"... Where are we even going, Boss?"

"Haven't I told you many times already?"

"You have but... Why are we even going to Kaimon?! Hasn't there been a coup or something?"

"Are you really that clueless...?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I said 'We're going past Kaimon', not into it. Also, haven't you heard what happened to the queen?"

"Not realy... What happened?"

"Some say they shipped her to the DarkClaw..."

"Herklaw!?"

"Shut the hell down! You want to get us killed?!"

"Huh? What do you—"

"Don't. I'll tell you when we're out of here. God, Bahr, I should've taught you better."

"Bahr! Gus!"

The two instantly turned back, to see a young boy running behind them from where the workshop used to be.

"Hey, lil twig. What you coming here for?" Despite the clearly teasing nickname, Gustav talked to the kid with a softness Bahr seldom saw from the weathered man.

"Are you... Are you guys really going away?" The boy asked, looking up at him, almost tearful.

"Yes, lil boy. We are. There's only so much I could do around here..." Without waiting for him to finish, the boy jumped at him, hugging his waist. Gustav rubbed his head, messing up the boys hair. "Tell her... I'll miss her a lot. I'll be sending word as soon as I settle down."

"Yes!" The kid let go of him, nodding energetically. "We're going there once that happens, right?"

"I can't say that for sure, kid. But tell her I'll make both of you know as soon as I can. With luck it shouldn't be long." He said, still softer than usual. But in a second, he hardened his resolve. speaking to the kid as he's used to. "Now don't take long. Go back to your mom. Tell her we're going east and north till the narrow, but no further north than that, no further east than the greats. Did you get that?"

"Yes! East north till narrow, not north than narrow, no east than greats."

"That's it, my boy. Now go tell her that. She'll know."

"I'll go. See you soon, Gus."

"See you, kid..." He muttered as the two saw the kid running back, occasionally turning around to wave at them, to which Gustav waved back too.

"He's really grown attached to you, hasn't he? I gues you really took him as your own." Bahr talked to the artisan, watching the kid run to his home. 

"Yeah... He did, just how you did when I brought you in..."

"Yeah... Just like— Wait, what!?"

"Forget it, nitwit! Now let's get going before it gets too late." The middle-aged man turned around, walking down the road into the wilderness.

"Wait!" The young apprentice ran after him. "Didn't you really like her though?" He asked, as he reached the man, and started walking alongside him. 

"Of course I did. I've been here for over a decade now."

"But you never married her..."

"Of course not, I was never meant to stay this long. And she also never forgot the deceased husband of hers. I could never take his place in her heart."

"But you did in her bed... and also for that kid..."

"One thing in one thing, the other, is another. Don't mix things up. Learn it from now. Even if a woman welcomes you into her bed, does not mean she welcomes you into her heart. And the ones who pretend are the nastiest."

"But what if she actually felt something for you after all this time...?"

"Then there's no need to worry. As soon as I tell her where I'm at, she'll come after me. And if she does, then I'll know. Actions, not words."

"I guess so..." Bahr slowed down a bit, walking slightly behind the man who took him in when his father died. 'I guess the old man has a thing for orphans and widows' He giggled as he thought about the past, watching his mentor walk towards their next stop.

"You're thinking something pointless again, aren't you?" The man asked, annoyed.

"How did you—?"

"I always know what's in your mind. Now come, we gotta reach Polyana before the end of the month."

"Huh!? But that's only a couple days from now!"

"Precisely. No resting until we get the horses." He said, joking but with a serious tone. There was no way Bahr could see his gentle smirk from behind. 'I'll miss her quite a lot...' He thought, staring up to the clouds that reminded him of what he was leaving behind, and the clear sky that made him sure of the future ahead.

---------------------------------------------

"AAAAH!"

"Are you okay!?" Gloria held Mihara's hand as she screamed in pain once again. She was being carried by the goblins on a stretcher, towards the depths of the dungeon.

"Why? Why do you even care whether I'm fine or not? Ugh." Mihara spoke to her, before her face once again warped in pain as her muscles tore and her whole body warped from the inside. 

"Because I do."

"Why? Am I not just the other one to you?"

"You are. But that's not what matters."

"What is it then?" Mihara asked, curious, as the pain subsided a little.

"He... likes you. And if something happens to you, he could go crazy again and hurt himself like last time."

"Last time?"

DarkGodEM

I lost the timing for editing the volume :/ Classes are back and Uni decided to jampack this semester with a lot of hard content (Pathology, Immunology, Microbiology, Parasitology, Surgery, Pharmacology and so on...) so editing has slowed down to a crawl. Due to this, this book's writing has also gotten slower, which is why the release rates are so low still. Sorry again.