Chapter 33: Chapter 33 - We Travel Through Booksfield... Again

Julia and I were up and going pretty early the next morning.

I had wanted to get on the road as early as possible.

So with a slight headache, and some back pain that I blamed on another day of grueling training, we were on our way.

We had snuck out of the inn as quietly as we could, to avoid waking anyone, which was pretty considerate of us if you ask me.

But to our surprise there were still some people waiting for us at the village gate when we arrived.

Standing there was Worick, John, Darvel, and a couple more of our friends we had made in the last couple of weeks we had spent in Lofie Village.

We spent a couple of minutes on goodbyes, and some final pieces of advice from me to my business partners and employees, and some more advice on new policies to Worick, we were on our way.

For some reason Worick had asked some very basic questions that morning.

Questions that I had already answered in one of our previous meetings.

And for some reason he had asked them pretty loudly, loud enough for everyone who was there with us to hear.

Of course, my genius answers had left them all speechless and shocked, but what else could be expected.

Finally after some very lengthy goodbyes, Julia and I had gotten going.

Ironically we entered the forest exactly where we had exited it when we first arrived at Lofie village.

Never had I expected on that day that we would still be together.

At that time I had thought she would simply guide me to the village, and then be on her way again.

Going on another kind of adventure, or to the big city she had wanted me to go to when we had first met.

And yet there we were, stepping back into the forest, both of us heading toward that big city together, this time holding hands as we entered the forest.

I looked down at the beauty walking next to me, and thanked all of the gods that might be in charge of this world for the luck I had.

I mean really, what kind of luck would it take to literally fall out of the sky into the life of the love of your life.

"I hope you weren’t thinking that this trip would be an excuse for you to miss your training." The love of my life said as she looked up at me with a sly smile.

Okay so maybe my luck did have some slight drawbacks, because apparently the love of my life had some sadistic tendencies when it came to my training.

But being the hard working man I am, I gave her a massive grin.

"What do you have in mind?" I asked with a slightly nervous gulp.

"Well we had decided to take the shortcut to cut down on our traveling time."

"I suggest we cut that time down even more." Julia answered.

I, of course, had a pretty bad feeling about this.

Because any time Julia spoke with that tone I knew that it meant I was going to have to run a hell of a long distance.

"And how do you suggest we do that?" I asked.

I didn’t get any answer from her.

Not a spoken one anyway.

Because in the next instant she took off running.

And she was going at quite a clip.

I stood there, shocked, looking at her armored body going away from me at a pretty good pace.

Finally I snapped out of it, but she had been quite a distance away at that time.

Luckily, the height difference between us meant that with a lengthy stride, and a semi-comfortable pace, I caught up with her.

Now with the last couple of week’s grueling training my previous fitness levels had improved quite a bit, so I kept up with her quite easily.

We kept going at a decent pace for quite some time.

Dodging trees.

Jumping fallen logs.

And generally just kept going.

After about an hour we stopped for a short rest.

The first rays of the sun had just started to fall through the leaves.

I know right, the way I said that sounds really fancy, but you know that I always speak with such flowery words.

We were sitting on some logs munching on one of the meals that I had stored in my fancy, and very useful, storage spell.

It really is one of my favorite spells.

I mean everything is always organised in there.

You wouldn’t believe the amount of paperwork I had stored in there, and everything is always ordered just like I want it to be.

And with a simple thought, I can reorganise them any way I want.

Never before had there existed a more efficient filing system.

"By the way, should I expect any beasts that are similar to the tiger that attacked us at the village?" I asked as we quietly sat and ate our breakfast.

Julia was quiet for a moment.

"That was actually a pretty low level beast, there should be plenty of them in this forest." Julia finally answered.

’Low level? I thought it had caused a lot of damage, and headache for the village."

"That’s just because beasts usually tend to stay away from humans, or elves in that case."

"But if you wander into their territories they are ruthless."

I would have appreciated it if she had told me this before we had so casually started to run through what I could only guess was their territory.

"And let me guess. We’re in their territory right now?" I asked.

Julia just looked at me with that smile that I had started to recognize as something that might look extremely beautiful, but the one that I should be pretty afraid of.

I waited for her to answer me.

The longer she took to do that, the more nervous I became.

I thought about all of the noise we had made on our run up until this point.

I thought of how I had joked with her.

Of how I had burst out laughing at some of her reactions.

Then I remembered that the first time we had made our way through this forest she had actually warned me about making too much noise.

Why she hadn’t warned me again this time I didn’t know.

But the way she wasn’t answering me then might have hinted at what she had planned.

And the sudden noise I heard charging toward us through the trees might have confirmed that suspicion quite early.

"No magic allowed this time." Julia said as she handed me her sword and stepped back.

"Really!?" I don’t know when every bloody dangerous situation had turned into a training opportunity, but apparently I wasn’t present for that decision.

I took the sword and turned in the direction of the noise just as the last tree, at the edge of the small clearing we had been in, burst into pieces.