V spoke with both L and the innkeep, "While in town, even inside your inn, I am going to need to act cold, or worse, toward Eika. I don’t enjoy slavery, but the Shivering Shackle needs to think I do. If it gets back to them that I’m treating the girl to meals and baths, they are going to know I swindled them." V figured it would be on the wrong side of wisdom to let an organization called the Slave Guild, a national institution, realize he had swindled them. "Even your daughter needs to think I’m abusive to Eika, she is a child so there is no way to trust her to keep the secret." The innkeep nodded. To be honest, V would have preferred to leave the innkeep in the dark as well, but L wanted him to know that she was not hanging around someone who was abusing the weak for fun. V understood that, well, from her perspective anyway. "You’re playing a dangerous game. Although, since this is a small town, once you get out of here, you should be in the clear. I doubt they have records of Eika in other guild establishments." The innkeep had a dark look on his face as he cautioned V.

The small woman who first lent Eika to V opened the door to inn, following behind was Eika. Her head and ears hung down low, around her neck was some type of collar, it honestly looked like a braided vine made of iron. V was surprised at the detail that seemingly went into its creation, considering Eika's current status. The small woman scanned the room before spotting him and L setting and eating. She walked over and nodded her head in greeting "I’ve come to deliver Ei-, uh, your recent guild purchase." She gestured at Eika, "With her demotion to dredge she was fitted with an aptly named "Iron Dredge." Enslavement magic can only go so far without physical aid. The collar assures that a dredge cannot disobey any order, we hope the design is to your liking, it’s the most popular one in noble circles in the capital right now..." She trailed off for a few moments before continuing "She has a few items that belong to her, if there is somewhere you would like her to place them?" V furrowed his brow and gestured up the steps, "She knows where we are sleeping." Eika wordlessly, without looking up, shuffled up the steps. The small woman spoke up again, "If you are satisfied, then I must be going, cannot afford to be gone too long from the guild these days. Always one problem or another." V nodded in wordless dismissal. As she turned to leave, she halted a moment "Sir, I know it’s not my place, and I know she almost got you killed, but please don’t be too harsh on her. She has had a rough time of it. She's earnest and tries her best, she just... never really had a chance you know? And please don’t take her things away from her." The small women quickly left, not giving V time to respond.

Eika had returned quickly from stashing her things upstairs. She stood next to the table, wordless. Head and ears still hung low. A few people were in the inn eating their evening meal and had witnessed the delivery. V "accidentally" dropped the iron spoon he had been using for soup, and glared at Eika. As he suspected, she could feel his harsh gaze on her. She wordlessly picked up his spoon and placed it back on the table. When V was done eating, he pushed the bowl toward Eika who quickly picked it up and started off to the kitchen to return the dish. However, V pushed his chair out from the table in such a way that one of the legs tripped her. Eika and the bowl clattered to the ground. V grabbed the collar around her neck, and pulled her up by it. "Don't make any more mistakes. I'm warning you, now that I don’t have to return you, I’m not tolerating it anymore." Eika muttered softly "Yes sir." Over the course of the evening, V continued to act in the same manner as some of his old comrades. He never thought that witnessing a bunch of assholes abuse people in his previous life would come in handy, but he figured emulating them gave a sense of authenticity to the act.

After the three of them returned to their room, Eika quickly and silently went to bed. Once L was sure she was asleep she spoke, "I guess I should not be surprised, but I was not expecting you to be quite so practiced at being an awful human being." V chuckled softly "I appreciate the compliment, but I can’t take the credit for this one, just copying the masters." She rolled her eyes and fingered her broken sword hilt before responding. "I think I’m strong enough to engage in real combat now. I should be able to crush any number of mantises, but those gorilla monster things might still be a problem. Especially the ones with S ranks and multiple levels. I will join you and Eika in going to the forest tomorrow, but I will probably just stay and hunt around the tree line. The only time you encountered the mixed types was deeper in, right?" V nodded "It is good you will soon be good enough to fight in earnest, we will need to really up our combat ability. Perhaps you should also consider leveling a class other than your Divine one. Even though the amount of experience you need is actually feasible, it still will take a while. We have no idea how fast or slow the other Divine Champions are gaining power." She simply continued playing with the broken sword hilt in silence. Before long, V also went to sleep.

L had gotten up first once again, waking both V and Eika. "I want to get an early start today. I’m tired of my wounded body holding me back." She sure was rearing to go this morning, V sighed to himself as he got up and went thought his morning routine. As the three of them headed toward the forest, V made sure not to give Eika time to get her hair or clothes in proper order, assuring she looked disheveled. As they crested the tree-line L spoke up "I’m going to stay around here, but I was thinking. Once you are deeper into the forest, it would probably be safe to let the girl in on what’s going on. I don't think I can keep watching you for however long we stay in town unless the girl is in on it." Eika, if she knew L was referring to her, did not show it, continuing her downward gaze. V had expected a demand like this. He was sort of surprised L made it this long. "Sure, it might even end up being beneficial for us, having her in on it."

They trudged through the forest, Eika listening to the forest, ears once again standing up, waiting for any sounds the wind might carry to them. Figuring he was far enough out from where any logging would be going on, he stopped. "Eika. Hold a moment, we need to talk about something." V explained the situation, from the original plan to buy, to his current plan to continue fooling the guild. Over the course of his explanation Eika quickly regained her boundless energy. "Ohhhh! Eika was so sad! I wanted to help you but then when Gergor told me how angry you were I did not know what to say! I thought I had almost gotten a Divine Champion killed and made you upset! I thought you hated Eika! I was so sorry about everything! I thought I would never be able to help you anymore! And then you bought me and I thought that Eika deserved all the punishment and stuff!" Eika jumped in place, the sudden revival of her mood overwhelming her, " Hay! Maybe I should cry all the time! That would help right?! Maybe when we are walking around, I should grab people and cry and ask them to save me! Then the guild will really think your socking it to me! What if I try to throw myself out a window! "The pain is just too much I want to die!" sort of thing? Maybe I should try to stab you? Angry slaves would stab bad masters, right? What if I roll around in mud so I sti-" V raised his hand, cutting her off "Look just act like you had been. Act defeated and sad. If you suddenly do all those things, the guild might get suspicious. We call your ideas "Overacting." Sometimes it’s even more obvious then underacting." Eika's large round eyes sparkled as she nodded "Ohhh that's smart! I’ll keep acting like I have not ate anything for days! Oh....." She stopped "Eika is sort of hungry...." V had only let her eat some bread back at the inn. So, it made sense. "Can you find something to eat in the forest?" Eika nodded and quickly went searching.

As she sat and ate a strange assortment of greens, Eika pointed up at the tree branches "While I was searching, I saw a bird." V nodded slowly, unsure as to why she thought that was worth saying. She looked at him for a few moments, waiting for a response. "That.... is nice?" V offered slowly. Eika shook her head "I thought it was weird. Normally Eika sees all sorts of birds. This one just kept showing up though." She scanned the treetops while she ate. "Oh look!" She pointed toward a bird that, to V, looked much like a large crow. Although, something about the birds’ eyes looked off to V, he could not quite place why. "That bird kept showing up in the trees while Eika searched!" She seemed unconcerned as she ate. "Maybe it’s the forest fairies. We saved them, right? Maybe they are watching over us!" V furrowed his brow as he considered the situation. Perhaps it was the fairies. Perhaps not. After Eika was done eating, they resumed the search for Mantises, V kept an eye out for the bird, and it did indeed keep showing up. It was clearly watching them, something about the bird triggered a sense of Deja vu in V, he might have seen the bird before, but if he did, he could not remember where.

The two of them had found a few mantises, all normal. In-fact, it was going considerably better today than it was the last few trips. It was still slow going, but they had not run into any of the gorilla versions they needed to avoid, making it a-lot easier to navigate. However, after the most recent kill Eika had grown wary, she reported that she felt like something was stalking them, and that she thought she heard some heavy footfalls, like a gorillas’, for a few moments, but she could not locate the source. After a few minutes of this, Eika stopped. "Eika does not know about this. I have a very bad feeling." Her long ears and fluffy rabbit tail twitched every few seconds. V wondered if that was her "prey animal" instincts. He did not have the same feeling of danger, but the forest did feel more...eerie than normal. "Maybe you're right. We can come back tomorrow...." Eika shook her head "I don’t... want to leave yet. It might be dangerous to go back. Eika has a new ability I can try. Did you see that I leveled up? The guild let me level after I returned." V had noticed her status had changed on the scroll he placed his thumbprint on. "It's called Far Sense! It lets me focus really well, but Eika is vulnerable while using it. It is like meditating." V nodded "Well I’ll protect your body, if you think using it can help us figure out what is going on." Eika sat down on the grass, when she activated her ability, her body went somewhat rigged, it made her ears sort of like look radar dishes, as they swiveled while being extremely straight up and down. Three minutes passed like this. Eika setting there while V stood lookout.

"Eika does not know...." she had suddenly awoken and stood up. "It is like a shadow moving in the forest. It’s not making noise, but it seems really big. There are also two of those strange birds. One watching us and another one has been flying in circles above us..." V drew his sword, at this point he figured it was safe to say that something was going on past the normal "strange forest stuff." "Eika let us get out of here, we can come back tomorrow." Eika nodded, slowly she started leading him out of the forest, after a few minutes she stopped. "V, we are in trouble." Eika looked scared. More scared than he had ever seen her, perhaps even more then when he first saved her. "There are a lot of things in the area now. I can hear them through the trees." She whispered, her tone and words much more serious than normal. "I might be able to get through them, but we are very nearly surrounded, and you’re not as quiet as I am..." V switched to Divine Champion, as frankly, it was considerably better than swordsman. "Would just sprinting away work?" Eika shook her head "I don’t know. Eika thinks I can find a way forward..." She had not led him astray so far, so he decided to trust her. "Well let’s try getting out of here quietly, we can always resort to "fleeing" later..." They crept through the forest, often making quick sudden changes to direction. A few times V sighted the monstrous form of a mantis gorilla through the trees. "Hay, Eika.... have we made any progress on actually getting out of here? I'm not a woodsman but I’m fairly sure we have doubled back once or twice." She whispered, her eyes large and filled with fear "A little bit, but we are mostly heading south, we need to be heading east."

As they continued to sneak through the forest, Eika reported that it seemed as if the things surrounding them were following them, they were always "surrounded" no matter how far they traveled. A thought entered into V's head, it sort of felt like him and Eika were being herded. Like sheep by a sheepdog. The dog runs around the sheep, leaving only one avenue for them to travel, it never comes any closer but always "surrounds" them. "Hay Eika, are we still heading mainly south? If so, we need to come up with a new plan, because -" As he spoke, he heard a soft click, and felt something under his right foot give way. He immediately shoved Eika forward as he was drawn into the air by a net of steel wire. Eika hit a tree, but luckily, avoided the net trap. Eika let out a small sound, a cross between a scream, a yelp and a sniffle. "Eh!" she looked up at V "Oh no! I think they heard that! The monsters are heading this way!" She panicked wildly as V took stock of the situation. There was no way he was cutting through wire; the net was drawn up by a counterbalance that Eika could never possibly destroy her on her own. He was not going to be able to escape, that being said, he doubted the mantis gorillas had the capability of crafting steel wire and laying a trap. They were almost universally too stupid to even dodge trees during a chase. If you trap something with a net, you normally are not going to kill it right away anyway. "Eika run! Run as fast as you can. Ill cover your noise, tell L what happened!" Eika hesitated "No! No, I can’t run away! They will eat you! I can’t leave you!" Really this was not the time. "This is an order Eika! DO IT!" The collar around her neck turned a reddish-purple color and Eika took off running. "AHHHHH!!!!!!" V screamed as loudly as he could, hoping it sounded like genuine fear, and not like a dude obviously screaming to attract attention.

Despite Eika's fears, no monsters came to eat V. In-fact, for a minute or two nothing really seemed to happen at all other than him screaming and making as much noise as he could. One of the crow-like birds landed on the top of the net. At this range, V could tell why its eyes looked strange to him, they were the compound eyes of a mantis.