The morning was a hard one for a lot of people, and only Edwin seemed to be free of any suffering. Given the short sleep, Mahon and Jorik didn’t discuss in Nightmare and went straight to meditation. The numerous drinks with Elas also didn’t help with a good night of sleep.

As he woke up and helped people pack their things, Mahon realized he was far from being the only one with a groggy mind as most people had also seized the opportunity to drink more than reason dictated to.

“We’re leaving Jongvale, and we’ll be moving away from the forest for a short while. As such, I want everybody on the lookout for any trouble. We’re big, and have a lot of guards around, so there shouldn’t be any trouble, but that’s not a reason to slack on. If we hired guards, it’s not only to protect the market from thieves, it’s also to defend the people and the goods from wild beasts. Do your job.”

Edwin was lecturing his guards and the Frontaliers, while the carts started queuing to leave the town. The guards grumbled their approbation, but most had the very face of people who drank too much and only dreamt of sleeping the whole day. Edwin threw them a last disapproving look, before he let them go with the carts.

Mahon had had his fair share of alcohol too, but Nightmare had cleared most of his grogginess, and he was only left with a slight headache. He exchanged a quick nod with Jorik and left to walk beside Reptar’s cart while keeping an eye open.

The merchant threw him a half-asleep look and flashed a thumbs up.

“Tough morning, right?” He asked with a raspy voice of someone who had drunk and sang too much.

Mahon nodded and hid a yawn behind his hand as he glanced at the surroundings. The road was turning to the right, a hundred meters after the village, and for the first time in days, they walked with the forbidden forest in their back.

“It’s good to leave this green ocean behind.” Reptar commented before installing himself comfortably on his cart.

He then tied the reins to his cart, careful to make them a bit loose, eyed the cart in front of him with attention, and then pulled his hat over his face.

“Wake me up if something happens.”

Mahon chuckled at the merchant’s behavior and didn’t add anything. He continued walking beside the cart, keeping his eyes open to the surroundings. They were moving slowly, but as Reptar had explained before, the landscape was becoming more diverse with each step, and Mahon observed attentively the new world unraveling under his eyes.

First, the flat plain made way to small, round hills with green grass swayed by the wind. The road meandered between, in a barely emergent valley, and soon they followed a thin trickle of water who grew slightly larger with each cascading steam coming from the next hill. With water came life, and fruit bushes started to appear more and more regularly.

Sometimes, the merchants didn’t even have to stop their cart, and by simply standing up or leaning down they could grab a few of the juicy fruits hanging from nearby branches. The valley soon became wider, and the water turned into a real river. Big trees and groves covered the landscape.

Birds flew from one place to another, singing and chirping happily, some curious ones came closer to the caravan and accompanied the merchants for a part of their journey. Bigger animals ran away at the sound of the approaching caravan, but Mahon easily spotted rabbits and deers before they escaped away from the humans.

A few hours before sundown, Edwin ordered they stop in a thin clearing for the night. The carts parked in a loose circle, and people immediately started to build a fire, prepare the ingredients for the diner, set up the tables and improvised benches by using nearby fallen logs. The site didn’t seem to have been chosen at random, as a pile of wood was cleanly prepared on the side as well as the logs used as benches. There were not the only ones doing this kind of journey, and the area was clearly used regularly by passing caravans.

Mahon noticed a group of people accompanied by three Frontaliers left for the nearby woods with bows and arrows at the ready. He watched them go with a hint of curiosity, but quickly focused back on his own task, keeping an eye around.

Edwin had ordered all the guards not to help the merchants and their families with the setup of tents or anything since they had reached an area with much more wildlife, and he wanted to prevent any incident, even if it was just caused by a too curious deer, or a fox catching on the good smell of the camp.

The caravan was very well organized, and some carts had a little wooden platform, standing approximately three meters high, upon which someone could stand to watch the surroundings. These “watch” carts were also the ones containing stuff for the whole caravan, such as cooking tools, tables, weapons, extra materials just in case, emergency potions, torches and so on. They were owned by Edwin, or at least by the Frontaliers, but they were often driven by other merchants, cooks or their families during the day.

The carts had been spread along the circle so that guards could cover the whole surroundings without a problem. Mahon was standing on his own platform, in a far corner of the camp. His cart wasn’t needed for anything, and no one was moving back and forth between him and the camp, so he was in relative calm.

It might be boring, but strangely, it reminded Mahon of the times he had to watch for long hours in similar conditions while in Nightmare. There was a stark difference between patrolling and monitoring, and it was entirely caused by the absence of motion in the latter.

While patrolling, there was almost no chance of falling asleep, but since your path changed you paid less attention to subtle details. Whereas, being a sentry was really testing your patience, but since you watched the exact same scenery, you could notice even the slightest changes.

Patrolling was used to protect a larger area, whereas monitoring only covered a small one. In Nightmare, Mahon had often moved on his own, or in very small groups, and he was much more used to keeping watch than patrolling. But he hadn’t really done it a lot in Ratho, and when he had climbed atop the cart and started watching around, motionless, all his muscle memory had kicked in immediately.

He was standing perfectly balanced on both his legs, his lower back locked, and only his shoulders and head turned slightly from left to right, and right to left. As always, he watched with rapt attention his area to absorb every single detail for the first half an hour. He scrutinized how the wind blew the leaves on the nearby trees, how the ground had been distorted by the weight of the carts, how many zones could hide something from his sight, and how the shadows slowly turned longer with the setting sun.

He spent his time fully focused on every single detail, trying to get a perfect picture of the scenery even if he closed his eyes, and then he tried to predict how it would evolve if the wind changed direction or stopped, or how it would be an hour from now, with the sun even lower in the horizon, or at night.

Mahon was at the limit of Flowing, and this exercise had actually been one he had used for long to control his Flow. Nowadays, it was just a focusing exercise like any other, but it brought so many memories of what seemed to be now another life altogether that Mahon enjoyed it even more.

Once the scenery didn’t have any more secrets from him, he relaxed his attention and simply let his mind run the monitoring in the background. He trusted his watching skills enough to know that he would feel immediately if something felt wrong from how he had imagined the scenery should be or would evolve.

With a satisfied sigh, Mahon glanced back at the camp where preparations were still in full swing. People happily chitchatted with each other in the atmosphere Mahon had started to recognize, and even like, of a large family traveling together. Their lives were simple, away from most trouble, traveling to their liking, accompanied by family and friends, selling stuff they often made themselves as a hobby.

From the corner of his eyes, on his right, he caught a group of children led by an adult slipping away from the camp with empty baskets, probably to collect fruits or herbs for the dinner. He recognized the long, golden braids of Reptar’s twin daughters among the group, and he could almost hear their chatter from his position.

Despite his control, a smile tugged at his lips from the communicative joy such a simple life was procuring to his fellow caravanners.

It has just been a few days, but how is it that I like this world much better than the other?

Nightmare had been a constant battle, but he had been free and did what he wanted. Ratho had been one big city, full of trouble and schemes. It was a bumpy return to reality that he had attributed to his weak physical state, but there had been something else. It wasn’t entirely due to the nobles, or the way he had been used by them, but more from the lack of a deeper meaning.

Maybe it was because he was just discovering a whole new world, but Mahon could feel it had a clearer purpose, a clearer goal. People lived their lives happily. It had a sense, a structure.

Am I getting too much like a philosopher? It sounds like a terrible speech about the benefits of Blue.

Chasing his thoughts with a smile and a shake of his head, he focused back on the task at hand as something tugged on his mind. His hand moved instinctively towards his sword as he scrutinized the area.

What triggered it?

The nearby grove was calm. The wind had changed direction, caressing slightly his left cheek with a warmer touch, but Mahon knew it wasn’t that. Trusting his skills, he didn’t hesitate to enter the Flow to extend and improve his senses.

Finem’s world immediately illuminated in another shade, as multiple rhythms mixed together to create the cacophony of sounds, lights, and shadows that constituted the world as everyone normally perceived it.

The oddity appeared as clear as if it was right in front of his eyes, a small change in the rhythm of the grove to his right. It was too calm. No birds sang. No insects buzzed or chirped. And yet something big was slowly progressing through it, muting the local wildlife by its sheer presence.

Mahon could almost taste anticipation and pleasure in the beast’s rhythm as it came closer and closer to its target. A target Mahon knew too well, as he recognized the rhythms of happy children harvesting the nearby bushes of their fruits.

Without wasting any time, he jumped to the ground while pulling his spear from his back and ran at full speed towards the group.

“Monster!” He yelled at the top of his lungs, hoping to both scare the creature out of the child’s path and attract other guards to deal with the situation.

He sprinted into the forest without hesitation, jumped above an old tree stump, and plunged under low branches. The Flow guided his steps steadily through the spaced out trees. Mahon was almost floating, his foot barely touching the ground long enough for him to leave a print or shake the leaves and twigs.

“Monster!” He alerted again, but the creature didn’t seem intimidated at all.

Instead, it moved faster towards the still unaware Petunia. Without interrupting his mad rush, Mahon grabbed a rock from the ground and threw it with all his strength in the creature’s direction. It was still dozens of meters away, and with all the trees on the way, the shot never reached its target, but it finally achieved its purpose.

Sensing the attack, the monster stopped and turned towards him. Mahon grabbed another rock and threw it. This time, the projectile almost hit the creature, and it roared back angrily. Its deafening cry silenced the whole vicinity, and with the Flow Mahon sensed Petunia dropping her basket and running towards her group.

Mahon stopped his mad rush and breathed a sigh of relief. But it didn’t last long, as the large creature roared again and charged at full speed towards Mahon.