On the Run

Our first order of business was finding shelter.

Three was probably looking for us right now, but luckily the capital was surrounded by plenty of hiding places. Skills I gained through many VR games weren’t really useful here, but I did gain some experience through our adventure in Avallux thus far.

In the end we found ourselves a secluded spot near a river and got a fire going. While Mana cleaned herself, finally looking a bit fresher, I hunted some rabbits. I actually hadn’t eaten for more than a day so this wasn’t anywhere near enough, but it had to do for the time being.

Our journey back was only at its beginning. We would probably have to overcome plenty of trials on the way.

So I felt, but Tarisha and I were ready for it. I put her near me by the fire, and noticed Mana looking at her too.

Noticing my gaze, she averted it with a small twitch but said, “Um, is that your sword?”

A bit of a silly question, since I was wielding it. Or did she mean to ask if it wasn’t stolen? “Yes.”

“Are you aware it’s made from ginarium?”

I tilted my head. It was my first time hearing that word. “Hah, what’s that?”

I already noticed this before, but Mana seemed to perk up whenever she needed to explain something. A part of her always sounded apologetic or hesitant, too, but she really enjoyed talking about stuff at length.

“It’s a legendary metadimensional material that—err, I know those are some complex-sounding words, and to be honest, I don’t know much about them, either. Mostly things I heard from mama… Anyway, it’s supposedly a product of your dreams and imagination. I wasn’t really sure before, but when I saw you fighting Three and the way you kept summoning the sword, I became certain it was something special. It’s not any form of magic, that’s for sure.”

I turned to look at Tarisha, my head still tilted.

She definitely was special, unique even—baffling even my creators, who couldn’t make head nor tail of how she worked.

Still, the fact that a denizen of this world knew something about this was shocking. Could it be?

Were my origins somehow tied to this place…?

That was definitely some food for thought, but also not very relevant. I had much bigger things to think about right now.

Namely, how were we going to get out of this mess?

After this conversation we spent a long, long time seated by the fire, completely silent, before finally going to sleep.

Mana and I set out again at dawn. She kept yawning all the while, but I didn’t feel especially tired; I was used to sleepless nights in uncomfortable places.

“Just making sure,” I said to the girl after she returned from washing her face in the river, “but you can’t just teleport us to the border, right?”

Mana wore an apologetic smile and shook her head. “If I was in my prime, maybe. Even when I ran away to do the summoning I hadn’t been able to hop over such large distances. Currently, it’d be just as likely to launch us into the sky again or bury us in the ground,” she explained. “Furthermore, it’s not really a specific location, so we’ll have to scout by foot anyway. To ensure our success, I’d better preserve my powers so I can open the door immediately when we find it. …I’m sorry.”

I shook my head. It wasn’t like I was really hoping for something so convenient like leaping straight to the goal. We’d have to make this journey on foot just like I expected.

“I feel so useless,” Mana continued with a sigh, looking at the ground. “If only I didn’t get caught back then and met up with you… things might have gone very differently. I really am sorry…”

Why did she feel the need to be so apologetic and explain herself all of the time? She was clearly the victim here in every single sense.

“…Let’s go.” Instead of raising any of those subjects, I just pushed on forward. She did give me a quizzical look, but followed me.

I couldn’t help but feel bad. If she wasn’t literally dependent on me for protection, Mana, too, would have abandoned me already. That much was for certain.

But I had to carry on.

Sticking mostly to the forested area to avoid detection by any possible scouts sent to find us, we were finally forced to reach into one of the nearby towns by evening.

Not like we were planning on staying there—or rather, there was no chance of us staying there. We had no money or anything worth trading to our name, so procuring a place to lodge would be difficult.

However, at the very least we wanted some information.

It could be argued that our sole goal was to reach Harko Forest, where I first spawned into Avallux, but I had the feeling just going there in a straight line wouldn’t be the right move.

Or rather, neither Mana nor I had any idea what the straight line was, right now, so that was part of it.

Another part was that I was sure we were going to face pursuers at some point, no matter how careful we were, and so I wanted to be prepared for them.

Anyway, I first wanted for us to get our bearings. Asking around, I received directions back to Shellkeep—the town where we fought and defeated Two.

Only about a week passed since then, but it already felt like ages. I tried not thinking about it too much.

In fact, I was trying to head that way ever since we escaped Triccius, but we apparently took a wrong turn somewhere. It was going to take at least another day at this rate.

We spent very little time in the town itself; hitting upon an idea I decided to go looking through some alleys, which made Mana look at me weird, but eventually found what I needed.

New clothes.

Okay, the word “new” was a lie; I’d been looking for any discarded clothing out in the street. Obviously any clothes that were thrown away weren’t in the best condition, but at least better than the rags Mana and I were currently wearing. Never mind mine, but hers was barely better than being naked.

Now looking and feeling better, we slept outside and continued our journey the next day. We entered Shellkeep right on schedule.

There was a certain part of this that did not go as planned however.

“…Eh?” said Mana, standing in one of the town’s corners, sounding shocked. I couldn’t blame her.

There were no signs left of Two’s massacre, even if the town seemed less boisterous than our previous time here, but right in front of the clock tower there was a notice board. Having noticed people flocking over there I also took a peek, hoping to find a posting about some quick job or something.

I was definitely not ready for what was actually there—many identical posters pasted all over the board, all featuring the same writing:

WANTED ALIVE.

All of them had the actual faces of me and Mana on them.