Wild Dragon of Rome 28 (Patreon)

It was still night when we arrived at the land, so running had been easy. Moonlight was bright, but no matter how bright it was, it wasn’t enough to make me worry as I ran through the forest with the elegance of a tiger, passing like a whisper. The only thing that slowed me down was the occasional sources of water, and even then, it was because I deliberately stepped onto them, usually moving upstream in an effort to further obfuscate our tracks from hunting dogs.

Though, I also spent some time leaving false tracks leading toward Central Gaul, which was the more reasonable path. Hopefully, it would misdirect them. Unfortunately, after the battle, we had no hope of concealing our landing spot, or it would have been impossible to track us.

Those damned, busybody pirates. Why couldn’t just accept their defeat and get away? Their overconfidence ended them, but in the process, also ruined our escape…

Once those false tracks were laid, I continued to run, continuing to run. When the dawn arrived, I had another choice to make. Continue to run, and risk being seen, or stay and rest…

I thought about waking Lillian up, but she had been treating my arms as a very comfortable bed. No, letting her sleep was a better idea. While she was a skilled woman and a competent mage, counter-tracking was clearly not a part of her skill set.

Though, I was surprised that I even had an option. I had spent a couple hours desperately rowing, and the rest running faster than a horse. I should be a trembling and gasping wreck, maybe even dead from exhaustion like an overworked horse. Yet, my body was still throbbing with energy, like I hadn’t been dashing desperately for hours while carrying someone and just had a comfortable walk.

“Another beneficial effect of the failed breakthrough,” I muttered, but I couldn’t help but feel dread. Such an absurd event couldn’t have been purely beneficial, and the more advantages I noticed, the more I was afraid of the cost.

A cost that I had no idea how and when it would arrive, because what had happened was supposed to be impossible.

It was that fear, more than the strategic concerns, that helped me to make a decision. The more I pushed, the more I risked myself. Instead, I wanted to camp, eat something, and maybe meditate a little to understand what had been going on with my body.

That didn’t mean there were no strategic benefits to my move. As much as I was confident in my senses, trying to avoid every wandering eye was much harder during the day than the night. At night, as long as I stuck to shadowy areas and avoided open plains, I would be another nocturnal beast running around. A glimpse soon to be forgotten.

Also, I could spend some time hunting, and using hide to make clothes. Nothing that would be useful for a long time, as without tanning the hides, which required time and equipment — both lacking — but even that would be less suspicious than the way we were dressed. I still didn’t have a shirt, and Lillian still wore my shirt and the tattered remains of her silk dress.

Even if they were made terribly, fur clothes would blend much better.

I didn’t stop the moment I took that decision. Instead, I started moving around, trying to find a good hiding spot, which wasn’t as easy to do. Unlike Britannia — and certainly unlike that uninhabited island — beasts were not much of a problem in Western Gaul. The sparse woodland we were currently in was the closest thing to a wilderness, but even here, all I could sense around were first-order beasts.

The real problem was the hunters that would inevitably visit the area during the day. I didn’t want to be seen by them, because once I did, sooner or later, they would babble about the unknown travelers, which would be discovered by the others. Even as I decided to be merciless and dealt with them, their absence would be noted.

The current area wasn’t dangerous enough that the mysterious death of a hunter would be written off.

I had to examine the old tracks for a while to get a sense of their movement pattern, and put Lillian inside. Just to be on the safe side, I lifted a rock and put it to the entrance to prevent any beast from stumbling in.

Not a very likely danger. This close to civilization, even the first-order beasts would have learned to stay away from people. Still, no harm in being safe.

Only after I had stopped, did I realize just how hungry I was. I felt ravenous, like I hadn’t eaten for a week. It wasn’t the first time I had felt such hunger, but the weird part was I didn’t feel as exhausted as I was supposed to.

Still, the sensation alone was enough to change my plans. Initially, I had been planning to just gather some berries and roots, enough to sate our hunger, but my hunger didn’t feel like it could be stemmed by just that.

“It’s hunting time,” I muttered as I moved deeper into the forest, preparing for the thrill of a hunt.

I had always enjoyed hunting. Only in the wilderness, I could push the full extent of my abilities without the fear of alerting my uncle about my development. It felt good to test my limits away from civilization, where even the slightest mistake could cost me my life… Danger had a way of making me feel alive.

However, as I tracked the boar tracks, I met with an unexpected drawback. Hunting was not fun anymore, not with my enhanced senses giving me the location of every single beast around me. I felt absolutely safe.

And, it was different than my previous apprentice mage state. Yes, even back then, I could use my mana to activate my elemental cores in various states, allowing me to enhance my senses. However, at that time, every activation meant wasting a precious resource, and making a difficult decision to balance the risk and the cost.

Now, it felt like the few times I accompanied — well, forced to accompany — my uncle to one of his so-called hunting trips, where he and his friends had a dozen guards to keep them safe, and half a dozen scouts to discover where the beasts were.

“I need to find better things to complain about,” I muttered as I moved toward the wild boar I had discovered. It was a first-order beast, with a strong presence on Earth. It was supposed to be a deadly battle, one that would push me to the limit since I was armed only with a stone knife, but it lasted only a second.

I carried it back, strangely disappointed… Well, at least until I felt an intense flare of mana at a great distance, far farther than I should be able to feel, water against air and fire. The pirates had been just caught. Just what they deserved.

Too bad that indirect revenge came with a cost. The organization was too professional not to capture most of the pirates for interrogation, which would reveal some of our secrets. Though, my best hope was that they would assume I was just an Earth-natured apprentice mage who had got lucky against their captain than anything else.

The less they knew, the more advantages we had.

The reminder that I was being hunted by a mysterious professional organization led by a sorcerer, with enough political influence that even provincial governors were willing to do them favors, went a long way to blunt my disappointment about my hunting expedition.

It wasn’t like I had to work had to find excitement in my life.

I returned to the cave with the boar. I first removed the rock from the cave door, then I shattered another stone to make another primitive knife, and started processing the boar. “At least processing goes faster,” I muttered as I rapidly skinned the boar and dealt with the other critical mess. What was supposed to be heavy labor that was supposed to take most of the day was handled in less than ten minutes, my superior strength proving useful here as well.

While processing the boar, I also set a fire pit. Technically, it was a risk, as someone could see the smoke and decide to drift closer, but as long as I didn’t create too big of a fire, it should go unnoticed, especially since I had stayed as far as from hunter’s paths.

It would mean I had to cook in rounds, but that was acceptable. It wasn’t like we had anywhere to be. I didn’t wake up Lillian for the first set, or the second … or the fifth, which I devoured like a pack of starving wolves.

Each set weighed around five pounds, which I ate rarer than I usually preferred, driven by my hunger. Twenty-five pounds of meat later, I was still hungry, yet I could eat, as it turned out to be my digestion was working faster as well.

As for meditating, I didn’t dare to start before Lillian could wake up. I didn’t know if she could help in any way, but nonetheless, it was better than nothing.

Between rounds of cooking, I tried to process the hide of the boar into a useful state. It wouldn’t be enough to make clothes for both of us, but it would give material to patch them at least.

Before I could finish, I heard Lillian finally stirring from her sleep.