It has been a day since we walk away from the ship. As the three girls are weaken from the fight, I brought the corpses and buried them in sanded land beside the ship alone that night. The next day in the afternoon, we brought necessary items and abandon the ship. 

I carry Clementine as her in leg injury is bad. Luckily, the petite Clementine is far lighter than the tall Sekrit and Ivanna. 

We are now on board Sekrit's small boat. We take turn to row the boat.  Some part of water is frozen and that hinder our journey. That should be no problem, however, as we bring plenty of cooked meal from the ship. We just hope Negara's soldiers won't come after us.

Clementine's face is pale, but she has always been acting as it is nothing. 

From what we could see, the wound is deep although it is not considered fatal. I approach to where she is cowering and embrace her. The other two girls, remain stuck up, just watching us as the boat move according to river flow. Luckily, the river flow bring us away from the ship. It saves us from the hassle of spending energy in constantly rowing boat in the cold weather. 

The short haired blond girl, appearing resigned, bit down on the blanket and squeezes her eyes shut. Was she this cute before?

"Can you still fight?" I ask in hushed voice into her right ear. 

"Of course, I can." she replies, perhaps a little more hotly than necessary.

She isn't bragging exactly. But even if she could still shoot, her mobility is impaired. At least for the remainder of the week.

"We just hope they don't find about us." Sekrit interferes.

***

At night.

The creaking sound of rowing oars can be heard going at a steady pace.

Inside the narrow boat, Sekrit lays on her back with her hands behind her head. I am rowing with Ivanna.

Meanwhile, Clementine seems to get annoyed beside me every time the creaking sound is made. 

"Red haired slut. can’t you row any quieter?"

I could hear the sound of teeth grinding out of vexation from Ivanna. 

"I guess your best role is riding on top of men." Clementine teases her nonchalantly.

"How dare you.. you're the one who ruin my life."

Ivanna stomps her foot down and takes one step forward.

"You enjoy the sex too much for someone whose body is ruined." Clementine says uninterestedly.

"I’ll cut you down right here…" Ivanna throws ther rowing oar to my leg.

"Ooh, how scary, how scary."

When Clementine exaggerates her fear and jumps into my arms, a real bloodlust, starts oozing out from Ivanna.

When she is about to pick up a sword, she realizes the bandage covering Clementine's leg which drenched with red.

Ivanna’s grip on her sword weakens. Her pride will not allow her to cut down an injured person.

"Sorry to disturb you girls but bad news is here " Sekrit who has been silent , suddenly points to our behind seriously.

Enemies ship... A small one... It is filled with men. That flag is Negara's." She manages to conclude this many information although the ship is about 1 kilometers from us.

"They’re really coming to where we are…… we aren’t lucky at all."

Sekrit doesn’t give the enemy anything more than a quick glance despite all the complaints and puts a sausage into her mouth.

"1 small Negara ship usually accommodates 30 men. Probably there is another small ship after them. We won't make it." Clementine interferes, tries to raise her body but fall into my shoulder.

Sekrit savagely bites down and tears off a chunk of sausage, the meat snapping crisply.

"The enemy has great numbers? Hmpf, sending that amount of soldiers and ships to land in front us, do they think I’m a mere trembling fawn?"

Sekrit snickers and then grins.

It isn’t a smile that reassured those around her.

Like the lifting of the corners of a wolf’s mouth when prey appears before it…… that was the kind of smile it was.

Sekrit spits the chewed tip of the sausage onto the ground before going on.

"Row the boats quickly to the riverside. We are abandoning this boat."

Ivanna, Sekrit and I rows as hard as we could towards the riverside. Due to our size and weight, we move much faster than the closing ship.

"Lucky for us. They haven't notice our boat yet. Otherwise, they would row as quick as possible to chase us." Sekrit mutters.

Our boat finally reaches the verge of the river.

We pack our stuffs into bags. Ivanna and Sekrit carries 3 bags each. Meanwhile, I carry Clementine and a bag.

"Silly Hiro. Hide the boat. Otherwise, they find us." Sekrit warns me. Come to think about it, it will attract their attention if we leave the boat on a place with unobstructed view.

We pull the boat onto the river bank. The distance between the river and the nearest woodland is around 10 meters. We continue to pull the boat, sliding across the land with grass beside the river until deep into the woodland. Our footsteps crunch on the sand and rampantly growing seaweed.

We abandon the boat behind thick spruce trees which their leaves cover the boat.

"The ship is still not there yet." Ivanna stretches her neck to measure how far the ship is until here. 

Then, we walk deeper into the pine, maple, oak, birch and spruce trees.