The next few days passed comparatively quietly. After a long walk and crossing dozens of regions, they now found themselves at the Two-Sheath-River of Sylve. Every person who traveled between Altona and Sylve would arrive here immediately and accordingly, quite a few small houses had gathered here. It could be said that a small town grew at the wide fork of the river, which bore the unofficial name of Herdel.

"Fish, fresh fish!", shouted one of the women at the market in a loud voice, competing with the other vendors on the wide street. She enthusiastically lifted the fish, which was a good three feet long, into the air, causing Aletta to move aside, slightly disgusted and unintentionally bumping into Philippa. The two were out together with Cale, while Ben and Liam were in another part of the town.

"Excuse me", the healer quickly spoke up while averting her gaze from the dead fish to look ahead.

The three of them had a reason for being in the market. They would be getting food for the long journey, after all they couldn't hunt all the time. Even though Philippa and Cale had the least problems with that, the palates of the other three were more sensitive. Therefore, Cale offered them to make a short stop in the village and get provisions.

"Why are there so many small walls everywhere?", the little healer with the light, short hair returned after a while. She had already asked herself the question when the group had left the main road and followed the flat hill upwards. All the houses were encircled by small stone walls about a meter high, as if the residents were worried that someone would encroach on their land.

"Because of the floods."

"Floods?", repeated Aletta in confusion, lowering her gaze to the side. A few meters below them, the river crept through the flat landscape, which they had followed until recently. "The water doesn't come up here, does it?"

"Yes, it does. It's happened before. During the rainy season, the river can carry more than three times the amount of water and get correspondingly high."

Astonished, Aletta looked at the shallow slope in front of her as she imagined that the water could reach her feet.

"The rains of Sylve are not to be taken lightly. The stone walls around the houses are the last protective measures. In case of emergency, residents block the entrance with sandbags to have enough time to gather their belongings and move to safety. Look...", Cale explained, pointing his finger in the opposite direction. Curious, the two followed his movement, but recognized nothing but grassland. However, a moment later, they spotted a bright tower in the distance, which seemed to merge with the surroundings. "At worst, the inhabitants are retreating to the east. In the tower behind the hill is a protected fire bowl, which will be set on fire in case of a severe flood. The surrounding villages always have some soldiers keeping an eye on the tower, so they can help at any time in case of emergency."

Only now did Aletta also find the tower overgrown with ivy.

"I didn't know they took such care of each other here", she respectfully admitted, looking at the residents who were cheerfully going about their daily chores.

"It's only logical, considering who lives here. Many of them come from the surrounding regions and live here to earn money for their families."

Cale, too, observed the hardworking people in front of them before stopping at a small stall and looking more closely at the selection with interest. Aletta and Philippa, on the other hand, caught sight of some children in front of them, not realizing that Cale had come to a stop. But since Cale could continue to sense their presence, he didn't worry about it much. Unobtrusively, he whipped out some of his money and bought some fresh vegetables from the lady before making them disappear into his pocket. In fact, he stowed only a part of it there, because there would be no room for all of it anyway. The rest he let disappear with the help of his mana. Cale was careful not to show the others that he, like Aletta, could use magic.

A loud cry of a child made all the inhabitants look at the street at the same time. In front of Aletta and Philippa, one of the children, a young boy, had fallen to the ground, apparently scraping his leg. The two girls followed the crying and knelt down in front of the little man, who had sat up and was looking at his bloody knee.

Nervously, Cale also approached the boy, who grew quieter as Aletta spoke to him. The other people had distanced themselves from the surprised outcry, they did not know the boy and assumed that Aletta was his mother. After a few seconds, the usual market shouts began again. When Cale had come to a stop behind the two girls, he also knew why the boy had stopped crying.

Aletta had healed his injury.

Carefully, she was cleaning his knee to remove the traces of blood, so the little boy looked at his leg with wide eyes. The young healer gestured with her finger to keep the events secret so as not to be discovered by the residents, to which he nodded eagerly. But when Philippa turned backwards and caught sight of Cale, she seemed a little surprised, as if she had forgotten that he was here too.

"Is everything all right?", Cale spoke up first, to keep up the pretense that he knew nothing. "Did the little guy hurt himself?"

"No, no. He just got scared", Aletta replied without turning backward. Instead, she rose and patted the dust off her coat, which is why the boy stood up as well and checked the steadiness of his leg.

The situation could have ended here, but it did not. A muscular man appeared behind the boy and cast his shadow on him, which is why the boy turned around, looked up in silence for a moment, and then shouted loudly, "Daddy!"

"What have you done to my son?", the stranger announced menacingly, causing Cale to instantly place himself protectively in front of the two girls. The man did not seem pleased that strangers had approached his son.

"He just fell, nothing more", he said.

"Fell, on flat ground?", the man replied skeptically, holding his son with one hand, who was clutching his leg like a dwarf. Another man of similar stature appeared behind them, and so they groups attracted the attention of the residents, although no one said or did anything obvious.

"Calm down. Nothing happened to him."

The second strangers eyes and Cale's crossed. In a twist of fate, the two knew each other, even if it was only from a distance. Cale found himself in such a situation a lot. He met people he already knew, but couldn't be sure if and when they met. It was similar with this man; his face looked familiar to Cale, but it was the soldiers reaction that confirmed that this was indeed the case.

"If you say so, Adjust..."

The man took his son in his arms and distanced himself from them without a comment. Even if he did not trust the story, he was not going to start a riot here and argue with his leader and friend in the middle of the city. Unlike the father, the newcomer was calm and bowed quickly. For him, Cale was a minor celebrity and a hero, so he did not want to provoke a fight.

"Please excuse my friend. For a father, his own child takes first priority, please understand that."

"It's all right, rise. No harm was done", Cale eagerly chimed in. With the gesture, the soldier drew more attention to them than Cale thought was good. He wanted to leave the scene quickly, which the stranger apparently realized. He politely thanked the group and said goodbye. Only then did Cale allow himself to relax.

"Thank you", Aletta murmured, but was almost simultaneously drowned out by Philippa.

"Tz, what an ungrateful wretch."

At the statement, Cale cleared his throat in amusement and gestured for the two young women to follow him.

"The closer you get to the plains, the more cautious people become. If he had seen the events from the beginning, I'm sure he would have reacted differently", Cale explained calmly.

"Still. Do you have to be so unkind to som...? Ben! Liam!"

Because of her exclamation, Cale looked ahead and spotted the second half of the group coming straight at him. Ben waved his hand like an idiot and returned Philippa's shouts, while Liam walked silently beside him. His expression was sinister, as if he had seen something unpleasant. Instinctively, Cale knew he had been watching the scene. Why else would his mood have changed so abruptly? Or had Ben said something to him that he didn't think was good?

"Are you guys done?", directed Ben to Cale, who nodded in agreement. Over the past few days, Cale had been trying to establish a good rapport with all four of them and for the most part he seemed to be succeeding. Ben was pretty easygoing around him and made the odd stupid comment, but what made Cale so sure that Ben was beginning to trust him was his demeanor.

Unfazed, Philippa began to tell Ben what had just happened, which is why Aletta joined the two. Together, the three walked towards the exit of the city, leaving Liam as well as Cale with some distance.

Normally, Ben wouldn't do that. He was always very eager not to leave his friend alone with strangers. But this was exactly the behavior he put aside in the presence of Cale. Although Cale noticed the swordsman look around to the back once to check, but since Cale and Liam followed them silently, he quickly turned away. It was as if he was beginning to trust Cale enough to leave him alone with Liam, which inevitably pleased Cale.

Liam didn't complain, though he was well aware that Ben had intentionally distanced himself with the girls. His friends goal was for Liam to strike up a conversation with the new guy, which he didn't really do. Instead, he listened to the agitated voice of Philippa, who complained about the fathers disrespect, so Ben tried to calm her down.

"That was pretty stupid of you", Liam politely interjected after a while, while Cale was in the process of buttoning his coat up to his chin. It was getting noticably colder with every meter they walked closer to the mountains, but he intended the gesture for something else entirely. After all, he didn't need a coat to keep warm.

"So you did see it."

"The kid was pretty loud", Liam defended himself, watching the stranger bury his face in his jacket and put his hands in his pockets. He was cold, too, but he didn't want to be physically restricted by too-thick clothing in the worst case scenario.

"I had the situation under control."

"You did? It didn't look like it from my perspective", Liam replied. Inevitably, he recalled the sense of panic he had felt at that moment. When he had seen two large men approaching his group menacingly, so he had been ready to sprint to them at any moment, had Cale not placed himself between them. Instead, he and Ben watched the action from a distance, which gave him a good view of how the second soldier had behaved toward Cale.

Liam also knew the man; he was a soldier from Sylve, a relatively high-ranking one at that. Although he had never spoken to him personally, he knew very well that he would not have stood a chance in a fight against this man. He was a rather famous swordmaster and that was what bothered Liam the most. While Cale had willfully positioned himself in front of the strong men in order to resolve the situation peacefully, Liam thought only of how he could protect the girls in an emergency. He hadn't even tried to find another way and immediately assumed the worst.

"I feel like you're underestimating me quite a bit."

"You may be able to defend yourself well, but the same cannot be said for Aletta."

While Cale tried to speak on a friendly, personal basis, Liam deliberately distanced himself from it and instead began attacking Cale with his words.

"Do you really think I couldn't have protected those two?", he finally stated challengingly, looking Liam straight in the eye. Cale could tell that Liam wasn't sure of his statement. "Besides... it isn't my job to protect Aletta, is it?"

Liam had no idea what Cale was capable of, after all, he seemed to be pretty powerless physically and he wasn't carrying a weapon either. Although for this reason he had asked Aletta if Cale could be a mage, but she denied his assumption. According to her, he had too little mana to be a mage.

But why couldn't he shake off the feeling that Cale was hiding something?