“Said I was sorry…”

“I seriously almost died, while you were laughing happily… my life flashed before my eyes when I saw my HP reach the single digits.”

“Sorry…” Mia had dragged Hiiro through the forest, too overjoyed at the revelation that one of her bad titles had disappeared to notice the increasingly critical state Hiiro was in until he screamed, getting her attention.

Since then he had been scolding her as she carefully dragged him to a cave she had noticed just as the sun had set. She propped him up against one of the cave walls before collapsing against the opposite wall.

“…they might find us here...” Hiiro said, having recovered enough to move his head and open his eyes “Should cover the entrance or some of our tracks.”

“Tired, deal with it in the morning.” Mia groaned; she knew he was right but she was exhausted. She glanced at her status, glad to see the severe had turned into mild, she almost didn’t notice the pain.

“Mia, If they fi-“

“Morning.” Mia said bluntly, cutting him off. She saved, if anything went wrong before morning she would simply load back and deal with it, right now came sleep. She laid down on the hard and slightly damp stone floor, falling asleep in mere seconds.

Mia’s eyes shot open, she rapidly scanned the area to find the source of the voice she had just heard in her head, but didn’t see anyone other than a sleeping Hiiro. In the process she noticed it was day, probably around early morning. “The world?” She did not have the slightest idea what that meant. Taking one more glance around the cave she shrugged, maybe she was just hearing things. She opened her status to see if her recoil was completely gone.

[ENABLE ME]

She was greeted by another panel blocking her status page, with the same message from AM. She sighed, closing the panel, happy that it closed without issue, she checked her status. She nodded to herself, the recoil was gone and with that out of the way she could now focus on the present. Kidnapped by a hero, saved him, and hid out in a cave not even 3 hours away from the capitol. Frankly she was surprised no one had came for them in the night.

She glanced towards Hiiro, he was still breathing roughly so she decided to let him sleep. She closed her status and exited the cave, frowning when she saw the drag trail leading directly to the cave from the forest, nothing had disturbed it in the night, it was a clearly marked trail leading any pursuers directly to them. She was surprised no one had already ca-

She tilted her head to the left, dodging an arrow that whizzed by her face ‘yeah, that’s about right.’ She glanced in the direction it came from, atop a tree she saw a man in dark leather armor aiming a bow at her, upon noticing that he had been seen he leaped from his branch up into the tree and out of sight.

“Hmm…” She wondered why he didn’t just attack, she was just a little girl after all, was he cautious because of the bodies? Why did they wait till now? She thought about saving but decided to leave it alone, it was a good fall back point incase anything showed up she absolutely couldn’t handle. Right now she had managed to easily dodge that arrow, it wasn’t too dangerous yet.

She tilted her head to the side again, another arrow whizzing by, she followed it’s origin point up to the attacker, finding him and pointing her hand out towards him, sending a barrage of hail his way. The attacker was shocked, leaping a bit late and getting his leg shredded, the small bits of ice ripping past his pants and into his skin.

When he landed out of view Mia heard a slight yelp of pain, followed by a loud thud. She glanced around for a bit, looking back towards the cave she sighed, then went after the attacker. She did not have to go very far, the cave still visible through the brush if she turned around, the attacker had landed at the base of a tree clutching his bleeding and broken leg, glancing upwards she saw the branch he fell from, splattered with blood.

“Fucking beast! Where is the hero! Release him!” A female voice yelled at her.

‘…what?’ she paused, release him? From what? She titled her head to the side, confused “Release him?” she asked.

“Don’t play dumb! Everyone in the capitol already knows! You demon!” The attacker yelled, scooting away from Mia “Y-you slave spy, tricking the hero and then kidnapping him! Everyone knows! Free the hero and Gaia will have mercy on your soul!”

“…” What in the world was this lady talking about, the hero kidnapped her, not the other way around. Heck, he was even carrying her while he ran through crowds and out of the city… she mentioned Gaia, did the church twist it? How do you even do that when there are so many witnesses…and how does a small girl kidnap someone nearly twice her size?!

“Heh.” The girl snickered “Afraid beast? You should be, all the knights and holy paladins will be here shortly, I already sent my partner to fetch them.”

‘Ah, that would be a problem.’ Mia thought, she raised her hand towards the attacker, who flinched and raised her arms up in defense, she started pleading but Mia ignored it, shooting a spear of ice through her skull, gaining a level. With more people coming she needed to wake up Hiiro, hopefully he could move so they can move fast.

She turned towards the cave, stopping immediately upon seeing Hiiro, who was leaning up against a tree while staring at her “Up?” She asked, surprised he was even awake.

“Yeah…” He nodded, he glanced towards the attacker, noting the decently sized chunk of ice in her forehead “That was a bit harsh… she was pleading for her life there.”

“So?” Mia frowned “Shot arrows at me, wanted to kill me, so killed first.” It was simple, given how much she had been through she wasn’t naïve enough to let someone like that off with a warning. If she had tried the same thing she would have killed her, or worse, be captured and put right back into slavery.

“Right... sorry, not entirely used to how this world works yet, hearing that from a child is a bit…” He sighed, not pressing the issue any further, to Mia’s surprise.

“Can walk?” She asked, looking him over. He was leaning up against the tree and still looked horrible, but it was a stark difference from yesterday.

He nodded “A bit, the recoil from my ability is still active but I can move on my own.” He then gestured to the corpse “Heard what she said, we should move yeah?”

“Immediately.” She watched him nod, then start to walk towards her “Where should we go?” she asked as she began to walk.

“…South.” He said after some thought, he had looked back towards the corpse once as he followed her “We need to get out of this nation.”

“Why south?” not that she had a preference on where to go, she did vaguely remember someone saying something about going south but couldn’t remember why.

“Well, from what the church taught me…don’t worry I double checked with people” He said, reassuring Mia after she looked back and glared at him “We are already heading south, so heading north is out of the question unless we want to circle the capitol, even then I do not recommend it.”

“Why?” She tried to think of a reason why he would be so against it, but then remembered herself why that was a bad idea “ah, Gaia.”

“Yes Gaia, the holy nation. Don’t know much about it but if it’s the home of that religion I don’t want to go anywhere near it, especially not if I am wanted.”

“Agreed.” Mia then thought about the other options “West then? Beastman territory, right?”

He nodded, but then a solemn look spread on his face “We could but… isn’t it currently under siege and getting raided? Unless you have a specific place in mind?”

“Eh, no.” She shrugged, noticing the pained look on Hiiro’s face “East?”

He didn’t say anything for awhile, seeming to be in thought “Ophalio, It’s an option but its far, we’d be in Eldaha territory the whole way.” He answered, breaking his silence.

“Then south is better?”

“Somewhat, there isn’t a nation down there but if we can get a boat we can go to Lexon. I think it’s our best bet.”

“Lexon? Have to take a boat, how better?” she didn’t get it, so far the east seemed the best in her opinion, she didn’t know how far it was but she had never been on a boat before also, the prospect seemed daunting to her.

“It isn’t as far as a walk to get to the southern coast as it is to get to the eastern one, plus, once we are on a boat I don’t think they can pursue us any more, but that isn’t the best part. Lexon is a dungeon nation.”

Her ears perked up “Dungeon nation?”

“Yeah, the whole nation is inside a dungeon out in the sea, speaking bluntly if we want to change anything about this shitty nation we, or at least I, need to get way stronger.”

Mia’s eyes were sparkling “… a Dungeon nation…” it sounded amazing to her, her imagination filled with pictures of a city the size of Eldaha’s capitol under ground and in a cave filled with monsters she could kill and gain level’s from to her hearts content “That is good, lets go there.” She nodded, the more levels the marrier, speaking of which she did have some points she could start using, and since she had been favoring magic recently she decided to slowly dump 50 points into Mnd to get more mana, closing another [ENABLE ME] alert before she did so.

She hoped that wasn’t going to become a thing now…

“Then it’s decided, two heroes running away from a corrupt nation that wants them dead!” He shouted excitingly.

“Right, saw my status…” Mia sighed, at least he wasn’t beat up about it like another certain hero.

“Yeah sorry.” He laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head “was judging the situation, wasn’t expecting to see a level 6 with higher stats than mine, was that because of some titles?”

She wondered if she should tell him, but as she already decided to work together with him and he already saw her status page she guessed it couldn’t hurt, besides, he had told her about the dungeon town, a much better place to spend three years than what ever Trinity had planned for her. “Mhm, Mastery skills give points, crusher titles give points.”

“Huh, neat.” He said, looking happy “That explains some things I’ve been wondering about.”

She looked back “Like what?”

“Oh uhm, so you know how heroes gain a lot of stat points compared to other people?”

She nodded, she had also been curious about this.

“Well, I wondered how normal people, or even adventures, would keep up or even fight heroes. So I was using my skill to see other peoples stats around the place and a lot of the time their levels wouldn’t match their stats like how I saw with yours. “ He then shrugged “Yours wasn’t even the weirdest considering you were also a hero, I saw 2 priests close to level 50 once talking to each other, one of them had nearly triple the amount of points the other guy had, his int passed 3 thousand.”

Mia squinted, trying to work out the math in her head just how many stat points she would need to reach that but her brain got fried, instead she focused on another bit she was confused about “but we also get titles and skills that give stats… so heroes still stronger?”

He shrugged “Well, I asked my teacher once and he said heroes are just meant to be stronger, a demi-god amongst mortals that serves and protects them.”

Mia squinted her eyes, that sounded like a load of bullshit.

“Y-yeah, I think he was trying to hype me up… looking back on it…” he shook his head “But it does make sense though, especially since you were able to get mastery in a few skills while being low level and young, where you training your whole life on just a few skills?”

“…?” He saw her status, right? Did he not notice her skill? It would have easily been explained if he did but… it sounded like he didn’t see it “uh…yeah…” she decided to lie about it, that skill in particular being a bag of worms she didn’t want to open. If he didn’t see it the better “was hard.”

“I bet.” He chuckled “Fantasy worlds are hardcore…” Mia heard him mumble beneath his breath.

She sighed, not much left to do now except make there way south, until they were reminded of one important detail they forgot, and one that had not made itself known since yesterday.

Mia’s stomach grumbled.