I had sensed someone following us for quite a while before we decided to have lunch. I didn’t know if Daniel had noticed them yet, but honestly I hoped that he hadn’t.

I still couldn’t make peace with the fact that the idiot wanted to hire a bunch of deserters in his mercenary company.

If he hadn’t noticed them yet, I might have had the chance to get rid of them before he did.

After lunch we had started moving again.

I kept our pace the same as it had been that morning, trying to control my urge to go faster as best I could.

I couldn’t help my excitement to get to the city.

And it had nothing to do with my sister being there.

I just wanted to get my plan with the adventurers guild into motion as soon as possible.

And if I could get my sister to play along, and help me keep Daniel in the city for a couple of days, I knew that I could get him to reap some very good rewards.

I did feel a bit guilty for making him think that he had done something wrong again.

For some reason every time I pushed him a bit harder in his training he thought I was angry with him again.

We had kept going at that pace for some time, just jogging along in silence.

The only sound that could be heard was our rhythmic footsteps, and breathing.

After the first while we had become almost perfectly in sync, even our breathing had been matched.

And yet, even without them making any noise, I could still sense our followers keeping up with us.

Just that was enough to tell me that they were no mere bandits.

No bandit would’ve been able to keep up with us for so long, so comfortably.

They had definitely been trained.

Eventually the sun had started to dip lower in the sky, and the forest started to darken significantly.

We had moved on for a bit longer before I decided that it was about time for us to set up camp.

"Let’s set up camp here for the night," I said as I stopped in the middle of yet another small clearing.

Daniel stopped next to me, and looked around at the area we were in.

His breathing was still pretty even.

He had come a long way from the man who had been breathing hard after only walking for a bit.

"Sure, this seems like a good spot." He answered as he started to pull out our equipment from his storage portal.

He had really gone all out with his preparations.

There was a massive tent, some chairs, a couple of pots we could use to heat up the food he had brought, some bowls, he had even brought his desk, and our bed.

I had to admit, his storage spell would definitely make sleeping outside a lot more comfortable than it usually was.

"What’s with the desk?" I asked.

"Obviously so we can eat at a table like civilised people." He answered, looking at me like that was supposed to be a logical answer.

Half an hour later we had our entire campsite set up.

"The great thing is, now that we have the tent set up, I can just store it like that, so we don’t ever have to set it up again." Daniel said.

I swear the man tries to streamline everything into maximum efficiency.

But once again, that was a pretty good thing.

I hated setting up tents.

It was at that moment that I heard another twig snap off to our side.

Even though those stalkers of ours had definitely received training, they were quite sloppy with their approach.

I decided to get rid of them right then, before Daniel could get to them, and start getting some more stupid ideas.

"I’m just going to take a bathroom break." I said, and walked in the opposite direction of the twig that snapped.

I didn’t see anything wrong with the smile Daniel gave me before I turned away from him.

Even though it seemed a bit more... mischievous than usual.

As soon as I was out of sight, I used shadow to cloak myself again.

I sprinted around our little clearing in the direction of our stalkers.

Within moments I had reached the area I had heard the twig snapping, and there they were.

There were five of them crouching in front of another man who seemed to be the leader of their little party of deserters.

They were well armed, and armoured. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Their leader was a middle aged man with a thick beard, and a scar across his left eye.

"We’ll wait for darkness to fall completely before we make our move." The leader whispered. "I want this to be quick and efficient, without anyone getting hurt."

All the men around him nodded at this.

It seemed to me that they simply wanted to rob us.

There didn’t seem to be any malicious intent in any of them.

And yet, they were still deserters, I couldn’t allow Daniel to build a mercenary group with traitors at the core of it.

I slowly moved forward, quietly drawing my sword.

Like I previously said, I hate to kill people without them being able to see me coming, but if I was going to do this without Daniel hearing anything, I had to do it that way.

"How are we going to keep them from getting hurt, Sarge? Both of them seem like the type that would fight back." One of the men crouching around asked as I approached.

"He’ll create a diversion with fire magic, and then we’ll sneak up to them and knock them out." The leader said as he pointed to another of the crouching men.

The men before him nodded their heads.

I had just reached them when I heard a voice from behind me.

"At least you seem to still have some morals." Daniel said.

I could feel my blood freeze.

I hadn’t sensed him coming at all.

My focus might have been completely on my targets, but I still should’ve sensed him coming.

"Now, now, my love, I don’t think it’s necessary to kill them." He said, which astounded me even more, how in the hell did he know I was there.

My presence should have been completely shrouded from him.