“Old man, I’m tired of this bullshit. Can you please leave me be..”
“You have to eat boy, look what a dried up husk of a kid you look like..”
“It doesn’t work like that you geezer.. I won’t get fat with just few meals…”
Damian felt sore all over his body. Waking up he felt much more injuries on his body than he could remember receiving.
‘Groans’
Opening his eyes Damian tried to find the owners of the two squabbling voices. They immediately walked besides him after hearing him groan. Clearing his eyes some more Damian raised up his hands, even though his body told him not to do so, and found it all bandaged up. Then he just let them fall.
Sensing deep in himself Damian felt the thing he needed right now the most, the bright hot liquid warm mana in his core. He felt like a dead man without it, Damian could not imagine how mundane people lived their whole life without it.
“You okay there..?” Anthony asked leaning over.
“Where are we..?”
“In the sea.. I saw it.. It’s so blue..” A childish excited voice said from Damian’s left.
“You are up huh..?”
“Yupp.. I feel great..”
“Good to know..”
“So.. Did she wake up..?” Damian looked at Anthony.
“No, we got away.. She stayed like that till morning. The sailors called the knights and took her away and some also tried to search the ships but they didn’t do it thoroughly..”
“How long was I out..?”
“Two days now..” Anthony said.
“Chuck.. You really did it huh.. Uncle said you were amazing..”
“Maximus..”
“What..?” The high pitched voice asked comically stretching his ears.
“My name is Maximus..”
Damian took a deep breath and let it out. Accessing his spatial storage Damian took out three of his basic healing potions.
“Whoa !!”
“Huh..!”
Damian raised his hand and tried to open but gave up midway.
“Can you..?”
“Ah yes.. Of course..” Anthony said.
Anthony helped Damian drink two potions one by one which immediately gave relief to his body. Feeling better Damian raised the last bottle for the kid.
“Here.. It’s healing potion..”
“Ohhh..”
Looking silly Sam opened the lid and drank the liquid. His facial features looking a bit better than a minute ago. Damian ignored the residual soreness and stood up. The swaying of the ship did not help at all. Damian walked up to the door and got outside, Anthony and Sam trailing on his each side.
The salty free winds crashed into Damian, face first, giving him that freshness he so much needed. Breathing in deeply Damian observed the deck where many sailors were busy doing their work, handling the wooden three masted ship or cleaning it. Some people here and there were just looking around enjoying the sunny day, Damian guessed they were travelers just like them.
Standing at the side of the railings Damian looked all around and found just blue still water. Nothing on the horizon except some birds flying here and there.
“How long did they say it would take..?” Damian asked.
“Four days for the nearest port and 15 days for Eldoris.” Anthony replied, he was there when Damian bought the passage.
“Any trouble..?”
“No, everything is perfect. And I don’t think anyone even knows we are on this ship except the girl.”
“But she doesn’t know which ship..”
“Yes.”
“Good..”
Damian looked at the distant ocean creatures for a while in silence thinking about the overpowered princess and just how close he had come to getting captured again. Sam had already left to walk around the deck after getting bored of the prolonged silence.
“Anthony.. I would like to be alone for a while.”
“Hmm.. I will get some food and bring it to the room, come whenever you want. Don’t take long though, you should eat..”
“Okay..”
Standing alone at the railings Damian closed his eyes and focused on his mana sense. No second rankers were present on the ship, just one distinct mana signature who had more mana than the rest. Maybe his or her level was higher than the others. More than that Damian could feel many presence under the water. Nothing too powerful though, just some Unranked and Leader ranked monsters or sea creatures.
The night of Infiltration was anything but according to the plan. Every step the problems had just escalated more and more. His every plan was thwarted left and right, everything that could have gone bad, had. And yet through sheer miracle or something else Damian was free and the kid was free. He had somehow pulled through.
The Faerunian royalty obviously won’t take it lightly but they didn’t know who Damian was or where they were even going. The princess… well it’s better if Damian just did not think about her at all. The abilities he had shown on the knight’s headquarters was anything but normal, they would try their best to reach him but Damian had already planned for that.
Faerunia was the very north of the five kingdom, they had a border with the empire and Dawnstar. Then came the Ashenvale with the Dawnstar and in the very south was the Eldoris. And that’s where they were headed.
Faerunia would never waste resources to follow them that far. It wasn’t how he expected he would leave the Seraphim Luminara but well the result wasn’t that far off. Damian did not know much about Eldoris except that the ruler of that kingdom had changed recently in past century or so, the Queen that now ruled had defeated the last Queen in the ‘Monarch’s trial’ fair and square.
It was the only time in history a ruling authority had changed without much bloodshed. The new Queen was from the branch family of the past queen and was kind of her grand-daughter. Eldians had ancient elvish blood in them that was still running strong so their ages and relations were very confusing.
Elves were gone from this world for more than 1000 years now. The normal elves population had their blood so mixed in with humans that they could not be told apart now at all. Only the royal Eldian family still had those distinct elvish features because of their high elf ancestors who were said to be more powerful and lived longer than the average elves who had perished by now.
Eldoris nowadays was fully human territory. Even the half-breeds were centuries ago, only humans with half-bred elf blood ancestors had remained. Only the songs and stories had left of this magical species.
“Ughmm..”
Damian heard someone besides him faking a cough which disturbed his cool ‘staring into the distant sea’ moment very rudely. Damian looked at him annoyingly, he already knew who it was.
“What..?” Damian began.
“What are you looking at..?” Sam asked also leaning on the railings like Damian besides him.
“Fish..”
“There are no fishes here dumbass.. They are all in the deep sea… I know that..”
“Congratulations then.. Now run away like a good kid..”
“I am sorry Chuck, did I hurt your,, fewwings..?”
“Shut up or go away..”
“I wanted to say thank you..”
“Huh..?”
Damian looked back again at the kid, this time his face was all serious, looking Damian directly in the eyes.
“Thank you for saving him.. Thank you for saving me.. If.. If you wouldn’t hav…”
“Enough.. You don’t have to do this..”
“No, for real. I really..”
“I did not do it for you.. Not because I know you or because I was convinced by your uncle.. I did it for myself. It’s only because you remind me of people I left behind. I did it in their memory. So don’t sweat it.”
“Uhmm.. Okay. But anyway you saved us, whatever the reason and I would never forget it.”
Damian just nodded and then ignored him, looking back at the sea. But Damian was not feeling it any longer.. So he straightened up and walked inside the ship. Sam came dawdling besides him looking at everything happily as a kid would.