Difficult Journey

Since we were crossing a mountain range, we had a few ups and downs. Cleo still guided us well and I honestly couldn't understand how she knew the way just by looking at the map. How did she understand our position and direction on the map? Since she had a heavy burden on her right now, I didn't think this was the appropriate time to ask her.

We walked around 1 hour before taking a break. Everyone was pushing themselves already and we didn't want to be in a condition where we couldn't even fight if we were attacked. We hadn't seen any sign of pursuit but we didn't know how long that will be the case. We were planning on walking through the night, so the later the pursuit starts the better for us.

We started walking again after 10 minutes break. We had tried to wake up Nina and Tien but were unsuccessful. Just what did the bandit queen do to them? How was she preventing them from waking up? Thankfully the guard hadn't woken up either, or we would have to knock her out. We didn't want to interrogate her so close to the bandit lair.

It was hard for me to tell if our luck had been good or bad. What I knew was, things could have been worse or things could have been better. If everything had gone according to the plan, we wouldn't be carrying three people. But that also would mean that we couldn't rescue Tien. Now we had rescued both kidnapped people which was a better result than we hoped. But taking the female guard might not have been a good thing. After all, this guard was a personal guard of the bandit queen and her absence would be more obvious.

We took another break after around 1 hour again. Just when we were getting ready to get going, the female guard started to wake up. Cleo quickly knocked her out again but we didn't know how long that would last. Do we need to keep knocking her out all the way to Tiaanway? This journey was going to be hard enough with all of use carrying so much. On the way here, Cleo and Leana had taken turns to carry us. This had helped us take fewer breaks and go much faster. Now we were going much slower than before.

We stopped again a few times and Cleo knocked out the guard 2 more times when finally the sun started rising. This may not be a good thing for us, since it would make it easier for the bandits to find us. We also knew that if the prison break hadn't been discovered until then, it was discovered now for sure. Now we had to see what the bandits would do.

From what Cleo could tell we were not too far from the forest exit. We took a longer break at daybreak and ate some food. Once done, Cleo picked up the female guard again when the guard suddenly tried to attack Cleo. Since both her hands and legs were tied she tried to attack by trying to headbutt Cleo when she came close. Since Cleo had always been very cautious with the guard, she avoided the attack and knocked her out again. But this attempt told us that the guard was now aware of her situation and might try to trick us again. This made carrying her that much more dangerous.

Cleo had previously said that she would hand over the guard once in a while to Leana but she never had. It seems like she was worried about something like this. Since Cleo was stronger than Leana, it hadn't been a big issue. Leana was fine with it as well since Tien was much heavier than Nina or the guard but she wasn't as strong as Cleo. So the weight really was quite balanced. As for me and Turek, we were having a hard time walking for so long at such a fast pace. We also had to carry the supplies on top, which wasn't easy. In a sense, all four of us were pushing our limits this time around.

Around 1 hour after sunrise, we finally exited the forest and got on the path to Tiaanway. According to the map, we would be in Tiaanway in 2 hours. The female guard tried to attack Cleo again when we were on the road. But Cleo easily overpowered the tied up woman and knocked her out again. I wondered if the woman was hungry at this point. After all, we hadn't given her anything to eat.

After one more break and some more walking, we finally arrived at the gates of Tiaanway city.

Seeing Cleo and Leana carrying people on their shoulders, the guards at the gate hurriedly came over to ask.