Avian and Cornelia ended up digging for half an hour before they finally finished making the grave.

It was mostly Avian digging though as Cornelia had no experience doing work like this and it was also difficult for her to move for obvious reasons as she sweat and silently groaned while moving her shovel, feeling stings of pain.

Cornelia would have normally never in her life accepted doing something as degrading as digging a grave, having lived a high-class life she always thought work such as this was for people of lower class, before she would never imagined that she would turn into such a person, while digging she had to think about, but the most important reason why she was digging was because Avian told her to, his vicious beating and his cold eyes that didn’t hesitate for even a second instilled a deep and traumatic fear in her, while digging she understood how slow she was and felt scared that Avian would snap at her at any time for being so slow which is why she forced herself to dig faster.

But fortunately for her, Avian had no such thought, he understood why Cornelia was digging so slowly he wouldn’t snap at her for something like that, as long as she continued to dig and did as she was told, Avian had no reason to be mad at her.

-Come, we are going to carry the body

-Huh?!…ah…yes…

Replying as such, Cornelia was so tired at the end of digging the grave that she almost collapsed as her muscles twitched, while her hands felt like they were going to fall off, but again she didn’t dare to complain and simply followed Avian step by step as they made their way back to Marco’s corpse.

Seeing his corpse again, deep emotions of sadness welled inside Cornelia as she watched Marco’s lifeless body lying on the ground as if he was sleeping, she felt like crying, but after experience what happened earlier she understood that crying was useless.

Avian momentarily glanced back at Cornelia to check if she was fine, seeing that she wasn’t crying and only looked sad made him satisfied enough as he started to loot Marco’s body right in front of her.

-Huh…?

Cornelia was honestly speechless when she saw how casually Avian went through Marco’s pockets right in front of her, she felt the impulse to say something, like reprimanding him for being rude towards the dead, but knowing this was Avian who she was dealing with, she held herself back as she knew what the end result would be if she tried, not being able to bear looking at him doing something like this, she started looking somewhere else, but as soon as she looked around her she immediately noticed how the others were also looting the dead corpses.

Watching them do this a certain realization hit Cornelia as she realized it was only her who was being weird, after all did the dead even need items or valuables? No, the dead had no need for those, only the living would need those things.

-Here, wear this, your clothes are pretty beat up and its cold.

-…?

Suddenly, Avian covered her with a long coat, thinking that it was his she didn’t exactly know how to react for his out of nowhere kindness considering what he did earlier, but upon closer inspection, she instantly realized that this coat wasn’t actually his but Marco’s long coat that he died in, she instantly felt disgusted by it as she immediately wanted to throw it away, but stopped herself at the last second as she recalled her earlier thought, the coat was warm and even though it was slightly stained with blood it felt comfortable, this was something that the dead Marco had left behind, he didn’t need it anymore.

Cornelia felt that Avian wanted her to understand this which is why he did all of this.

-Thank you…

Cornelia suddenly said, making Avian momentarily stop as he didn’t expect her to say something like this, after all he didn’t give her the coat of kindness, but because she needed it since her clothes were cut everywhere making them lose their original purpose of keeping her warm.

But Cornelia didn’t mean that, it was actually Avian’s own misunderstanding of the situation as he replied.

-Its ok, just keep yourself safe, as long as you follow my words I won’t expect anything unreasonable.

-Yes! I understand!

Cornelia said, with a bit more spirit this time, and just like this they continued to bury Marco’s body, Cornelia didn’t stop working even when she was painfully exhausted, Marco’s death had made her realize a lot of things, she still didn’t know what she was supposed to do, but she understood that she had no other place but to follow Avian until she figured it out.

Avian on the other hand worked very casually as he possessed high constitution making such task as easy as flipping his palm, the earlier shake down on Marco’s body had also gained him additional funds as he was lucky to discover a pouch with 20 small gold pieces, 8 big silver pieces and a lot of copper pieces both big and small.

Obviously Avian didn’t tell Cornelia about his findings and took it as additional payment for taking care of the girl for the next 3 years, he also found Marco’s backpack which held all of the daily necessities both Marco and Cornelia had required, after seeing that there was nothing interesting in there he gave it to Cornelia who took it solemnly.

Avian still didn’t know what to think of this situation he had gotten himself into, he didn’t know if he should call this a fortunate encounter or an unlucky one as while he did gain something very significant in the form of the proof of ownership for a small general store in Alimdal which is his ultimate destination, he had also been tied with an additional burden he had to take care of for the next 3 years.

This burden furthermore had some dubious origins and reasons for going to the same place as him.

Alimdal after all wasn’t a place anyone would just decide to go or visit one day, it was one of the newly opened frontiers that hadn’t been explored yet, to its core the frontier represented the unknown but also new opportunities for many as merchants and all sorts of adventures went there to find exotic goods for gaining wealth, become stronger or make a name for themselves.

But it also had a lot more other connotation that weren’t so positive, for one thing the frontier was also the prime location where most petty/low level criminals and those who were on the run could go and hide, since it was at the far edge of the kingdom, the security was far lesser then compared to the security in the inland, many people who had blessings on the blacklist usually gathered in such places as they were less likely to be discovered.

The many different countries knew of this obviously, but they couldn’t be bothered with sending their troops to catch these petty criminals in these borders where almost no one even lived, population within these areas was extremely low after all because of how dangerous these areas were and how unclaimed the land was making migration rate equally as low and making rulers in the end reason that as long as the problem was out of sight it was out of mind as well.

This was also the reason Avian was going there, even though he completely left the capital, he still didn’t feel safe being near the core of the country, he still didn’t know if he was being followed and observed which Is why he planned on going to Alimdal which was the farthest he could go within the kingdom, Avian also had the option to move to a different country, but this was an idea he immediately shot down after considering how weak he was and how far the journey would be.

Even now going to Alimdal itself proved to be a minor challenge as he was unfortunate enough to encounter these bandits who could have killed him if he hadn’t been smart enough.

Avian knew that he needed to first grow his strength if he desired to travel and walk freely, Alimdal would be his starting point, as it had both the necessary opportunities and veils for him to hide his activities while slowly growing stronger.

But now he had to somewhat change his plans as he was now joined with an additional person stuck to him, even though he planned on getting slaves, Cornelia was not a slave, he also couldn’t turn he into a slave since he promised Marco that he would take care of her for the next 3 years, honestly he would prefer if Cornelia actually decided to leave, but that would go against the promise Avian made with Marco which is why he decided that the only way he could keep his promise was to instill deep fear into Cornelia and make her understand that she wouldn’t be able to survive without him no matter what.

Of course he would thoroughly interrogate Cornelia about her origins and reasons that brought her and Marco here in the first place, but after glancing at Cornelia and seeing how terrible she looked, but tried her hardest to keep standing he decided that it was enough for today as he didn’t actually want her to exhaust herself to death.

He too was tired, the sun was also almost gone, but most importantly…

-(GRRRRR)

The sound of a grumbling stomach could suddenly be heard as Avian was in deep thought, suddenly clutching her belly, Cornelia blushed bright red as she didn’t expect to suddenly be so hungry or make such a sound, it couldn’t be helped after all, she was tired and hurt, her body screamed for nourishment.

Avian simply looked at her indifferently while she was trying to hide her belly, knowing that it was getting late he too felt hungry, unfortunately camp hadn’t been made yet, knowing this he wondered if he should start doing it himself, but out of nowhere, Markus the young mercenary suddenly came over as he looked for Avian before shouting out to him.

-Lukas! There you are, the boss said that he would like to invite you over to our camp if you want, he of course also said that you can bring whoever you want with.

While saying this he momentarily glanced at Cornelia who stood near Avian, because of how dirty she was and because she was wearing a really long coat that didn’t fit her, Markus momentarily didn’t recognize her beauty, but Cornelia still felt uncomfortable nonetheless and slightly stepped closer to Avian who was the only one she could rely on.

Avian didn’t take note of Cornelia’s action and simply smiled as he felt he had come at a perfect time.

-Thanks! I am in your debt!

And just like that Avian and Cornelia temporarily joined Avrid’s group.

Cornelia the entire time stuck closely to Avian without saying another word, while Avian simply did all of the talking as he entertained Avrid near the campfire.

That night Cornelia had a lot to think about, but for one thing she knew for certain that this was now her new life.

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