It was near Mid-day when we ran into the Adventure's camp. I've cleaned myself and Yuna up before we set off. I've dressed in the blue blouse with jeans and I've put Yuna in too big for her leather pants and a purple blouse. I'm carrying her princess style with a pack slung on my back along with my bow and a few quivers full of arrows. I'm honestly quite tired. But at least I still have both arms and legs. My hip does hurt though. 'What if Yuna had lost a limb?' Its a miracle she didn't as it is.

She's afraid of hurting me and friends while fighting. I was too, at first, but after last night, I know the real danger is that she will be torn to pieces. Even when attacking she injures herself. She doesn't have nails on her hands or feet anymore. Most of her fingers and toes were broken along with her wrists. Not to mentio1n all the other injuries that must have healed before she collapsed. 

"Halt!" The yell comes out from the tents being taken down. The adventure's all drop what they are doing and gather 'round. 

"Who do we hav-Oh, its the merchants! What happened to you?" Says the man that did all the talking last night as he steps up to us. Ivaldri steps forward to meet him. I place Yuna on the ground and ready my bow and nock an arrow stepping in front of her.

 "I'm sure you could guess, if you tried." Ivaldri says as he throws a punch, laying the man out. The other adventure's react fast, but not faster then our side. Ivaldri pulls out his axe and places it against the throat of the big mouth on he ground as he spits out a few teeth. I draw my bow and put an arrow into the knee of the man who was eyeing Yuna last night. Novas draws his sword and is flanking Ivaldri. Thora has let loose an arrow and hit their archer in the hand.

"Can you take a guess yet?" Amicia asks. Her voice trembling from the anger it contains.

"So you were bandits!" The idiot yells from the ground. 

"Are you really this much of an imbecile?!!" Amicia losses control. "Remember those Bandits you killed?! Well, that was only a small group of them and they were chasing after you, you idiots!!" Thora puts a hand on her shoulder to try and calm her.

"Get it now?" Ivaldri asks, stomping onto one of the mans hands.

"You have to be bandits!" The man that was warry of us yesterday cries out. "One of you is already stealing our food, so drop the act!" He shouts, angerly pointing to the side. 'What?' Everyone except the man on the ground looks, though he does try. There is a girl with silver hair and wearing a purple blouse with tan leather pants tearing into what's left of the Evistos they must have cooked last night and her tail is happily whipping back and forth. 'How did she even get over there without anyone noticing?'

"Yuna?" I call out and head around the Adventure's to get to her. They block my way.

"Fine!! You can consider us bandits then! We want your horses." Amicia says not caring to convince these human trolls. "Consider it payment for helping kill almost half of the remaining bandits."

"Like hell you will!" One yells out and prepares to attack.

"The horses or.. your horses plus your lives." Ivaldri says letting the axe bite into the mans neck. Every man hesitates and looks at each other, almost like they are trying to combine their brain power to estimate their odds. They come to the wrong conclusion. I draw an arrow. Three of them are already out of the fight, how did they ever manage to kill any of the bandits in the first place is beyond me.

"Gods, they are dumb." I mutter and I see Thora nod out of the corner of my eye.

"Wait!!" The man who would die first yells out from the ground. "Its only the horses! We are only two weeks from Yalanue on foot. Just let them have them, we will report them when we get back." The other's share a look again then lower their weapons.

"Alright, but only the horses!" one says and the others nod. 'Do they think we are even asking at this point?' "And I guess the meat your slave has already eaten is fine too." The man on the ground adds. I walk around them to Yuna.

 

---

 

[POV Yuna]

 

   Man this meat tastes goood. Faye should stop fooling around with those guys and come over here and have some. I've got the gist of what is happening from the conversation. I figured it would be best if I stayed out of the fight so I headed towards the thing that smelled good instead. I stand by that decision. This shit is good.

Mute is one hell of a badass though isn't he? He lost an arm, but it's almost like he only ever had one in the first place. If you just go by the way he moves and acts, it seems that way at least. He's a cool dude. 'I wonder, can I 'heal' his arm?' Thinking of healing, fuck I hurt all over. I don't remember much of what happened last night. I can see flashes. Men screaming, the taste of blood in my mouth. Its probably for the best I can't remember.

"Yuna?" Faye lightly grabs my shoulders from behind.

"Hey~! You want some~?" I ask turning around to look at her. She looks shocked at first then starts to squeeze the life out of me. Sometimes I think she wants to kill me the way Bull dude killed Shiteater. 'Is my voice different?'

"You're awake?" She asked.

"Obviously~." I answer rolling my eyes even though she cant see me since I'm buried in her chest. 'Did these things get bigger?'

"You!" She shouts and tries to force my insides out of my mouth.

"Ughhhh" I groan and she lets up. "Are you alright~?" Something is off about her.

"You almost died!" She shouts and lets go and holds me so she can look me in the eyes. "Do you not understand that!? That I was barely able to save you?!" Her eyes are tearing up now and I can hear a tearstorm brewing from the way she is yelling at me. 'That must explain why I hurt so much'

"I-I umm, don't really remember anything that happened last night~..." I inform her while wiping away the first tear that streams down her face. It was to no avail because shortly after the dam broke and she was sobbing into my bosom. 'Oh god, I have a bosom. No! I've just gained weight is all. Yeah! That's all it is. I just need to eat less and i'll be good.' I started rubbing Faye's back and combed my fingers through her hair avoiding her ears for the moment, it just didn't feel appropriate to touch them right now. Just thinking about how if she were a human and I started playing with her ears while she was crying, that stopped me. It would be super weird. But... it could make her laugh..

_

Eventually she calmed down and explained everything that happened last night. At first I thought she was lying to make it seem like I was worse off then what was actually true, but then I started checking out my body and saw the scars.. 'How didn't I notice that I don't have any finder nails?' When I lifted up my shirt I saw a very prominent scar on my chest at an angle. Faye started to tear up again when she saw me looking. It cuts across one of my boobs and through my nipple. Its very disfiguring. 

"Can you h-" Faye starts to ask, but then covers her mouth and looks around, panicked. I just shrug at her. I have no idea. Faye tells me that I have several scars on my face as well. Its a real shame i'm a girl covered in scars like this, but maybe its a blessing in disguise. I rather be an ugly girl then an attractive one. That way I wont have to worry about men as much. 'Though it does mean Faye won'-what am I thinking! That was never going to happen anyway. Stupid..'

"Is legol~i mean, Thora okay~?" I ask. It's Faye's turn to shrug. I guess that makes sense. The guards never talked to us before so they probably still won't.

"Come on you two, we need to head off." Ivaldri says to us. "Without the wagon we'll make better time. In a few days time, we will be in the Capital." He adds with a smile. 

"That's good, I guess~" I say. I get up with Faye and head towards the horses. They have one for each of us, only they are using one as a pack horse..

"uhhh." well I just realized something.

"Something wrong?" Faye asks. 

"They took Horsey didn't they~?" That horse helped us escape. I was going to.. well, to let it have whatever it wanted. Whether it wanted to get fat off of apples or wanted to be free and run the plains. I can't do that now. 

"Yeah.., are you going to be alright?" Faye worriedly asks me.

"Uh-huh, I just feel bad~. It helped us so much, but.. yeah i'll be alright~." 'God this sucks.' 

 

---

 

   I ended up riding the same horse as Faye. Its a lot easier with her conscious and.. I HAVE PANTS NOW! This is great!! No more rubbing my ass raw! I just have to hold her from behind and not fall off. The man in me is a little miffed about riding bitch, but I have no idea how to control a horse. I just asked horsey to go places. Though Faye seems to use a similar technique... and.. a part of me wants to hold her. So its fine.

_

"What are you doing?" Faye hisses at me as I start to cast heal on her.

"You think I can't tell your injured~?" I ask in return. She conveniently left out that she got hurt from what she told me happened last night. Like I wasn't going to see her walking with a limp.

"I'm fine! Stop before anyone notices!" She persists.

"No~. You talking about it is what will end up giving us away anyway~. Its too dark for them to see, plus we are behind everyone~." I say.

We are riding through the night to gain some distance incase the bandits come after us. It's why I waited so long to heal her. I could tell she was in pain this whole time, but I know she would do something drastic if I tried during the day. Through experimentation, I've learned that while it looks like my hands "glow" when casting my spell. It actually doesn't throw off any light, so its safe enough to do it now. I can hear Faye gnashing her teeth. Speaking of teeth, I'm missing a few. One fight and I turn into a scarred up toothless thing. No wonder Faye freaked out on me.

"Don't grind your teeth~" I chastise her. She surprises me and actually stops. When I was young and my mother told me to stop, I just grinded harder to spite her, aka spite myself. 

"Fine" she responded stiffly. (Sigh) Well at least I get to heal her. I seem to have healed my hands in the process of healing her. She said they had to rebreak a lot of my bones that healed badly. My fingers and nose included. They seem fine now. Magic is really somethin'.

 

____

 

My world really didn't prepare me for things like this. I am sooooo bored right now!! Hours on end not talking or anything. Just riding on the back of this horse holding Faye, with her tail brushing past my face every now and then. I used to get bored while having some sort of stimulation, now that I have none, I know what It truly means to be bored. I tried playing "I spy" with her, but it got pointless fast. Everything is the same color, and when I started to say I spy with my little eye something orange, which was her hair, and she didn't even hesitate to answer correctly, I realized that we ran out of things to see. I'll have to prepare something in the future. I'll just check out my status for now. 

'Hmmm, wait! I'm level 23! How? I killed forty-one people according to Faye. Jesus. Forty-one people.' Soldiers and cops can go their entire lives without killing anyone and yet I killed so many in a single night. I've got most known serial killers beat... I did what I had to. That's what i'm going to tell myself at least. 'What would have happened to everyone if I hadn't? To Faye and the other women?' I would consider that as having no choice.

Anyway, I killed an unbelievable amount of goblins and only got to level twelve, but forty people gets me eleven levels? Is it because they were higher level? How do levels even work in this world? I played a game once where no matter your level the experience needed to get to the next one was always the same. Is it something like that? I'm not going to come up with an answer, so fuck it. Lets check out Heal's description and see what it says.

[Heal: Can treat most injuries, even helping restore lost blood. Can not restore limbs or treat injuries to vital organs. Ex: Brain, Heart and Spine. Requires seven Mana a minute while being cast at level one. Upon reaching level two it will gain the ability to restore limbs with some functionality. Upon reaching level three Limb Restoration will be complete and treating Vital organs becomes possible.] 

No mention of scars or anything, but maybe that would be under Limb restoration. Idk. Maybe it would be under vital organs? Pretty sure skin is an organ, but I did heal the wound on her stomach without it scaring. It does seem to get stronger in every way as it levels up though. 'How do I level it up?' I'll try and heal myself when we stop to rest and i'll see if I can remove the scars. Faye wants me to, If I can. Sorry Mute and Ivaldri, maybe one day.

__________________

 

   So it was a yes on removing my scars. I just can't remove them now. If they just disappear, its going to bring up the question of where they went and we don't want to deal with that. I did regrow my nails and my missing teeth though. The teeth hurt like hell. I'm like a shark haha.

When Faye saw a few marks disappear from my stomach she was ecstatic. Earning me more cuddling and minor breathing difficulty.

When I told her I had no idea how to level it up, she told me its simple. I just have to use it. Use it A lot. She said it works that way with Clean. That there are three levels. That hers is level 2... She has been using that spell at least once everyday since she was a kid, I mean young, and its only level two. 'Great'. 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

   We're finally here. Standing in a line to go into the largest walls I've ever seen. Well, in real life that is. The ice wall from Game of Thrones has everything beat. I would say that these walls are about the size of that slaver city that the Dragon Queen conquered and tried to rule over then they all got the plague or something. I think her name started with a D. Deanaris? Idk. I know she was hot though. The gates are the weird part. Their are two gates, one at the beginning of the wall and the other at the end. The walls are crazy thick. The gates are circular. They roll in and out of place. They are huge wheels of stone. The city is centered near a hill and there is a good sized river running through it. I can see a stupid looking castle situated on top of the hill and fancy looking buildings working their way down below it. I probably only think its stupid looking because it belongs to Mistress and her family. Idk. Idc.

So, i'm wearing a cloak plus  my fur and hair have been covered in dirt to darken it. This was Amicia's idea. It's just incase Mistress figured out we were coming here and has already prepared a welcoming party for us. I'm the most recognizable one, so I need several layers to my disguise. Having gritty dirt in my hair is the worst. Faye is wearing a cloak as well. The others all look the same. 

Thora had gone off ahead of us to find Hawkeye. They both met us outside the gate and handed Amicia something. Its supposed to help us get through the gate without any hassle. There are two lines. One for people on foot and another for wagons and their escorts. It seems horses are not allowed into the city unless you are nobility, A merchant or a part of the guard or something like that. There are stables outside the gate and we have already left our horses there. We are currently third in line.

The guards here makes those bandits and adventure's look like children. Ivaldri and John hold up well though. It only took a few minutes for it to be our turn in line. Amicia did all the talking. The guards didn't even have me or Faye remove our hoods. They just waved us through.

It was a little scary going under the wall. There were murder holes everywhere. 'How would anyone even get through the gates?' Without bombs, I don't know how someone would take this city. I wouldn't attack it head on. Maybe they have giant catapults like lord of the rings.

I didn't get the chance to look around much, but the cities layout looked very organized. The street is cobbled and its lined with a few shops and inn's. Our group would have probably been running if it wouldn't have brought attention to us. We headed down streets and ally's to the eastside of the city. The building quality started to drop until it was no longer stone, but wood, then dropped further until it was more like sheds instead of houses. The streets went from cobbled to dirt. 'Clearly the slums.' There are people here and there that look a little shady, but they are mostly just normal malnourished peeps. There are kids running around playing and getting in trouble. Everyone avoids us.

Hawkeye led us to a "house" no different then the ones around it and knocked on its door. I opened a crack and I saw a pair of eyes. No words were exchanged, but the door opened and we walked into the small barren shed. There was a open hatch on the ground and a man or women covered from head to toe in rags. I could only make out their brown eyes. I keep being surprised that the people here don't smell horrible. It has to be the Clean spell. Hygiene even among the poor is great. I wonder what that means for disease and sickness in general in this world. 

"Faye and Yuna follow me." Amicia says. Heading down the ladder. We had already discussed that she was going to bring us to remove our seals immediately. I follow first. The room is very small. There is a table and a few chairs. Then a figure cloaked the same as the one upstairs. Only they smell like some kind of scented soap. Their eyes are red. Looks like someone from the dark side..

"Librarian." They say as a greeting. 'What a silky smooth voice! Librarian huh?' 

"Just do it" Amicia says. The person turns to us and looks us over. Then motions us to come closer. We do.

"Just drink this." They hand us both a flask. I look at it then look over at Amicia. She just nods her head at me. This seems so suspicious. Faye doesn't seem to share my doubts because she takes it and opens it bringing it to her lips. 

"Wait~!" I yell at her, causing her to jump a little. I pull the flask from her hand and down it. If there is something wrong with it, then i'll test it first. Tastes very similar to the Slave Seal mixture. I feel a burning around my neck the same as the Slave Seal as well. I grab my neck, but soon the pain dissipates. When I remove my hands they have a black fluid covering them.

"Is it gone~?" I turn to Faye and ask, showing my neck.

"Yes!" She says happily. I guess it's okay then.. I hand her my flask to drink. The guy/girl just watched me do all of this.

"Not very trusting are you?" They ask me. 

"Not when it concerns her safety~" I turn to look into those red eyes. "Especially when I can smell blood on your breath." 

"Fwahaha, don't worry little lion." They say chuckling. "I have a deal with the Librarian." They said turning their gaze to Amicia.

"You'll wish I was a lion if you did give me reason to worry." I say. Something about this person has me on edge and is making me aggressive. 'Why am I being like this?'

"Tsk, listen here slav-" They started saying, turning to glare at me. Their words catching in their throat as they looked into my eyes. (THUMP, thump) 

"What?! Berserker!!?" they yell. (THUMP, thump)

"Yuna!!!" Faye yells and turns me to face her. Looking into her panic stricken eyes I know I need to calm down. She's on her knees cupping my face in her hands. I close my eyes. 'Calm down.' Why did this even happen? Doesn't matter. Just calm down. Come on! Why am I so angry? Damnit all. I can't lose control here. (THUMP, thump) nonononono The opposite. I need to be happy not angry.

That's a problem. I only know how to be sad and angry. They feed off of each other. What can-

Something soft is pressing against my lips shocking me beyond my ability to think. I know that its a kiss and the only one who could be kissing me is Faye. My eyes fly open to see her face in front of mine. 

"Sorry!" she said pulling away blushing furiously. "It was the only thing I could think of." Ahh, I see. That makes since. Shocking me out of it was good thinking. Though I fear for my heart. That is if it wasn't already gone.

"Where did they go?" I say looking around. Its only Faye, Amicia and I in the room.

"They left." Amicia answers, eyeing me warily. "Come, lets head to a tavern." She said heading back up. Faye hurried after her avoiding looking at me.. (sigh) She was forced to kiss me, things are going to be awkward now.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Meanwhile elsewhere.....

 

   Hidden in a cave deep in a forest is a elegant little house. At least it was hidden and elegent. The front door is splinters and a person is standing next to it, seemingly on guard for intruders. Frantic crying is coming from inside.

"I don't know what your talking about!!" The shouting of a child like voice comes from inside. "Why would I do anything to your sister? You know I have no interest in any of that intrigue stuff. And i'm YOUR ally, Mira!!" Inside is a little boy being pressed into a couch by the foot of a beautiful women with silver hair. The boy's response seems to strike a cord within her and she looks ashamed.

"I'm sorry Ezral." She said removing her foot. "Its just that she's dead.."

"I understand Mira, believe me." Ezral said getting up and dusting himself off. "I know your temper, but why would I ever harm her?"

"Its just that you were the closest person that could have gotten to her.." Mira admits. "And the others are the Royals of this kingdom." she says in a small voice.

"Hmm… They have been acting strangely for a few years now." Ezral mutters in thought. "When was she killed? Do you have her body?"

"It was a few weeks ago. And no, I don't know where she died." Mira answers sadly.

"Maybe we should pay them a visit. BUT. Its likely they are not involved, but they may have information on someone that could be. So please stay calm and don't reveal yourself Mira. Please, or i'm going to have to ask you to stay here." Ezral pleaded.

"I promise" Mira said with a fanged smile.

"(sigh) Why don't I believe you." Ezral said more to himself. "But you would go either way. Its better for me to go with you."  Then he turned to her. "Also, you owe me a door."