A few hours later, once the sun had set, they all sat down by a simple camp, where only their clothes and the fire were the only things that indicated that someone was camping here. A river a few meters away was giving a gentle sound of running water and the calm breathing of the horse that had laid down somewhere close to the carriage could be heard.

Natalia, Marie and Joy were eating from a few fishes they pulled out of the river, while Marcus was away a few steps, talking with Lyra, or in her case, being scared by him demanding she show him magic.

“P-please, Lord Marcus, I can’t keep going like this,” said Lyra while panting, with sweat falling down from the sides of her face.

“Come on, I could keep walking and going down that road for a few more days myself. I’m sure a night of magic isn’t going to kill you, Lyry.”

“But, we’ve been running for so long, I need to take a rest, please.”

Marcus glared at her while puckering his lips a little. “Okay, fine, one more magic show and you can run away.”

She sighed, and then put her hands out in front of her while closing her eyes and making a face of endurance. A fireball, the size of a baseball ball appeared, and then slowly flew off a few meters before hitting the ground and popping, leaving a slight black mark on the ground.

“Man, I’d think that magic would be more amazing than this,” Marcus sighed.

“I-I’m sorry lord Marcus, I’m not trained for combat, so this is most of what I can do…” said Lyra as she dropped down to the flood, exhausted.

Before Marcus could say anything else, Natalia walked over to them, picking up the tired girl by the arm. “I think that’s enough of bothering the poor girl, Marcus,” she said while glaring towards him. “Come on Lyra, you can go sleep or eat if you want.”

“I think I’ll go eat, and then sleep. Thank you, Lady Natalia.”

Marcus shrugged as he walked back followed by Natalia and Lyra to the campfire they had set up with fishes being cooked on top of it.

“So how did you guys survive when your magic doesn’t seem to be any more powerful than, like, throwing a rock at someone,” Marcus said as he looked over at Marie.

“Well… they are just servant girls for the household…” she responded, trying not to look at Marcus.

“As my lady says, we were meant to use our magic to attend to her, so for me, I would take care of flowers and the gardens to make sure they were up to how my lady desired them to be, and as for Lyra, she was in charge of meals and cooking, which is what she mostly used her fire for,” followed up Joy as she created a few holes on the ground and reshaped a few pieces as if to prepare the ground to plant.

“What about you Marie? I only saw you use your magic on the river to pull out fishes,” asked Natalia as she looked over the fishes being cooked.

“My magic wasn’t made to serve, but it isn’t for combat either. I was mostly trained to use my magic in an elegant way, to control it in such a way that people would find how refined and gentle of a lady I am, so that other families would look at me and my upbringing like that of a very noble person,” she said with some pride on her voice, followed by a sigh. “But as I was running away, I realized that it does me no good in case of an emergency.”

“Then I suppose making it this far was quite the challenge,” said Natalia, looking over at Marie this time.

“Well, I have been able to defend myself somewhat with what I know, but so far, we’ve been focused on sneaking by, blending with the commoners and trying to move faster than those following us.”

Natalia nodded, but didn’t say anything else, same as everyone else that stayed quiet for a moment, thinking about the various things that had to be done tomorrow when they set back out on the road.

Marcus stood up and did an annoyed grunt. “Well, it seems like I’m stuck being the bodyguard of a bunch of useless girls,” he then looked down at Marie, “I hope that whatever assassins they’ve sent to kill you at least put up a show, ‘cus otherwise, I’ll go off by myself and find me someone more interesting.”

“But you—”

“Marcus,” Natalia interrupted before Marie could say anything. “We have a mission to do, and this is the best way to do it,” she said as she turned to look at the sleeping Lyra and the nervous looking girls next to her, “and besides, we can’t just let people suffer when we could help them.”

Marie smiled when she heard Natalia speaking; however, Marcus just scoffed. “Man, this is why they almost had you fucking killed. Don’t you know that no good deed goes unpunished? So rather than doing good deeds everywhere you go, it’s better to be the one punishing the ones doing good deeds.”

“That is only if you’re stronger than the ones you want to punish so you’ll—”

Suddenly, Natalia and Marcus turned to look into the now dark forest, and as they did, they both reformed their helmet at the same time, with Natalia standing quickly and Marcus putting off the fire.

Marie and Joy noticed the sudden movement from the Imperators and got scared. “Is something wrong? Have we been found out by someone?!”

“Please be quiet, something’s coming,” responded Natalia in a low tone of voice as she made a motion with her hand to Marie, as if indicating her to stay back.

“Seems… big…” said Marcus with some joy in his voice as he was walking forward.

Natalia pulled the weapons from her back and took a fighting stance, while Marcus did the same with the daggers in his arms.

A few moments later, the sounds of heavy walking as well as the sounds of bushes and branches being pushed could be heard. As the sounds were getting closer, the shadow of a big animal could be seen in between the trees of the forest.

Marie wanted to scream, but Joy at her side touched her hand and shook her head, she then walked over to the still sleeping Lyra and shook her. Lyra woke up with some difficulty. “Hnng, what is—”

Joy closed Lyra’s mouth with her hand and whispered, “There’s something in the woods, and we might have to run, so be ready in case that Lady Natalia and Lord Marcus tell us to run.”

Lyra’s eyes widened after hearing this, but nodded as Joy took her hand off, then looked towards the people standing on the side with weapons ready. Joy walked over to the now restless horse and held it by its reins, trying to both calm it down, and have it ready to run.

When Marie swallowed, the shadow suddenly lunged forward with great speed out of the woods, and they could clearly see what it was now that there wasn’t anything hiding its large shape. It looked like a wolf, with black fur and dark eyes; however, it was the size of an elephant, and on its back, black glossy spikes replaced the dark fur that should’ve been there.

“A Drokanian Wolf!?” shouted Marie in the few moments that the wolf showed itself.

Seeing that Natalia was the one that stood out the most, the beast quickly dashed towards her. It came in full force with its jaw open and ready to chomp down on her. Natalia didn’t move, standing ready as it was getting closer, and as soon as it was just about to bite her, she did a quick side step to her left, followed up with a strong punch to one of the fangs of the beast.

The fang broke off, flying away to the side where Marcus was standing, and like the fang, the beast also fell in that direction. Marcus, however, didn’t follow up, shouting instead in the direction of the scared girls in the back. “Now! Finish it up with your magic!”

The girls didn’t know how to react to that, with only Joy stuttering back. “W-what?!”

“Come on! Show me what you’re made of!” continued Marcus while pointing with one dagger at the fallen animal.

“W-we, I—” Lyra tried to respond, but the beast was already getting back up.

Marcus clicked his tongue now that the animal was standing back up and was moving back a bit, seemingly amazed at the fact that its prey punched a fang off. However, it started sprinting in Marcus’ direction this time, jaws closed. Marcus readied himself with the daggers, and was prepared to take another piece of the beast’s head, but unexpectedly, it suddenly lowered itself and pointed the shark spikes on its back to slam on Marcus.

“What the—” he was cut short by the slam that sent him flying to a tree, along with a piece of the black spikes that flew off.

The beast cried in pain from now not only losing one of the fangs in its maw, but having one of its strongest pieces broken off. Natalia didn’t let this opportunity go as she closed the gap, punching one of its legs instead. The leg didn’t break like the other parts had been, but the beast staggered as the leg was swept off, almost falling down from losing the footing on one of its hind legs.

Realizing that it could very well end up as the prey instead of the hunter, it started limping away in the direction that it had come from.

Marcus stood back from the fallen tree and shouted in the direction of the beast. “Oh no you don’t! You can’t just come in here looking down on me and bitch out once you get punched a little!”

The beast, of course, didn’t listen to his words and ran back to the woods, trying to use the shadows of the trees and the bushes to hide its large form. Marcus quickly dashed in the same direction, and the sounds of the beast fighting with him could be heard.

“Shouldn’t you go after them and help him, what if that hit from before injured lord Marcus?” asked Marie nervously to Natalia as she looked at the forest.

Natalia put away her weapons back on her back and shook her head. “He let the wolf hit him on purpose, probably wanted to see how strong it really was, but it seems like Marcus is now going after it for fun.”

“For… fun?” responded Marie with her eyes wide open.

“…I heard that those wolves can usually wipe out veteran groups of hunters if caught off guard… I can’t believe Lord Marcus would think of it as just a means to have fun,” followed up Joy after she calmed down the horse.

“Hmm… well they seem to appear from time to time near Porta Paradisi, and the teams there seem to not have any problem with them, so I think we’ll be fine here,” said Natalia as she went back to sit down near where the fire had been a while ago. “You girls can just go back to eating or sleeping, I’ll keep watch and wait for Marcus to come back.”

They were both stunned at how calm Natalia was as well as how strong she was. They turned to look back at the now quiet forest where Marcus had gone into with the same amazed expression on their faces, but at the end decided to take Natalia’s advice and sit down somewhere close to her.

* * *

“Hey, hey, beasty, where do you think you’re going?” Marcus said a mocking tone as he jumped from tree branch to tree branch, following the path of the limping wolf.

The wolf didn’t respond to him of course, but it didn’t even turn to look, and just kept trying to get away. However, it suddenly whimpered as one of Marcus’ daggers got stuck on the limping leg, making it stumble.

That didn’t stop the wolf as it quickly stood back and started running again, this time dragging the hurt leg. Marcus had thrown the second dagger as he recalled the one he had thrown before. The second one stuck the beast on another leg, making the animal fall down, while moving its front legs.

Marcus dropped down somewhere behind the beast, and leisurely walked towards it. “Man, all that size and power, and you’re running like a scared puppy,” Marcus said to the beast with a mocking tone.

It turned around and quickly bit down towards where Marcus was standing.

“Whoa!” he laughed as she quickly stepped backwards, following his movement with a laugh. “Oh so you do have some fighting in you!”

The wolf then started dragging itself towards Marcus, trying to bite him down with each movement that, sadly for it, was being easily dodged by Marcus.

“Welp, there’s really nothing more to see from you it seems, so let's just get this over with,” Marcus said as he readied both daggers and jumped on top of the wolf.

The wolf struggled to shake him off, but it was useless, as Marcus started cutting and stabbing at it, making the pained sounds of the beast resound in the dark forest.

* * *

A few short minutes later, Marcus came walking back out of the woods covered in blood, with his typical lazy walk, and on his hand he was throwing up and down a small blue marble. The girls frowned when they saw the way he looked, while Natalia just stared at him. He leisurely walked over and sat down next to the rekindled campfire.

“Yo Natty, check out what the wolfy handed to me back there,” he said as he showed the blue marble to Natalia.

“That it ‘handed’ to you?” Natalia responded as she looked doubtfully at Marcus.

“Yeah, I mean sure, it took some convincing, but look at it, do you think this is like a sapphire or something?”

Marie looked closer at it from the side, trying not to get dirty by getting close to Marcus, but then made a surprised face. “That’s a beast core. I’ve seen those being sold at the markets. Some people use them as jewelry while others use it for artifacts,” she then pulled out her necklace, “like mine, it was made from a powerful beast core; however, I don’t really know from what.”

“Oh, then maybe I can get a reward from the commander when we get back to the base. I’m sure that Jerry would also want this thing as well,” Marcus said as he hid it somewhere in his armor’s belt.

Marie did a wry smile as she realized that he was planning on taking it somewhere else. “Well… you can also get money if you sell it in one of the Empire's towns…”

“Hm? And what use do I have for your country’s currency?” Marcus responded while slightly tilting his head to the side.

“It might help us get around in their empire, since for them our currency is also worthless,” responded Natalia before Marie could say anything.

Marie nodded; however, Marcus scoffed. “Well you better earn your own pebble. So go out there and find a puppy willing to give it to you.”

Natalia sighed and shook her head, then turned to the girls sitting around the fire. “You girls can go rest for the night,” she said, turning to Marcus, “and you better clean yourself up. A horned man covered in blood isn’t going to do us any favors anywhere.”

The girls carefully laid down somewhere close to the fire, while Marcus shrugged and walked over to the river. Natalia looked at Marcus walking away, then at the sleeping girls and finally, settled her attention to the dark forest as she waited for the night to pass.