***Silvester***

“Silvester, Freya, you’re all right,” said the not-dead man with a smile, when he came close. “I’m relieved.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“That’s not what someone who had a twisted neck would say, Zeph. Is that because of your supposed ‘defenses’?” I asked as I examined him.

His head was straight and properly facing the right way as if nothing happened. He looked nice and neat as always, not at all like someone who had his neck twisted just a few weeks ago.

“Yes and no,” he said, enigmatic.

I didn’t miss this side of him.

“Your answers are as annoying as always,” I said, narrowing my eyes.

Should I punch him? It was a nice way to test he wasn’t a ghost and, as a side benefit, it would also make me feel better.

He suddenly backed away.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I suddenly felt threatened,” he said, looking at my face and hands alternately.

I snorted.

Always so exaggerated. I just wanted to throw a punch.

Maybe I was letting out a menacing aura or something. I wasn’t in the best of moods these days, and I was feeling a bit aggressive.

“Well, I’m happy you’re alright, buddy, but why did you take so long before coming back?” I asked with a sigh.

We weren’t close friends, but I believed we had a good relationship; it wasn’t nice of him to let us think he was dead.

He looked at me skeptically but stepped closer.

“I wanted to be sure that there was no danger left. How about we find a more private place?” he asked while indicating the people walking around us. “You can tell me what you’re doing these days while we walk there, and we can talk about our unexpected encounter when we’re alone.”

He paused, looking at me and Freya for a moment, and then added, “I’ll also tell you about my past if you don’t mind listening. It should be fine now, and you deserve to know, I believe.”

This surprised me.

Maybe he thinks he’s safe now? I didn’t know what happened after the assassin brought him away, so I shrugged.

“Lead the way. Freya can’t wait to tell the tale of our adventures these few weeks,” I said, patting the girl’s shoulder.

She looked up at me, raising her eyebrows.

“Yes, I know you can’t wait,” I said.

Zeph snorted.

“Follow me,” he said, turning back.

After some insistence, Freya told him what happened during these weeks. Since she was too succinct and dry, I had to stop her and give him my version, though. For some reason, she pouted at that, which was nice.

It’s progress! I thought, satisfied, as I started talking. Whatever the reason, results were results.

I finished the tale of my adventure before I met the merchant. I didn’t want to babble about bounties in the middle of the road.

Soon after I stopped speaking, we reached Zeph’s inn. He led us to his room and he closed the door behind us. The place was much nicer than ours — even better than the ones he took us to before. He probably didn’t feel the need to blend in too much now. There was a table in the room with a few chairs for guests.

“Living comfy now, are you?” I said as we sat at the table.

He nodded.

“After more than a year on the run, I feel more at ease now, so I decided to slightly improve my living standards,” he said looking around the room, then he sighed. “Even this feels like luxury now.”

I wanted to say that this was luxury, but I knew our standards were pretty far apart, so I just rolled my eyes.

“So? Now that we're in your 'private place', can we talk?” I asked.

“Before I start, what happened to you that day? I think I saw you hunching over just before I had my sight cut.”

I shrugged.

“He gave me a pretty nasty surprise. I thought I’d be accompanying you in the afterlife instead of Caldris, but I survived. Well, I’d have made the trip alone anyway. Now, can you explain?”

He paused for a moment, then nodded. “The day of the attack, I was camping a few kilometers away from Rivergate.”

Wat? I thought, confused, but he kept going, leaving me no time to intervene.

“I was already lying down in my tent when the assassin hit my dummy body. The last thing I saw was you bending over, then I was disconnected. After that, I waited in my camp until yesterday, and then came here.”

He paused, looking at my and Freya’s faces for a moment, while I was busy processing the “dummy body” part.

“Honestly, I hesitated. I didn’t know if he left right after the attack, and I wanted to skip the city and head directly to Caldris, but I was worried about you and Freya.  Not knowing if you were still alive, I didn’t want to leave her alone, and if you were, I wanted to tell you I was fine. In the end, I waited until I felt like it was safe and came here.”

Mm… this feels embarrassing… I thought, looking away.

I was also feeling a tad bit guilty that I didn’t think much about him after he got “killed”. Judging from Freya’s expression, maybe she didn’t either.

“You should’ve gone to Caldris directly. He could still be around,” I told him.

He shook his head.

“No, I’m reasonably sure he won’t waste his time here unless he weren’t sure he’d killed me, but that body shouldn’t be seen through,” he said.

“And also,” he continued, “It was the right thing to do. I dragged you into this and you almost died. I did things I shouldn’t have done to survive, but I still have some honor left.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. While I wasn’t exactly given a choice, everyone makes mistakes, and I was paid handsomely. Had I been in your place, I would’ve kept going my way. You should ease up,” I told him.

He was a bit too extreme in his expectations of himself. He was just fifteen, after all; barely an adult.

I saw he was about to say something, probably more of the same honor and stuff, so I cut him off, "Now I’m fine and dandy and with a good amount of money, so we can say it’s all water under the bridge. I’m more interested in that 'dummy body' of yours. When, and how, did you do that?"

Did he do it before entering the city? Or when we separated on the first day? Or the moment we were attacked? I didn’t notice anything different. I was also still trying to make some sense of it. Was that like a puppet? A living body seemed impossible.

“Since the first day,” he said, looking slightly awkward.

“The first day in the city?”

He hesitated for a moment.

“No, the first day we started our travel,” he said, looking guilty. “When you saw me coming out of the forest, I had already activated the Skill.”

I had a vague idea why he was feeling guilty, but to me, it made no difference if he was safe because he had a dummy body, an item, or something else.

I couldn’t wrap my head around how we traveled so long with a fake, though. He seemed just like a normal living person. Even now, I couldn’t tell the difference with him before me.

“How did you do that? This feels too exaggerated even for you,” I said.

The dude always had surprising things to show, but this was really on a whole other level. A fake living body? How’d you even do that?

“Do you remember what I told you when we reached the first village?” he asked, with a sigh.

I thought back to that day.

“About how you freaked out thinking they were attacking you?” I asked back.

“Hey,” I said before he could answer. “Was that why you had that strange reaction when I punched you?”

He went still for a few moments after the punch, which was a strange reaction. I glossed over it, thinking he just passed out for a moment, but maybe that wasn’t the reason.

He nodded. “It’s an incredible Skill, but it has its drawbacks. It’s hard to keep the connection when I receive damage. I’m fortunate the first fight with the bandits ended so fast.”

“A Skill?” I said, disbelieving. “How can you have a Skill to do that? Aren’t you at a low Level?”

Even at higher Levels, I doubted there was anyone able to do that. He was saying he created a living and breathing body. It really felt like an impossible feat.

He sighed again.

“Yes. Incredible, right? But it’s not as easy as you think,” he answered. “I can’t use it in normal circumstances, since it requires a high Level and an impossible amount of mana. As I told you that day, though, I was convinced there was an assassin coming for me, and since I knew I couldn’t escape if he found me, I did the only thing I thought had a chance of success — I used the only Heavenshard I had on me to activate the Skill.”

The disgusting coin can do that?

Thinking back, he did say that it could also be used for Skills.

“… You have no idea how I was feeling that day,” he said after a pause.

I recalled how he freaked out after we found one on that noble. If the coin allows people to do crazy things like that, it’s no wonder people would go mad over it.

I felt like I could understand a bit better why the Lord of Caldris was going nuts with the bounties now.

Better be careful to never be found out.

I didn’t want to discover how we’d end up if he ever got his hands on us.