The sound of the jepat’s feet against the ground was soothing to Aiden’s ears as he nudged the animal along. He sat equestrian upon the saddle, eyes scanning the castle grounds as he moved. He took it all in. The apothecaries with their vast array of potions sold at exorbitant prices. The enchantment stores with far more enchantments than any [Enchanter] could keep in their minds.

  Aiden smiled as he watched his surroundings. His jepat pushed forward at a steady trudge and he kept his eyes on everything. He was not the only weight the creature was carrying. Strapped to its back was his clothes wrapped in a single bundle. There were only two shirts and pants and a pair of boots.

  On one side of the jepat, closest to his thigh for easy access, were three sheathed swords. The average soldier or adventurer carried one, but with his skill, [Unarmed Engrave], he would go through swords quickly, shaving away at their durability with every enchantment. So he had three, taken from the armory.

  At the back, strapped to the other side of the jepat’s thigh was Belle’s axe. It was a large enough battle axe. He’d thrown a small sack over the axe’s head to protect the jepat from being accidentally cut by the blade. His black gloved hands held the reins of his jepat loosely.

  Before long, Aiden found himself at the castle gates. Two guards stood in defense of the internal walls. Aiden said nothing to them. He offered them a nod that they returned and simply slipped his hand into his coat. He pulled out the royal pass he had been granted by the queen and held it up.

  One of the guards squinted at it from where he stood, raised his hand and made a twirling motion. Aiden waited patiently as the portcullis was raised. Both soldiers stepped out of his way.

  He trudged along through the gate until he was outside. The guards outside offered him a nod in greeting and he returned it.

  “Ready for the new day?” Elaswit asked with a cheery smile. She was seated on her own jepat, dressed like an adventurer. Her long hair was packed up in a ponytail and she wore light armor over her white shirt.

  Aiden said nothing, simply looking at her.

  Elaswit’s cheery expression dimmed a little, then it turned awkward. She scratched at her cheek awkwardly and looked away.

  “I was told that you were aware of me joining you,” she muttered.

  “I was informed,” Aiden answered. “By your mother.”

  Elaswit smiled sheepishly. “Sorry about that. She can be a bit much sometimes.”

  Aiden couldn’t disagree. If he had actually been a nineteen-year-old boy, she might’ve been too much for him. But he was not.

  He nudged his jepat forward. “She was alright.”

  “Wow," Elaswit gasped. "You just might be the first person to say my mum was alright. Unless you are actually just being polite.”

  Aiden looked absently into the distance. “I’m just being polite.”

  “Oh.”

  The word came from Elaswit as if it was more of a sound than an actual response. Aiden paid very little attention to it, his mind making its calculations. It had been a while since he’d seen Ted. He wondered what would be new, how strong Ted would be.

  The group hadn’t been in the cannibal town for very long, so they would still be going through the motions. The chaos came towards the end. Till this day, Aiden still didn’t know what exactly had happened to trigger the [Cannibals]. They had been nothing but nice and amiable for most of their stay.

  It doesn’t matter what happened.

  He would get there, deal with the [Cannibals], and have that long awaited talk with Ted. Once that was done, he would move on with the next plan, finding the [Crystal of Existence]. Finding it wasn’t exactly the phrase he wanted to use. He knew exactly where it was, after all.

  The thought of his plans made him look back at the castle. The soldiers standing guard had their eyes trained on him. He had a royal pass and was with the princess, but that wasn’t enough reason to trust him, it seemed.

  “Alright.” Aiden looked back to the path ahead. “Shall we?”

  “You don’t seem happy to have me here,” Elaswit said.

  Aiden fought the urge to sigh. This was what he liked to stay away from, conversations that he felt were not necessary to what he was doing. It didn’t matter whether he was happy to have her or not, what mattered was that there were no issues. And there was none.

  “Princess,” he started only for her to cut him off.

  “Elaswit,” she corrected. “I am currently not traveling under the capacity of my title as princess.”

  It made enough sense.

  “Elaswit,” he corrected. “I’m not very good with girls.”

  “You’ve said that before,” she pointed out.

  “And people react a certain way to girls when they aren’t good with them.” He ran a hand through his hair, hoping his explanation would suffice. “Some of them are shy around them, and some of them simply don’t deal with it.”

  “Let me guess,” Elaswit said. “You’re the latter.”

  Aiden nodded.

  “So, it’s not that you have a problem with me,” Elaswit said. “It’s that you just don’t want to have to deal with me because you just avoid your problems.”

  Aiden wasn’t sure if she was poking at him somehow with the statement of avoiding his problems. Still, she seemed to get the gist of it and that was fine by him.

  “Yes,” he said. “Now that we have that out of the way, let’s go.”

  “Not yet.”

  Elaswit’s words stopped him before he could nudge his jepat forward. “What are we waiting for?”

  “Our map.”

  “You don’t have it?”

  She shook her head. “Our guide’s bringing it.”

  Guide?

  Aiden had heard nothing about a guide, and he didn’t need one. All he needed was a map and his [Pathfinder] skill.

  “I was told that there are places we shouldn’t follow,” Elaswit went on, seemingly oblivious to his displeasure. “Once we have the map, I’ll point them out and we can be on our way.”

  Aiden had half a mind to push his jepat into a run and be done with it, but he stayed his hand. He could not start his day giving in to his annoyed impulses. Personally, he was sure he could find a map on his own. There were cartographers all around, after all. Those who had it by skill and those who simply dabbled, selling maps on end in their simple shops.

  “Ah,” Elaswit’s voice brightened once more in excitement, “there he is.”

  Aiden turned to look back and the first thing he noticed was the soldiers straightening up, moving very quickly to attention as the portcullis was raised once more.

  Valdan passed under the raised portcullis on a jepat. Much unlike Aiden’s and Elaswit’s, his jepat was quite large. Bred for war it seemed. Its feet were almost twice the size of theirs and it walked with an aura that seemed to say that it would not back away from any fight.

  Aiden watched the knight approach in silence.

  Valdan looked tired with hollow eyes. He looked like someone deprived of too much sleep and lacking of too much blood. Still, he didn’t sway in his saddle. With a straight back and an annoyed scowl on his face, he returned the salute of the soldiers before nodding in Elaswit’s direction.

  As for Aiden, he didn’t meet his eyes until his jepat came to a stop beside his. Due to the size difference in their steeds, Valdan sat higher than Aiden so that he looked down at him.

  Aiden cocked an inquisitive brow then eyed Valdan’s jepat from top to bottom.

  “What’s with the size of that thing?” he asked suggestively. “Are you trying to compensate for something?”

  His question took Valdan aback and the knight took a moment to recuperate. “I have no idea what that means, but it is good to see you again, young lord.”

  “Young Lord?” Aiden looked to Elaswit and she shrugged. “When was the last time you called me young lord, Sir Valdan?”

  “Too long ago,” Valdan answered. He reached into his saddle bag, pulled out a rolled up parchment and handed it over to Aiden. “Map.”

  Aiden gave him an odd look. Something wasn’t right. But he did not dwell on it now, instead, he took the parchment and unrolled it. He held in his hand a map of Bandiv.

  The moment it was steady in his hands, the drawings elevated slightly from the parchment into a three-dimensional setup. Each point of interest had a single dot above it.

  Not new to the use of maps created by actual cartographers with the class, Aiden released the map on both ends. The parchment hovered in front of him, levitating just between him and the back of his jepat’s head as Elaswit moved her jepat over to his side.

  Aiden placed two fingers to the map and pinched, navigating it with a dexterity born from his knowledge of how maps worked and his experience from using too many.

  Should probably get me some cartography skills, he thought as the map zoomed out, landmarks shrinking as more parts appeared.

  Elaswit shot him an odd look that he ignored. He pinched again and the map zoomed out some more. He did it thrice more before the map had zoomed out completely.

  As far as Nel Qwan, he noted.

  It was a map that covered every land mass that was not demarcated by the ocean and seas. The only bodies of water present were crossable with small canoes and or small boats.

  A hand came into view and double tapped against the map, zooming on the kingdom of Bandiv. Once the kingdom was the only thing in view, it double tapped on a location to the east of it. It hovered just at the edge of a carved-out area labeled Elstrire.

  “That’s where we’re going,” Elaswit said, taking her hand away.

  Aiden already knew where they were going. A single dot hovered over the small patch of land, unlabeled.

  It remained unnamed.

  Valdan leaned forward to look down at the map and Aiden’s eyes slid over to him discreetly, making sure the man wasn’t having trouble with his balance. Certain that he was not, he returned his eyes to the map.

  “That’s a far journey,” Valdan muttered. “That explains the stops.”

  “Stops?” Aiden asked, confused.

  “I heard my mother saying something about making it to our destination in one go.” Elaswit placed a finger on a town not too far from Elstrire. “This general region is cared for by Lord Garron, and he has a teleportation center right here.”

  “A quick teleportation would cut the travel time by more than a third of the day,” Aiden muttered, calculating the distance in his head. “If we push the jepats to their limits, from there,” he touched the same spot on the map Elaswit had then traced a path all the way to the town of cannibals, “we can get here in less than an hour.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Yes,” Valdan agreed.

  “But you have been banned from using the teleportation centers,” Elaswit said. “On account of your various experiences with it. My parents have sent a royal instruction to those concerned, until we know more about why you keep reacting that way, you are not to be allowed usage. You already lost an arm to it.”

  Aiden held up his black arm. “I still have the arm, and it causes me no problems.”

  That was only partly true. When it became red, he could not use the skill [Enchanted Weave] without some level of pain and zero effect. On the plus side, his fight with Derendoff had taught him that the arm had a certain level of increased strength when it was red. So there was that.

  Aiden sighed. “With no teleportation, this is going to be a very long journey. What were you saying about stops, Valdan?”

  Leaning down, Valdan tapped four different spots on the map between where they were and the town of cannibals.

  Each spot lit up, marked by three green markers. Aiden zoomed in on one of the markers.

  “Stables,” he read. They were large ones at that, commercial if he was not mistaken.

  “Yes, young lord,” Valdan answered, soliciting a frown from Aiden. “We are to—”

  “I swear to God, Valdan,” Aiden cut him off in annoyance. “Call me young lord one more time and we’re having it out right here and now.”

  Valdan looked at him very slowly and his jaw tightened. “You are a you—”

  Aiden’s hand rested very clearly on the hilt of his sword. He took hold of it and drew an inch of steel. “Try me. Just try me.”

  There was a moment of silence that stretched between them. In it, Elaswit was tense and unsure. The soldiers guarding the entrance to the castle stood a little too alert.

  In the end, Valdan broke the silence with a tired sigh. “The intention of the king is for us to push our steeds as fast as we can for as long as we can.” He tapped the neck of his jepat and a geometric sign came alive, green as forest leaves. “Our jepats have spells on them to increase movement speed by two hundred percent, so that gives us a reduced time period.”

  Aiden was aware of the spell. When he’d taken his jepat from the stable, the stable master had been sure to bring it to his attention. It increased the chances of the jepats not surviving past the day.

  “Word has already been sent ahead,” Valdan continued. “Once we get to the first stable, we’ll switch out the jepats for new ones that also have the same spells on them.”

  As Valdan spoke, Aiden did the math in his head. He knew how fast the average jepat ran. With a two hundred percent boost in movement speed and swapping out three other jepats, if they ran the creatures at full sprint until they got to their destination…

  “We should be there by nightfall,” he muttered.

  “All in one day,” Elaswit said.

  “Alright, that works.” Aiden tapped on the surface of the map thrice, returning it to its original dimensions. “Still don’t know why everyone’s so worried about me and teleportation, but it’s fine. Now we just have to—”

  “I almost forgot.” Elaswit placed a hand on the map, stopping Aiden before he could roll it back up. “My mom said we should avoid here, here and here.” She tapped three points on the map, marking them with red markers.

  “Why?”

  “She said they are not safe. A little too dangerous for us.”

  Valdan rubbed his jaw as he looked down at them. He leaned down and touched one of the markers. “I think there was a level one hundred and eight monster sighting over here. A shutka, I think it was called. Nasty creatures. Luckily, they are solitary creatures so you only have to deal with one at a time.”

  A shutka was a tree monster that was capable of changing locations. It was susceptible to fire and liked to burrow into the ground and sprout other trees around it. At level one hundred, it could probably raise up its own small forest, a very small one.

  “Yes,” Elaswit confirmed. “Then the others just have barbarians lurking around, I think. All I know for sure is that we are supposed to avoid these places. Then there’s this.”

  She held out her hand and presented Aiden with a small ring.

  If Zen was present, the man would’ve probably cracked some joke about how he was flattered but wasn’t willing to marry a princess.

  Aiden on the other hand picked up the ring from her open palm. With the slight inscription on the ring, he knew what it was.

  “A storage space,” Valdan said with the first touch of interest in his voice since joining them. “That deals with a handful of problems that come with traveling.”

  “A gift from you?” Aiden asked Elaswit, slipping the ring on. It fit only his smallest finger. He channeled mana into it and found the ring empty. It did have a lot of space, though. Not enough to call it infinite.

  “I figured I’d rather soften the blow of my presence,” she replied uncomfortably.

  “We’ve been through this, Elaswit. Your presence is not a blow, I’m just not good with being around women.”

  The princess nodded but didn’t look convinced. She was probably still blaming herself for what happened in the cave. One day she would look past the fact that she’d seized up and frozen after a near death experience and left him to fight the rest of the battle against the gargoyle on his own. But that day was not today.

  Aiden looked at Valdan’s hands holding the reins of his jepat. “Where’s your ring?”

  He knew for a fact that all knights had storage rings.

  “Hate the things,” Valdan replied without missing a beat. “They’ve always rubbed me the wrong way.”

  Aiden wasn’t sure how that worked but left it alone.

  “Alright then,” he announced. “We know where we’re going, where we’re stopping, and where we’re avoiding.” He looked at Valdan and Elaswit. “Anything else before we start moving? Because we’re burning daylight over here.”

  “Oh, yes, one last thing.” Elaswit pulled out a black bank card. “Part payment for your reward regarding the royal quest.”

  “Part payment?” Aiden asked, pulling out his bank card.

  Elaswit placed hers against it and there was a blue glow between both cards. It was followed by a pop up from Aiden’s interface.

  [You have just received 800 gold coins]

  …

  [Sight-Bound Quest: Slay The Failed Knight]

  King Brandis of the Bandiv kingdom, Fourth of his name, has placed a royal decree. For anyone who comes upon this individual, should it be within their power, you are granted the right to claim his life. Upon his demise, you shall be granted rewards as stated.

  [Objective passed: Slay Derendoff Naranoff 1/1]

  [Reward: 2000 gold coins]

  [Reward: One item of level fifty and above befitting of your class]

  ..

  [You have received 800 gold coins as part payment of reward for Sight-Bound quest Slay The Failed Knight]

  “Only eight hundred,” Aiden muttered, not really complaining.

  “Yes,” Elaswit replied even though he had not intended the words for her. “Father said that due to quickness of the quest being completed, it would take some time to prepare the rewards. They should all be ready by the time we return.”

  They know, Aiden realized.

  And if they did not know, then they suspected that he would not return. Rue Brandis had offered to teach him a powerful enchantment as well as push him past the threshold. Now, the king had offered only part payment for the quest and nothing of the item until he returned.

  But unless it was a high grade ancient artifact—which Aiden doubted it would be—they could not tempt him.

  He slipped his card back into his pocket and nudged the sides of his jepat with both legs as he activated one of his skills, thinking of the town of cannibals.

  [You have used skill Pathfinder]

  The map lit up in front of him and a line trailed a path from where they were. It moved through different paths. Avoiding the places marked red by Elaswit, it cut through the places marked green for the stables before coming to a stop at their destination.

  Aiden rolled up the parchment. When someone with the [Cartographer] class designed a map, it worked hand in hand with skills related to traveling and mapping. It was good to know that they had a proper map on hand.

  He handed the map over to Valdan as their jepats trudged forward slowly but the knight shook his head.

  “You keep it.”

  Aiden shrugged but slipped the map into his saddle bag. Something was wrong with Valdan. It didn’t take any high level of brain function to know that.

  Aiden fought back a sigh as he said, “Let’s go.”

  Elaswit pulled up a shawl and wrapped it around her neck high enough to conceal her lower face.

  When he finally nudged his jepat into a run, it burst into a sprint so fast that it took him a moment to orient himself.

  Just like that, the castle was left in their wake.

  …

  There wasn’t much to the trip by any standard of the word. The jepats were fast, but only slightly faster than the average car, maybe even not. They slowed down every now and again, navigating around passers by and other jepats and drawn carriages.

  Every now and again, a frown touched Valdan’s lips when they had to slow down. Not adorned in anything that made him stand out as a knight people were not quick to clear the path for them. Elaswit’s shawl worked well enough to hide her face so they didn’t have to deal with the random bows and show of respect for the princess.

  Once in a while someone noticed the sword on Valdan’s jepat and recognized it as something belonging to the rich. Whenever that happened, the roads cleared faster. But it did not happen very often.

  At some point Elaswit assured Aiden that the trip would be faster once they were out of a civilized area. Aiden wasn’t really bothered by it. The path his skill [Pathfinder] had given him, went through unpopulated areas most of the time. Still, he’d given Elaswit a nod of appreciation when she’d told him.

  It wasn’t long before they left the capital city. Once they were out into the open kingdom, they let their jepats run to their limits. The world blurred around Aiden as his jepat ran. Valdan and Elaswit knew of his skill [Pathfinder] so he remained in front, guiding them as he was guided by the sliver of wind like a line of silver thread from the skill.

  Nothing eventful happened for a full hour of riding. Aiden kept his eyes squinted against the wind, attention flared well enough that he could keep it on their surroundings. It was only slightly over an hour when something of event happened, forcing them to come to a stop.

  They were running down a dirt path, flanked on both sides by trees with no human being in sight when Valdan spotted it first.

  He pointed forward, pushing his jepat to ride along side Aiden’s. Wanting to know what was happening, Elaswit pushed hers all the way to Aiden’s other side.

  Aiden peered ahead, leaning forward to try and see better. It didn’t take him long to see what Valdan was pointing out.

  A man stumbled out from the trees. He wore a cloak covered in tears and scrapes, tattered from attacks of some kind.

  “An adventurer?” Elaswit asked, their jepats starting to slow.

  Aiden frowned. He never liked unknown variables whenever he was traveling. It was why flight was a better form of transportation. He missed the wyverns of the Order sometimes.

  “Could be a merchant,” Valdan offered. “Probably escaped an ambush.”

  Aiden didn’t like it one bit. But he saw the look in Elaswit’s eyes. Even when she was not traveling under her title as princess, she was still the princess of the kingdom. She could not see someone in need of help and abandon them.

  Left to him, they would weave their way around the man and continue on their journey. Sadly, a well-trained knight and a princess would not be happy to do so.

  “We should help him,” Elaswit suggested.

  Aiden couldn’t help the groan that escaped his lips. They knew he was in a hurry.

  “We don’t have to take on some random aid mission,” Elaswit said in an attempt to appease him. “Just make sure he’s safe and direct him to the nearest outpost.”

  “I am with the princess on this,” Valdan said.

  Reluctantly, Aiden agreed. “Fine.”

  Good things rarely came from such acts of kindness in his experience, but he wasn’t going to be the one to tell them that. For all he knew, it was just his mind jaded from too many bad experiences talking.

  “Hello,” Elaswit called out as they drew closer to the man, their jepats now at a walking pace.

  Aiden kept his eyes on the trees but couldn’t see any cause for alarm. If there were people hiding in the bushes preparing to ambush them, they concealed themselves very well. Still, his instincts told him that there was a problem somewhere just waiting to happen.

  “Are you alright, sir?” Valdan asked, assuming the person’s gender from their broad shoulders and overall physical stature.

  The man raised his head, face concealed by his hooded cloak. Despite all the tears to his cloak, Aiden couldn’t smell any blood. At least, he couldn’t smell any human blood.

  “Stain on his shoes,” he muttered in a low voice, low enough for only Valdan to hear.

  The knight’s gaze moved to the man’s shoe, taking note of the stain of green liquid on the man’s boots. Aiden’s best guess was that it was monster blood.

  “Have you been set upon by monsters?” Valdan asked. “Do you need help?”

  The man placed a hand to his head like a man staving off a headache. He shook his head once, then twice. Aiden was more than ready to take that as a response when the man pulled the hood back from his head, revealing his face.

  He was a grown man, somewhere in his thirties. He wore a beard that was trimmed short and well groomed. He had the most mundane brown eyes Aiden had ever seen since his regression and a head of hair that was styled as if he was going to a ball, gelled back and glossy.

  The man had a scowl of annoyance on his lips that he schooled when he looked at them. Clearly, he was displeased with something.

  But the moment Aiden saw his face, he froze. A primal fear instilled within him so many years ago bubbled all the way up to grab him by the spine, and his hands tightened on his reins. It was all he could do not to push his jepat into a burst of speed.

  “Are you alright, sir?” Elaswit asked again.

  The man’s face had dirt stains all over it, as if he’d rolled in the dirt for a moment. His eyes settled on Elaswit first, took her in. It moved to Valdan next, took in his jepat before settling on the sword strapped to the creature. When his eyes settled on Aiden, Aiden remained as stiff as a board.

  Valdan’s hand moved to his sword. “Identify yourself, sir.”

  Aiden paled slightly. Valdan did not want to threaten this man. The last thing any of them wanted to do was threaten this man.

  The man in front of them bowed slightly at the waist. “Good day, princess Elaswit. Sir Knight.”

  That took Aiden’s companions by surprise. It also sufficed to relax Valdan slightly as his hand moved away from his sword.

  “What happened?” Elaswit asked.

  The man bowed to Aiden. “Good day, sir.”

  He doesn’t know me, Aiden told himself. He’s never seen me before.

  He nodded in response. “Good day.”

  “Are you in need of any help?” Elaswit asked again.

  “Not really, princess,” the man answered. “I was just on my way to the capital city when I was sidetracked. That is all.” His eyes moved over to Aiden, studying him, clearly trying to figure something out. “If you wouldn’t mind, how far would you say it is from here?”

  “A day’s walk,” Valdan answered.

  “We could probably offer—”

  Aiden’s hand snapped out to grab Elaswit’s reins, halting her words. If she did something as kindly stupid as offering a the man or a stranger her spelled jepat, he would leave her behind.

  “If you don’t mind our asking,” Valdan said, taking over the conversation seamlessly. “What business do you have in the capital city?”

  It was a simple question. A question the man would be asked at the entrance to the capital city.

  “I am looking for someone,” the man answered.

  The words sent a shiver up Aiden’s spine. He suddenly wanted the conversation to be over. He wanted them done and on their way.

  They needed to leave right now.

  “Someone?” Valdan asked while Elaswit gave Aiden a funny look.

  She mouthed something to him but he wasn’t looking at her. He could not afford to.

  The man paused in thought. “Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for a man called Aiden Lacheart.”

  Aiden gulped visibly.

  The only [Dragon Knight] on the human side of Nastild had come looking for him. And if the man was looking for him, then it meant that someone else was looking for him, because the man never moved unless he was commanded to.

  Torat’s gaze moved from Valdan to slowly settle on Aiden.

  The Order had sent Torat of the Dragon Hoard to find him, which meant only one thing. The [Master of the Order] was aware of Aiden's existence.

  Aiden’s hand moved to one of his swords. He couldn’t let the Order have him.

  Not now.