Chuck had a long time to think as he patrolled around the camp, in the dead of night. Could he really hold Ricardo responsible for his and Erwin's deaths?

The conclusion he came to was, no. As much as he hated that, it was true. He was alive and so was Erwin, so that future never happened. It didn't, however, excuse the man of theft, nor of abandoning his friends.

In Chuck's eyes that was the real crime. If someone had not been awake and a monster wandered into camp, it could have easily killed everyone there. For that reason alone Chuck would never forgive the man.

He didn't even care about the bag all that much, let Ricardo suffer for having it.

Dawn was starting to peek through the trees. Chuck wasn't sure how he was going to explain Ricardo's disappearance to the group. He even came across the man's trail while patrolling. The man had doubled back at one point to see if anyone was following him. A wise precaution but ultimately useless. Level four of tracking allowed Chuck to see enough signs of his passage to follow the man with ease if he wished to. He didn't, of course. 'Let the man be devoured by some monster.'

Chuck headed back towards camp. The rest should be waking up soon and they still had a long trip ahead of them.

Erwin woke up when the first rays of light hit his eyes, he had always been a light sleeper. He looked around the camp but didn't see Ricardo or Chuck. Ricardo was probably still scouting, but where did Chuck get off to?

The question was answered a few minutes later as Chuck walked back into the camp from the forest. The kid looked contemplative as he approached. Erwin immediately picked up that something was wrong. His senses having been attuned to pick up anything out of the ordinary, by years of adventuring. The skill perception helped as well.

He scanned the kid over and noticed what was wrong. The magical bag was missing. He ran over to the kid, "Chuck, what happened to your bag?"

Chuck could only understand two words that were spoken, his name and the word bag. It didn't take a genius to figure out what Erwin wanted to know, "Ricardo take bag."

Chuck had to stop the man from storming off into the forest after Ricardo, "Not worth Erwin, not worth Chuck, leave."

He figured he got his point across when Erwin stopped. He did learn a bevy of new curse words that day. These were always the staple of good linguistic understanding after all.

Ewin kicked Mellas and Bargo awake, being a little more gentle with Bargo as his arm was still in a sling. He explained to them what happened over the night.

"Why would Ricardo steal a ratty old bag?" Bargo asked, confused.

"Well, it may have looked like a ratty old bag, but it was, in fact, a magical storage bag."

"Gods above, where did Chuck get a magical bag from?"

"Good question, I think it's time we asked."

Erwin turned to Chuck, "Where bag from?" he asked, trying to simplify the question as much as possible.

Chuck understood the question but he wasn't sure how to say ruin in their language. He did know the word for hole, large, and also for building. He would give this his best attempt, "Found building, large hole."

"Found in a building by large hole?" Mellas interpreted.

"He must be speaking about the old ruins of Grema, we were close to them when we camped."

"Those ruins are cursed and haunted," Bargo replied.

"Superstitious nonsense, although, they have been picked clean ages ago. The boy must have stumbled upon a cache or a corpse in the ruins."

"Wonder if he found anything else?" Mellas spoke.

"Might as well ask. Chuck, find more?"

Chuck was apprehensive about sharing the rest of the discovery. He trusted Erwin, after the man died for him in the alternate future, but still. Look what happened when he showed them the bag. In the end, he decided to show them the other items.

The four men looked at the items Chuck had spread out on the blanket.

Erwin asked Chuck why they weren't in the magical bag and had a good laugh when Chuck said he took them out the previous night. The skill book and necklace were interesting, although, he didn't care much for the journal. For one he couldn't read it or understand any of the formulas or diagrams within. He figured it could be a high-leveled magical theory, or it could be someone's taxes. Math and learning was not his strong suit, being a street urchin and all.

None of the others could read the language either, it appeared to be a very old dialect of Grema. Good luck finding anyone that knew it. The civilization had collapsed after their main city, the one Chuck was referring to, fell to some unknown catastrophe.

Each person tried to open the unknown skill book at Chuck's prompting. None were able to meet the requirements to do so. Erwin wasn't surprised at that. They weren't even able to determine what the skill was. It was written in the same dead language.

Chuck showed them how the necklace worked. Erwin had heard of memory storage devices, but as the bag they were rare. Unfortunately, this one seemed to be locked to the original owner so it was only useful to recall the stored memories within.

Erwin pushed all the items back towards Chuck. They were rightfully his anyway. The items may be worth something to a collector or historian if you could find one.

Chuck repacked the items in his bag. It was a good thing some of his rations had been eaten already as the bag was stuffed full.

Erwin scratched his beard, he did this when he got frustrated, "Well, I don't think we'll see Ricardo anymore. I doubt the man would be stupid enough to head towards Lionoss."

Erwin glanced towards Chuck as he packed away his bag before looking at the others, "I don't think it needs to be said what should happen if we do see that traitor again?"

The others nodded. The three of them had been pals since before they awakened. Ricardo had been added to the group a few years later. They had needed a dedicated mage to brave more dangerous territory. He should have known the man was a snake.

Everyone began to pack up their gear, Chuck decided to check on his skills quickly.

Light Armor: 5-5

Bladed Weapons: 5-5

Ice Arrow: 5-5

Multitasking: 16869/20000SP to level 3

Minor Heal: 1-1

Sneaking: 5-5

Short Sword: 10/150TP to level 2

Mana Manipulation: 106/4000SP to level 3

Tracking: 5-5

Looks like mana manipulation and tracking had both leveled and multitasking was getting close. He figured it would be done by supper time. That was good, he could queue up level four of that but he didn't have any other abilities at the moment to train. He took a look at the descriptions of his updated skills.

Mana Manipulation: Allows the user to manipulate the mana of uncommon spells, allowing for additional spell effects. Mana cost of additional effect is based on the effect added. Reduced cost of lower-tiered spells. Also allows for the combining of spells. Three spells of up to uncommon level.

He was glad he choose to level it up again. If the spell had remained the same it would have been useless. He couldn't very well drain his entire mana pool each time he wanted to modify a spell. He would need to play with the skill and see what simpler modifications would cost, mana wise.

Next, he looked at the tracking skill. It had come in handy so far so he was glad to have it maxed out now.

Tracking: Your eyes see every little detail, anything out of place screams to your senses, Follow! You notice tracks and signs of passing easier than before. 100% chance to successfully follow a trail less than a day old. 100% chance to follow a trail over a week old. 25% chance to follow a trail over a month old.

He also looked at sneaking, which he had forgotten to do in the haste of leaving and training.

Sneaking: The shadows are your friends. 50% chance to remain hidden.

Prerequisite met, would you like to train Stealth. Y/N

What the heck! Skills could level up? He quickly selected yes, adding it to his training pool. He really needed to up his language game, he could be missing out on other features like this. He quickly checked every skill to see if any others offered him an upgrade. He also realized that the description for Stealth along with the other skill stats was blank. The only thing he saw was the required SP of 600.

He was sorely tempted to swap out mana manipulation to train level one just to see what the skill was about. In the end, he chose not to. Simply because mana manipulation seemed like it had more utility at the current time.

Chuck opened his eyes and looked around. he could make out signs of any number of creatures passing through this spot in the last month. It was rather freaky when he thought about it.

Before he forgot, he walked over to Bargo and tried his heal on the man. The bone didn't set but the scratches and bruises healed up. Bargo thanked him for trying. Chuck walked around and cast the spell on everyone else. Everyone had their bruises from the fight the previous day. After the round of healing, they covered the fire and continued along the rough trail, over the small mountains.

Everyone had to be even more alert for danger, with Bargo's injury and Ricardo's betrayal they only had three combat-capable people. Chuck wouldn't count Bargo out though. The man looked more than capable of swinging a sword with his off-hand. Because of this, the walk was quiet.

Chuck didn't mind. His old introverted self reveled in the silence, broken only by the sounds of the animals in the forest.

The morning had been uneventful, they stopped for ten minutes to rest and eat when the sun was at its peak. Chuck took the opportunity to squeeze out more words from Mellas while Erwin kept watch. He could see the man was reluctant at first but eventually he warmed up to my suggestion. Personally, Chuck thought the man was enamored with his boyish charm, it definitely didn't have anything to do with Erwin telling him to help, nope, none at all.

Chuck smiled as he pointed to items and trees, Mellas grumbling as he said the word for each. Then Chuck would point again later and say the word. He had to be corrected a few times, which was understandable.

The rest of the day went by mostly in silence. That was a good thing because they actually managed to ambush a group of goblins. Three of the six were dead by spells before they even reacted to our presence. The rest tried to flee, Erwin and he took down one each while Mellas cut the other down. He had circled around for this very purpose. The man was a ghost in the forest. Chuck wondered if he had stealth?

The group stopped at a small walled-in house. The place was empty but apparently used by travelers when they needed safety. Chuck was surprised that the monsters of the forest hadn't torn it down. Not like there was anyone to prevent it most of the time.

Erwin tried to explain it to him but most of it got lost in translation. Despite the odd circumstances, Chuck welcomed a roof over his head. The air in this jungle-like forest was humid and damp. It was getting slightly better, now that they were traveling north but it was still just awful.

Chuck plopped his bedroll near one of the walls. He ate a dried ration as he checked on multitasking. Twelve minutes left. After that, he was going straight to sleep. They gave him the last watch. He was fine with that.

The skill finished and he added level four to the queue, then he lay down and was asleep in a minute.