The road back was slow. Ajax was slowly regaining his mana but he didn’t have enough stamina to rush back anyway. Not only that the mana he was regaining was spent starting the healing process.

After the adrenaline had left his system he spotted the gash one of the clawed attacks he thought he parried left on his right thigh, this was the first thing he dressed applying a lot of pressure. He got lucky that it missed the main artery. Next he had to deal with his arms, his right arm felt like it was about to break into pieces from the way his joints felt after parrying the bear, the power enrage gave the bear made itself known even if there were no visible marks.

The biggest problem, at least when dealing with concealing his injuries, came from his left hand. Having used the shield to block multiple hits his whole bicep and a good part of his forearm and shoulder were one massive bruise. He knew there was no way to hide all this so now was faced with a nasty choice.

Did he A) go back and lie to the guards about where he got his injuries. This plan had risks, the main one being dragged into a tent and interrogated. Or he could go with option B) go hunting for a boar and a bear. Then claim he had hunted a boar when a bear snuck up on him, this would make the injuries match because they were inflicted by a bear without revealing the massive beast he brought down.

He was very much inclined to go with plan B logically. The problem came to the lack of mana and bad state he was in from the battle already. As he was thinking deeply about this he went for a mouthful of water, knowing that the meal he had after the battle will also need fluid to help the magic along with his healing process.

His carelessness was quickly realized as he felt a burning sensation down his throat the moment the first few drops went down. He had been so caught up in his internal debate he didn’t realize he had drunk from one of the water skins he had just filled. One mouthful was enough to make him feel like his whole body was being roasted over a small flame as well as being put on ice at the same time.

Despite the discomfort he noticed his mana started to regenerate at five times its usual rate. With a bit of mana to spare he decided to reapply his healing spells only to feel a rush of pain as the mana moved through his body. It was so bad he didn’t even manage to finish the cast.

It took almost ten minutes for the feeling to go away and for him to be able to use his mana normally again. With this new development he felt he had enough mana to safely go for plan B so he started off back through the forest looking for a bear and a boar.

Finding them didn’t take that long, as for the fights they were less of a problem as he ended them both with a well placed opening arrow. He did make sure to mutilate the bear afterwards to reflect the close melee story his wounds told and started his way back to the camp.

Even with the long road back and lack of mana to spend on his movement speed he had made it back around mid afternoon, still hours before the sun went down. A little before he got into range of the camp he made sure to use his [Mana Syphon] to remove any residue from the healing he already used on himself. Last thing he wanted after taking the time to build up a story was questions from a random mage on duty about who healed out there.

As he got close to the camp he was quickly spotted by the sentries on duty who quickly got to him and began the questioning.

“Halt. Who are you?” asked one of the two people already pointing spears in his direction.

Ajax froze from the question. He had planned out quite a few responses but didn’t factor in that with his disheveled appearance he wouldn’t even be correctly identified as being on their side.

“I’m Ajax, one of the hunters here.” he finally got out after a short pause.

“Really what happened to you?” their suspicion still remained but at least the weapons were pointed at him anymore, it seems the hunters had bought themselves quite a lot of good will yesterday if just the claim to be one got him so much leeway.

“Since we are most likely going to be in for another long stretch of combat after this ceasefire ends I thought I’d go up and grab some more meat, who knows when we’ll stop trying to push our numbers advantage next time.” he explained. “I was in the middle of butchering the boar I hunted when a bear happened upon me.”

A closer inspection of his ruined armor as well as a show of the half processed boar and mangled bear got one of them to help him to the infirmary while the other went to get someone to inform the higher ups.

As soon as he stepped foot in the infirmary Kate all but materialized next to him and led him to a bed before getting to work on his injuries.

“What the hell happened to you?” she asked but he didn’t get a chance to answer before a voice spoke up from behind her.

“That’s a question I am here for as well, according to the sentries a bear this to you.” The voice belonged to one of the officers, one that Ajax had been clued in had a skill that made him sensitive to lies.

“Yeah, I went out on a hunt and got into a tangle with a bear.” he said, keeping his story both short and vague.

He had already removed the bear and boar carcass before he let himself be lowered onto the bed, couldn’t have someone looking through his pack for them after all.

“So this is the culprit.” the officer said, lifting up part of the bear corpse. Luckily he had said so rhetorically because Ajax wasn’t going to confirm or deny that. “I’ll say that we all appreciate what you hunters are doing for us out here but next time make sure you at least take someone with you when you go hunting.”

With that he picked up both the corpses, if a little awkwardly because of their combined size and headed for the exit “You focus on getting well, I’ll see to it that the cooks make sure you get to have a good size steak out of this guy by tonight.”

“You are going to tell me exactly what happened.” Kate started in as soon as the officer left.

“I got a bit in over my head.” he answered while discreetly mouthing ‘not here’.

Kate was smart enough to let it go for the moment but her frustration came through in the way she roughly handled him to treat his many injuries. About halfway through, Tom arrived.

“What happened to you?” he didn’t even bother with the greetings

“This that and a bear.” he answered, trying to at least lift himself up in bed only to be pushed back down by Kate.

“You sit still, I am almost done.” she berated him.

By the end his gash had closed up and started scabbing over, his right hand was back to normal and the bruise on his left was limited to just his bicep.

“I’ll give you another round in the morning but now you have to get some food in you.” she told him.

Tom and Kate both helped him over to the mess where he got served the biggest bear steak he had ever seen. The meal was enjoyable but their evening got ruined as they all made their way back to their tent.

“What a great hunter, can’t even go into the forest without getting hurt” the annoying voice of Spencer sounded loudly through the camp. “I honestly don’t know why you waste your time with them Kate.”

“You know wha-” Tom went on to shout back but was stopped by a quick squeeze from Kate.

“He’s not worth it, just ignore him” she whispered.

Despite the whispering it seems that he still heard her as his delighted look turned to an angry frown. Ajax even thought he heard him mumble ‘I’ll show you who’s not worth it’ but nobody else seemed to have.

Back at their tent Ajax just wanted to crash but had spent a short time telling them that he had killed the thing that took out Fluffy’s father. They both knew that this was closely related to the pond so they stopped their questioning only telling him to be more careful.

Before going to sleep Ajax asked Kate to start cycling a lot of mana, when questioned as to why he said he wanted to feed Fluffy the core from the creature and didn’t want to flux of mana from that to draw attention, they could play it off as extra healing now that he had a meal.

Their plan ended up being well worth it as more than one mage turned up following the massive spike of mana Fluffy had let out after munching the core. It was strong enough that the mages even were able to pick up on it despite Kate's best effort to mask it, but an honest mention that they were feeding her cores to help her grow was enough to convince them. Thankfully while Kate might not have managed to fully cover the mana spike she did enough to at least disguise its strength.

All three of them also had a small scare when Fluffy curled up in a ball following her meal. It seems the bear core was way over the limit of what she could handle and Tom ended up spending the night caring for his bond as she struggled to digest the core.