To be fair, Jane never thought it was going to be easy.

Crossing cities was a risk. A risk only a whole group of seasoned adventurers or caravans full of merchants with bodyguards took. It wasn’t something a novice mage and just one seasoned hunter could accomplish. At least not without the novice dying.

But, Jane was very much alive. And although the journey so far wasn’t necessarily easy, it wasn’t exponentially hard either. The man might have been a little insensitive but he wasn’t a complete asshole… probably. And although the last two days were quite dangerous, in the grand scheme of things, they weren’t as life threatening as some of the more troublesome things out in the wild. Things Jane only heard stories about and wanted to keep it that way.

“Do you ever feel lonely when you travel?”

There was a fire growing. Just below a tree. They already had their twin tents set up. Apparently, these parts were relatively safe. They could eat casually, without stressing too much about it.

They didn’t necessarily have much to eat though, just hard stale bread. It had gone bad a while ago but instead of just throwing it away, Jane had kept it in case of an emergency. And today was that emergency.

However, they couldn’t eat the stale bread as it was. They didn’t have milk or eggs to do something with the bread. They couldn’t really make a bread soup either. So, they just heated the bread in a toast like manner over a rock and used water as a sauce….

“Not really,” the man said, eating his bread. “Why, are you lonely?”

“A little, yeah,” Jane took a bite. “Terrible,” she mumbled.

The man chuckled. But didn’t quite say anything.

There wasn’t much to say either. At least until- “So when are we cooking him?” He pointed at the sleeping fluff.

“Uh… never?” Jane smiled, the little thing firmly pressed on her lap, fast asleep. It had munched on every grass flower they’d seen the whole way here. Probably satisified.

“Shame. You worry about money more than living.”

“Not really but if you want to believe that, sure.”

The man shrugged. “Anyway, I guess I’ll have to live up to my name as a hunter.”

“Speaking of which, you seem very adept at all of these. Are you sure you’re just a hunter?”

“Well, I have been in many occupations over the years. Though I must admit, I spent the last two decades on just being a hunter so that’s what I introduce myself as.”

“Okay.” She yawned. “I’ll be turning in early. Wake me up when you want to sleep.”

“Sure,” he said. But he knew she wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.

Although Jane tried to hide it, she was still the sheltered girl she was desperately trying not to be. Perhaps forcing her to face reality would have been good for her in the long run, but the man honestly didn’t want to bother. Everyone had a learning curve.

So, he watched her, he watched as she fell fast asleep and then he picked up the Peachfluff. “I wonder what she sees in you…” he mumbled.

The little thing purred almost welcoming the man to find out.

He chuckled. “Sure, I’ll give in to the temptation,” he started patting it. Warm, fluffy feeling.

Not bad. But nothing he’d starve for.

Yet, he put the thing down near Jane and moved away, staring out into the darkness.

There was no moon today. Just stars and some clouds. It wasn’t bright enough to see with the naked eye. However, the man stared around, almost intently, as though he could see….

***

Jane awoke before sunrise and found the man fast asleep.

“You could have woken me…” she mumbled and stared at the dead fire. The little fluffball woke up with her and together they headed for the bushes.

It took a little getting used to, being alone in the wilderness and doing her business. No, it took quite a lot of getting used to and she wasn’t used to it in the least. But necessity beat pride in her case and that was that.

Her water reserves were running low and now she understood why the man was sharing his water with her every now and then. She sighed in relief thinking maybe the man wasn’t as insensitive as she thought he was.

While she was at it, she also tried cleaning her body a little. Her body was starting to stink up pretty bad; so she could at least wipe certain parts. Yes, she was wasting water and probably would be running out by tomorrow but- but she had her standards to contend with and this was the very, very minimum she had to do in order to satisfy that critic inside of her.

“Spee!” the Peachfluff actually watched her the whole time, encouraging her, or so Jane concluded.

A solid wipe later, Jane put her leather armor back on, strapped the robe back in place and made sure to double check everything was buried.

She was a little worried about the man waking up and spying on her but those worries were ill-founded. He was still sleeping.

“There’s nothing really left, so we should hunt or forage,” Jane said.

“Ah… morning,” He groaned. Trying to sit, body bare. “There’s hardly anything around these parts…” he mumbled, half asleep.

Rather healthy, some veins starting to bulge, muscles on display. He wasn’t really big, but he was… healthy.

“Morning,” Jane said. “Get fresh, we need to leave soon and find at least some form of water, today.”

“We’ll find something,” he said, burying his head back in his pillow.

Wait, where’d he find a pillow? He never really had anything, right?

Jane took a closer look…. She sighed. It was her bag. She’d stuffed the thing with extra clothes and some necessities.

No wonder it stank…

The man had already pretty much finished sleeping so there wasn’t anything she could do now. But she did make a mental note of never letting her things go out of sight again.

Jane waited a few minutes before shaking and waking up the man again.

“Sleep again and I’ll drowse you with the last of your water,” she growled.

Ahem~! He cleared his throat and sat down, yawning. “Won’t I drown?”

She rolled her eyes, took back her bag and started taking her tent down.

The man got out, started buttoning his shirt. “But I must admit, having a magician is pretty convenient. Especially that storage spell.” He also took down his tent.

“It’s one of the more expensive spells though,” Jane said, chanting something. Her tent and the man’s tent both disappeared. “I only got one because my grandmother didn’t care about the magician’s code.” And he couldn’t carry much inside the spell either.

The man chuckled. “That code only exists to prevent idiot mages from teaching anyone with potential magic and creating more chaos than necessary. It’s a funny story how it started from a random Xerax dude actually. He went around teaching every single guy he met a ‘penetration enhancer’ spell.” He laughed motioning his crotch.

Jane let out a chuckle, although she was a little confused about it. “Funny how you know a three-century old story but don’t know much about the code itself.”

He shrugged. “Not really interested that’s why. Besides, it’s mostly a money grab these days. Think about it, why would you stop your children from learning magic because some hobo in a mansion tells you it’s wrong and you need to hire a ‘proper’ mage to learn ‘proper’ magic.”

“Because you can hurt yourself and it’s…” She paused, thinking how her grandmother had really broken the code to teach her some basic magic.

Her parents were firmly against her learning magic. They were firmly against her doing anything with her life to be honest. They wanted her to live how they thought best, not how she wanted. Perhaps they thought it really was the best for her to be financially stable and have a good future with a promising middle-aged man and inherit his wealth.

But Jane thought differently, and her grandmother respected that and secretly taught her magic. If she hadn’t, Jane would have never been able to actually come on this journey…

“While I do see its point, it should be more of a guideline than an actual cold rule that every mage has to follow,” the man shrugged. “Let’s go?”

“Let’s go.” Jane paused. “And I agree.”

They had a lot of space to cover today. Particularly find a decent lake where they could replenish their water supply. They also had to catch some food because Jane could really use some meat right about now.

***

There was a slight problem.

There were no lakes. Or ponds or even just mudpuddles. Nothing.

Yet, greenery spread as far as the eyes could see. Almost as though this land was kissed by the gods themselves.

Jane let out an exaggerated sigh, staring at the wilderness before her.

There were of course hills every and now and then and whenever she climbed one, she for better or worse hoped there was at least some form of water around. But there wasn’t. and every time, she got more and more disappointed. Not just water, she didn’t find any source of food either. Not even a poison berry!

“Don’t worry, if nothing comes up, we can always just find some water near the west ward settlement.”

“I thought there weren’t any settlements around,” Jane said.

“There aren’t, at least not officially. But these people aren’t really all that official. They are nomads, or were nomads who settled around west ward about five decades ago.”

“So, I’m guessing they don’t pay tribute to Ale?”

“Not really.”

West ward was pretty far from the city of ale, and the nearest village was at least two days of journey, so the state probably didn’t bother.

They stood by the edge, loosening themselves with the blowing peaceful wind. There weren’t many dangers beyond this point.

They’d come a long way and faced many dangers but- “We should really find something to eat,” the man said.

Due to the lack of danger, there was also a lack of hunt. Of course, one would assume if there were no predators, prey would run rampant in this sublime realm of grass.

But no, there weren’t any. There was only one prey out there that ate grass. And it wasn’t Fluffballs… but rather… maggots. Yes, maggots feasted on this lively grass instead of rotten wood. One moment there was none, but then suddenly there were thousand and they were everywhere; greenish yellow, no spikes. Rather odd. And rather gross according to Jane and she was glad she had thick boots. Yet, when she walked on them, the squishy feeling… really didn’t help.

The man did in fact suggest they cook the little critters into a soup but seeing Jane visibly gag from the mere idea, made him give up in the end. He did every now and then ate a few secretly but that was a different story.

“I’ve been thinking,” Jane said.

“Yes?”

“There’s something wrong with this place.”

“How so?”

“Why do you think there isn’t any birds or monsters or anything?” She hadn’t seen any wildlife after crossing that bridge.

The man’s brows raised a bit; surprised. “I’m impressed. Didn’t think you’d catch on.”

“What do you mean?” Jane squinted, slightly offended even.

“I mean, this place is technically enchanted. Some say blessed but I just say its cursed.”

“Cursed?”

“Yes. Cursed by Somrat Jackal. That weirdo cursed this place so nothing really grows here apart from maggots and grass.”

“I’ve heard that name somewhere…” Jane mumbled. “But there’s so much grass and we always see some birds in the sky-” Jane paused. But had she?

Ever since she came through that crossing, had she seen any birds?

None. Not a single one. No birds, no particular wildlife, no fruit trees and certainly no monsters.

“Surely he wasn’t powerful enough to put a curse on this whole land? I mean, I’ve never even heard about this thing.”

She did hear monsters and wildlife was rare in these parts but cursed?

The man shrugged. “Beats me. We should hurry though. considering nothing is supposed to grow here, we have to move out of the radius or-”

“Or?”

“We’d be a part of them,” he smiled, pointing down at the crawling maggots. They were in fact climbing them both.

“EWWW!!” She stomped around, squishing them, throwing them away- desperately trying to get away. But they were in fact everywhere.

“It’s not really that big of a radius,” he said, running ahead, squishing everything. “If we hurry, we won’t come across the big ones,” he yelled.

“There are bigger ones!?” Jane ran, Jane ran hard! Even with the fluffball in her arms, she ran extra hard and extra fast, easily passing the man.

“You’ll tire yourself…” He mumbled.

She did not listen nor care, no.