The Dwarves and Michael left the city and went on their journey back to Starkhold.
The wagon belonged to Exploding Aegis, and since Michael left the team, he couldn't use the wagon anymore.
So, everyone was forced to travel the traditional way.
'A thousand kilometers,' Kyle thought with annoyance. 'That's like… something between 500 and 800 miles.'
'This is gonna suck.'
Kyle was already not the fastest, and with the addition of Michael, they were even slower.
Michael was a Sorcerer. He didn't have an improved body.
This guy could only run at a speed of about 30 kph, and he would run out of Ether within less than an hour.
To speed up the journey, Kyle decided to summon his True Body and simply put Michael on his shoulder like a child.
It was a bit awkward, but that was the best way to speed up the journey.
Since Kyle was no longer wearing any armor and since he had summoned his True Body, he was not slow anymore.
He could run at over 100 kph for hours on end without running out of Ether.
Naturally, the others were even faster.
None of them were slower than 150 kph, but they had to match Kyle's speed.
"Hey, I suck at calculating stuff," Kyle said while running. "How long is this going to take?"
"About ten hours," Tracy answered.
'Ten fucking hours of running,' Kyle thought with a groan.
Nevertheless, they kept running.
They talked about random topics while running along the roads.
Half an hour later, they passed through a village without interacting with anyone.
Another 30 minutes later, they passed through a town.
The journey was kind of interesting and kind of boring at the same time.
Kyle saw a bunch of different environments and even a couple of beasts, but after a while, the scenery became boring.
"By the way," Kyle said as he remembered something. "What about all the money that was thrown into the arena?"
"Not ours," Bormine answered.
"What? Why?" Kyle asked.
"It belongs to Exploding Aegis," Michael answered from Kyle's shoulders. "Our coach owns Exploding Aegis, which means all of the money goes to him. You would have gotten your share if I were still part of the team. Sorry."
Kyle just sighed. "Yeah, well. At least we will still get paid for the mission."
Michael nodded.
'What a shit mission. Almost died for like two Ether Stones. There had to be several Ether Stones worth of money in that arena. Asshole coach gets to earn a shitload of cash while we get barely anything.'
'Capitalism, yay!'
'I should totally buy a tournament team and hire a trainer and manager for them. Passive income! Wonder if people in fantasy land thought about putting ads on their players' uniforms.'
Nothing exciting happened for the next two hours of the journey.
By now, they had left the territory of the Four-Weapons Guild, Naga Covenant, and entered the territory of the Three-Weapons Guild to the west of the Stark Brotherhood's territory.
After they passed by another village, they entered a long road leading through a thick forest.
Everything seemed normal.
'Why am I getting nervous?' Kyle thought with furrowed brows.
At this moment, Kyle's instincts were telling him that he was in a dangerous location.
"I'm nervous," Kyle whispered.
"How come?" Michael asked.
However, Kyle wasn't saying this to Michael.
"Your instincts have proven to be accurate in the past," Theodor answered. "If your instincts say that something dangerous is here, they are most likely right."
Kyle furrowed his brows.
The next moment, he sniffed the air.
He wanted to see if he could smell something.
'I smell nothing, but we are also quite fast. Smell doesn't spread this quickly.'
'If something dangerous is actually close by, and if I can't smell it, it means the danger was not on our path.'
'That means the danger is behind us or beside us.'
"Let's take a break," Kyle said as he stopped running.
The others stopped running and looked at Kyle with raised brows.
A break?
Why?
"My feet are getting tired from all the running," Kyle said.
When he said that, a light appeared in everyone's eyes.
This was code.
The Dwarves knew that Kyle was amazing at sensing danger, which was why he was responsible for warning everyone.
With the sentence, Kyle had just told them that something or someone was following them.
"Tired feet?" Falk asked with a laugh. "What? Do your baby feet have blisters, or are you simply tired?"
"How the fuck am I supposed to know at this point? Shit hurts, and I'm tired. I have no fucking idea," Kyle answered.
This was also code.
Being tired meant they were being followed by humans while having blisters meant there were beasts.
Kyle had said that he had no idea.
Additionally, the more Kyle talked up the pain, the more threatening the enemy.
"I swear, if I don't do anything about this shit, I'm going to die," Kyle added with annoyance as he pulled one of his boots off.
"Then, we should continue," Bormine said. "You can just relax in a restaurant, bed, or bar. There's a town just 20 kilometers away."
"What's the fucking point?" Kyle asked. "This shit hurts so much that I fear I won't even get there in time."
The others tried their best to keep their expressions in check.
The next moment, Kyle looked at his foot, and at the same time, his nose caught a whiff of something.
"Ah," Kyle said in surprise as he looked at his foot. "Turns out there are no blisters there."
"I'm just fucking tired."
A human.
A human was following them.
"Hey, Michael," Kyle said. "Are you sure traveling like this to Starkhold is safe?"
"Mostly," Michael said.
Kyle wanted to ask more, but he didn't want to make it seem like he knew what was going on.
While he appeared calm outside, he was actually extremely nervous inside.
Was he supposed to tell everyone to get ready to battle?
Was he supposed to just continue?
Was he supposed to tell them to scatter?
If they fought together and the enemy was too strong, they would all die.
However, if the enemy were beatable, splitting up would be bad.
What was the correct decision?
'What the fuck am I supposed to do?!'
"Kyle," Tracy said, and Kyle looked over.
"It's going to be fine. As long as-"
And then, Tracy's head exploded.
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