When I awoke, I found that it was still dark out, and I remembered I went to sleep slightly earlier than usual. My fatigue had faded since yesterday, and now I felt like I could take on the world! Or at least part of it. After stretching out my body, I decided to begin putting my belongings away to save Yenna the trouble. Of course, I also tried to stay as quiet as I could, not wanting to wake my traveling companions.

After that, I brewed some “tea”, using the small pot we brought along, and the bag of “tea leaves”. At this point I’ve effectively settled on just calling them tea leaves, even if technically wrong. Who’s gonna correct me? Aniel?

Putting aside what to call the damn plant, I served myself a cup, and took a few sips. North of here we’ll have to cross a river. I should be able to cross it with time stopped, but Sentra and Yenna… Well, the river isn’t so wide that they can’t jump over it or something. Yenna has incredibly strength so leaping over it might be possible, and Sentra can create a raft or catapult.

After that will be a couple day’s trek to reach Senha.

We could hypothetically reach the location today—Yenna could sprint most of the way there, and I could just stop time and walk there. However, in that case the three of us would be out of pace with one another, and one of us might get lost on the way.

Alternatively, I could use my power to drag them along, but that would be the worst thing we could do. In addition to Sentra having a panic attack, Yenna would also be deprived of all her senses for the length of a few days, while I’m forced to carry them. Carry them with only myself in accelerated time? I still can barely lift them, and I’ll go crazy in the absolute silence that would last for even more “days” to me.

As I finish up my drink, I start putting everything away. Honestly, coffee is a better morning drink than this “calming” tea, but I just needed something to drink, and calm my nerves. With the sun still far beyond the horizon, I decide to check the camp’s perimeter.

Technically, this world is quite dangerous, and we probably should keep at least one person on watch. But this region doesn’t have very many beasts thanks to their regular expulsion by soldiers, and the fact that more intelligent beasts tend to avoid humans all together. Besides, the three of us are rather light sleepers anyways—which is also why I’m currently making every effort to reduce noise.

After a short stroll around camp, I decided to sit beside Yenna, as I had already rolled up my own mattress and put it away. I expected her to wake up immediately after I got close, but thankfully she didn’t seem to notice or mind. At this point, I wished I had a book to read, but decided to stave off boredom by drawing into the dirt.

After several minutes, it was Yenna who woke up next, only groaning softly as her eyes lazily cracked open. I took a look down at her as her eyes wandered from side to side, landing on me as she smiled. She let out a light sigh as her eyes once again closed, and she began to wiggle her body, stretching her torso without getting up.

She let out another breath, and sat up, taking a quick look around to make sure everything was fine. As her eyes came back to me, she sat up to embrace me, her flaxen hair falling over my face, as I returned the hug. “What’s with the hug?” I whisper with a light chuckle.

As she slowly broke away, she looked down my chest for a moment, before looking back at me. “I just kinda felt I had to,” She admitted with short smile on her face. But then, her expression became somber, as if there was something troubling her.

“Yesterday, before you went to sleep,” She whispered, just barely loud enough for me to hear. I had an idea of where this might be going, but I let her finish. “Were you giving me your blessing, between me and…” She didn’t finish her next word, but I know who she was talking about.

“I was telling you, you can be with whoever you want. Even her,” I said with a shrug, as though it weren’t a big deal. However, Yenna didn’t seem to think so. Instead she began to frown as though I had somehow answered wrong. I wondered for a moment that I had said even her, as though Sentra was an outsider of some kind, but…

“It was to protect you,” She said.

“… Explain.” I couldn’t exactly follow what she meant. She made out with Sentra to protect me? What?

Yenna took a glance towards Sentra, as if to confirm she was asleep, and although she couldn’t tell at a glance, Yenna seemed convince.

“You called her a pet when you first introduced me to her. I don’t know what you did to her to make her like that,” she began, a hint of reproach in her voice before she continued, “but even though she was attached to you, I always had a feeling that something bad might happen.”

I see… So she was aware that Sentra’s current affiliation with me was due to being tortured. And Yenna’s right; Sentra is a liability. But I’ve found her far too useful to just throw away. Not to mention, she would make a good bargaining chip with Lein when the time came for negotiations.

“But you’re stupid and careless,” She said. “You won’t lock her up, kill her, or anything,” She whispered to me in a hushed voice. “So I thought, I’d… try to control her,” She said, looking away from me.

“… Geez,” I sighed out, as I pulled Yenna back into a hug. “You don’t need to throw yourself away for my sake like that… Not for a useless brother like me, anyways,” I said, while patting her back. “I told you; you can do whatever you want,” I repeated.

…

“Still, I can’t imagine all of that was pretending,” I said, pulling her forehead to mines, and grinning right in her face. “You sure looked like you enjoyed it to me,” I said teasingly.

Yenna however didn’t find me all that amusing, as her teary expression suddenly turned confused before shifting into a deep frown.

My playful teasing was rewarded with three good bruises to my head.

Sentra woke up not too long after, so our trio got to work packing our belongings. I didn’t want to waste too much more time idling about, when we could be making our journey. Soon enough, we were on our feet, and headed north.

“There’s the river,” I mumbled, looking back and forth. It was about as thick as I imagined, maybe a bit wider. There didn’t seem to be any strong rapids or anything, so even a small boat could get across, but swimming bare likely wasn’t a good idea.

“I could probably form a boat,” Sentra suggested. She could probably weave a basket-like boat for the three of us to cross in, but then I remembered—motion sickness.

Nearly barfing up my contents already, I waved Sentra off. “You two can do that. I’ll just get to the other side on my own,” I said, turning my gaze to the river.

With a simple thought, the river froze, the birds’ song ceased, and the world’s very rotation came to a stop. Although the water appeared to freeze, I wasn’t truly moving a super high speeds or anything. After explaining the nature of my ability, Aniel had once concluded that I could probably be in a very weird super-position-like state, where I don’t truly exist at the moments that time is frozen. Although I can push around a solid object freely, anything less viscous that oatmeal is like a hologram that melds around me.

So, as I step into the river, my foot passes through the water as though it weren’t even there. I hesitate as I continue to walk in a straight line, but ultimately the need for oxygen is non-existent. My body is still “operating” at normal speed after all, so I won’t need to take another breath for at least a year or two.

Once I made it to the other side of the river, I start up time, and look back towards Sentra and Yenna. The two are mildly surprised at my having teleported across the river without them, but I merely waved back at them with a slight grin.

I sat down in the grass, and watched Yenna facepalm, before passing instructions along to Sentra. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Sentra used her magic to command the grass, and weaved it just as she said she would, into a boat.

As they slowly made their way across the river, I went ahead and focused on the bonds I’ve formed with my Divine Heart. Call it reconnaissance. I may not be able to peak at a person’s feelings through my bonds, but I can ascertain their location despite being a great distance from them. The bulk of my bonds were far south, concentrated within Ohen village, with some spread around the dotted villages south of Karnth town—those bonds mostly formed in the last weeks, when I went to visit. The situation there hasn’t change much at all.

However, beyond that region, there was also Aniel’s group, which was north of here already. I never formed a bond with Aniel; his personality and incompatibility with me never allowed it. But Princess Aire and her followers are still people of this region, who are awed by the Fox Spirits, so I was connected to those couple dozen fellows not long after we met.

However, there was one more bond.

That’s funny…

“What’s wrong?” Yenna asked. As my eyes popped open, I finally came to realize that the pair had made it across the river while I was focused elsewhere.

“I was just assessing our allies’ locations,” I answered.

“I see. What can you tell me?” Yenna asked curiously.

I shrugged before explaining the situation. “I think Princess Aire and Aniel have already retaken Senha. News hasn’t travelled south yet because it was so recent, but the spies in the city have ways to communicate, with things like trained birds and the like. Now that they’ve usurped the Lein puppet state, they expect another attack pretty soon to retake the capital. So Aniel wants me to come and tide over the populace with the faith that a Fox is on their side.”

—Or at least, this is what I think his current plan is. His letter to me wasn’t quite this detailed.

“So everyone is in Senha?” Yenna questioned.

“That’s right,” I nodded to her, as I pulled myself to my feet. “However, I also noticed someone else,” I said, prompting Yenna to look at me quizzically. “It looks like our friend Ezder isn’t far off either,” I said.

Yenna’s eyes seemed to glaze over at Ezder’s mention, and sighed. “So he’s a friend now? Do you plan to hit on him again?” She asked, as if criticizing me.

However I merely laughed. “Nothing of the sort,” I said, waving off Yenna’s gaze.

However, as I turned around to face north and continue our trek, something happened.

Without warning, a burning sensation sprouted from my side. Something had been plunged into my body, and as I looked down to see what, I saw a bloody pike protruding from my robes, stabbing out from my stomach. Pain quickly overtook me as I felt a squirming inside of me, as though something had taken root within me, and was now making itself at home.

As my eyes shot up towards Yenna, I only saw a glimpse of her shocked expression, before she vanished. No, she didn’t disappear; she was flung away towards the river!

As I tried to move, the pain inside only seemed to intensify, and I realized that the pike lodged inside me was held there by something—someone, behind me. With this realization, I grabbed the knife hidden within my sleeve, and attempted to slash and stab at whoever was behind me, but the weapon they had stabbed me with prevented my from turning my body around.

“Fuck!” I could only utter, as my vision continued to blur.

As my world continued to fade to black, a cold feeling welling up inside me, I could hear a muttering repeating the same phrase, over and over again, over a light sobbing.

“…I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”