"Mentor, are you sure this is a good idea?" Kua asked me as we laid on the edge of a cliff

"Lone ogre at a cliff passage, seems perfect. No one on the road, everything can be contained." I replied

"And why was I the only one to come?"

"Well, it's been two days since we left and you all haven't been chatty with me particularly." and that concerns me slightly

She simply looked forward after my comment and didn't answer.

"I met you three months into my arrival, Kua. I had no idea what was happening when I was brought here." I say "Even if I was brought....right around the time when your village was destroyed there was no way I could have saved it.." I add

A few moments of silence happen between us before she nods. I exhale in relief. Going to need to talk to the others about this as well. I glance down the cliff, the ogre, one fugly motherfucker is just pacing from one edge of the road to the other.

There is one of two ways this might go...I think.

One being I find out that I am immune from any sort of damage.

Two, not so much immune than just durable.

Let's not mention the third way.

Win win, I guess?

"Alright, let's do this." I say as I push myself up and head off to the side

"Don't die." Kua calls out as I go

I make my way down the cliff and get onto the road. Great Daddy Buddha that ogre is huge. Fifteen, maybe twenty feet tall? How much is that in cenimeters? Good god how the Imperial system has damaged my calculating abilities!

I shake my face and begin walking forward.

"Oi!" I call out

The fucker turns slowly towards me with a curious look. It speaks in some gutteral language I can't understand, though the question does arise if this thing wants me to pay it so I can cross or kill me, eat, rape me. That is a good question. One I do not wish to answer.

I take a deep breath and start moving forward. I summon my bow and fire a quick shot at it. The arrow flies by its chin, leaving a long cut on it. It grunts and takes out its massive club from behind it.

Great.

The ogre slams the club on the ground a few times and begins to rush towards me. That's right, come on come on come on!

The ogre raises its club and leaps forward with one large step. I see the club come around my right side.

Impact.

And I'm flying and a little bit numb.

I look down, but down is up, left, right, down, left, up, down. Oh I'm spinning. Oh shit, I'm feeling dizzy. I cover my mouth and close my eyes.

Can't barf if I can't see anything.

A second later..

Impact once more.

I open my eyes and I'm about 3 or so meters deep into a hill. Nothing is broken, but that did hurt. Well, seems the test was successful.

I'm quite durable.

I claw myself out of the damn hole and begin leaping back to where the road was. You know I flew quite the length if I do say so myself. I should have the ogres play baseball, that would be interesting to say the least. Ogre MLB, OMLB, OLB. I'll workshop it.

I arrive back at the road, the ogre is facing away from me, then it hits. I fall to my knees and spill my guts. I wonder if puking in the middle of the road is a sign of bad luck like stepping on a crack or breaking a mirror. Let's hope not.

Once I'm finished with relieving myself I stand up, summon my bow again and charge two arrows. After a minute I call out again.

"Oi! Again!"

It glances back and looks confused at my sight, probably thinking it had killed me. It charges at me again, but as soon as he moves his foot I let my arrows loose and eradicate everything but his arms and club.

Should I nail them to the cliff?

Nah, too barbaric. I unsummon my bow and get back to Kua.

"Miss me?" I ask as I return

She simply looks at me.

"Um...I don't know what to say really..." she says

I shrug.

"Let's get back home. Nothing else to do here." I suggest

"Mentor if I may ask what would've happened if you didn't survive?" she asks

"Wel, now that you mention........" I trail off into silence "......um......I don't know."

"Please, do not do anything stupid like that" she says

"You know you sound like Allia right now." I tease

"The past days with her felt like two years." she begins to complain

Though she isn't exactly wrong, Allia does like having a schedule and if there isn't one, she makes one for better or worse. Girl likes to be productive. Kua gets up from the ground and moves next to me.

"I do appreciate you two baring each other." I comment

"Yes, yes, but praise me for other things as well." she says

I chuckle at that.

"Let's get going before she tries to scold us for being out too long." I suggest

She sighs and nods and we head off back to the tavern.

Originally I thought that opening the tavern from the box was going to be hard, but it was rather easy, just open it and to put it back into the box, tap the rune and say the command.

I always thought that scrolls would have this complicated system of doing things, but I can say that it is a pleasant surprise to see how easy to use they are.

The track back to the Outlander was not even half an hour. We did set up along the main road, so customers were destined to arrive! At some point at least. It oddly reminds me of Seven Deadly Sins now that I think about, besides the giant pig.

As we step inside I see Tyra and Nyllie polishing some mugs while Allia is instructing them on how to.

"We're back." I say "You know I'm fine doing all that stuff by myself Allia." I add

"We all have to pull our weight around and that means needing to learn what you do in your daily life." she says

Well, probably isn't the best idea to learn everything about my daily life.

"Listen, I really don't mind. Enjoy yourselves for the day. We leave next morning anyways." I say

Nyllie drops her mug.

"See! I told you we didn't need to do anything."

Tyra carries on with polishing like a soldier.

"If this assists Dantes, then I shall do it." she says

It's like I'm being ingnored partially, so that's what it feels like. I take off my coat and walk to the bar and take away Allia and Tyra's mug.

"Enjoy yourselves. I also need to talk to you all. Separately and privately. Also," I glance back to Kua "Are all the spare rooms filled?"

She nods, right, forgot about that. I look back to the three before me.

"Alright?"

Tyra nods without question.

"Of course." Allia says

"If you need to." Nyllie remarks

"Good, thank you. Now scatter."

Surprisingly the next two hours were peaceful, I relaxed myself as I suggested to the others. I did exactly what I told them not to do. Bit different in my case considering I am the owner. But as I enjoyed myself Allia approached.

"You said you wanted to talk?" she asked

"Yeah, wanted to address the problem with me between you all. I was not in the best place when I arrived."

"We did think you were some crazed hermit." she chuckled

I almost broke into laughter myself, almost forgot about that ordeal. Certainly was an intense few days.

"Yeah, listen I knew nothing. I needed time to learn."

She sits quietly for a minute before nodding.

"I should have spoken to you about it sooner, sorry for that."

"No no, don't be. I'm just glad we can have this discussion." I say

She nods and smiles.

"Have any other secrets we should know about?" she asks

I shake my head.

"I told you guys everything, though I do sense that not everyone believed the whole vampire thing." I chuckle

"It's a stretch to say the least." she replies

"Can I ask you something, Allia?"

She nods.

"How come you treat the other girls as children?"

"They are much younger."

"You're an elf that doesn't count." I laugh

"By human years I am twenty-five." she laughs with me

"Jokes aside I am glad to have you here."

"Well someone needs to keep things in check and you still owe me a date."

Right, with everything that happened we kind of missed that.

"First city in the Elven Kingdom, I promise."

She smiles and nods.

"You do keep your promises." she would turn away and head off.

Really am glad to have her here.

As I sit in my room I hear a knock.

"Come in!" I call out

Wasn't doing much besides laying on my bed with clothes thank the gods. Nyllie would step in. Once inside she sat on the bed.

"I did the courtesy of coming here to speak with you as you wanted." she said

"No need to be so formal." I reply "So, you also a little ticked off with me?"

"Your intentions are still mostly a mystery."

"Even after saving you?"

"Y-yes, trust must be built over time."

Yet for some reason you just love wearing my clothes.

"Fair fair. I won't force anything. Is everything in your room fine by the way?" I ask

"It isn't what I'm used to, but I will manage. Thank you..for it."

I nod.

"Anytime."

She lingered for a few more minutes before leaving my room. There were signs of her warming up before, but she'll come around, I hope.

I feel a poking at my cheek during my sleep. I open my eyes slowly and see Tyra. I do jump back a little, naturally.

"You have to stop doing that and where were you for the past hours?"

"Relaxing as you suggested."

I can't be mad at her.

"Fair enough. So, has your faith or trust in me change in any way?"

"No."

"Really? You aren't annoyed or anything."

"Not at all."

Well, that's surprising.

"How come?"

"Your reasons are your own. I am simply your herald and helper."

Bit of a one track mentaility.

"You can be your own person as well you know, but we can talk about that later. I'm going to sleep and you should too."

She nods and moves over to the other side of my bed and hops under the covers.

"Really?" I ask

She nods.

"Fine.." I sigh, I'm too tired to argue "Goodnight."

"Night." she says

Hope tomorrow is good.