Keeping A Promise

"So, that's what happened..." The guard crossed both his arms and groaned.

"Even so..."

'Oh? Looks like I only need one more push. Dagrah is almost upon us, so I can't afford to spend any more time here.'

"I'm aware that I'm asking for a lot, Mr. Guard. However, would this be enough to convince you to overlook this?"

Allen surreptitiously pressed something into the man's hand. The guard started, then examined it closely; gold glinted in the light of the watch fires.

"W-Well, I can see that you're clearly in need of a break. Just saying, though, the inns are all closed by now."

"I'll figure something out," Allen replied, insinuating that he would use money to "convince" an innkeeper to let them stay. The guard shook his head wryly while opening the small door to the side of the gate.

After entering the town, however, Allen immediately turned off the main street, heading deeper and deeper down the alleyways in an irregular, zigzagging path.

"Aren't we staying at an inn, Allen?"

"We are not, milady."

There were multiple lodgings along the main street, but Allen had ignored them all. Just as Cecil asked him where they were going, the Bird D monitoring the town gate spotted Dagrah.

'Ugh. Just as I'd feared, he does own some form of permit.'

After showing the gate guard something, Dagrah also entered the town through the side door at the gate. Then the man took off again at a run.

'All right, that confirms it: his skill enables him to follow my footsteps.

'What a relief that it's not a mapping skill.'

Allen had just finished analyzing Dagrah's tracking skill based on everything he had noticed during the past few hours.

Back when he was Kenichi, he had experienced playing a large variety of classes in his games. Most of the time, he chose classes that focused on dealing damage, such as warrior and mage. He was all about those big DPS numbers using powerful weapons or spells, respectively. In short, he was a bit of a meathead player.

Consequently, he was not all that familiar with classes that relied on trickery, like Scout. That said, he knew quite a bit about them. And to his knowledge, there were two main kinds of tracking skills.

___

- Enables the player to see visible tracks left on the ground by the target.

- Enables the player to see the target's coordinates on the in-game map.

___

Allen could now say with certainty that the skill Dagrah was using belonged to the first type.

After all, he was precisely following all the detours that Allen had made, including crossing the river where Allen had instead of taking the bridge.

Even now, the man was wasting his time weaving through the alleyways. If he had known Allen's exact coordinates, he would not have gone to such trouble.

'All right, time to try losing him.'

"Milady, I'm going to jump. Please hold on tight."

"Wha—?!"

With a powerful leap, Allen landed on the roof of the nearby building and took off again, leaping from rooftop to rooftop.

Due to constantly chasing Allen's tracks, Dagrah had his head down most of the time while running.

Allen took care not to draw attention to his position up on the rooftops as he drew farther and farther away.

'Hell yeah! Finally lost him! My analysis was spot on. You need a hundred years' more experience to come after me! Muahahaha!'

Through Bird D's eyes, Allen watched Dagrah freaking out at seeing Allen's tracks seemingly vanish into thin air. He turned back as if he thought he had made a wrong turn somewhere.

It apparently never crossed his mind that Allen would be taking countermeasures against being tracked and therefore never thought to check the rooftops.

At the moment, Allen was already standing on top of the town's wall.

"Aren't you going to fight him, Allen?" Cecil asked suddenly. "You're really strong, though."

"I'm afraid he's a bad match for me. I don't think I would be able to beat him."

'Even if I went all-out without considering the consequences, my chances of victory are probably still below ten percent. My Summons are slow on their feet, and if I tried to set a trap for him and lay in wait, he'd probably just evade it. And even if I managed to land a few blows on him, he probably has HP potions on him. That's it, we're leaving town. Bron, come out!'

Allen Summoned a Stone D on the ground outside the wall with its shield held aloft horizontally. He then jumped down onto the flat surface, Summoned another one a slight distance away in the same pose, and leaped over.

After this, he repeatedly called out Brons and reverted them to card form so he could travel across their shields à la stepping stones. He did this for several kilometers in an effort to travel without leaving any tracks.

'I wonder if Dagrah can see the tracks of my Summons the same way he can see mine. No idea, but it does seem like a good idea to do this every once in a while to throw him off the track a little.'

As this method proved time-consuming, Allen reverted to running on the ground in spurts, alternating between the two at irregular intervals.

In this way, he continued heading toward the northern tip of the White Dragon Mountains, which he had already located with Bird D. Once they passed the border checkpoint, they would be back in Granvelle territory.

***

A while later, Allen stopped and got to work preparing a camp for Cecil and himself.

Unfortunately, the distance to Granvelle City was much farther than he could travel in just a day or two.

Multiple Brons materialized to stand in a protective circle around the two children while Allen took out blankets and other camping equipment that he kept in Storage.

"So you do have a Talent after all..." Cecil murmured.

"Yes, I do. It's quite convenient too; I can do a lot of things with it."

"...Why did you keep quiet about it?"

"Little good comes from parading one's Talent, right?"

"I... Yes, I suppose so..."

"We'll continue running tomorrow. Please rest up for now."

"Aren't you going to sleep too, Allen?"

"I will. Good night, Lady Cecil."

"G-Good night, Allen."

'Now then. I hope we can get back within three or four days. I'm not sure I can last any longer than that.'

While staring at Cecil's sleeping face, Allen checked in on Dagrah through his Summon. His sleep tonight would be brief and fitful as he continued monitoring the situation.

***

Several hours later, what he had feared came to pass.

'Ugh, he's found the tracks on the roof. He sure knows what he's doing.'

As soon as his trick was out of the bag, Allen packed everything away, shouldered the still-groggy Cecil, then took off again.

On the other hand, Dagrah soon reached the town wall. He descended but, upon failing to see Allen's tracks yet again, started busily looking around.

'Heh heh heh, how's that? No tracks! Wait, what?'

Allen was keeping an eye on Dagrah's movements even as he himself was running. However, as soon as he realized the tracks were gone, Dagrah took off in one direction. After running several kilometers, he began running at an angle, alternating between left and right in intervals of several kilometers.

'What is he— Oh, shit.'

By doing so, Dagrah would eventually stumble upon Allen's tracks. And sure enough, he picked up the trail soon and resumed his pursuit.

'This isn't good. I need to increase the distance where I run without tracks.'

Although traveling by Summons did prove effective, Dagrah never failed to eventually discover where Allen had started running normally again.

In response, Allen decided to spend more time using his Summons in order to be more thorough with erasing his trail.

With Dagrah repeatedly losing and rediscovering Allen's trail, the distance between the two increased and decreased in a seemingly endless loop.

***

On the morning of the second day, Allen successfully managed to reach the northernmost border checkpoint.

He was finally back in Granvelle territory.

"What's wrong, Allen? Did something happen?"

"I'm sorry?"

The way Allen had immediately taken off again in a hurry after passing through the checkpoint had aroused Cecil's suspicions.

'She's caught on... I guess being honest is the best play here.'

"I just lost Dagrah."

"What?"

All this time, Allen had been keeping a constant eye on Dagrah through a Summon that he was Sharing with.

He explained to Cecil that Dagrah was following them—as well as who he was—and that he had a tracking ability. Of course, this required him to reveal that he also had a means of tracking someone.

A while ago, Dagrah had suddenly taken off at an incredible speed and lost the Bird E that had been following him from behind. Now Allen had several Bird Es flying around trying to regain a visual on the man. However, because he was running faster than the birds could fly, it was proving very difficult pinning him down.

'So he did have a skill that supercharges his speed after all. I knew it.'

Allen recalled when Dagrah had kicked him in the storeroom. The man had been so fast that he seemed to have disappeared for a split second in Allen's eyes.

However, whereas Allen had only seen Dagrah use it for the short distance that was the length of the storeroom, the hit man now proved that he could indeed use it for a prolonged period of time to traverse an incredible distance. He had vanished from Bird E's vision in no time at all.

From her position on Allen's back, Cecil suddenly said, completely out of character, "If you leave me behind, you'll be able to get away no problem, right?"

"What are you saying, milady? I would never leave you behind."

"But at this rate..."

'Oh right, Cecil is still only twelve years old. It's only natural for her to feel fainthearted in a situation like this.'

The back-to-back days of being on the run had apparently gotten to Cecil and left her feeling quite timid and out of her element.

"Don't worry, milady. We will safely make it back to Granvelle, together. I've got everything under control. I did make a promise, after all."

"What promise?"

"I promised Master Mihai that I would protect you. And I keep my promises."

Surprise flitted across Cecil's face. After a short pause, she mumbled, "Thank you..." and buried her face in Allen's shoulder.

'I said the cool lines and all, but I really oughta prepare some insurance.

'Now that we've crossed the border, it's about time.'

Allen sent several Summons flying off into the distance as "insurance" and continued scouting the area using Hawk Eye in order to get a bead on Dagrah as soon as possible.