Erika’s feet were about to fall off. She was lagging slightly behind Marian, but every step felt like her tendons were going to rip. She looked at Marian, who walked without any signs of pain, and she couldn’t help but groan.

If only they had horses, things wouldn’t be this bad and painful.

Still, Erika was going to show Marian that she wasn’t a burden. This little bit of pain was nothing she couldn’t take. She walked faster and caught up with Marian.

“Is something wrong?” Marian asked, breaking her wary vigilance to look at Erika.

Erika shook her head.

“You looked pained. Do you need to rest?” Marian sounded concerned, but even so, she was looking all around them with caution, not letting down her guard. It was pretty clear that she didn’t want to stop just yet, but she would if needed to for Erika’s sake.

Erika was tempted to say yes, that she would die if she went much further, but she shook her head adamantly and turned away. She was afraid if she talked now, all that was going to come out were complaints.

Besides, Marian was walking on crutches, so Erika had no right to complain when she had two functioning legs and was only tired.

Something was thrust in front of her, and she almost ran into it. It was a canteen of water. She followed the hand and arm to Marian’s warm, kind smile. “You should drink some water, or you’ll become dehydrated.”

Erika nodded and stopped to drink and regretted it immediately. The moment she stopped walking, all the soreness that she had been holding at bay through sheer force of will fell upon her, and she winced.

“As I thought.” Marian sighed and glared at her. “If you’re tired, then you’re tired. There’s no need to push yourself.” Finding a random protruding root, she went and sat down. Taking the canteen back from Erika, she gulped down a mouthful as well.

“If you only ever stop before your limits, you’ll never push past it,” Erika muttered. Still, she didn’t argue and sat down next to Marian.

Normally, Erika could walk much further than this, but the forest floor was much softer than stone and packed dirt village grounds she was used to, and she had to constantly keep herself in balance when she stepped on the uneven surface below the loam. It was hard to predict what her next steps would bring, and it was exhausting. 

While there was technically a path, the path was so little traveled that the entirety of the route was just a series of markings on trees that Marian pointed out. The passage of time had the trees heal over the cuts, and sometimes the marks on the bark were so faint Marian had to draw her sword to renew the markers for people after them.

Taking out a small piece of jerky, Erika chewed it until she wouldn’t choke on it and swallowed it down with a gulp of water. As the food slid down into her belly in one big clump, she sighed with satisfaction when her grumbling stomach was finally silenced.

The air was still. Despite the chirping birds and insects, the forest sounded almost silent. Marian’s sultry voice cut through the silence.

“Well, there’s no point in just sitting here. Let’s begin working on the power you have awakened. What is the conclusion you came to in the end?”

Erika was about to tell her everything and then paused. As close as she felt to the traveler, ultimately, she had met Marian for less than a week. There were still differences between Marian and Tabitha. Erika would be lying if she said she could boldly proclaim her deepest thoughts in front of Marian. In the end, she simply summarized her conversation with Tabitha. “I wish to control my own future. I don’t want to be restricted and tied down.”

Marian nodded. “Then let’s start here. First, you don’t wish to control your own future. You will control your own future. You lack resolve… Well, no, not really.” Marian corrected herself. “I suppose the problem is that you’ve never had the opportunity to actually fully awaken your ability. I became a Rover in the heat of battle.”

“So, what should I do?” Erika asked. “I feel like I’m a bit faster now, but I don’t feel like I have any special powers.”

Marian shrugged. “I’m only one person. Even though I’m a Rover, I don’t know everything there is about it. My job is to watch over you until you do develop an ability. Still, your desire is difficult. It’s more philosophical than tangible. There’s no telling when you will awaken and what form your ability will take.”

Erika sighed and looked at the sky, but it was obstructed by the tall trees around her. “So I might never fully awaken?”

“Yes, but I doubt that will happen. There’s one more possibility, though. You might have already awakened but haven’t realized it due to your inexperience or because it’s complicated. During what would’ve been my last moments, my ability appeared and saved my life by covering me in armor. Simple and direct. However, this kind of awakening does not suit you nor your desire.”

Erika nodded. “I’ll keep thinking.” She moved her feet. The soreness was still there, but she felt that she might never want to get up again if she rested any longer. She didn’t want to keep Marian back any more than she already had. “Let’s keep going. You don’t need to wait for me.”

“Well, if you’re sure. But first…” Marian unsheathed her sword and picked up a fallen branch. She quickly trimmed down the bark, leaving just the smooth inner wood. She tossed it to Erika. “This might help.”

Erika accepted it gratefully, and they began to walk again.

 

At night, they simply slept leaning against a tree. Marian simply dozed off, but Erika couldn’t get used to it. She ended up using her satchel as a pillow to at least give her head a comfortable place to lean.

Although Marian said that Erika could sleep since Marian’s enhanced instincts from her ability will wake her up if trouble comes, Erika didn’t believe in something as unreliable as instincts. Besides, her own senses could sense the hostile intents of monsters near them, so it wasn’t like she could willingly sleep in the first place without getting a heart attack. 

According to Marian, her senses acted by detecting the powers of awakened beings. In a way, monsters were simply awakened animals or other creatures with abilities similar to Rovers. However, they were unable to control that power, and the power consumed them instead, warping them into the form of monsters.

The thought was not reassuring— the image of an armored bear charging at her haunted Erika’s troubled dreams.

The forest was more alive. Creatures not active during the day now moved under cover of darkness. Small critters dashed through the underbrush, all keeping a healthy distance from them.

Erika held her knife close, ready to stab at anything that came within arm’s reach. But listening to the quiet murmurs of the forest and the steady breaths of Marian sleeping next to her, Erika’s eyes grew heavier with exhaustion until she was lulled to sleep.

 

She woke up with a start in the middle of the night. A hand pressed on her shoulder and covered her mouth, pushing her back onto her satchel.

“Shhh… don’t let them know you’re awake,” Marian murmured, just loud enough for her to hear. She nodded, and Marian took her hand away from her mouth. She tried to relax.

While rubbing her lips where Marian’s soft palm had touched her, Erika threw out her senses to encompass the forest nearby. Three awakened animals were drawing closer. Monsters. From them, she discovered a new “shape” of abilities. The three monsters had misty and blurry presences as if they were ghosts. 

While Erika knew they were there, she couldn’t pinpoint their exact location, and the sudden change scared her. What if my senses are weakening? Is my awakening becoming undone…?

As they got closer, the monsters seemed to become more and more unclear until they were almost on top of Marian and her.

Almost simultaneously, the hazy presences sharpened, both a pleasant surprise and something really, really bad. At the same time, Marian’s power exploded as she summoned her armor.

The monsters, feline, pounced out of the underbrush. Erika felt their spears turn to shields in alarm, but Marian’s heavy sword was already in motion.

A heavy wave of pressure and wind burst from her slash, and even though it wasn’t directed at her, it still knocked Erika flying. Where the wave was aimed, it stalled the monsters in midair and flung them back. Then a bright white line stretched from Marian’s sword, tracing a crescent and flying outwards.

It was over before Erika landed on the ground. The cutting light was aimed to catch all of the panthers in its trajectory, and when the light faded, blood spurted from the deep open wounds on the panthers’ chests.

They could only fall helplessly onto the floor as the blood drained from their bodies, dyeing the ground red.

Erika watched, eyes wide. Marian keeps pulling out one trick after another in her battles. First, she can move almost instantaneously in a charge, then she could release a blast of air to block incoming objects, and she could create cutting light from her sword tip.

She was growing more and more confused about what an ability should consist of. She had no idea what the limitations of a Rover’s ability were. What else did she not see while she was hiding under that boar skin?

More than ever, she wanted to see what her own power was and how it compared to what Marian was capable of.

 

They seemed to get attacked every other night, and Erika felt herself going crazy from losing so much sleep. She had never gone so many days without proper rest before, but after seeing Marian take everything in stride, Erika swallowed her complaints.

Perhaps the heavens themselves felt sorry for her because each day, Erika felt herself growing stronger. Even though she didn’t have a proper ability, her awakening poured pure energy into her, almost as if she was being baptized, washing away her old body and forging a new one. Each night, the soreness in her feet faded, and it took her longer to get tired the next day.

During the trip, she also continued her hobby: carving.

Whenever they took a break, Erika took out her knife. To her pleasant surprise, carving had become much easier. Thanks to her new strength, she misjudged the force necessary to take off the amount of wood she wanted, and she ruined a few pieces. However, when she adjusted, her new dexterity took her carving to new heights, and it only took her a day to make a crude carving of Marian in her spiked armor. 

Marian claimed it for herself.

The next settlement, Morganor, was only a day’s walk away, and it was on that last day of walking that Marian turned to her with a serious expression on her face.

“Erika…”

“Yes?”

“Tomorrow, we will enter Morganor. Unlike your little village, this settlement has a proper name. There are more people than you can imagine living there.”

Erika laughed. “Oh, come on, how many? A few hundred?” That was the population of a few villages combined, and to her shock, Marian shook her head.

“Compared to villages, Morganor is more connected to the world at large. It’s a shire. There are more people and more technology. Morganor, in particular, is a large shire and has several tens of thousand people. Once we reach there, you will be stepping into a whole new world.”

Erika froze. She couldn’t even imagine ten thousand people, much less several tens. The number of wheat grains needed to make a loaf of bread, but instead of tiny grains, they were people, and they were all living in the same place. Her mind spun…

“Wow…”

“And, as we walk into this new world, it’s about time to start peeling back your ignorance, starting with the history of the Rovers.”