I wasn’t the only one leaving the town that night, but I might be the only one planning on coming back. I’d chosen a particularly empty part of the wall to go over. Not that it mattered to two invisible people, but every little helped. I’d expected to have to help Edele over the wall, but it turned out she had climbing and jumping skills higher than mine. A bonus from a well-spent childhood I suppose.

I noticed the first group of beast-kin approaching while we were on top of the wall. They were relying on stealth, which wasn’t the best way to hide from someone on top of the wall you were approaching. None of the town’s buildings was allowed within five meters of the wall, so there was a nicely cleared area to expose anyone trying to leave.

Unless there were no guards, which seemed to be the case. Bribed? I wondered as I watched the small group make their way up the wall. Edele was just as curious as I was, and I had to pull her out of the way, as they silently made their way up and over. It looked like a family, with two teenagers and a smaller child bundled up on the mothers back. As they started down, another group appeared and I had to get us moving before we got caught in a crowd.

Once we got away from the wall, I called up a small [Light] spell, both to avoid stumbling around and to keep us together while keeping [Greater Invisibility] up.

Kaito and her friends were right where they said they would be, and were easy to find as they’d lit the clearing with torches. A number of beast-kin had found their way here already and had gathered in a group at the far edge of the clearing. Kaito and two of her companions were standing out in the middle of the clearing. They saw the light as we approached, and once we’d entered the clearing, I dropped [Greater Invisibility].

“Good evening, Miss Kandis,” Kaito said as we approached. She was speaking in Japanese. I would have preferred to indulge her, but we had company, so I just inclined my head in Edele’s direction. She blushed and switched to Latorran.

“Ah, my apologies - I just wanted to practice -” she cut herself off with a grimace, and bowed to us both. “Lady Edele, I presume?”

“Edele, this is Kaito Washiyama. She’s going to take you to your father. Or her… people will?” I asked.

Kaito nodded. “This is Orino. She’ll be able to [Wood Walk] with you to the tree-line of your father’s mountain, and it should be a short walk from there.”

“Hi!” the little mouse-kin said brightly. “We’re going to be travelling together for a little bit so let's get along!”

“Hello,” Edele said timidly. “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.” She clearly felt out of her depth, but Orino just giggled. She was, I only now noticed, awfully busty for someone so short.

“C’mon, we should get started right away!” She dragged the poor girl over to the main group calling out for Nori, one of Kaito’s other girls.

“Nori and Orino are very skilled,” Kaito reassured me, with an embarrassed grin. “I’m sure they’ll be safe.”

“Good,” I said, watching Orino drag Edele and Nori over to the nearest tree. Holding both of them, she touched the tree with her bare foot and all three of them disappeared. I blinked. “Huh. That’s [Wood Walk]?”

“Yes, it’s a useful travel skill, though only within a contiguous forest.”

“Neat. What are all the others doing here, anyway?” I asked.

“Ah, well, when we mentioned to Lady Tonet that we were escorting your friend, she asked that we help a number of other refugees.”

“Refugees?”

“Lady Tonet believes that life in Talnier will soon be very difficult for beast-kin in the days going forward. It’s likely there will be some kind of war.”

“I may have made that more likely,” I admitted. “In order to divert suspicion from myself, I left a few clues to point to the Tribes.”

She nodded. “Just the use of the hateim would have done that,” she said. “And the blame is not unwarranted - we did ask you to do this.”

“Still…” I said awkwardly. “I wanted to stop the griffins, not start a war.”

She nodded sympathetically. “I don’t think you have. If a conflict starts, the dungeon breaks will surely have been the greater provocation. And…” she trailed off and paused. “I’ve not been told about the history here, but there is a lot of anger in the Tribes towards the Kingdom. This conflict will be welcomed by some.”

I looked over at the refugees. “They wouldn’t have been in Talnier if that was a universal feeling,” I said.

“True,” she agreed morosely. “I make a poor isekai hero. I should have stopped the others from releasing the monsters. If I’d insisted, perhaps…”

“Hey don’t be like that,” I said. “Your people have got the griffin back, and sent a message, right? They’re not going to be looking for more trouble. And the Baron… he’s got troubles of his own. He might not be around for much longer. A successor might be more willing to negotiate.”

“Do you truly think so?”

I shrugged. “You never know - let's do what we can to help that outcome along, hey?”

She thought about that for a minute and then bowed to me. “Yes. It will take us three days to get back here after we complete this escort, but I would be honoured to work with you to bring about a peaceful resolution.”

I bowed back, trying to get the angle right. “The honour is mine,” I said.

We sort of stood awkwardly after that for about a minute. That would have been a nice place for me to take my leave, but I had to wait for Orino to get back and let me know she’s succeeded. Not that I had any doubts…

Eventually, Kaito excused herself, saying she had to talk with her companions. I could have struck up a conversation with some of the refugees, but I could use a moment to think about my earlier conversation.

What was Fyskel thinking? My first impression was that he’d just popped in for a chat, and then left when he got depressed… but that wasn’t possible, was it? He’d constructed that memory from scratch, so the conversation had ended exactly where he’d wanted it to end from the start. If he hadn’t liked the way it had gone, he could have said different things and made it go another way.

So what had he wanted? He’d told me some of the rules, told me he wasn’t my patron. Oh, and he’d apologised, for what little that was worth. A ‘sorry not sorry’ kind of apology. Was that just an excuse to talk to me? A pretty transparent one if so.

He’d told me he was going to be manipulating me, which is something you… don’t… tell the person you’re going to manipulate. He didn’t mention anything about my current situation, just that story about the dungeons.

Was that the point? It was the last thing he said… and maybe relevant to me. It suggested I wasn’t going to wean Rhis off killing - and that Marie Monteminer was a time-bomb waiting to go off and kill her family. But why tell me that way? Why risk that I wouldn’t catch it, or wouldn’t believe it, given all the other stuff he said. He’d as much as stated that Sydney could have just been a false memory he planted.

Perhaps… that had all been a show put on for the other gods? But if I’d thought of that, surely they would. Especially since they could apparently read my mind. Were some of the gods idiots? Idiotic enough and proud enough to read my mind thinking this was fake and decide that they knew better?

In the end, I decided that I wasn’t going to puzzle this out. I could just take what I could and see where it got me. Though, while I was speculating on the gods… was Duit going to out me? Presumably, he knew that I was the one who’d stolen Manchas, so all he had to do was let Isidre know, and I would no longer be welcome in Talnier. But then, he could have let her know I was coming, and I’d have been just as fucked.

It seemed unlikely that a god would let themselves lose an encounter just because they didn’t want to chat. So there must be some sort of rule that let Naldyna tell Kaito some things about me, while Duit couldn’t say anything to Isidre. I was going to be leaning pretty heavily on whatever that rule was if I was going up against other Champions. I really needed to know how it worked.

My thoughts ran in circles like this for about two hours, before Orino finally returned.

“Everything’s fine!” she called, as soon as she stepped out of a nearby tree. “The family is all reunited, everyone is happy!”

“Great,” I said, keeping my thoughts to myself. I’d have to have a talk with Mandel about a possible future psychotic wife problem. “That’s a load off my mind. I guess I’ll see you again in a few days?” I added to Kaito. She nodded, so I bowed and took my leave.

Getting back in was easy enough, with one small surprise.

[Jump] Level 3 acquired through use.

For gaining a skill level you have been awarded 1 XP

That… made my jumping pretty ridiculous. I still couldn’t match what I’d seen Reynard and his crew manage back in Oakway, but my long jump was somewhere around twenty meters now. Practising on the way back, I could see why adventurers jumped around when things got serious, and why they didn’t do it all the time. It felt pretty ridiculous, and it ate up [Stamina], but it was fast. It felt like it didn’t take any longer to jump my full distance than it had back when my limit was two metres (if I was generous).

Still, it was ridiculous. If I hadn’t been invisible, I wouldn’t have tried it. It made avoiding patrols easier, though. The streets were still a little dangerous, but it seemed to me that they’d gotten rid of the majority of the breakthrough monsters.

The gang was all waiting for me when I got back, so I filled them in, and got to find out what they’d been doing. Kyle had fought a Threat 20 griffin, which was a pretty big deal. It had had sufficient Attack to hit him, but couldn’t get through his armour. He was pretty much in the same boat, doing some damage but not enough to kill it before the retreat.

Cloridan had come off the wall once his [Greater Invisibility] had run out, and had actually been sleeping until I came back. He was going to be keeping watch for the rest of tonight since I still wasn’t sure what the Baron’s - or Isidre’s - next move was going to be. If it was midnight arrests, I wanted us to have some warning.

So we went to bed. I thought I’d be too keyed up to sleep, but I was exhausted. I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow, and then it was morning.

Morning came with a notification.

Outbreak Defence Wave 4 Completed

Accumulated Experience: 103458

Contribution: 19.45%

Awarded Experience: 20122