As soon as the three escapes regained their senses and some of their strength, they immediately ran. With the dwarf as their guide they headed deeper and deeper into the forest, but something made Max surprised as they maybe had ran for about 20 minutes.

 The trees around him were no longer without leaves and sickly, but we're instead becoming more lush with greenery and the forest floor was filled with grass and different kind of bushes. 'This is incredible....for such a thing to be possible?' thought Max as he followed behind his two companion's. The dwarf was having a hard time leading them with his short leg's, and Gus was having some difficulty with his stature as branches were constantly on his face, so Max was the most relaxed out of all of them. Of course this wasn't how he would have reacted a couple of months ago, but after waving at death a couple of times, he had become somewhat calloused, so he turned off his brain and opened up his status.

Name: Maximilian Clark( Summoned Creature)

Level: 4

HP: 53/65

MP: 33/55

Class: N/A

Physique: 7

Vitality: 6

Soul: 5

Skills: Internal Mana Sight Lv 3

Inborn Talent: Enchanting Touch (A)

Titles: Demon Slayer; Demon's Mark

What he saw made Max almost stumble on his own feet. His status had changed, two of his stats had risen, he went to level 3, and even his only skill had raised by one level .'This, how could this have happened? Could it be...' The sudden increase was unexpected , but Max suspected It was due to the fight with the cloaked man. It was the only thing he could make sense of as he couldn't think of any other reason. 

...........

The three of them had travelled for about four hours with two brief rests of less than five minutes, so they were quite a distance from the camp at the moment. They were quite tired and thirsty from their trip, but they were still determined to continue their escape untill they couldn't anymore. Of course this was if they could, and the thing Gus discovered made them stop in their track's.

"This...is not a good sign."

"Indeed.....

The three of them were gathered around a 50 cm wide and 1 m deep hole filled with sharp wooden spikes at the bottom. It was clearly a trap constructed by some kind of intelligent specie's , something they didn't really want to encounter at the moment.

"Who do you think made this trap?" voiced Max as Gus was sniffing the air for something, and the dwarf was looking at some tracks not far away from the hole. 

"I'm not certain, but I think I have an idea." answered the dwarf without raising his head " To my knowledge, around this part of the forest there is a main road that connects two or more middle sized cities, and besides dirt, a road definitely has another thing....

"Another thing? What thing?" 

"Bandits of course." said Gus with a snort. He seemed to have finished sniffing around , and approached the dwarf who was still looking at the tracks. " It's not the smell of humans, beast men , or dwarves, even though I picked up their smell. Most likely they are....

"Mhmm....I figured as much. These tracks are definitely that of a Gogo , and I don't know of any other species besides 'them' who had tamed those monster's." frowned the dwarf.

"Indeed, it has to be them....

"..........

Max was confused and felt left out of the loop , so he also approached the dwarf to see what was going on. What he saw on the ground were faint but huge print's on the forest floor. They seemed to him like huge chicken footprints, but he didn't say anything as he didn't want to sound ignorant, even though he was.

" It seems that we can't go this way anymore, so we have to take a detour, or get on the road." said the dwarf with a sigh " Either way, we risk it, but we have to make our mind quickly."

After he finished his words , both he and Gus turned towards Max, who raised an eyebrow at them in confusion. " What, do I have something on my face? Why are you looking at me like that?" said Max as he felt somewhat uncomfortable.

"It's not that, but I was hoping you had a solution for this." said the dwarf as he looked at Max up and down" You are quite a peculiar human, or a mysterious one I should say? You successfully escaped your cell by an unknown means, and even felled that terrifying foe without as much as a scratch, so I was hoping you had a solution. Taking a detour will send us into unknown territory and danger, while if we follow the road we take the chance of being discovered, and I'm sure none of us would want that."

"That so..." the dwarves words made him frown" Is there no other way? Couldn't we just run straight through their territory? I mean, if we are fast enough, and stealthy enough we don't have to change our path."

"It's possible, but very unlikely." said the dwarf, somewhat dejected at Max's word's. "The reptilians unlike other humanoid beings detest everyone besides themselves, so even a hint of suspicion of trespassers in their territory will be meet with death."

"So we are stuck between a rock and a hard place?"

"Indeed, that's a good way to describe it, but we have to choose the lesser of two evils, so I suggest we wait for the sun to set and head on the main road. That will put us close to a mid sized town, and we can figure out what we can  do from there."

".......

Max wanted to object, to say they needed more time to think, but he didn't say anything as he didn't know what to say. He had survived in this place, had endured captivity, escaped it, but he didn't feel free at all. Something seemed to shackle him, stoping from living peacefully, but he couldn't do anything about it, so he just went with the flow."Fine, I'll do as you say, but it's better to come up with some other plans in the meantime."

"Agreed...." smilingly said the dwarf while Gus only listened. He also seemed to want to say something, but held his tongue.