We were now changing our destination, instead of returning to our hotel room in the city of Scathem we decided to travel to a foreign country.

“Robbert about how long will it take to get to Shashiam?”

Robbert took a second to think.

“Hmmm…...maybe a week or two.”

A week or two……….not that the distance and amount of days were troubling, it was the fact that we weren't able to buy supplies from nearby towns and villages. Even if Elizabeth could go a week without food or water that doesn't mean the rest of us can.

In order for us to go on this long road trip, supplies are definitely needed but we can’t just stroll up into a village and pretend as if we aren’t wanted criminals by the government.

Robbert and I brainstormed some ideas about how we were going to buy supplies off of villagers without them being suspicious or them trying to turn us in.

Ideas such as let Elizabeth go in and try to buy stuff without her head or just straight up robbing them/forcing them to sell things to us. Of course, I wasn’t the one that thought of this, it was Robbert. The Elizabeth idea was mine just so you know.

I understood why Robbert would suggest using, well, violence doesn't sound right, so I’ll just say a bit of forceful persuasiveness. I mean he is a crook and a part of a gang that does operate in criminal activities. So I’ll cut him some slack, supplies are really vital for this road trip and we are desperate for it.

And so I threw another suggestion up in the air.

“How about we just try to explain the situation that we’re in?”

Yes this suggestion is quite ridiculous, why would they believe in the story of four people and how they are innocent, they’ve already heard the news, got captured for being an accomplice with the murderous and destructive dullahan, broke out of prison, maybe have dealt with a couple of the governments goons, and are now on the run.

Our resumes aren’t exactly the cleanest. But it’s probably cleaner than what the government has done to many innocent people. Hell, I'm sure the most dangerous murderer with the most victims murdered wouldn’t be able to compare. And yes that is a very bold statement.

In the distance was another village, if we were gonna buy supplies now was time to think of a way to make them sell them to us. And so I and Robbert bumped into each other’s head a bit more in hopes that we could think of a way that would be successful.

Robbert then suggested an idea and had a large smirk on his face, instead of telling me he quickly whispered it to Alexandria and Elizabeth and they too also had large smirks

I don’t have a very good feeling about this.

………………………………………………….

The villagers stood there holding their baskets of goods ready to sell staring at me with creeped out eyes.

Parents in the village shielded their young children’s eyes in the sight of something they shouldn’t be seeing until they were a lot older.

I mumble “Roberts a dead man walking!.”

And so would you like to know what happened?

Roberts idea was that he’d make a mask with one of the sacks containing gold mecililles. But that wasn’t the end of it. He said that the mask would hide one's identity but clothes could easily give it away. He suggested that I would be the one to buy the supplies and I agreed, oh boy what a mistake that was.

Since he said my clothes would give away the fact that I’m one of the four criminals attempting to flee, I would have to wear something else, but the problem was that we had nothing else to wear besides what was already on us. And so I found myself in a predicament where all I was wearing was the mask and my underwear.

Robbert said that they wouldn’t be able to recognize you based on what I was wearing underneath my suit. At first I obviously protested this ridiculous idea, I’d never do that but Robbert, with the help of Alexandria and Elizabeth managed to persuade me into going through with the idea.

“Antonio, what are we gonna eat then?”

Alexandria said that wearing the eyes of an innocent child as if the child had no knowledge of what the current situation occurring was.

“It’d be really cool if you did this for us, Antonio!” Said Elizabeth as if she was my best friend trying to coerce me into doing something I didn’t want to do.

And so that’s how I wound up in this humiliating circumstance.

I looked back to the wagon and I see all three of them smiling and giggling like little school girls.

They probably did this on purpose……..I’ll definitely get them next time!

“Ummm……..here’s what you asked for……..sir.” Said the villager creeped out and avoiding eye contact, and also avoiding the lower part of my body.

“Thanks…..”

I handed him the gold mecililles in exchange for multiple baskets full of vegetables, fruits, dried salted meats, and some additional homemade cloaks. This amount should be able to sustain us for a couple of days, after that another pit stop would be needed.

One basket I was able to carry on my back because it had straps, the other two didn’t so I had to hold each with one hand, it wouldn’t have been possible to do this back then we’ll at least very difficult, but now since I have a mysterious amount of strength, tasks like these are not a problem.

I walk back to the wagon with my hands holding the baskets with a titan’s grip. All my anger and embarrassment went into my hands giving me the grip strength of a gorilla if I had lost all control I could’ve easily destroyer this handwoven basket to shreds with my bare hands.

As I approach the wagon the three of them were holding their mouths with their hands in an attempt to not burst out laughing. I gave them all a death stare which made them freeze up.

I say “let’s get moving” as I put back on my clothes.

They straighten their backs as they nervously nod up and down as if they just admitted into boot camp and were being yelled at by a drill sergeant.

As everyone got back into the wagon I loaded in the baskets. It was time to get back on the road.

A couple of hours had passed, those hours consisted of a rough road causing the wagon to rock and shake.

Every so often we’d have to stop because of Elizabeth, she’d get sick from all the shaking and would have to get off the wagon and to the nearest bush to relieve herself of her sickness.

And at the moment we found ourselves at a stop.

What was in front of us was a large town, the only thing was that it was engulfed in flames. There were civilians leaking out of the village running for their lives screaming “Elemental! Elemental! Run!”.

I turn to Alexandria and asked “The hell is an elemental?”, she was the most knowledgeable of Magic since she comes from a magic dark king line or something like that.

She explained to me what an elemental was, so basically, she told me that there are certain types of people in this world, some can wield magic like Alexandria and I but some like Elizabeth can’t. People who can’t wield magic could try to perform it but in the matter of time their bodies wouldn’t be able to handle it and thus their bodies get taken over by magic, ridding the person of their conscience and any emotion still left in them.

She also told me that there were two different elementals, one with no conscience and one with a conscience, the case where an elemental would still have a human conscience was if they used transformation magic, which, according to Alexandria is rare.

It was truly a horrifying thing.

Without thinking I spout something out.

“Let’s help them.”

I’m not really a hero……..I’m not really a hero like at all but this is just something I need to do. Maybe I’m expecting compensation, maybe I’m just extremely bloodthirsty and just want to shoot something, or maybe I’m just bored, I’ll probably find out once in the end.

“Help them…….fine we can do that.” Said Alexandria.

It felt as if I was a child and Alexandria was the mother and the child kept on asking for candy, and after hours of begging, the mother finally gave up.

We parked the wagon near the town, Robbert would stay behind and watch the wagon in case anything were to happen. And so the three of us set off on foot towards the burning town.

Once we got to the entrance a middle-aged man bumped into me, he held me by the shoulders and shook me as he said “Run! There’s an elemental in there!” With eyes wide opened.

The middle-aged man had bald spots where hair used to reside before being burnt off, his clothes were all burnt as well, different holes in different places and visible burns all around his body.

“We’re here to deal with the elemental threat, sir!”

The middle-aged man looked at me confused, and then he yelled out “what are you an idiot!?!?! What are you gonna do? We need to get the government's mage corps here!”.

“Don’t worry we got this!”

I showed him my BAR while Alexandria and Elizabeth showed their swords.

“You damn kids! Don’t get hurt!”

The old man called us kids but he was a little far off, to be honest, I’m pretty sure I could be his dad in my age back in my old world and don’t get me started on Alexandria.

The man took his hands off my shoulder and started to flee, who knows where he’ll go but I don’t think we’ll be seeing him anytime soon.

“Alright, we ready?”

Both Alexandria ad Elizabeth responded with “Always!”

As we ran towards the town many civilians bumped into us, some fell but got back into their feet and resumed their fleeing.

Inside the town each house was engulfed in flames, smoke filled the air and it would make breathing quite difficult if we were to go in. Even from outside the town you could still feel the warmth of the ravaging flames, and the gentle gusts of wind would carry ashes with them on their journey.

It seemed like a miracle that these houses in the town even though in flames, were able to keep their structure and not collapse, the wood used for the houses must be special, would be nice if I could get my hands on this “special” wood.

First priority would be saving anyone trapped inside these scorching ovens.

I asked Alexandria if she had any magic that could extinguish the fire, she indeed had something that could but because of all the things happening surrounding her ability to use magic Alexandria was hesitant.

It wasn’t safe for us to just run into this fiery town of death and also it would help those trapped inside the houses unable to escape do to the flames.

I gave her a nod of encouragement if anyone could do it would be her.

After giving her some encouragement she finally started drawing a magic circle. Once the magic circle was finished a small ball of what appeared to be water formed, over the span of a couple of seconds it conjured up more water producing a massive sphere of flowing water, it was like a model of some kind of planet.

The sphere of water became larger and larger, once it got to the size where it could cover the whole town the magic symbol disappeared and the large sphere of water hovered over the town engulfed in fire.

I got what she was aiming for but I don’t think a large ball of water overshadowing the already on town in flames would help the already panicking civilians in the town.

The large water sphere slowly lowered onto the burning town, finally, the sphere of water dropped extinguishing the houses that were in flames, small streams and puddles formed and everything looked damp but at least it wasn’t on fire.

And thus the town was now safe for us to enter but not entirely, of course, there was still the threat of the elemental but for now, it’s time to storm the town.