“Could I get another piece of bread?”, I ask politely to a servant.

“Of course, sir.”, the male servant replies politely.

I then find a discreet corner as usual and start eating my bread there.

“From his reactions, I can tell he’s genuinely surprised about the chest injury… could it be that he’s really unrelated? Or is he just feigning it... “, I mutter softly to myself.

He seems to have little regard towards his wellbeing if so though. He didn’t seem too concerned when I revealed that he was the biggest suspect and might be attacked by the whole group.

It could be confidence in his abilities, but he merely raised his eyebrows on hearing it.

Normally people would at least tense up, on hearing that they’ll be going through a life-or-death battle.

I would have thought he would be related somehow, even if he wasn’t the principal offender. The twist of the neck and the chest injury could have been done by different people after all.

I look to the side of the camp, and see Sylvia talking to Wind.

She’s likely informing her of the plan. Wind seems to take it lightly, but tightens her grip on her bow.

I turn my gaze to Zhe Yun, who’s mingling with the servants as usual. The conversation seems less cheerful than usual, with the servants replying occasionally, unlike the merriness usually.

It can’t be helped, one of them died. Furthermore, someone else still has to guard the caravan tonight with the mercenaries.Zhe Yun seems to be comforting one of them now, probably the person who will be on lookout.

Zhe Yun can only be informed tonight, when they are on night lookout together.

I continue to sit on a rock and eat slowly.

Before long, Wind turns to head back into her tent, and Sylvia flashes me a thumbs up, smiling.

I smile at her cute action, before waving it off and returning to my tent.

I try to get some sleep before the night turns dark, I wouldn’t want to be in deep sleep if there’s another attempt.

However, the day soon approaches without anything out of the ordinary happening.

I yawn as I wake up, slightly more tired since I tried to sleep as lightly as possible.

I pick up my breakfast as usual, looking around to find Sylvia after that.

After looking around for a bit, I realised she may not be up yet.

She could be getting some quick sleep in after her lookout.

I shrug and find a seat to sit by myself.

I then see an exhausted Sylvia come out from her tent, with Zhe Yun lifting the flap for her.

Slightly curious, I blink my eyes in their direction.

I continue wondering, at this point, Sylvia’s eyes meet mine, and she smiles brightly at me.

She seems to drag Zhe Yun who’s making a difficult face along, as she pulls him in my direction.

As he reaches, I greet him, “Hi, I’m Xue Qiu, I believe this is our 2nd time speaking, haha.”

He laughs lightly at this, extending his right hand to reach my outstretched one.

“Well, you haven’t come to join me and the servants!”, he jokes.

Sylvia and Zhe Yun find spots to sit on, as we start eating our breakfast.

Before long, Zhe Yun speaks out, “E-Erm…”

“Yes?”

“I heard about the plan…”

“And…”

“I have a small request to make.”, he says resolutely.

“Do say.”

“I-I would like to be on the frontlines when we fight against the Ogre man.”

I pause to ponder this for a brief moment.

“May I know why?”

He seems hesitant at replying me.

“I need to know, the person who’s on the frontline is important, even if we target him while he’s asleep.”, I say firmly, looking at him seriously.

“I want to have more experience fighting against someone as strong as him…”, he replies weakly.

“I don’t think that’s all, right?”, he adverts my gaze as I say this.

He seems to be in conflict with himself.

After some time, he loosens his shoulders and sighs.

“It’s a petty story, but… I hope you can understand.”

I say nothing in response, simply nodding.

“I once had a party which I regularly went on escort missions with… It was a balanced party. Besides me, we had a knight, an apprentice mage and even an apprentice healer.”

I express a look of surprise, “A healer?”, I try to confirm.

“An apprentice healer.”, he says, stressing on the ‘apprentice’.

A healer is a rare member to find, since everyone wants to be able to heal their injuries.

Not many people have the talent to be one as well, hence even some stronger parties may not have a healer on their party.

I recover from my surprise, gesturing him to continue.

“We went to find missions at an inn’s notice board at the same time. It was a weird coincidence, but we decided to party together for our first mission. Since it went well, we partied together since.”

“However, there was a mission which deviated from the difficulty of our original missions. Someone had specially requested us for the mission, and we were prepared to decline, since it may be too dangerous for us.”

“However, at this time, the Knight spoke up resolutely, saying that we should aim to become stronger, and this mission’s success could mean a whole new level of reputation for us. I didn’t want to go through this mission, and expressed my disapproval.”

“The apprentice mage on our team disapproved as well, siding with me. However, the usually quiet healer expressed her desire to go on this mission, persuaded by the Knight.”

He sighed.

“At this point, what other choice did we have? The main tank and the healer of the party wanted to do it. Unless we wanted the party to be disbanded, we had to do it.”

“It was an escort mission that would travel upon the outskirts of a volcano. The terrain was hardly the most dangerous part, but there were even Class 1 magical beasts and Class 2 magical beasts in the area.”

“With our party, we could have handled even a Class 2 magical beast. Thus, even when we were getting more tired in the middle of the journey, we continued forward. We had faced many Class magical beasts and even 2 Class 2 magical beasts by then.”

“At a certain point, we felt like the Class 2 magical beasts were appearing with more frequency. The mage wanted to turn back, since this may have been too dangerous for us. But the Knight wanted to continue, urging us, since if we did that, our reputation would hit rock bottom.”

“We couldn’t argue against that, it was our livelihood!”

“And…”

“And then…”

He seemed to have difficulty saying it out, eyes turning red.

“We met a Class 3 Magical beast.”, he said with a look of despair.

“The rest need not be mentioned, we were demolished. It was a poison type magical beast. The knight and I could still handle the poison, but the mage and the healer couldn’t, with their weaker bodies.”

“They died. In her final act, the healer casted a healing spell on us, instead of herself, knowing it would only prolong her suffering.”

“She smiled at us, as she told us, ‘go.’.”

“We ran, we ran as fast as we could.”

“I cried while running.”

“But when we were at a far distance from the magical beast, I looked up at the knight.”

“He never shed a tear, he…”

“He…”

“He only showed a look of regret, almost as if lamenting the fact we couldn’t accomplish the mission.”

“I was angry at his expression, I was enraged.”

“I punched him with all I had, merely grazing him.”

“He just looked at me, staring emotionlessly.”

“I couldn’t take it. I walked away without saying anything.”

“He didn’t chase me, and we never talked after that.”

“I knew he took this mission, so I wanted to be in the same mission as him to have some respite for myself. Consider this as the closure I needed.”

“If he really came with the intention to rob my uncle… I’ll be the one to kill him.”, Zhe Yun said murderously, clenching his fist tightly. So tightly that his blood vessels could be seen.