Rog rejoined the group, this time carrying a bird about as big as the boy on his back. Eiwin threw the man an ugly look, but seeing as Red didn't seem bothered, she just chose to ignore it. Rather, the youth was extremely curious about the bow the hunter had used to shoot down the creature from the sky and he couldn't help but examine the weapon.

"Shoo, kid, this one's mine." Rog scolded him as he saw the boy glancing in the direction of his bow.

Red didn't push the subject any further, but in his mind, he had already decided to get his hands on a similar weapon as soon as possible.

For the next couple of hours, the journey was mostly uneventful. Eiwin continued to pester him with personal questions, while he did his best to divert her attention with questions of his own. Their surroundings didn't seem to change, even though he was sure they had walked on for kilometers already. They had to make some detours due to difficult terrain, but Red felt like they had made more progress in a few hours than he had made in a day down at the mines.

He was starting to feel tired from the effort, but before it became evident to anyone else, Narcha called for a break.

"We'll rest here." The woman, evidently still quite displeased, walked off to a corner of the clearing and busied herself with her backpack.

Eiwin shook her head at her companion's display and turned around to look at Red.

"Come." She said, pointing at a space where Rog was already making himself comfortable. "We'll eat something."

The boy followed her as she set a cloth over the grass and began taking all sorts of foods from her bag. However, the items were abruptly pushed aside as the hunter plopped the large owl corpse on the ground in front of them.

"Rog!" Eiwin yelled at the man.

"What?" He seemed genuinely confused. "I need to skin it or else how are we gonna cook it?"

"I... Never mind." She turned towards Red. "Come, we'll eat somewhere else."

"No, he stays." Rog interrupted her and pointed at the youth. "Come here, you're gonna help me skin this."

The boy seemed confused for a second and turned to look at Eiwin.

"That's ridiculous Mister Rog. He was so badly hurt yesterday and now you want him to help you butcher an animal?" Despite her reproaching words, her tone remained respectful. "Not to mention... He's just a kid."

"I learned this stuff when I was his age too, it'll be good for his future, trust me." The man replied. "Besides, that was the condition for me voting in favor of bringing him along."

"You never said that!"

"Wasn't it obvious?" He was being sincere.

A loud laugh came from Narcha who was sitting a few meters away. Eiwin frowned and looked at Red with a troubled expression. Although she was still hesitating, it was clear to the boy that she didn't feel as comfortable outright rejecting Rog's wishes since he had helped her earlier. Unlike what she might have been expecting, though, the youth was actually quite eager to learn.

"I'll do it." He told her. "I've seen dead animals before."

"...If you say so." She shook her head in resignation, before looking at the hunter. "Make sure to guide him properly! I'm quite aware of how you like to teach Allen about these things."

"Don't worry, don't worry... Here boy, come." Rog called Red over, showing him a handful of blades. "I'll let you pick which knife you want to use."

The boy approached and examined the tools at his disposal. He didn't know the difference between them, but he ended up choosing the one which looked the most similar to the weapon he had been using in the underground. After that, he sat down cross-legged by the man's side.

"Good. Now first things first, we need to remove the skin before getting to the juicy parts." The hunter turned the bird over, placing it belly up. "You see, the feathers of an animal like this are quite valuable. Useful for fletching arrows, and merchants in the city will also buy them to make bedding or quilts, so we have to be careful not to damage them too much."

The man picked up his own knife and positioned it near the center of the bird's torso.

"Birds have thin skin compared to most other animals, so you don't have to cut too deeply, but it still pays to be precise." With one hand he pinched a section of the beast's pelt, and with the other, he used the knife to make a quick and small slice. "Now, we want to peel the skin a bit, so it's not stuck to the meat. Then we jam the knife in there and cut our way up to the neck."

Rog demonstrated as much by squeezing the knife under the incision and hacking his way up through the feathers until he was just short of the creature's head. Peeling the bird's bifurcated chest skin back, the man revealed its pink flesh and Red had to admit that it at least looked more pleasant than insect meat.

"Okay, I made my way up, now you need to cut all the way down to its legs." He motioned with his knife in the air, indicating the path the boy should hack through. "It's important to keep a straight cut to not damage the skin too much. Peel it down from the hole I made and have a firm grip on the knife as you slash through."

Red didn't move, instead just silently looking at the man.

"What are you waiting for?" Rog asked, confused about the boy's gaze.

"I can't move my left hand."

The hunter looked surprised and examined the youth's arm as if noticing for the first time that it was being held in a sling. He frowned.

"Why did we save you in the first place if you can't even help with this?"

Red shrugged.

"Bah! Just go!" Rog angrily shooed him away. "I'll deal with this myself!"

The boy did as he was told, tossing the knife down. When he got up, he saw Eiwin looking at him with a helpless expression. She called him over.

"Don't worry about him." She spoke as Red approached. "Mister Rog is an... eccentric individual, but when you get to know him you'll learn he's a good person at heart."

She once more laid her piece of cloth on the ground and started to lay out all kinds of items on top of it.

"Now, let's eat. It's a long journey ahead, and you want to make sure you stay strong to recover from your wounds."

The boy examined the food in front of him. He recognized the bread and what looked like pieces of dried meat, but there were still some other things he had never seen before.

"We generally eat rations during the day and only cook at night, or else we would waste too much time making a bonfire." Eiwin commented after seeing Red's curious gaze. "It's not the best meal, but it should be enough to get you through the day."

The youth obviously would not complain. Compared to what he ate on a daily basis in the underground, this was the best meal he had ever seen before. Without delay, the boy started to wolf down the food in front of him like there was no tomorrow.

"Uh, you can slow down." The young woman said as she saw his hurried munching. "We are not in a hurry, and you should be careful to not choke."

Red didn't listen to her. In a matter of a few minutes, he had eaten most of what had been placed in front of him, feeling the fullest he had ever felt in his life. Eiwin looked at him in wonder, but in the end, she decided against saying anything and instead began to eat her share.

Having nothing else to do but wait until the others were ready to go, the boy's mind started to wander. More specifically, to his shoulder and the bandages that covered it.

"What did you put on my wounds?" Red asked the woman, while she was in the middle of eating.

Eiwin was a bit taken aback by the question.

"We spread some medicinal paste on your shoulder and ribs. Your wounds, they were..." She paused. "Not good. We gave you some medicine that should help you recover and fight the symptoms, but it's still important for you to get proper treatment when you get to the city or it could get worse again."

'That's how the fever disappeared then...'

He wondered what kind of thing they had used to help him improve so quickly, but he didn't intend to snoop around too much. It appeared, though, that even if he wasn't dying anymore, Red still was not completely off the hook either.

"How long is the journey to that... city?" The boy asked, remembering her earlier words.

"Two and a half days of travel." She replied in between bites. "We intended on going deeper into the forest, but..."

"But you appeared." Narcha completed her words, approaching the two of them. "We could probably make it in two days if we hurried, but of course, we can't do that anymore, can we?"

Her words seemed more directed at Eiwin than at the boy.

"Are you in a hurry, Miss Valt?" The younger woman asked.

"Hmph, just because there are no monsters here anymore, it doesn't mean it's safe." The warrior commented. "Rog told me that he found signs of another camp up north. Now that there are no more man-eating beasts to worry about, this place has been turning into a bandit nest."

"We are following the same path we came from, aren't we? If we didn't encounter anything on the way here, why should we worry about the way back?"

"You are very optimistic, Miss Eiwin." Narcha replied. "But there were no bandit tracks here yesterday when we passed through, so I hope you are right. I'm sure a few scoundrels are nothing for you to worry about, but you can't say the same for the kid."

"I'm sure you will not let any of them get through you and do us harm, Miss Valt." Eiwin simply smiled in response, not bothered by the woman's remarks.

"Hmph." The warrior harrumphed in anger but didn't rebuke her companion's claims. "Get up, Rog has already finished skinning the bird. I want to be done with this hill land before the day is over."

With that, the woman was off to gather her things. Eiwin turned to look at Red.

"You don't need to worry about her." She smiled. "Miss Valt is not the friendliest of people, but she would never let any of us come to harm while she is still standing."

He nodded. As far as the boy could remember, every interaction with the warrior was full of veiled and unveiled threats towards his life. However, he didn't know her as well as Eiwin, so he would need to take her word for it.

"Trust me, she's always like that with strangers, but when you get to know her you'll learn she's a good person at heart."

"Do you say that a lot?" Red asked

"Huh?" His words gave the woman pause. "...I suppose so, but you have to believe me. She was like that when I met her too, but beneath her angry, unreasonable, harsh, and indifferent persona, she's a very kind person and one of the only people in this world I would entrust my life to."

Somehow her words didn't inspire a lot of confidence in the youth.