Charles and Lisa set out from the city of Lagonica towards the border of Varanga to cross over to the Elvian Forest. Their journey through Varanga had been a mostly peaceful one, with most of it being training for Lisa and helping her get accustomed to the adventuring lifestyle. The orc nation was also extremely well protected from monsters which made the journey so far fairly easy. The Kaspian plains and small forests were the only places where monsters had not been completely eradicated. Even now, the road that they were travelling on was free from any sort of monster, it was a quicker route not used by many merchants because carriages full of goods couldn't move on such unstable roads. For two people with minimal baggage though, it was a good choice.

The two continued their journey for around 2 days, only resting at night as Lisa continued training in both mana manipulation and the scythe. Using magic was still something Charles decided to teach her only when they arrived in the Elvian Forest. After all, she would need a spell caster to use magic herself.

It was the second night after they had left the city. The small fire they lit at the side of the path illuminated their dark surroundings, Lisa continued practising the scythe as Charles watched, critiquing her movements as well as instructing her how to improve. Lisa didn't really mind the criticism. She knew everything Charles said was only said for her own good.

After another sparring match in which Lisa had once again failed to pressure Charles enough to pass, they decided to rest for the night. Charles knew that they would be able to reach the Elvian Forest by the next day and so wanted them both to have enough sleep for the travel.

"I've heard a lot about the Elvian Forest. The illustrious elves live there in seclusion. I heard any evil person who travels there will be cut down by the forest guardian, along with intruders."

"Well, the elves aren't exactly as illustrious as most people give them credit for. We saw a few of them in Lagonica didn't we? They're a lot like humans, just with different customs. Their houses are also built among the trees, which makes it difficult to locate elf settlements. Even the capital requires special permission to enter."

"Wait, how are we going to enter then?"

"Relax, I've got the permission to enter. I've been in the capital before."

In a life that seemed almost entirely gone now, Charles had travelled to the Elvian capital of Varoonia. It was the only city the elves had since most of them lived in settlements and villages. Each took orders from the capital and their leaders were also being sent from the capital.

"Really? Wow, you've certainly been everywhere huh?"

"That's a little bit of an exaggeration but I guess you could say I've been to many places."

Lisa's eyes were filled with a sense of wonder as she imagined what travelling the entire continent would be like. All the different sights she would see and the various people she would see. How different would each of their lives look?

"I wanna do that someday."

Seeing that innocent look on her face, coupled with the determination in her words, Charles just couldn't deny it.

"You will get to do that someday, don't worry. Although you'll have to meet all sorts of people so getting over your fears is something you'll have to do."

"Eh?! I don't have a fear of people..."

She spoke that last sentence with a guilty look on her face as if knowing whatever she said was false.

"I don't know but someone seemed awfully shy when speaking with the receptionist at the adventurers guild."

"Nooo! It was just...everyone was staring for a moment. Anyone would get nervous."

Charles could see how embarrassed she was getting with each passing second, he couldn't help but be amused at such a reaction, but decided to stop before she got mad.

"Alright, alright we can talk about this another time, for now, you should head to sleep."

Just as he said that, Lisa laid down next to the fire before closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep. The travels combined with the training must have left her exhausted at the end of each day. Although Charles was certain she would get used to it. He was just about to head to bed himself before Pandora spoke up.

(Yo, Charles. Care to join me for some tea? I've got something to tell you.)

"Can it wait? I'm pretty tired too."

(Hah, that's rare. If I told you this back in the day you would've immediately agreed.)

"Times have changed."

(They certainly have. This is pretty important though, although I'm not in any rush to tell you.)

Charles contemplated it for a while before deciding to spend just a little more time awake. Closing his eyes, his body soon fell to the ground. He found himself back in that endless blue space. Sitting down in front of Pandora, he took a sip of the tea he had prepared. It was one of the usual ones he drank whenever he wanted to sleep. Pandora likely wanted to give him some help so he could sleep well after this.

Putting down the teacup, Pandora proceeded to explain the important matter.

(I was finishing up the last round of books on the shelf you copied it from and I found something pretty interesting.)

"Let's hear it."

Taking a deep breath, Pandora went on to explain something Charles never thought he would ever get to hear for the rest of his life.

(I've learnt of a way to repair your mana lines...)

There was a brief silence, Charles could only stare at him in disbelief. In the few rare moments of panic he showed, Charles slammed the table and confronted Pandora on such a fact.

"Is that true!? How?"

(Slow down. Let me explain. The book I was reading described an old legend even I've never heard of. It speaks of a powerful prince who sacrificed all his powers and destroyed his mana lines to save his lover. When it was finally over, however, he couldn't live with the fact that he had lost all his power. He attempted to regain it back, so he sought out a way to do it. He learnt from a certain mystic that gathering the treasures of each nation would allow him to regain his power.)

"The treasures of each nation? What in the world does that even mean?"

(I'm not sure either. Although, I'm confident that it's not the treasure that helped him regain his abilities. It's the raw power and mana stored within each of those treasures that allowed him to repair his lines. Essentially, he gained access to true mana.)

Just hearing about such a thing caused any speck of hope in Charles's mind to fade away.

"True mana huh... that's impossible. There are only two people I know who have ever touched true mana before, and they're both dead."

Pandora could see the look on his face, there was defeat and sadness. He quickly explained what he wanted to say next.

(That's not true. There is another way to recreate true mana. You'll have to combine a forbidden spell with a platinum spell caster.)

"A platinum spell caster! Those are the highest tier of spell casters, only the highest-ranked nobles and the royal family have access to such materials."

"Yeah, but remember, you're technically working for the only kingdom with access to the materials."

The realisation of such a fact caused the hope to reignite in Charles, there was a chance he could once again regain the power he believed was all but lost. He simply needed to finish the current job he was doing, only then would he get a chance to request a platinum spell caster from the Pavonian royal family. He had left a good impression on the king after all, in that brief meeting they had.

(Bide your time Charles, eventually you'll be able to regain your power. For now, just continue doing what you've been doing.)

"Yeah, I was planning on doing that anyway. I guess this will serve as some extra motivation."

Standing up from his seat, Charles thanked him for the tea and such a good piece of news, before heading to bed.

The next day arrived and the two continued on their journey. Charles walked with a spring in his step which Lisa quickly took notice of and teased him for it.

"Someone's happy today."

"Well, I guess you could say that."

Just as the two were approaching the border of Varanga, Charles felt an ominous feeling loom over him as they passed by a huge cliff. Soon he could feel it, 10 different presences of mana. Each one of varying power levels, yet all seemed pretty strong. Soon they were upon the two of them, 10 men dressed in various attire stood atop the cliff overlooking them. Their leader was wearing some sort of animal fur around his neck and his face was filled with scars. He had the largest build among all of them, with the rest ranging from scrawny to normal. There also appeared to be 2 men with higher mana levels, which Pandora soon informed him that they were mages.

"Well, look at what we have here. Quite the cute couple travelling together. I can tell you've got quite a bit of treasure in those small bags of yours."

Charles stared at the men, their vile faces filling him with rage. They were scumbags who knew of no other way to earn a living than plunder and slaughter.

(That leader, he's got the gold touch ability. He can sense all the treasures in your inventory. Only the Ornase clan has such an ability, although even if he tried he won't ever gain access to the inventory.)

Charles turned to Lisa, who seemed frightened, yet she tried to remain calm. Charles turned to her and whispered.

"Don't panic, if we can't negotiate our way out of here, we have to fight these guys."

"Fight...but there are 10 of them. It's just two of us."

Her voice was full of panic and hesitation. Charles knew he could easily take on all 10 of them even without magic, yet he feared they would simply target Lisa when he was busy. He had to get her to fight. In such a situation, he did what he believed would bring her comfort and the will to fight. He held her hand that was visibly shaking, reassuring her that they were going to be fine.

"Don't worry, you just have to fight like they were a goblin group. I'll be right here with you. Trust me."

While that didn't manage to completely quell her fears, she soon readied herself in case a fight broke out.

"What do you want that will let us go!"

"Every last bit of treasure you have."

The leader bluntly stated with a sinister grin on his face as his men laughed hysterically.

"I guess negotiation is out of the question then."

"Oh? You're going to fight us then? Very well, go get them, boys! Keep the woman alive! She'll sell for a decent price."

Just as he said that the men leapt from the cliff and landed on the ground safely using mana. Immediately, Charles reached into his inventory and pulled out a sword Pandora had advised him to use. It was a blue magic sword that didn't require the user to inject any of their own mana for it to function. It also had 3 pre-casted spells imbued in it.

The men charged at them while the archers behind fired a few arrows as support. Turning to Lisa one last time, Charles nodded and instructed her to take care of the archers. He would cover for her to head towards them. She was scared and yet, she nodded and began running towards the archers with her scythe at the ready.

The men armed with melee weapons attempted to stop her, but Charles quickly blew them back with just the force of swinging his blade.

"Your opponent is me, unfortunately."

There was no fear or hesitation on his face, the confidence he gave off was surprising to the bandits. Around 5 men charged at him all at the same time, without giving them any time to react though, Charles cut all of them down with a wide swing like he had with the goblins before. Each one of the men sustained severe injuries that left them lying on the ground writhing in pain. Everyone who saw what had happened stood frozen in place, the archers who had seen it were left speechless. Once their volley of arrows had stopped, it gave Lisa enough time to rush towards them and immobilise them. In no time, the 2 archers were on the ground unconscious. Even Lisa couldn't believe that she had just won her first battle.

Before she could let it sink in, however, she noticed a huge fireball headed in her direction, it was her first time witnessing such offensive magic and it left her simply staring at it in fear. Just before the fireball could hit her though, she noticed a huge storm like wind completely blow the fireball back in the opposite direction. Causing the three remaining bandits to scatter.

"Lisa are you alright!"

"Yeah..."

She was still shocked by what just happened. Charles knew that this was their chance and instructed Lisa to finish them off.

"We have to use this chance! You handle the two mages, try and dodge any of their spells and you'll be fine. I'll settle their leader."

"Got it!"

She quickly snapped back to her senses as they ran towards the bottom of the cliff where the three had landed after the fireball was thrown back at them. Charles saw the leader attempting to regain his composure after that unexpected attack, he quickly lunged at him and swung his sword attempting to cut his neck. The leader seemed more experienced than the rest, however, as he managed to take out his battle axe and stop the blade from connecting with his neck.

"You're quick. To think that was a magic sword...If I kill you, it will bring me a lifetime of fortune."

"If you can that is."

Charles soon began combat with the leader. He was much faster than him given his smaller build. He used that advantage to prevent getting hit by the axe and used it to slowly land small hits on different parts of his body. Soon, the leader was panting as he was covered in cuts and other injuries.

"You fool! You'll pay for this shit."

His battle senses had dulled as his emotions began to take over. This was a common thing most inexperienced warriors fell victim to. Once the battle stopped going their way, they would panic and attempt to charge at their enemies. Charles took full advantage of that and simply dodged the straight swing the leader used. He then kneed him in the gut which caused the leader immense pain, Charles took full advantage of that to plunge his blade into the leader's neck from behind, giving him a quick end. His large body soon collapsed onto the ground with a thud sound.

"That's the end of that. I wonder how Lisa's doing."

Turning his head over to the other side of the battle, Charles noticed Lisa had already incapacitated one of the mages and was currently battling the other one. The mage launched a simple wind spell that Lisa skillfully dodged to the surprise of everyone watching. Lisa then swung her scythe to try and take him down, yet the mage used his staff to block the swing. He then attempted to cast another spell, but before he could finish the incantation, Lisa used her leg to kick the staff away, followed by knocking the guy on the head with the snath in order to knock him unconscious.

(Seems like she didn't kill any of them.)

"Yeah, she has her own way of doing things I guess. I won't judge it, we're not in a war anyway. If she decides she can't kill her fellow man, no matter how evil they are, then that's fine with me."

Walking over to Lisa, Charles checked on her condition. She had sustained minor injuries that Charles simply touched up with a minor healing potion. After a short rest, the two continued on their journey towards the Elvian Forest.

"I need to get even stronger."

"???"

"After what happened today. I realised that if it wasn't for you being there, I'd likely have been taken away by them."

"It's a good thing to want to get stronger so you can defend yourself, but don't let it turn into an obsession. The desire for power can eat you up until you forget the very reason you sought such strength in the first place."

Charles spoke with a sense of regret and guilt, although Lisa didn't know it at the time, she could tell that what Charles said had some personal bearing on himself as well.

"You did good today Lisa, you couldn't have handled yourself any better. It was your first time with bandits, and it likely wouldn't be the last."

"Thanks...but I still froze up in the beginning. I even needed you to..."

Before she could finish her sentence, Lisa realised what she was about to say as she turned her face in the opposite direction so Charles couldn't see her.

"Something wrong?"

"No no I'm fine!"

Charles was quite oblivious to what was going on which only made the situation even worse as Lisa was the only one feeling embarrassed about what happened. Growing up in the palace her whole life, the most interaction she had with boys were with her brothers and father. Other noble boys, she usually tried to avoid. This was the first time she had held someone's hand. Just the thought of it made her want to disappear from the face of the earth. She could only wonder how Charles was able to do such a thing effortlessly.

How many times has he held a girl's hand... wait no why am I even thinking about such a thing. I gotta get it together.

"We've arrived."

Bringing Lisa back to her senses, Charles alerted her of their arrival. Turning to face the sight before her, she was astounded by the sheer size of the forest. The trees and vines were thick and appeared to be really old. Even though entering the forest seemed scary, she couldn't feel any sense of fear. It was almost as if the forest gave off a warm and inviting atmosphere.

"Let's go."

"Yeah."

Staring at the forest for a little longer. Lisa turned to face Charles who smiled at her as the two entered the forest together.

This new life of mine...it's going to be filled with much more danger and threats. I can't rely on Charles forever. I need to get stronger so I can one day stand on my own feet.