked, and the rest of the club went flying into the distance. It didn’t hit anyone, but if he had been facing the wrong distance, a twenty-kilogram club could have caused some disaster.

“I guess we will finally have some peace and quiet here. What happened?”

“The handle was just too used… I guess I will just add the weights on an iron sword or something.”

Heirina went to check the handle that Aleph threw away, and it was pretty thick. Aleph couldn’t hold it properly with a single hand, but that should have lasted for a while. That only showed that he had been training hard and nonstop for quite some time. In any case, Aleph decided to dismantle the parts so that they could be used later. In the end, he contented himself in muscle training with the stones while doing handstands.

“Just when I think that we would get some peace…”

“I am not making any noise.”

“That is hardly the problem.”

Aleph decided to ignore her, and Heirina knew that she couldn’t complain that much. People had to do what they had to in order to improve themselves and survive in that world. For someone like Aleph, who was born a slave, it was clear that he didn’t have good traits… unlike someone like Heirina, who was blessed with being born from a good lineage, he had to try extra hard in order to not depend on anyone. She was a bit on the edge since she couldn’t train or spar without making a lot of noise… making it would be risky when they had to guard a prisoner and be wary of night attacks.

The author here, everyone. Thanks for reading the book. I hope that you have fun reading the book as much as I have writing it. If you want to join our discord, this is the link: https://discord.gg/AQsYm99A

I also set up a Patreon for those who want to read ahead. Don't worry; I will post a new chapter every day here, but I will be posting two on the Patreon. There are currently thirty chapters ahead there. Thank you for your patience, and have a nice day!