“This going to take a while…”

With a hand on the reins and the other supporting my head, I keep sighing.

The scenery is pretty and all, but after a while it gets pretty boring,

“Maybe I should just ditch the caravan and continue by horse?”

I only needed this caravan because of Nora, but now that she’s awake, it doesn’t make much sense keeping it.

I told her that I won this caravan on a game, but the truth is a little more inconvenient.

There’s just no way I would walk around with a passed out girl on my shoulders. I just found this caravan on a village and stole it.

I feel bad for the owner, but at least I left him most of his merchandise. He can easily buy another one.

“Hmm.”

On one hand, if we just continued by horse we would reach our destination sooner.

“On the other…”

The caravan is a lot more comfortable and we won’t need to sleep in inns. Furthermore, we are just assuming that our problems will be solved once we reach her home. But for all we know, they might not. Hell, I don’t even know what kind of family she has.

It might be a good idea to take our time and let things cool down.

“But as they say, the iron should be stricken while hot.”

…

After a few moments of reflection, I still can’t decide.

I’ll ask her opinion later.

While she was out, I managed to find some information about Qahs Holm.

As I feared, it won’t be a simple question of asking her to let me go there.

Qahs Holm is completely off limits. The only way to get there is by hiring a smuggling ship in one of the small villages on the coast. And there’s only two requisites: a gold coin and black hair. Not exactly cheap, especially considering that you could buy a house and more with it, but I can’t say it’s unreasonable. If we have to be smuggled to get to Qahs Holm, who knows what’ll happen if the smuggler is found out.

And there’s also another worrying rumor. I don’t trust old-wife tales, but in this case I can’t help but be worried…

Qahs Holm might have slavery.

I really hope that’s a lie, but if it isn’t, it means that they forgot our ideals.

We fought for equality. We fought for a world where no matter your magic ability, you would have the same rights and chances to be someone.

But if they are using slavery, no matter who the slaves are, that means that they forgot our goals.

Either that or I never existed.

“Ah~, much better.” Nora comes back outside and sits beside me.

“Welcome back.”

She stretches her body.

I look at her chest. It’s a little more voluminous than I would like, but as long she doesn’t puts her chest out, it’s not noticeable. I guess it’s good enough.

“Is it ok, Al?” She asks with an annoyed voice.

“Yes, it is.”

“Then could you please stop looking at my breasts?”

“Fine, fine.” I raise my hand and look forward. “Just don’t put your chest out.”

“I know. Hmph.”

This reminds me of when I said ‘Nice tits’ to her. Her face was priceless.

Huh… This also reminds of me with Christine, but inverted.

Thanks Christine, you really turned me into a pervert.

“Al, I need to ask you something.”

“Hm? Go ahead.”

“Do you remember seeing a bluish fog? Or cloud?”

“A bluish cloud...? Let me think.”

Weird question. She dreamt about me again.

Ok… Bluish cloud… She’s dreaming about when I was in school so…

Oh yeah. I remember that.

“Back at my home. I remember that it was afternoon and I saw something weird in the garden. I don’t remember much though.”

“You were training before that.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I never found out anything about that thing though. It was probably nothing.”

“Well, I think that cloud was me.”

“… I’m sorry, what?” I look at her.

“This dream was different from the others, I was conscious of it and I could move and think. It was a lucid dream. When you saw that thing, you were looking at me.”

Ok… What kind of bullcrap is that?

“Are you sure? Really sure?”

“I’m sure.”

I rub my head.

“Ok, hold on a moment. Let me get this straight: Are you saying that you somehow interacted with me during your dream?”

“Yes. I don’t know how, but when I was aware of myself, it was when you saw me.”

I need a minute. This is a whole other level of messed up.

Point one, she can dream about my memories.

I don’t mind point one, I want her to do so. I want her to see what happened.

Point two, she can change her dreams.

It would be one thing if I didn’t remember it, but it’s entirely another one if I can remember.

If I didn’t remember, that would mean that she just picked up my memories and altered them in her head without affecting me. But if I remember, then the changes she makes also affect me.

It might not seem like a big deal, in the end it was just a small fog, but what if she manages to change my memories at her convenience?

No matter how much control someone has over another one, that person will never be able to control what the other is thinking. But in our case, she can even change the way I think, my beliefs and opinions if she plays her cards right.

The way someone thinks is influenced by that someone’s experiences and memories. Change those two and you can change the person.

If she manages to find a way to change my memories, I don’t think she would actually do it in her favor. She’s too honest. But then again, it’s a lot of trust I am putting on her.

But… Some things that will happen will probably make her want to change them.

Of course, this is all assuming that point two is true. Let’s hope that point two is false and she just happened to be where that cloud was.

“It was probably just a coincidence.” I dismiss her and look forward.

“I don’t think so.”

“C’mon, I mean, your dream changing my memories? That’s impossible.”

“There’s another thing I should tell you…”

“What?” I look again at her.

If it’s another bomb, I swear...

“I don’t think I was reliving your memories. I think I was there, like, actually there.”

Bullshit.

“... Please explain.”

“Later that night, when you went to help Christine’s father? I stayed in the kitchen and listened to Christine conversation with her mother. There’s no way you could remember that.”

What?

“What did they talk about?”

She tells me what they said.

“You don’t remember this right? You weren’t there to watch or hear them.”

She’s right, I never witnessed that conversation. However…

“You probably imagined that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s convincing, but there’s just no way you could actually be there. Time travel is impossible.”

“You travelled to the future though.”

“Big difference. I didn’t exactly ‘time travelled’. According to the man who sent me to the future, time passes differently in our world and in the spirit world. I just used it as a ‘shortcut’ to be here now. In other words, you can’t travel to the past.”

“... What if I’m just looking through your legend in the spirit world? It wouldn’t be time travel.”

“...”

Good point.

If I understand it right, no matter if the Servant was real or just a legend, his story is recorded in the spirit world.

If her dreams are based on my information in the spirit world, and not my memories like we thought, then that means that she can literally change the events, not my memories. It won’t matter if they happened or not in real life, I will remember the events stored in the spirit world, not the real world ones.

But then again, this is assuming I have one of those in the spirit world. I want to believe that I am not legend, even though everything is pointing to the opposite.

Hope is the last one to die.

*sigh*

“And then, you told Christine’s father to—”

“Nora.”

“What?”

“No matter what, and I really mean no matter what, do not change anything.”

“...”

“No matter how screwed up the dream is, no matter how you don’t like what’s happening, just watch. Do not touch or alter anything.”

“I…”

“This is if you find a way to interact with the world in your dreams. I still don’t fully believe that you can, but just in case… If you have any respect for me, even if just a little, then please, do not.”

“...”

“What’s in the past is in the past, and it shouldn’t be changed. Especially by someone else that is not me.”

“Ok, I promise. I won’t.”

“...”

“I don’t know what happened to you. I don’t know what made you like this. I want to know, but I won’t bother you again. I’ll just wait for it to happen.” She says with a determined expression. “I don’t know for sure if I can change the dreams at my will, but if I can, I promise that I won’t.”

“Hm, good enough for me.”

I turn my attention again to the road.

Hmm, the horse is walking slower. We should stop soon and let it rest.

Nora takes out a apple and takes a bite out of it.

“So…” She speaks with the mouth full.

Cute.

“Swallow it before speaking.”

“*gulp* Well, excuse me, I’m kinda hungry.” She replies, annoyed.

“You’re excused.”

She hits me in the arm.

“Didn’t hurt.”

“Anyway! I want to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

“Can you teach me how to fight?”

“Hmm?” I look at her with inquisitive expression.

“I want to learn how to fight.”

“You already know how to cast magic.” I look again forward with an uninterested expression.

“Yes! But I’m no good in an actual fight!”

“Hmm? How so?”

“In that last fight, I couldn’t hit her no matter what! She was so fast that not even my Area Magic attacks could hit her!”

“Hmm.”

“She just dodged every attack! No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't even make a scratch on her.”

“And she didn’t cast spells back?”

“No…”

“So why didn’t you trap her?”

“Huh?”

“You could’ve pretended that you were out of mana and let her get close. Once she was close enough, you just had to burn everything in front of you. No matter how fast one is, there’s no way to avoid a Area Magic attack from so close.”

“I-I see…”

“We mages have to be creative.” I point my finger at my head.

“Hmm.” She looks at me worried. “So, will you teach me or not?”

“Hmmm… Why do you want to learn?”

Everyone should know how to defend themselves. And I want to teach her, but I need to make sure that she doesn’t want to learn just because of a whim.

“Because I don’t want to be cornered again. I don’t want another blade touching my throat. I want to stand my ground.”

“And?”

“If I die, people that care about me will feel sad. I don’t want to cause anyone’s suffering.”

“Hmm, I see.”

“And—”

“If I teach you, you will earn a few bruises. I’m not going to go easy on you.”

“I don’t mind, I can deal with it.”

“Hmm…”

She’s looking at me, begging for an answer. She seems determined to learn.

“As soon we stop I’ll teach you some hand-to-hand basics.”

She grins.

“Cool, thanks!”

“No problem.”

…

……

………

The sun is setting.

I already prepared the fire, but we’re going to sleep in the caravan. Mark ran away with the tents.

I wonder what happened to him.

“Ok Al, I’m ready.”

Nora stands a few meters in front of me.

“Alright, come closer.”

She takes a few steps forward.

“We’re going to focus on the basics. In other words, no magic or weapons, just our hands.”

“Alright, but why can’t we start with magic? I could use some tips on aiming.”

“Because we are not supposed to use magic, remember?”

“But we are in the middle of nowhere. No one is going to notice us.”

“You never know. We are relatively close to the road. If a mage passes by, he will sense us.”

“Yeah, but still—”

“You don’t know how to deal with fights. Your problem is not your aim, it’s your fear. You don’t know how to stay calm and think for a second. It was like that during your last fight, right?”

“Y-Yes, I think you are right.”

“So we are going to work on that first. Let’s get you used to fighting.”

She exhales.

“Ok, I’m ready, what do I have to do?”

“Punch me.”

“Huh?”

“Just punch me. Anywhere is fine, just don’t use Inner Magic.”

She raises her closed fists.

“Ok, I’m really going to do it.”

“Give it your best shot.”

She breaths once again. Then she prepares her right fist and punches me in the chest.

… I hardly felt anything.

I look at her fist, then at her.

“Did I do it wrong?”

“If I was a bad guy, you would be dead right about now.”

“Eh…”

It wasn’t lack of strength though. She hesitated. She didn’t give her best.

“C’mon, once again. You can do better.”

“Ok.”

She removes her fist that was still touching my chest and prepares once again.

“Do it with intention to hurt me. Don’t worry about the rest.”

“Alright.”

She puts strength into her right arm and punches me again in the chest.

I hardly felt a thing again.

She hesitated. This is going to take a while…

“Look, you’re not going to hurt anyone with that.”

“*sigh* I can’t punch you. It just doesn’t feel right.”

“I see…”

Time to piss her off.

“You know when I put the straps on you?”

“...”

“Those two are really nice. Good work!” I grin and give her a thumbs up.

“!!!”

She readies herself again and punches me in the chest with all her strength.

“Huh!”

Nice punch. Not the strongest ever but this time it certainly stung a little.

“Nice punch!”

Her face is all red and her left arm is covering her chest.

“You’re an asshole.”

Blame Christine, not me. She made me this way.

“C’mon, come at me again.”

This time I won’t stay quiet though.

She readies herself again.

“Yah!”

She aims again for my chest, but I dodge to the right.

“Missed.”

“Ke! AH!”

She strikes again.

But I dodge.

“Missed.”

“YAH!”

We keep at it for at least ten minutes. Each time she tries, I dodge and say missed.

This is to provoke her and make her hotheaded. I want to see whether she will give up first or stop and think for a moment. Let’s hope she will do the latter, otherwise we’ll have a long way to go.

What I am doing is simply dodging her punches. I’m always dodging to the left or right, but never back. I don’t move from the spot except when she’s attacking. It’s a very basic set of rules.

She simply won’t hit me like this. She needs to think and try different tactics.

This won’t happen in real fights. Opponents will not wait for her or not hit her. But for today I just want to see if she thinks during a fight.

“Missed.”

“Ah, ah, ah…” She falls and knees on the ground. Then looks at me. She’s trying to control her breathing.

First mistake. Don’t fall on the ground. But I’ll beat that into you another time.

“Is that all? We barely started. Are you going to give up so easily?”

“HA!”

She gets up and comes at me again.

She aims for my chest with her right fist.

“Mi—!”

As I am dodging to the right, her fist passes by me. She puts her right foot forward to balance herself and raises her left leg. She whirls counterclockwise and aims for my stomach with the back of her left foot.

That attack forced me to block her leg. I grab it.

“Ah, ah, ah.” Even though she’s trying to control her breathing, she’s looking at me as if saying ‘See? I can do it’.

“Nice one.”

Glad to know that she can think of new ideas before giving up.

“Hehe, take that.”

“You’re still have a lot of work to do kid.” I let go of her leg. “Order me to train you.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.”

I have an idea, but I don’t know if it’s going to work.

“Alright. Al, train me.”

I feel the symbol on my hand.

“Come at me again.”

“Ok, YAH!”

She tries to punch my chest again.

Sorry kid, but training is not only giving. You also have to take.

I dodge to the left.

She’s going to try again what she did earlier, but she won’t have the chance.

I close my left hand and punch her in the stomach.

“Gah!?!”

She puts her arms around her stomach and knees on the ground.

I didn’t hit her that hard, but I can imagine how that would hurt on someone not used to pain.

Seems like her order worked. What a tricky spell. I can’t hurt my master when I want too, but if she orders me to train her, I can hurt her. I imagine that I can only hurt her so much though. If I try to hurt her more than I should in a proper training, I doubt the spell would let me.

But it’s not like I would actually try to hurt her unnecessarily though.

“That’s what I meant when I said you would have a lot of bruises. Training does not mean that you only train to fight, you also train to endure and get used to pain. If you don’t think you can take it, then this is a good time to give up.”

“Kuh…” She’s still on the ground, with her arms around her stomach. She’s looking down and moaning.

Maybe I hit her too hard? I don’t think it was that hard, but… She’s just a noble girl used to the easy life. I should mind my strength next time.

If there’s a next time that is. I probably scared her with that punch. She probably won’t want to continue.

“I… I can take it.”

What?

“If this is what it takes to become stronger,” She looks at me, determined. “then I can take it.”

… Good girl.

She tries to get up, but falls on her knees again.

“I, just need a minute.”

She’s trying. She didn’t give up. She’s really trying.

I unconsciously smile. I put one knee on the ground and stand next to her.

“Good work.” I put my hand on her head.

Her face becomes red.

Heh… I have to admit, she is cute.

...… Don’t even think about it.

“C’mon, let’s continue.” She tries to get up again.

“It’s fine. We did enough for today. I got what I wanted.”

“You sure? I can still—”

“I am. And no, you can’t continue. Order me to stop training you.”

“Alright, forget my orders.”

I feel the symbol again.

I put her arm on my shoulders.

“C’mon, let’s go eat something.”

“Hm-hm.”

I get up and help her to do the same. Then we walk towards the fire, with her leaning on me.

…

…..

……

It’s already night.

We are inside the caravan, laying on top of the pelts. We are relatively close to each other.

Wonder what animal this is from? Maybe fox?

“Does it still hurt?”

“No, not anymore.” She snuggles on the pelts.

“We’ll continue tomorrow then.”

I just have to mind myself in tomorrow’s training. I’ll go easy on her for now but later I’ll increase the strength little by little.

*yahn*

Today I can finally rest for real. There’s no monsters around (and even if there was, the horse would make a fuss and I would take care of the problem), it’s highly unlikely someone will find us…

And this fur… It feels really nice.

“This is nice.” She says with a low voice.

“Hmm?” I turn my head in her direction.

“This is so fluffy. I can’t even remember the last time I slept in a proper bed.” She puts her head in the middle of the furs.

“What about the inns?”

“Those were just poor excuses for beds.”

“Hm, that’s true.”

I might be used to sleep in hard floors, but the pampered noble inside of me still has opinions to give.

“And,” she looks at me “the company is nice.”

“Huh!” My mouth opens with surprise.

My heart raced for a moment.

That comment had more effect on me than it should have.

“Just,” I turn my head upwards. “Try to sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day.”

“Hm-hmm.”

…

......

.........

I can hear her breathing.

It’s been at least an hour since we talked.

I simply cannot sleep.

*sigh*

“It’s going to be a long night.” I murmur.

I look again at her.

It’s dark but I can still make out her features.

“I wonder if you are going to dream again today.”

She dreamt about the day that I and Christine kissed for the first time.

That means that it won’t be long now. Only two or more dreams until it happens.