Due to the heavy load, it took at least an hour for me to drag the pull cart all the way north to the wall. The church bell had tolled twelve times long before my arrival. Even though I was expending a tremendous amount of energy, my body was still under the effects of the potion of enhanced strength and therefore, I was only moderately tired from my laborious training.

Honestly, I had never engaged in this type of arduous manual labor before arriving in this gaming world. I was more accustomed to sitting on a lousy chair made of hardwood and hunched over a book at a public library. I would spend hours reading and taking notes; the exercise was mental in nature and primarily relied on mental concentration to decipher and comprehend the subject matter in question while warding off the lure of sleep. These past few days, however, I had exercised muscles that I never knew existed before, and my experience so far had given me a deeper appreciation for people who engaged in physically oriented occupations.

My two companions, Maisen and Kalistra, kept a constant vigilance of our surroundings. I certainly understood the reason why they were so cautious. At this point, the crazed goddess Drowsidea was undoubtedly aware of my special status as a player character. And it seemed that she was petty and vengeful enough to have her followers try to kidnap and then sacrifice me as a way to screw over the other gods. Otherwise, why would the drows not bother to attack me or at least fling a poisoned dagger in my direction during the ambush? From the perspective of this gaming world, I must be making excellent progress given the sort of enemies I was drawing now, from human bullies to wererats to drows, and beyond.

Of course, there was a major downside to this monster escalation. As the danger to my life increased over time, it would become harder and harder for my protectors to keep me safe. I've had multiple attempts on my life in a few short days. I had no illusion that any of it was "accidental" or "coincidental." Sooner or later, an assassin will get lucky and end my life. Hopefully, there will be a high-level cleric nearby whenever that occurs so that I can be resurrected and continue on with my quest. I certainly don't relish the notion of being fattened up like a pig for slaughter, but there was no use denying that this was happening to me.

To my relief, no foolhardy drow appeared before me to avenge the death of their late leader during the rest of my commute through the crowded streets of Tregome. Perhaps the normal hustle-bustle of daily life discouraged them. Perhaps Sister Alsaj had followed the dark elves and eliminated them all without my knowledge. Regardless of the reason, I was very thankful to be able to concentrate on finishing my assigned task. Furthermore, I noticed another benefit to having these two women accompany me.

Despite the fact that the streets were overflowing, the pedestrians quickly parted before us and cleared a path for me to continue on my journey. The commoners on the street did not try to impede us; instead, they kept a healthy distance to allow us to pass through and then greedily swallowed whole the empty space we left in our wake.

I noticed that many of the pedestrians paid their respects to Maisen and Kalistra with either downcast eyes, nods, or deep bows. I saw Maisen waving her hand in a friendly gesture, while Kalistra, perhaps due to her feline nature, virtually ignored them. It was a very interesting contrast in behavior and personality between the two when I thought about it.

Even though Captain Maisen was the older person of the two, she was constantly deferential to the younger Kalistra, who had a tempestuous personality befitting a teenager. And despite such starkly different personalities, I suspected that the two were closest of friends at the dojo for the simple reason that the cat girl seemed less reserved and more open whenever the human was around.

In some ways, I was very sympathetic to Kalistra because she had lived her entire life burdened by expectations from both her father and the town of Tregome itself. She was a public figure in the eyes of the residents; becoming the Champion of the Master Division of the Melee Tournament two years ago had only cemented and reaffirmed her public stature in their eyes. Therefore, she had to act honorably at all times as the public representative of the Butterfly School of Swordsmanship because words of any misdeed, both real and misunderstood as such, will surely reach everyone's ears sooner or later.

In fact, I suspected that her father, the grandmaster, and also Master Gurgne had purposely chosen to remain homebound, so to speak, at the dojo in order to allow the heir of the school to retain the public's attention. Why else would the heir be allowed to go over to The Noble Lady for breakfast and lunch every day? While the cost of each meal was moderate, over time she was probably spending a small fortune there, to her father's chagrin. On the other hand, this strategy had worked to perfection in netting a big client—namely, me. And with my platinum coin safely in the heir's possession, Kalistro can afford to let his daughter continue eating at the tavern.

That being said, I could not recall an instance where the grandmaster had personally left the dojo. It was quite possible that Kalistro had an undisclosed health condition that rendered him unable to leave the dojo. While the cat man possessed a tremendously strong and, at times, overpowering aura, I had felt this aura fade and diminish on occasion. It was a troubling development but I hadn't developed a close enough association with the grandmaster to discuss this intimate and private issue with him. If Kalistro was indeed dying, then it made sense for him to push Kalistra as hard as she could bear so that he could hone and refine her swordsmanship while he was still alive.

As for Master of the Hunt, Gurgne will undoubtedly leave the dojo if necessary; but otherwise, he seemed to spend the bulk of his time at the dojo as well. I had not sensed any diminishment in his aura. Perhaps, he wished to stay near the grandmaster in order to tend to the proud cat man's personal needs. Upon seeing the deferential treatment of the commoners toward Kalistra during our trek to the northern wall, I believed that their plan was slowly coming to fruition.

In addition, one could easily argue that their approach to grooming Kalistra as heir was akin to the Asian practice of bonsai, or cultivating small trees in containers. Heck, I was also being subjected to this practice by the gaming world itself. For a man who valued the freedom of choice, being influenced in this way and therefore losing his freedom a little bit at a time, was a very sobering thought.

"Penny for your thoughts," Kalistra said suddenly, interrupting my thoughts. She looked at me with curiosity. When I hesitated to respond, she asked, "Did I use the wrong human expression again?" Her ears were downcast momentarily in disappointment.

"I'm sorry, master," I apologized. "I was just lost in thought for a moment."

"About?" she pressed as her cat ears sprang back to life.

My lips remained sealed.

"Our lord was probably thinking about Amelica and her warm bed," Maisen teased mercilessly.

On instinct, I tried to punch her on the shoulder. However, when I released my left hand from the bar handle, I almost lost my grip on the bar with my right hand, too. I quickly grabbed the handle again with my left hand and managed to avoid flipping the pull cart and allowing the contents to spill out of the box.

My tormentor laughed at my mishap and did not move a finger to help me. But she offered me a knowing wink.

I rolled my eyes at her, refusing to acknowledge that Maisen had saved me from answering my master's uncomfortable question. Reaching the end of the street, I saw a widened space up ahead and beyond that, the towering wall that protected Tregome. The wall was some fifteen feet tall, made of large cobblestones. The surface was pockmarked with holes. At regular intervals, simple wooden ladders leaned against the wall. Atop the wall were walkways where Watchmen patrolled and looked at the horizon on occasion.

When I finally stopped pulling the cart and released the bar handle, I received a pop-up message which read, "Major faction quest COMPLETED. +250 Reputation. + 500 XP. +1 Strength, +1 Constitution. +200 XP."

Several dwarves approached me and practically shoved me out of the way as they moved the pull cart in unison away from me.

"You're welcome," I muttered to myself. Another notification appeared and this one read, "Minor faction quest COMPLETED. +100 Reputation. +200 XP." I did a little fist bump. I really enjoyed these double faction quests. Just like Kalistra said earlier, it was killing two birds with one stone. More importantly, though, I had received an additional point of Constitution, bringing me one step closer toward the twenty-five I needed before I leave Tregome tomorrow morning. Despite the drudgery and humiliation in serving as an ox for this assignment, in the end, the gains in experience, reputation, and attributes were well worth it.

Suddenly, an old man with a metal hook in place of his left hand appeared in front of me. He wore his graying hair shortly cropped, matching the length of his similarly colored mustache. He had a long scar across the bridge of his nose. His blue eyes, while paled by age, was alert and inquisitive as he examined me from head to toe. He wore chain mail armor over a white tunic and brown breeches. Even without looking at his caption, I could tell that this man was the officer in charge of the northern wall.

"Greetings, Second Captain Nexholm," Captain Maisen said with a sharp salute.

"Greetings, First Captain Maisen," the older man returned the salute.

With the formalities exchanged, my companion released her salute and smiled broadly. "Any issues with the gate or the men that I should be aware of?" she asked.

Her subordinate offered a slight frown. "The wall should be okay, now that you've brought the materials that the masons need to make repairs. But we've had some trouble with our Watchmen and they could use some disciplinary action from you."

The superior officer nodded in understanding. After all, she had expected some minor flare-ups from the Watchmen. The men were tense after reports of incidents involving wererats followed by drows. Fortunately, Captain Maisen knew just the thing to ease the tension. With a grin, she turned toward me. "May I introduce Lord Lawrence Eugene Mulligan, Adept of the Church of Britannia, Initiate of the Butterfly School of Swordsmanship, Slayer of the Wererat Leader Ebenthal, Avenger of the Town Judge Wachtel, Rescuer of three children from the drows, Blessed of Musa, Bane, and Luck, Initiate Division Representative to this year's Melee Tournament, and Pursuer of the Crown?"

My mouth almost dropped at the unexpected long introduction from her. What the heck was she doing? Why did she publicly broadcast my feats and accomplishments? Didn't Maisen realize that the eyes of EVERY Watchman within earshot were now on me?

"Oh! You're the one!" Nexholm exclaimed before he dropped to his knees, grabbed my left hand, and started kissing it.

I immediately knelt down and grabbed the man by his shoulders. "Milord, I'm not a bishop or a deacon. I am unworthy of such treatment from you," I said humbly. I was very confused by his reaction and decided that the best approach to handle this situation was with humility.

The man reciprocated by grabbing my shoulder with his remaining hand. "Nonsense! You saved my grandson, Blenwul, from the drows and I'm very grateful to you," he explained. As I rose back to my feet, he rose in unison with me. The second captain turned his head, looked around at the gathered Watchmen and made an impromptu declaration, "This man is one of us! He is a Border Patrolman!"

Uh-oh! What just happened?