Sleeping through the creaking floor in the morning was nearly impossible, as well as the strange number of [tough hide] notifications.

  [Tough Hide level 41]

  [Tough Hide level 42]

  [Tough Hide level 43]

  [Tough Hide level 44]

  [Tough Hide level 45]

  [Tough Hide level 46]

  [Tough Hide level 47]

  [Tough Hide level 48]

  When Amalia slipped out the building’s door, her steps much lighter than Sigurd’s, Vel slowly opened her eyes. Sigurd was in the room with her, sifting through his pack.

  “Morning,” Vel said.

  “Morning,” Sigurd replied. He pulled out some broken bread, and when he offered it to her, Vel snatched it, her stomach begging her to place something in it.

  She pushed herself up, bones aching from sleeping on the hardwood. At least that explained all the levels in [tough hide]. Taking a bite of the bread and swallowing, Vel hummed. “That is so much better than rat or snake,” she said. “When was the last time we ate?”

  “Too long ago,” Sigurd sighed, then sat on the floor beside Vel. “Amalia’s gone out to find you some better clothes and clean bandages. She’s upset we let you sleep last night instead of tending to your wounds.” He reached a hand out, looking over the cut across Vel’s collarbone, then the one on her arm, followed by her small stomach wound, which looked more obvious from the cut in the fabric than the minute amount of blood it actually shed.

  “They’re not really big wounds. You should heal okay,” Sigurd said.

  “I didn’t even remember I had them,” Vel said.

  “Adrenaline does that for a person.”

  Sighing, Vel shook her head. “I think I’m more preoccupied with my anger towards the gods trying to murder me.”

  “You could get angry more,” Sigurd noted.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re not angry enough━haven’t been. The gods and their followers all want to kill you, and they took Edard away from you,” Sigurd put plainly. Said like that, she was pretty pissed.

  “I guess I don’t want to always be angry,” Vel said. She glanced at the sword beside her. “Haven’t you ever taken a life before?”

  “Yes,” Sigurd answered.

  “Whose?”

  “Velmira,” Sigurd said, tone serious. She turned, looking at his tense eyes. “I was tasked with killing Edard. What do you think I did before I was given that task?”

  Velmira furrowed her brow. “Oh,” she said, stuffing more bread in her mouth.

  Sigurd sighed. “Most of the men I’ve killed were known criminals, but there was one that wasn’t,” he said. “Doesn’t matter how you justify it, some people don’t deserve to be killed. However, if it comes down to kill or be killed, Velmira, do the selfish thing━save your own life.”

  “What if saving my life means that others get killed?” Vel asked after swallowing.

  “Are you asking this in the sense that if you just laid down and died now, you could save the lives of others?” Sigurd asked. He sighed when Vel gave him a nervous expression, and leaned towards her. “Velmira,” he said, looking at her with a soft expression, “imagine the lives you’ll save if you brought the church down.”

  “That many?” Vel asked, furrowing her brow.

  “Yes. Had there been no church, my wife wouldn’t have died. We would have had a family. The church is not innocent, and they never will be. They do what they have to to maintain power over us.”

  Velmira nodded, her expression hardening. “I don’t want to kill the knights that have no idea what they’re doing, but . . . I will kill their gods.”

  The slightest smile came to Sigurd’s face. “About damn time,” he said, then his expression dimmed. “Are you prepared to kill the knights those gods send to kill you?”

  “No,” Vel said honestly. “I don’t know if I can, yet, but . . .” she looked back at the sword, “I’m afraid it’ll happen anyways. It was so much easier to kill oversized rodents and bugs that wanted to kill me.”

  “No kidding,” Sigurd said. He reached out, placing a hand on Vel’s shoulder. “I’ll not leave you alone again, not until you can take care of yourself against church knights.”

  “Hey!” Vel chirped, “I did just fine on my own against the spiders!”

  The hunter chuckled, shaking his head. “You’re powerful. You just need more guts now,” he said.

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Anyways, I have some things for you,” Sigurd pulled a pair of leather boots from his pack, and Vel snatched them with a big smile.

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  “They’re perfect,” she said.

  “Try them on first,” Sigurd said.

  Vel nodded, reaching down to her slippers. She pulled the first one off, blinking. How did she not notice she’d essentially been running barefoot? Taking the second slipper off, she began to slip the boots on. They were a bit on the bigger side, but after lacing them up, they felt far more sturdy than her slippers did.

  “And this.” She looked back at Sigurd, who held a pouch. Vel took it, feeling a few things clinking from within. She rolled it open, finding three small throwing daggers and one large hunting dagger. “Thought you’d need something better to work with, but . . .” his eyes trailed towards the sword.

  “I did pick up skills for the sword,” Vel said, nodding, “but I don’t have any place to store the blade.”

  “Probably best to leave it here for now,” Sigurd said. “They’re basically oversized daggers anyways.”

  Cracking a smile, Vel shook her head at him. “You sound like you have something against swords.”

  “Just the ones my enemies wield.”

  “Of course.”

  Vel rolled the daggers back up, setting them down in her lap to resume with her breakfast. She didn’t exactly have a place to put the daggers anyways, and had she the money, she’d consider investing in a belt. Maybe the next time I drop into the Shadow Realm, I’ll grab a knight’s belt, she thought, slightly amused at the idea that the knight would probably lose his pants in the process as well.

  “Velmira,” Sigurd said, his tone dropping. “Yesterday, I found out that the trade treaty with Ymril ended. There’s only one ship left that’ll be leaving for it, and it leaves tomorrow morning. The Wayward Company is an Alnonor trade company, so it won’t be on it, but Loverboy likely won’t risk staying in Alnon.”

  Furrowing her brow, Vel stared at her half eaten roll of bread. “How long will it take us to get there?” she asked.

  A sigh escaped the hunter, and he shifted, moving to stand up. “Had we the time, we could easily make it there by tomorrow evening with a good set of traveling horses. To make it by morning, we need horses that can run. Hard.”

  “How do we know what horses can do that?” Vel asked.

  “A [horse tamer] would know. There’s enough farmland here that we can probably find one. Only problem is that they often work for the army and the church, so there’s more risk in trying to steal a couple.” Sigurd ran a hand through his hair, then stepped into the other room, Vel turning to look at him. “The moment we have them, we need to move.”

  “If a [horse tamer] sells horses to the army and church, then couldn’t we just steal some of those? Do we even have time to find a [horse tamer]?” Vel questioned.

  “That depends. Do you want to be caught before making it to the port city?” Sigurd asked.

  “Both come with that risk anyways.”

  “But one is riskier than the other.”

  “Let’s just get some damn horses as fast as we can,” Vel huffed.

  Sigurd cracked a smile. “I’m rubbing off on you,” he said.

  Vel stuffed the rest of her bread in her mouth, then picked up her dagger set and stood. Her legs ached in protest, but that didn’t stop her as she passed into the next room. Chewing painfully slowly, then swallowing, she jabbed at Sigurd’s chest. “You get to skin the next animal,” she said. Really, she wanted to protest that he was rubbing off on her, but she just couldn’t think of anything to say. Fact was, he was rubbing off on her. Damn him.

  “Nope, you need the dagger levels.”

  “Ugh, I hate you sometimes.” Vel crossed her arms.

  “Good,” Sigurd shrugged. “Now make a new shawl. Once Amalia’s back, we can steal some horses.”

  “You’re so demanding,” Vel said.

  “Yeah, and get back to the other room. If someone saw your purple hair through that━”

  “Demanding.” Vel reiterated, and sat back down on her blanket. She set the daggers aside and held her hands out in front of her to begin gaining levels in [create silk] again. Oh, how nice it would be to just be able to create a sheet of fabric straight up rather than weaving them . . . Well, at least she didn’t need to manually weave them.

  By the time she was completed with the shawl━this one bigger━and was stretching, [create silk] had reached level 74. Had she gone any further, she probably wouldn’t hardly be able to move at all.

  Leaning over her outstretched knees, she pulled the comb from her hair, along with the few pins that had helped keep it in place. After running her fingers through her hair, Vel brushed through it with the comb, happy to find that it worked as a brush for now. Finally, after much finagling, she had her hair pinned back up, then tied the shawl around her head.

  At about this point, the door to the house creaked open, and Vel whipped around to see that Amalia had returned. The priestess entered the room, a small satchel over her shoulder, and knelt down behind Vel.

  “Let me help you with that,” she said, tucking the end of the shawl under the knot at the nape of Vel’s neck, further hiding her hair. “It would be better if this wasn’t such a pure white color.”

  “I could always toss it in the mud first,” Vel said.

  “Ew. No,” Amalia shook her head with a small giggle. She moved to kneel to Vel’s side, then opened her satchel and pulled out a set of clothes. “Sigurd said something about riding clothes, but I don’t have enough coin for a proper set. I found these instead,” she said, offering them.

  Vel collected the clothes and lifted the first piece. It looked like a dress, though it was much lighter than the one Rosie gave her, and had lacing in the front. The skirt tapered off, and it was clear that without anything under it, it’d be a very scandalous piece. Lifting the second article of clothing, Vel found it to be a pair of pants. With a belt. That made her smile.

  “Help me change?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Amalia said. She turned her head towards the doorway. “No peeking, [Hunter].”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Sigurd said from the other room.

  After getting changed, Vel found that the blue dress was on the short side, reaching just to her knees. The pants, on the other hand, were long, and she definitely needed the belt in order to keep them over her bloomers━she insisted on wearing bloomers. Apparently, according to Amalia, many women didn’t wear that particular undergarment under riding clothes. That seemed preposterous!

  With Amalia’s assistance, she rolled up the hem of the pants. Finally, she got her daggers hooked onto her belt, and at the priestess’ suggestion, hooked one throwing dagger onto her right boot just under her pants.

  [Skill gained: Feather Foot]

  [0.5 Dexterity added]

  Vel froze at the notification, eyes wide. “Sigurd, are you looking out the window?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice low. “There’s two church knights searching homes across the street. Amalia, were you followed?”

  “If I was, I wouldn’t even know,” Amalia said, and stepped into the other room, “but it’s likely. I don’t think High Priestess Oma trusts me.”

  Vel turned, remaining in the doorway, asked, “Would it be better if you came with us?”

  “What?” Sigurd asked, voice cold. “Velmira, we can’t━”

  “Sigurd, I trust her. She saved my life. Twice,” Vel said.

  “She was there when you were captured.”

  “Precisely, stopping someone from slicing through my neck,” Vel hissed.

  The hunter huffed. “Fine, she can come, but not wearing all of that.”

  Amalia looked down at herself, and Vel had to admit that the white robes stood out. It made her think that Sigurd was right━she probably was followed.

  “It’ll be big, but maybe you can wear the green dress?” Vel asked the priestess.

  “I . . .” Amalia said, looking unsure. She looked between Vel and Sigurd, the hunter giving a displeased expression before looking back out the window.

  “Hurry up and make a decision, we’re running out of time,” Sigurd said.

  “I don’t want to be a priestess anymore,” Amalia said, and without even stepping into a more private space, shed her white robes. She didn’t even look abashed at the possibility that Sigurd might see her in her undergarments! Vel blushed for her, then handed the ex-priestess her old green dress.

  “What’s our next step?” Amalia asked as Vel helped her into the dress.

  Sigurd glanced back at them, and upon seeing what was happening, snapped his head back towards the window. He drew his dagger. “We steal these soldiers’ horses,” he said.