Tough times

"So, what do we start with? I saw you do some weird moves once. In my village, we fought to get stronger, isn't it how it works. At first, I thought that you are just a weirdo but when I saw how you fought I realized that you had some strength and decided to try it"

"Alright, I will first explain it to you so that you know what you achieve with rich exercise. Now let's start with the basics what makes you stronger is the improvement of your muscles or more generally, your body. By constantly repeating the same moves you improve, and it has the best results when you're pushing yourself to your limits. Do you have any idea what I'm talking about now?"

"I think I do"

Thomas nodded his head while replaying.

"Alright, then we will start with pushups! By doing pushups your chest, abdomen and arms will get stronger. Now follow my instructions and look at me so that you can confirm if you're doing it right. Get on the ground like me. Now bend your elbows and lower your body until it lightly touches the ground. Then return to your starting position. Now let's do as much as we both can."

After a while, this little competition ended with John doing 9 pushups while Thomas 13.

"Remember if it's tiring then it means it works. Now we will repeat it two more times and then we can move on to our next exercise..."

John and Thomas spent two hours exercising and resting doing pushups, squats, lunges, planks and running.

"Where did you learn all this John? All these exercises are so different and you know perfectly what are they good for."

"Back in my village, I once read a book about it in my village, tried it out and when I saw it works I repeated It every day. But your training was working too. After all, you defeated me in most of the exercises."

John tried to diverse Thomas's attention from the topic of where his knowledge came from. He didn't think that simply by showing him his training he will be treated as a genius in exercising.

'I need to be more careful in the future. What if they will question my past later and stop trusting me? I won't be able to survive alone and they too. We both will be living on the streets if we separate now'

"You know John, I came here not only to exercise but also to distract myself. I just can't forget this dead body lying beside me and my hands covered in blood. How do you deal with it?"

"I'm not able to deal with it too. I'm just trying to accept the fact that I killed a person and created a plan that sent two of my friends to die but every time I think about it I see their faces. I think that those bandits deserved death and you should think about it as stopping them from killing more people. You should just focus on how grateful would have been people who will live thanks to you. But what can I say about Finn and Luke? If I wasn't so adamant on doing it we would have just passed through this city and nothing would have happened. They wouldn't have died then."

"That's bullshit! Without this plan, we would've still been slaves and you weren't pressuring us at all! Okay maybe Luke didn't want to be a part of this but it was his fault that he didn't defend himself. And we should finally state the truth! We both saw it! If this bandit didn't threw Leo to the side Luke would have pushed him forward just to buy himself time for escape! He was prepared to do it but then his brother was moved and he missed! He wanted to sacrifice his brother!"

"Okay! Okay! I know what you want to say and that you want to make me feel better but we should both just get some rest. You can go to sleep and I will run for the rest of my time. I still need to show you a few places in this cit after all. I'm sure we will feel better soon."

"Alright. I hope we will"

After Thomas went to sleep nothing happened except few people visiting graves of their family and friends. There was a well near so John went there fast and brought a bucket of water back. He needed to tell a guard beside it his name and was told that he can get only one bucket of water every three days and he needs to return this bucket before it gets dark. He found a few broken branches and created a small fire after trying for a long while.

'It was as hard as I expected it to be!'

Then he kept this bucket above it and waited until it started boiling.

"Everyone, wake up! I've got something to drink for you. Then you can get back to sleep."

After emptying this bucket he gave it back and returned to the cemetery.

"Arthur, it's your turn to guard everyone, remember to stay awake. Wake us up then it gets dark"

After making sure Arthur fully woke up. John finally got some rest.

'John, John it's your fault!'

He had the same nightmare as always. After everyone was awake and ready to go John took them around the city. They avoided main roads and mainly used valleys. They visited the bakery and bought their lunch for today from the same baker as before who was pissed off again by John's sudden visit, went between both gates through which you can enter the city without getting too close and John showed them how much distance they should keep and a few places that gave them a good view at their surroundings. They visited the well too and John explained to them how getting water from there works. While they were returning to the cemetery Emma fell asleep on the way and boys needed to carry her.

'If only falling asleep was so simple for me as well.' After getting back everyone went to sleep while John was checking his progress.

'After using my ability to change the shape of rocks into weapons the patch of earth inside my head expanded to 2m² it's almost twice as big as before. I don't know the reason why it worked so well back then but it can be tested. The ghost inside my head got even more powerful. The more bad memories I have the stronger he gets. But would good memories weaken him? Every time I understand something new, another question appears. It's hard to live without the internet. Only now I can see how useful it was. Tomorrow tough times will start. I can only hope that either I or Thomas encounters bandits so that we can take out a few of them. I should talk to him about us volunteering more often than others. But now is finally time to rest.'

After sorting most of the things wanted to sort in his head John was too tired and decided to already go to sleep.