Hunter had seriously thought about stripping Maylia off and having his way with her right then and there, and she seemed completely open to that idea. The only problem was, he wanted to have fun with her so they would both enjoy it, and she thought it was a mechanical process that only led to children. He knew he would definitely enjoy it a lot by being with such a beautiful woman that had a great body, and yet he also knew that she didn't expect to get anything out of it except the chance to have a child.

Maylia on the other hand, knew perfectly well that he was going to have fun with her body, as any man would, and she had automatically put herself into a passive state to let him do what he wanted. She wasn't going to react at all, either emotionally or physically, as she waited for it to be over.

It was quite the conundrum for Hunter to figure out.

“Maylia.” Hunter said and she didn't say anything. “MAYLIA!”

“Hm? What?” Maylia blinked her eyes at him and lifted her head up. “What is it? Is it over?”

“Over? I haven't even started yet.” Hunter said.

“Oh.” Maylia responded and her eyes glazed over as she laid back down.

“Stop doing that.” Hunter said and she blinked her eyes at him again and looked at him. “Remember what I said before about teaching you?”

“Yes, and you've already taught me an important technique that has helped me immensely.”

“Well, I'm going to start teaching you something else that's just as important.” Hunter said with a smile. “I'm going to teach you what it's going to be like to be with a real man.”

“I don't understand.” Maylia said.

“I know you don't; but, you will.” Hunter said. “You definitely will.”

Hunter took his time undressing her and kept telling her that she had to pay attention, since it was a lesson and she needed to know these important things. That stopped Maylia's eyes from glazing over and he started to give her a real massage like he would for Luxea or Lashina. He did her entire body, right down to her fingers and toes, and she had watched him intensely the whole time. She was physically relaxed and mentally alert after a full body massage, so he started to kiss, lick, and suck on her as he worked his way back up her body towards her face.

Maylia had giggled a few times, despite trying to pay attention to the strangest lesson she had ever had. No one had ever taught her anything like it before and her mind reeled a few times when he touched her in certain places with his fingers and then his lips and tongue. She had no idea why she was reacting the way she was and she fought against those weird feelings.

Hunter knew she was struggling with how he was making her feel, so he kept reinforcing that it was a lesson and she needed to pay attention because he would be asking her about it later. He gave her a brief kiss on the lips when he finally reached her face, then he moved all the way back down between her legs and emphasized that this was a very important step.

Maylia nodded and watched him closely, so he gathered a very small amount of Presence and mana into his mouth and tongue and kissed her there. It sent a shock wave up her body and she almost screamed at the sensation as her body locked up briefly. She threw her head back a moment later and writhed on the bed and she couldn't think straight anymore. Her body betrayed all of her training and reacted as if it had a mind of its own, and she didn't care, as long as Hunter kept teaching her this very scary and quite wonderful lesson.

*

Kara, Jessica, Steven and Josh knew that they had about a week and a half before they reached the protective barrier around the elves lands, and yet Kara insisted that they keep checking every afternoon to see where they were in relation to Hunter. Unfortunately, as the days passed and Kara fought various monsters, the dried blood on her hand began to disintegrate, even with the protective Presence she had put around it. Just the movement of her hand made it crumble now, and the last little bit of blood that was left was used to cast the locate spell one more time.

Kara was very pleased that the last time they had checked, Hunter's position was very close to the barrier and he was moving towards it. His position didn't really change much before that, and it had worried both her and Jessica. Evangeline cast the locate spell and only a tiny bit of the blood glowed slightly. The bubble formed and Josh didn't wait for her to struggle before he added his hand into the mix. He had learned a bit of control now and the bubble only expanded out to double its normal size.

The scene inside the bubble showed more and more of the countryside until it showed the same thing it had each time. The First, Second, and Third Kingdoms appeared as did the elves lands with the protective barrier around it. Hunter was right next to the barrier and Kara nodded, then suddenly Hunter slid out through the barrier to the outside. Evangeline and Aimee gasped at the sight and couldn't explain how he had gotten out.

“It's supposed to be an impenetrable barrier.” Aimee said, surprised. “No one can get through it.”

“Hunter did.” Jessica said, happily. “Look, now he's moving away... and... is this right?” She looked at the bubble and then at Evangeline. “He's moving really fast!”

“Wouldn't you run away from there?” Josh asked. “From what I've heard about the elves, it sounded like a nightmare.”

Evangeline and Aimee nodded agreement, Steven looked undecided, and Kara smiled.

“He got out and it looks like he's moving towards us.” Kara said. “How long can we use this spell to watch...” The bubble started to fizzle and fade as she spoke, the last bit of blood on her hand stopped glowing and disintegrated, then the bubble popped.

“About that long.” Josh said and chuckled.

Kara dismissed the Presence from her hand and looked at the others. “Now we know we don't have to worry about trying to get through the barrier. All we need to do is meet Hunter on the way.”

“This is a big country.” Steven said. “It was going to take us two weeks in a fast carriage to get to the barrier. How are we going to find him if he's not at the barrier anymore?”

Kara smiled a predatory smile. “I've found him before, and in a much larger area. I can find him again.”

“I wish I had your confidence.” Jessica said.

Kara turned and looked at her. “You found him again after losing him already, didn't you?” She asked. “What were the odds that would happen?”

Jessica opened her mouth to say that it was different and it took the help of a Goddess to find him, then her eyes lit up with happiness. “We can ask the Goddess for help!”

“When the time comes, with her Sorcerer Priest and a couple of the Acolytes of Light with us, we can pray for guidance and ask her directly.” Kara said.

“Then let's get moving.” Jessica said and motioned to the carriage. “We can travel for another couple of days to get us about halfway to the barrier, then we can ask for guidance.”

“We should be a lot closer to him by then.” Josh said and helped them climb back into the carriage. “Perhaps the Guidance spell will work like the last time and show us where to go and what to do.”

“I'm sure it will.” Evangeline said, confidently. “We'll need to write out the chant for Jessica and Kara to read.”

“Not me?” Steven asked as he climbed into the carriage himself.

“Please don't be offended.” Evangeline said. “Your... attitude towards the Goddess is...”

“Yeah, I know.” Steven said. “We didn't start off well and I've asked Josh to help me to try and make it up to her.”

“I know she knows you're trying; but, you would interfere more than you would help right now.” Evangeline said, then she smiled sweetly. “I'm sure Josh can get her to accept you completely and forgive you by the time we get there, then you can participate and ask for guidance with the rest of us.”

Steven nodded and Josh climbed in and closed the door. The kid that was their guide told the driver the best road to take to get to the next spot with monsters for them to fight and the driver drove the carriage there. Kara and Jessica's bags of holding were getting heavier from all of the carcasses they were carrying, and that had surprised them. They had lost count of how many monsters they had killed so far and the name of the Goddess Chaiya spread from the selfless deeds of her emissaries.

The next three days passed by quickly and as the week came to an end and they reached the area they believed was about halfway to the elf lands, they stopped at a town and rented rooms at an inn. Once there, they settled in to clean themselves and to prepare for the ritual to ask for guidance. The one who had made the biggest turn around was Steven, and he had personally asked for forgiveness from the Goddess Chaiya for his behaviour and was filled with calmness and acceptance.

With all of them ready, in fresh white robes, they gathered in Josh's room and were given sheets with the proper chants on them. It didn't take long for them to find a steady and even rhythm with Evangeline and Aimee there to coach them, then the mana started to flow and Josh cast the spell.

*

Hunter and Maylia had been on the ship for a couple of days by this point, and yet they still didn't have intercourse. Maylia still went passive when he tried to broach the subject or go further than foreplay, so he figured it was going to take more than a few days of teasing and playing to get her over her body's ingrained and probably intensely trained reaction to sex.

Hunter had taught her several other things as well, to her delight, which included the mental technique to calm her thoughts. She caught onto it fairly quickly, mainly because as a guard, she had trained her mind to accept those types of techniques. Hunter was tempted to teach her all about Presence first; but, he realized she had lived for almost a hundred years with only mana and decided to use that instead as the basis for her training. It didn't take him long to adapt his Mana Presence Detection technique for mana use only and started to teach it to her.

Maylia had been amazed that such a technique even existed, then her mind accepted it as fact when she started to see the wisps of green mana around certain things, especially herself and Hunter. Once she understood that mana could be a part of most things, even in minuscule amounts, she slowly allowed the technique to adapt to her sight like Hunter had done with both Presence and mana. Since he hadn't perfected the technique for mana himself, they actually learned it and became better users of it together.

Hunter and Maylia sat at the captain's table for supper and were enjoying both the food and the captain's company when they felt a waver in the mana around them. Both of them were alerted by that and held in their surprise and didn't let it show. It wasn't until Hunter felt the Presence waver as well that he couldn't ignore it. He stood up and looked at Maylia, then at the captain.

“I'm sorry if this seems rude; but, Maylia and I need to step outside.” Hunter said and held a hand out to Maylia. She took it without hesitation and stood. “Please excuse us.”

“Of course.” The captain said and stood himself. “Let me know if it's something that needs my attention as well.”

“Of course.” Hunter said and led Maylia out of the small dining room and out onto the deck.

*

“Hunter, what is it?” Maylia asked. “I felt the flow of mana shifting slightly.”

“Yes, and the Presence shifted as well.” I said, and her eyes widened.

“That means...”

“Yes, someone who knows about me is looking for me.”

“Why would the mana move, though?” Maylia asked, and we stood quietly as we thought about it. “It must be a spell of some kind.” She said a few minutes later. “That would explain the mana use as well as the Presence.”

“I've been masking my Presence this whole time, and yet it still found me, whatever it was.” I said, concern in my voice.

Maylia turned and looked at me. “Hunter, you don't think... could it be...”

“No, I killed him and annihilated his Presence. Even if someone somehow resurrected his body and granted him another life, it still wouldn't be him.”

“That's a relief.” Maylia said. “I'd need to kill him if he did come back. ”

I smiled at her and squeezed her hand slightly. “Thank you.”

Maylia nodded and we turned to stare out at the farmlands we were currently passing. A large forest was coming up, and we both decided we needed more practice with detect mana, so I pointed and told her we should share energy while we looked.

“You're worried about an ambush, aren't you?” Maylia asked as she activated her technique and I nodded as I activated mine.

“Especially after what we felt just now.” I said and concentrated on combining our energies together and let it pour out into our combined detection range. Thankfully, her more extensive use of mana helped me refine my own mana techniques and it let me see more details and discern the effects the different states of mana had on things. I could give them different shades of green now, instead of it all being the same color, which definitely helped my mind process it all.

“Hunter.” Maylia said and I felt her shift her attention and followed it myself. “We're going to have company.”

“We should tell the captain.” I said and led her into the dining room. “Captain, there are creatures that I can only describe as humanoid frogs just inside the forest up ahead.”

“Are they in the water or on land?” The captain asked and stood.

“Both.” I said.

“Oh, damn!” The captain said and ran from the dining room. We followed him to the wheelhouse and he pulled a wire. A loud blaring noise broke the serene calm on the ship and everyone came out from wherever they were. The other couple of passengers, the deckhands, and even the people that kept the steam engine going were up on deck.

The captain stepped out of the wheelhouse and looked at their faces. “We've got breeglecots in the water up ahead.”

“Abandon ship!” One of the deckhands yelled and ran over to the side and used the ropes to start lowering the small rowboat into the water. The other deckhands went to the other side and lowered the other boat and people started climbing down to them.

“Is that really necessary?” I asked. “Aren't they...”

“You need to understand their tactics.” The captain said. “If they were on the land, they'd throw spears and we could probably speed past them.” He said. “If they are in the water, they already have floating ammunition for their...”

CRASH!

The ship rocked to the side slightly as something hit the bow of the ship.

“Go! Get to the boats!” The captain said and went back into the wheelhouse. “I doubt we'll stay afloat for much longer.” He held the wheel steady so the people could finish leaving the boat safely.

I looked at Maylia and she looked back at me. “Should we?”

“Well, we are adventurers now.” Maylia said. “Do you think you can block the front of the boat?”

“I can try.” I said, and we ran to the front of the boat and ignored the people that tried to tell us to leave and not to throw our lives away. I looked down and saw a two foot wide tree trunk sticking out of the side of the boat and water poured into the hull. I formed Presence over the hole and made it solid, and that mostly stopped the water. I couldn't completely seal it, since the tree trunk was porous and the wooden planks of the hull were bent slightly for about ten feet or so on either side of the damage. I didn't want to pull the log out and possibly make the hole bigger, so I did what I could to mitigate the damage.

“Another one!” Maylia said. “Follow the mana trail in the water!”

I looked in the right direction and she was right. They were using mana somehow to launch the logs through the water like torpedoes. The logs themselves didn't have mana and only a small amount of Presence in them, which was why I had missed the first one as it approached. Now that I knew what to look for, I used a Presence Hand in the water to catch the projectile. There was a splash in the water and then suddenly there were two more large tree trunks coming towards the boat.

I turned the tree trunk I had caught around and pushed it forward as hard as I could towards the frogs, then used that Presence Hand and another to catch the incoming logs, turned them around and pushed them at the frogs, too. A dozen more splashes happened as the first log slammed into whatever it was they were launching the logs from, then the other two logs rammed through the splashing water.

Three of the humanoid frogs managed to jump out of the water and get out of the way. The ones on the land opened their large mouths and really loud squeals and squeaks came out. It made me laugh.

“Okay, that's the funniest thing I've ever seen! A five foot tall frog that squeaks! Ha ha!”

“Hunter, this is serious.” Maylia said, and I could see her trying to hide her smile.

“All right.” I chuckled and took one of the elves quivers out of my bag of holding and used Presence Hands to take four of the arrows and 'threw' them at the frogs. What I really did was use the Presence Hands to stab them with the arrows. The frogs didn't stop squeaking and several of them picked up spears. I pulled the arrows out of the first frogs and quickly used them to stab each of the other frogs in the arms.

They tried to fend off the arrows, since they only annoyed them and didn't kill them. I was only trying to distract them to give myself an opening, then used a fifth arrow to stab their chests. By the time the ship was empty and the passengers had gotten away safely, the ship came to a stop barely thirty feet away from the bodies of the humanoid frogs.

“How in the seven hells are we still afloat?” The captain came out of the wheelhouse and came over to us. “I know I felt us be rammed. I know I did!”

I pointed down to show him, and he leaned over the side of the ship and sighed.

“Why aren't we sinking?”

“We still are.” I said. “I can't stop all the leaks the thing caused and we're taking on water.”

“Can you keep holding it for a few minutes? I think I can get us close enough to the shore so we don't sink completely.”

“I can do that.” I said and used the Presence Hands I had made to push on the side of the ship. It was slow, since I wasn't sure how much pressure I could put on the wood without breaking it. The captain stared at the riverbank as we floated closer to it, then the ship lurched a little and leaned slightly.

“Can you push a bit more so we don't slide back out?” The captain asked, then chuckled. “I just asked a single man to push a whole ship into dock by himself!”

I had to chuckle at that and pulled the ship out a little, then shoved it in. The ship lifted about two feet out of the water and leaned over about ten degrees as it rested on the dirt by the riverbank.

“Good! That's good.” The captain said. “The damage is still below the waterline; but, we can easily cover the hole with dirt to stop the leaks, then we can work on the ship.”

“Okay.” I said and used the same Presence Hands to pull dirt from about a hundred feet away and piled it all over the damage that the log had done to the side of the ship, then I absorbed all of the Presence I had used to cover the hole and the Presence Hands that I had moved the dirt with.

“That's the damnedest thing I ever saw.” The captain said and scratched his head. “How did you do that?”

“It doesn't matter.” I said and turned to Maylia. “Unfortunately, it looks like our leisurely boat ride to the capital just ended.”

“That's okay.” Maylia said. “I was getting sore from sleeping on beds that are too soft anyway.”

I barked a laugh and looked at the captain. “We'll be leaving now.”

“No refunds!” The captain said and held his hands up in surrender, so I laughed again.

“I wasn't going to ask.” I said and took Maylia's hand. We shared energy with each other and the captain stared at us as we stepped up over the rail and jumped off the ship to land on the riverbank almost twenty feet away.

“Is there a bounty of those frog things?” Maylia asked me, so I turned and asked the captain the same question.

“Not as far as I know.” The captain said. “I'm pretty sure that there's too many of the damn things to justify paying someone to kill them all.”

“We can check their weapons and things and see if they're any good.” Maylia said, so we ran over to the bodies and checked. The quality of the spears was poor, as was the leather pieces of armor they wore. None of it was worth taking, so after we checked to see if they were all equipped the same and then if they had any money on them, I fished the ones out of the water and pulled them onto the shore. We checked them as well and didn't find anything useful.

“Thanks for getting them out.” A man's voice said. “They rot fast and contaminate the water.”

“That was just a bonus for checking them.” I said and stood up. “I don't know how they survive wearing so little.”

“Sheer determination, I'd say.” The man said and chuckled. “I think if we didn't use the water they live in, they'd still try to hunt people down because it's all they know how to do.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“That's my house right over there.” The man said and pointed at a small house pretty far away across the field next to the forest. “When I saw the ship coming up the waterway, I tried to get over here as fast as I could to warn it.” He looked down at the frog carcasses by my feet. “Every few weeks another group comes by and we deal with them when we can. These guys arrived last night and we haven't had time to get the people together.”

“Where do they come from?” I asked, curious.

“Nobody knows.” The man said. “They just show up.”

That's kind of like those armadillo creatures on Hoquan's farm. I thought.

“Well, you did a great job getting rid of them.” The man praised me. “Do you think you could...”

“We're heading to the capital.” I said. “If we come back this way, though...”

The man nodded. “Any help is appreciated.” He said. “We send word to the capital every few weeks to ask for adventurers to come and try to stop this from happening, and no one ever comes.”

“I can't offer to ask them to send anyone, either.” I said. “I wouldn't even know who to talk to.”

The man laughed. “Maybe we will all get lucky and they'll skip showing up next month.”

“Maybe.” I said, and yet we both knew the frog things would probably be back.

“If you stick to the main road over there, you'll get to the capital eventually.” The man said.

“Thanks.” I said and led Maylia over to the road. We glanced back to see the farmer drag one of the bodies across the road, then he struggled to lift it and put it into a wheelbarrow.

“What do you think he does with them?” Maylia asked me.

“He's either burying them or using them for food for the animals.” I said. “At least, I hope it's food for the animals.”

“Ugh.” Maylia said and stuck her tongue out as she gagged. “That's disgusting.”

“Yeah.” I said. “You know, I met a frog man once.”

“You did?” Maylia asked, surprised.

“The only thing he ever said was 'ribbit'.” I said with a smile, and she chuckled. “Ready to run?”

“Only if we keep it at a steady jog.” Maylia said. “We don't have to rush, remember?”

I nodded and we activated the run technique together and took off at half of our full speed. Neither of us breathed hard or felt any strain on our muscles, and we were fine with that.