The from visibility the haze was not good and I couldn't make out any place that would make good shelter. So I started walking. I didn't know which way would be the best so I started at a forty-five-degree angle to the sun. It wasn't as bright as Calorin's sun but looking at it still hurt my eyes.

We had been walking for hours and saw nothing but sand and rocks with the occasional deformed man. There had been no women. Most of the men ignored us. Many of them lay motionless with empty eyes staring in whichever direction. Some of them had attacked us. Most of them rushed us without a word and I would shoot them when they got too close. The ones that talked rambled incoherent phrases but one had looked at Helnion and Perrinu with lust and called out that it had been so long since he had been with a woman.

I shot him without hesitation.

The sun had not moved in the sky. I had thought for sure that it would have set by now, or maybe it had even been rising but it did neither. I didn't know if the days here were just long or if it didn't rotate at all. Perhaps the planet we were on had one side facing the star-like Earth's moon always had one side facing the Earth?

Our sightings of the seemingly insane inhabitants of this black desert had been dropping. I didn't know why we were seeing less of them, but Perrinu seemed less tense now. I wondered if there was a reason there had been so many and then almost none.

It would be worth a look if I could get away from the two I was with as I could move around more easily.

It was getting rockier. I hoped this was a sign that there were large rock outcroppings nearby. The thin air had made us tired easily despite the seemingly weaker gravity. We were also getting thirsty and hungry. We had yet to see any signs of water so I hoped Usui would give us some soon.

I stopped. When the others saw me stop they did too and waited to see what I would do. I didn't know when Usui would send us food so I checked to see if he had sent anything yet. I also needed to use the middle drawer.

I took my boxpack off and placed it on the ground. I opened the bottom drawer and looked inside. There was a flask. I took it out and the other two quickly did the same. I didn't trust Usui, so I looked inside. It looked like water. I sniffed it. It smelled like water.

When I stuck my finger in the bottle to taste test it when Perrinu tapped me on the shoulder, “It is only water.”

Just because theirs was water didn't mean mine wasn't. I tasted it and it was water.

We were soon on the move as soon as we each had replaced our middle drawers in our boxes. It surprised me to find something in the top drawer too. It was a letter from Usui and said nothing important. I crumpled it up and placed it in the middle drawer where it belonged. It had made good toilet paper.

Perrinu got a letter too. She didn't know what it said, but it seemed to lift her mood a bit. I was slightly curious about what was in her letter but felt I should respect her privacy.

We finally found shelter.

The rocks had steadily gotten bigger and now found ourselves in a maze of large rocks. There weren't any caves and camping ourselves on top of one would give our positions away so we improvised. The rocks were much too big to move the regular way, so I got Helnion to make us a rock fort with her levitation magic.

I tried helping too, but when I tried to levitate, it would either do nothing or continue to rise continually, often like a rocket, until I stopped. I couldn't have that just-right spot where the object levitated in place unless I was lucky enough to have my power rise or drop to that point when I was trying, which was rare.

At this moment my power was too low to even budge rocks of the size we were moving, though I could take some weight off of the rock so Helnion didn't have to use as much energy.

Perrinu was amazed, “Until now I thought only the Animal Kin or Deity could use magic. I have never seen a human do it before.”

So humans couldn't use magic where she was from? I had never heard of such a place on Calorin. As far as I knew everyone everywhere could use magic to some extent if taught. Maybe her kind had lost the knowledge or even never had it. If I got bored enough, I might have to experiment on her and find out.

Helnion didn't have enough energy to finish our fort. The rocks were so heavy, even with the lower gravity, that she tired quickly. She still had enough energy to topple them so I had her use the last of her energy to topple some rocks and blocked as many of the paths as she could. It wasn't perfect and it would take a few days of this before it would satisfy me, but it had still limited how someone could reach our new home.

“Food!” Perrinu yelled to us.

An exhausted Helnion rushed over to her box, eagerly opening her the bottom drawer and pulling out a piece of bread and another flask. I was hungry too but there was no hurry.

My meal was another vegetarian meal. The servants had found out I had a taste for fruit so I had more of that than the other two. It wasn't the best meal ever, but it would do.

We all ate our meal in silence. I could tell Perrinu wanted to talk, but she had already tried several times while we were walking and neither Helnion and I had cared to give her anything more than a brief answer or disinterest.

Helnion fell asleep quickly after she had finished and Perrinu sat next to her, huddling for warmth. She too soon fell asleep.

Now that they were asleep I did a little patrolling. I wasn't heartless and wouldn't leave them asleep and vulnerable so I didn’t go far.

I climbed up the rocks and lept between them until I got to the tallest one. The haze was still a problem, but for now, I only needed to see if there was anyone undesirable nearby. It would be difficult to find anyone in this maze of rocks so I could only see anyone if they were moving. If there was one of those that didn't move at all then it wouldn't be a big deal since they seemed to not care about anything.

I hadn't been looking for long when I heard sobbing. It was coming from our fort. It didn't sound like Helnion, so it was Perrinu. She was still asleep so she must have been having a nightmare, probably about her family or something like that.

I couldn't see anyone from my current vantage point so I moved somewhere else. I hoped that no one could hear her and left with that. I didn't think there was anyone the way we came from or we probably would have seen them already so I headed in the opposite direction.

Over the next half hour I leaped from rock to rock, the lighter gravity making this easy. It was then that I found him. He was sleeping in the sun to get what little warmth he could. His neck was at an odd angle and he had rope marks around his neck. He wasn't the first I had seen like this. Since this was where those that had killed themselves went, it wasn't surprising. Every man I had seen had some injury. I had heard nothing about this before, but it appeared that those sent here kept the wounds they had received when they had killed themselves. In this case the man had probably hung himself.

This was one of the less gruesome injuries I had seen. I could only guess at how some of them had died, but they ranged from no marks to a few that had organs spilling out of gaping wounds or the walking charred. From some of their ramblings, it sounded like they still felt the pain of their wounds. This was enough to make me never want to commit suicide.

The man below me wasn't a threat at the moment. I didn't know if he would ever be a threat but Perrinu wasn't here so I would make sure he never was one so I shot him with an arrow and he turned to dust.

I retrieved the arrow and continued on my patrol.

I was thankful for all the running I had done during training. If I hadn't, I would have passed out because of the thin air. As it was, I returned to camp short of breath. I had made a complete circle around our place and had found two more men. None of them even saw me and didn’t look like a threat so I left them alone.

Helnion was still asleep, but Perrinu was awake. Perrinu looked horrible. Her eyes were red and puffy and looked like she had been crying until a few moments ago.

“Where did you go?” She asked me.

“To look around.”

“You need to rest.”

I didn't reply and sat down by my box. The bag with all my stuff that Helnion had been carrying for me was next to my box and I pulled out a fire crystal and a storage crystal. I used to have two fire crystals but Helnion must have lost it during the carriage chase so I could have made two if that hadn't happened.

I charged the storage crystal and gathered some small rocks then built a box with them and put it and then the fire crystal inside. As soon as the fire crystal touched the storage crystal, it produced a flame. It was not as warm as a campfire but it still gave off heat so it would do.

“Why did you not do this earlier?” Perrinu asked me. She sounded a little unhappy. She didn't look cold, so I wondered why.

“I didn’t think of it until now.”

Helnion woke up and sighed wearily but said nothing else and warmed herself by the fire.

Perrinu had fallen back asleep. I was no longer tired and had no desire to sleep. The sun hadn't moved, so I had no idea how long it had been since we had come to this black wasteland. I didn't know what to do. I was bored. I could go look on another patrol.

It wasn't until Helnion woke up a while later that I moved.

“I will look around some more,” I told the two of them.

“You should not go alone,” Perrinu looked grumpy again, “I know you can defend yourself but we still do not know what to do and how dangerous it is.”

“That is why I'm going,” I then turned to Helnion, “Helnion, don't let our princess here get into trouble,” I said to her before leaving.

Helnion saluted me and I left.