“No.”

“H-huh?! B-but w-why?”

“I don’t want to.”

“B-but it’s e-embarrassing.”

“I know.”

“B-but—”

“Come on, keep going.”

Elwen reluctantly lowered her head. Her face was completely flushed with embarrassment, but she was forced to continue her humiliating act. Her eyes were practically filled with tears as she stuffed another cookie into her mouth.

Varian smiled at her in amusement. He was glad he managed to find a bakery on his way back from the general store. He got some little cookies for Elwen because he knew that she loved them. He was a little worried that they wouldn’t be any good, but he was happy when he saw that she liked them. But he never expected her to make such cute expressions while she was munching on them. She looked like a squirrel, puffing up her cheeks and nibbling on the tiny cookies while holding them with both hands. It was almost too much.

Still, he had work to do, so he couldn’t spend all day watching her, even if he would enjoy it. They had left the city early in the morning, after taking a light breakfast at the inn and getting some more supplies. All of them wanted to get out as soon as possible, so they left as early as they could. Admittedly, it might have been a little too early, they all still had a morning haze clouding their minds. But, it was better than spending more time in the city and risking getting robbed or worse. He wanted to cut those guards from the night before into little pieces, but he figured that it wasn’t a good idea.

The scenery was much the same as it was on the way to Krinsburg, although the mountains were now behind them and they were heading to flatter terrain. They were travelling a little faster now, too, on account of the horses not needing to zig-zag up the steep hills to prevent the wagons from slipping back. The merchants still had them do this on the larger hill to prevent wearing out their horses, but it wasn’t necessary for most of the hills now.

They could see massive fields of gold in the distance, likely the farms that sustained the city. Well, he and the merchants could see them. Elwen had fallen asleep shortly after finishing her cookies. The villages belonged to the Empire, as they had not gone nearly far enough to cross back over into the Kingdom’s territory. He would have thought that the city would have been better off than it was with farms of that size, but apparently not. It made him curious as to why the city was so poor, but he didn’t care enough to try to find out.

It didn’t matter to him. Glancing back at Elwen’s sleeping form, he knew that he was only here for one reason. He looked back at the distant horizon.

‘Ok, maybe a few more reasons, if I could be permitted to be so greedy.’

The next few days were rather uneventful. They finally reached mostly flat ground, with only gentle hills. The mountains were now far in the distance, the golden fields long behind them. Just this morning, they had entered the forest that lay on the border between the Kingdom and the Empire, and the merchants said it would only be about another three days before they reach Ravensburg, unless they suddenly decided to slow down. As long as nothing bad happened, they would definitely make their delivery date.

“Hehehe.” He heard coming from the forest in front of them as three men clad in brown cloaks stepped out from behind the trees, swords drawn. He immediately stood up, ready to jump down and fight. There was no reason for those men to stop them unless they were attempting to rob them.

‘Well, at least the trip won’t be boring.’

More sinister laughter sounded off behind them as two more men rustled out of the underbrush, preventing their retreat backwards. Not that they would be able to turn the wagons around with such a narrow road easily, nor quickly enough to escape them.

He quickly stirred Elwen awake, being careful not to take his eyes of the bandits in front of him. Luckily, it seemed that she was not deeply asleep, as she quickly jumped up when he shook her.

“W-what’s happening!” She exclaimed as she jolted up.

“Bandits,” he quickly explained, “Do you think you can delay the ones behind us while I take care of the ones up front?” It was a gamble; she certainly couldn’t beat them in a melee, and he had no idea what magic she had learned over the past two weeks. But he couldn’t be in two places at once, so he could only fight one group at a time.

“Ah... umm… I can probably slow them down for a bit…” She responded, her nervousness accelerating her thoughts. She could only think of one way to stop them, but she didn’t know if it would work.

Varian turned to her briefly, looking into her eyes. He patted her head as he told her “Do it. I trust you.”

Elwen felt warm inside as she turned to face the bandits looming at the rear of their caravan. She wasn’t sure if her plan would work, but she would just have to do her best anyways.

“Hehehe.” The bandits continued their ominous chant. They had been slowly walking towards the caravan, tightening their control of the situation. They tried to scare their prey as much as they could as they approached, in an effort to convince them to surrender easier. It worked on most merchants, who would quickly give up their cargo in exchange for their lives. Unfortunately for them, Varian had no intentions of giving up so easily.

“Give up!” The bandit who Varian assumed their leader called. “You’re surrounded! Give up your cargo and we might let you live!” He would be the first to fall, Varian decided as her narrowed his eyes at him.

The man, despite having his sword drawn, wasn’t in a combat stance. If he could get to him fast enough, he could take him out before he had the chance to react. Activating [Charge], he quickly jumped at the man, drawing his sword simultaneously. He cleanly sliced through him as his new sword got its first taste of blood. The two men at his side were shocked, one nearly dropping his sword. Varian smirked as he realized that these bandits certainly weren’t high enough level to pose a serious threat. Still, he wasn’t going to let them off easy. He wanted the XP.

As soon as Varian jumped down Elwen began throwing balls of water at the two bandits that were her responsibility. She first used [Water Ball] to form the balls of water out of the air, then used [Water Manipulation] to throw them at the bandits. These were the two spells that she had tested so far, but she was still nervous that the final spell wouldn’t work as she thought.

She was hitting them as much as she could, but she still wasn’t very good with [Water Manipulation] and she missed a lot. It was draining to cast so many spells, but it was effectively stopping the bandits from getting closer. They were, naturally, dodging the balls where they could, especially when she first started throwing them, but they weren’t too concerned with them once they realized they were just water. Once they did, they almost stopped trying to dodge and instead starting running at her.

Unfortunately for them, it was too late. She quickly cast her newest spell [Freeze] on the ground in front of her, freezing all of the water and mud around them, creating a smooth, and as the two men quickly found out, slippery surface. They both almost immediately fell down, and every time they would try to stand up, they would fall again. They were effectively prevented from getting any closer to her, at least until they could figure out how to walk on ice.

However, this was also the limit of what Elwen could do. She had exhausted almost all of her remaining magic on the last spell, and she quickly fell back, barely holding onto her consciousness. As she saw Varian step over her, she let go and fell asleep.

When she next awoke, her awful headache had returned. She was lying in a tent, comfortably wrapped in blankets like a cocoon. She was still tired, and she was tempted to remain in the warm embrace of her blankets, but she needed to know what happened. Because she was in a tent, she figured that they must have won, but that didn’t mean that everything was fine. What if Varian got injured? She had to help him!

She had to roll around a little to loosen the blankets so that she could actually get out, but once she did, she ran as fast as she could to the brightest light source she could see. It was a campfire, but she could only see the two merchants sitting by it.

“Where’s Varian?” She frantically asked when she couldn’t find him. One of the merchants pointed to another tent across the campfire.

‘Oh no, I was right, he did get hurt!’

She quickly rushed over to the tent with tears in her eyes.

‘Please don’t die, I can heal you!’

She burst through the flap of the tent, but it was empty.

‘No no no, where is he?’

“What’s all this noise about?” She heard from behind her as the tent’s flap was lifted.

“Varian!” She exclaimed as she jumped at him. “You’re alive!”

Varian was surprised, but he caught her. “Of course I’m alive, why wouldn’t I be?” He said as he started stroking her back. Elwen started to cry into his shoulder, so he just held her there for as long as she needed. Elwen wanted to stay there for an eternity, but her mind was still full of worries.

“You aren’t hurt, are you?” She asked as she pushed herself back to look at him, tears still falling down her cheeks.

“No, I’m fine. Everything is alright.” He reassured her as brought her back into a hug.

“Everything is ok.” Varian continued to hold her tightly, his hand gently circling her back as he tried to soothe her. He felt bad that he had worried her so much, but at the same time it made him feel a little happy to know that she cared so much. Still, he didn’t want to see her cry.

Elwen cried herself back to sleep, so Varian carefully placed her back in her tent and tucked her back into her blanket. It was rather cold out, so he made sure that they were tightly wrapped around her.

After he was satisfied, he went back to cleaning his equipment. A lot of blood had gotten on it during the fight, and he didn’t want to be covered in blood for the rest of the trip. Still, he leveled up from the fight, so it was worth it. He needed every bit of power he could get if he wanted to be successful.

If the past few weeks have proven anything, it was that this world was by no means safe. They had been lucky so far in that their enemies have been weaker than him, but that wouldn’t last forever. They were bound to encounter someone more powerful in the future. He had to get stronger. He wouldn’t let himself lose, not when he could lose so much.

Then next day passed quietly. They had a large breakfast in the morning, mostly at the request of Varian. He had gone out early in the morning and caught some small game for the merchants to cook, which he studied the process of thoroughly. After all, they would have to do it on their own soon. The merchants were also eager for heartier breakfast; no one really wanted to subside on rations. Still, they hadn’t hired the adventurers to hunt, but to guard them, so they didn’t ask them to.

Unfortunately, their last morning wasn’t as quiet. Elwen woke up shortly after the sun rose and helped pack up the camp. It wasn’t too much work, all that really needed to be done was taking down the tents and cleaning up the campfire and the dishes they had left to soak overnight.

After spending far too long without a proper bath, Elwen reached an epiphany. She could use her new-found magic abilities to create enough water that they could all wash themselves off. First, she took the buckets they were using to transport water from the whatever water source they could find to their camp and used [Water Ball] and [Water Manipulation] to fill them with water. It wouldn’t be enough for an actual bath, but it was much more convenient than going all the way to the river to take one. The merchants were grateful when she gave them their buckets. Not, however, as grateful as she was.

The three men were starting to smell a little in the morning. Probably not enough that she would have noticed much in her previous life, but her nose was a little bit more sensitive here. The men wouldn’t wash themselves if they had to go to the stream for the water, but if she brought it to them, they would have the time.

After the merchants had taken their buckets, Elwen made her own, informing Varian that she was going to wash up. She went behind her tent, out of the prying eyes of the others, and stripped down to her underwear. Since she had informed Varian of what she was planning to do, she was sure that she had averted anyone potentially walking in on her. Still, she didn’t want to strip completely, in case something happened.

She soaked her hand towel in the water, before using it to scrub her skin, removing any dirt that accumulated. Really, she was quite distressed by how much she managed to remove, to think that she was walking around in so much filth. It wasn’t like she was covered in dirt, but her skin was noticeably brighter after she was done.

After she was finished, she smiled, feeling her now silky-smooth skin. She was glad that all the dirt was gone, she felt a lot more comfortable being clean. Hopefully, they would be able to get a portable bath or something in the future. She felt that it would be fantastic if she could use it every day and feel like this.

Her mana did go down noticeably from creating so much water, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the other day. She should fully recover by the end of the day. Still, she wouldn’t be able to do this every day, at least not as much water, if she wanted to have enough to learn new spells, because that took almost all of her mana. She sighed, regretting that she probably wouldn’t be able to feel as clean every day.

Just after she put on her dress, she heard a strange scratching sound coming from the other side of her tent. She stood on her toes and pushed the top of her tent a little so she could see what was going on. As soon as she did, she heard a horrible screeching noise as a big brown mass flew off the side. She fell back and screamed out in surprise, only to have her tent fall on top of her.

Varian heard the screech from the animal and immediately turned his head in its direction. Once he saw Elwen fall down, he quickly rushed over to help her up.

“What was that?” She asked as she was throwing the thick cloth of the tent off over her.

“It looked like a boar. You’re not hurt, are you?” He could care less about the animal now that it was gone, but he regretted that he let it get into their camp.

“No, I’m fine, I was just surprised.” She answered after taking his hand. Once she was up, she patted off the dirt that had gotten on her dress after she fell. She was kind of mad. She had just spent all that time washing herself off, and here she was, already covered in dirt. “But my tent…”

As the boar ran away, its tusk must have caught onto the fabric, as there was a huge tear in the cloth. After trying to put up the tent again, they realized that it was totally unusable, as the tear crossed nearly the entire side of the tent and made it impossible to keep it on the tent posts. Not only that, but so much fabric was missing that they wouldn’t even be able to sew it back together if they had the tools.

“We can just get another one in the city, it’s fine.” Varian said. He was just glad she wasn’t hurt; a tent was replaceable, she wasn’t.