The Hunt Begins Anew

Freya continued to train for the rest of the afternoon. Maria even joined for a few more spars, but her stamina was unable to keep up with the sword wielding woman. With each passing hour, Freya's techniques improved. While she could barely be considered a novice sword user when she began, at the end of the day she well on her way to be considered a professional one.

After she completed her training, Freya went to pick up her steel sword which had been decently repaired and then return to her room at the inn. She went to sleep early that night because even though her new skill improving her stamina regeneration, it didn't mean she could have infinite stamina.

With each cycle of regeneration, her body experienced greater strain. From her experience today, she could fight or do any strenuous exercise for six hours with minor breaks before she had to take a longer break to give her body time to recover.

Art explained to her that as her Stamina stat increased that time will grow longer and longer until she could fight for days without tiring but it was no use having inexhaustible stamina to fight if the enemy could defeat you in a few minutes.

The next day, she woke up early and completed her daily quest. The quest had gotten harder than before, yet the rewards remained the same. She had to perform a thousand push ups and squats, followed by a hundred kilometers run. It was gruesome task, but seeing her stats slowly increase made it all seem worth it.

After she was done with the quest, the sun had appeared on the horizon. She returned to her room for a shower and then went to the agreed upon place of departure.

Surprisingly, she was the first one there. She didn't have to wait too long before one of her teammates arrived at the scene.

"Ah, Freya. You're just as punctual, just as ever." Alex greeted with a wave. "I hope you are ready to depart. It may take us days to find them or it may take us months."

"I'm as ready as I can be." Freya answered with confidence. "So, where will we begin?"

"We will start with a recently pillaged village named Fumar, in the east, about two hundred kilometers away." The archer answered.

"That's not that far." Freya immediately spoke, "If we run at full speed, we will be there by the afternoon."

In fact, Freya could reach the village in just a few hours with her agility and stamina, but the others weren't as fast or not as resilient in case of Maria.

"You would be right if it was just our team, but we have a group of soldiers travelling with us to take much needed supplies to the village and also increase its security." Alex replied, "The mayor has made sure that the village is secured from any further pillaging."

Just as he said, a battalion of soldier, consisting of almost a hundred soldiers along with a few carts of supplies, arrived soon after. The rest of the team also arrived soon and under Morris' careful eyes, they began their march towards the village.

Freya also observed a small group of men armed to the teeth following behind them. She quickly turned to Morris and asked, "Captain, are they also part of the battalion?"

Morris gave the group a reproachful look before answering, "No, they are just part of a mercenary group that has recently gained some fame for their exploits. Wulfric hired them to provide us with some support despite my warnings."

"These mercenary scums are no better than common bandits." Morris continued, "They'll do anything for coins. Unlike us, they do not follow the Adventurer's Code. Be wary of them and do not let your guard down. At this pace it would take us three days to reach Fumar, till then keep a close eye on them."

As Morris finished his speech and continued to lead the caravan, Freya took her position to the left side, protecting the caravan. They continued their slow march towards the east, and Freya observed the Mercenary group with her 'Keen Eyes' trait.

The group consisted of eight men and six of them were around level 18, strong but still not too strong. But the last two, most likely the leaders, were level 30 and 28. Luckily for her, they were well within range of her trait to observe their weakness.

The first leader named Jenga had a simple brawler job. His muscle were well refined, showing his strength, but under her observation his left knee glowed a sickly green. After further observation from Freya, she saw that he would unconsciously wince in pain if he put too much weight on that knee.

The second one named Gorr was a sickly thin man with another simple job of knife wielder. His left eye produced a similar green glow. Freya observed that he would often completely miss or barely catch anything thrown from his left. She guessed he had a blind spot to his left.

This was extremely valuable information for a warrior. Even if they were almost ten levels higher than her, Freya would easily be able to defeat them with her current level of strength just by exploiting these weaknesses. Freya refocused on her duty as she continued to protect the caravan.

Three days later, as Freya's group was about to enter the village, another mysterious figure cloaked in completely black attire walked off a ship at the Betlam's port. The figure was completely covered in black clothes that covered him from head to toe, protecting him from the sunlight.

The figure took a large of the morning air before speaking, "Quite a pleasant day for a hunt." He quickly walked towards a low level clerk taking attendance of recently arriving travelers.

When he came face to face with the clerk, his eyes flashed a faint hue of red and the poor clerk was put in trance. The man asked with any delay, "Tell me, little worm. Where can I find the one named Freya Einar?"